monday in early fall mid PM drinking sencha green tea with little particles sedimenting at the bottom of the teacup across from quinn who writes about the follies of so-called reforestation projects around the world. in his poem “metamorphosis mudflat; a flower field and subsequent marsh” quinn writes “in creation stories there is always a separation between us/ where we must be separate because there must be room for the world to grow.” the girl next to me who is catching up with her friend explains her long-past feelings: “they were so intense. i didn’t think i would ever get out of it.” in these last few months, in the moments of everlong transition i oscillate from tar-stuck to atom-zipping movement.
reading hildegard’s christian medicine from medieval europe, i realize just how much of a mystery we are to ourselves. she suggests if you have brown eyes and an infection to ‘put a stone in your mouth and use the saliva to pat around your eyes.’ do not eat strawberries because they grow low to the ground. now, maybe we know some more but certainly not everything. my own insides are a meaty puzzle. the continium of human confusion at our very existence is somehow soothing to me. we are surely blubbering, beautiful, and disturbed.
rereading my journal brings me back to different places i've been:
I. panama
i’ve lost my voice which is a good excuse to remain silent and i’m sitting on a dock in paradise. the air holds the sulfur smell of mangroves and little evil sand fleas. with each step i take, crabs of all different sizes make the earth come alive as they scurry from their camouflage. up the hill, a howler monkey shouts in the forest covered in the same big vining plants we have in the greenhouse in new york at one-one thousandth the size and happiness. swimming with the fish in the salty sea feeling at once mermaid and shark. for what feels like years, i snorkel in the coral reef city: the most incredible textures and colors all interwoven: big tubes of deep grape purple and ear-wax yellow, wormlike shapes twisting into folds and layers like fabrics or intestines. iridescent globs. sea cucumbers. big masses of sponges. anemones, hot turquoise jelly in between mounds of soft orange. i’m just a brain in the sky watching a world, and i must put my hands in front of my face to remember my body. i watch apricot and cerulean striped fins spinning quickly. and a starfish crawls inch by inch until the end of time down the sloping sand floor. then, i turn to see the big blue abyss of the deeper waters, standing upright floating - i feel my body melt and solidify. all my fears and truths dissolve into the water around me. the air through the tube in my mouth is enough. and the other night in the transformed black water - the bioluminescence glittered like the stars in the sky, there was no division of land and air. and the lightning flashing mirrored the movement of our bodies that burst into sparkles, creating an aura. somersaults in the water. the food: plantains with basil aioli, freoles with tomato chutney, passion fruit parfait with cacao sauce. this is perfect for the right-now because i am seeing so many different possibilities of life: a couple and their cat on their sailboat traveling around the world, the eccentric queen who lives at the monkey conserve island and has baby monkeys crawling all over her, the boat drivers who take tourists like us from island to island. i definitely want to learn spanish, get really strong good arms, and learn the banjo. on the last day, there is a micro gecko clinging to the roof of the boat and the sun has a purple ring around it. a dolphin passes. i notice that any insecurity that i may have appears across my chest in bold when i am traveling. when i get back to town it will be ‘pride month’ and i will want to be everywhere all at once, both drawn and overwhelmed to shine like a moth.
II. nashville, tn
what a sweet, gentle, passionate, and powerful love - olivia and i. i think this as she rests her head on my shoulder and the tennessee sunset is dazzled by fireworks across the green as we land down on july fourth. i was virginal in all southern delicacies, tastes, and experiences: sonic, waffle house, grits, biscuits, line dancing, big sunflower fields... and everyone was excited to share with me. we watch old home videos of little flamboyant via, bouncing off the frame. thinking back to a week ago in rockport rolled into a nook in the stone where the only people who might see me would be lobster fishers or a lone mermaid or the old woman neighbor who used to swim in the shallow ocean waters every morning - how safe it felt there, even with the rising and falling waters spitting up. its a sticky summer in nashville. i sit in the back of a hair salon, flipping through old people magazines and talking with the hairdresser about her adventures with the rolling stones in the 80s. spreading out the lisa frank sticker book and coming up with stories about the bedazzled kitties and penguins. we are sick on our anniversary and cry in the car. we go to lipstick lounge, nashville's lesbian bar, and mia and via do britney spears karaoke as i get us the strongest whiskey sours i have ever encountered poured by a smiling butch. it feels like i'm living some new character's childhood (not via's, things have changed a lot since she was young): i play with via's little brother and splash in the puddles outside when it rains, i lose at every pool game and we get out to watch the train barrel past the house, i let the junebug crawl onto me until its little legs freak me out, i sit in the back of the air-conditioned car and in the jacuzzi until the lightning starts up again, i repot plants and hope for the best.
III. camp bang-up
coming back to a place that is the same when you feel different may be the best representation of growing up. same bed in the same sleeping porch, same smells, same big juicy ants crawling everywhere, same green waters and golden sands. more lily pads have spread out. there is now a big metal fence with cameras guarding the big island we crept onto once: i remember there was an abandoned tennis court in the forest. a tree has fallen in between a narrow space between two islands, a bridge for smaller creatures than us. the smell of the wet sand and the sound of cicadas. this place has inspiration along the water's edges. megan and i try out our water aerobic-gymnastics that we created when we were young in the little chlorinated lagoon in her backyard. guitar and banjos picked up and put down again. new card games and switching every night between cooking dinner and cleaning dishes. we take the canoe out to closest island and find the softest moss to sit on, watching the sky change and the party boats spin in circles around the smaller island. my laugh is all that echoes outward across the water. into the lake first thing in the morning and laying out on the raft, disturbing the crystal in the dim light, we drink wine and rock in wicker chairs. we clean out the back closet of years old paint thinners with gorgeous 70s graphic design. there are patches of melancholy like little cobwebs in corners here.
i now get to work at the farmer's market: flirting with the customers and ogling the surreal root vegetables. people barter their freshly baked cookies, homemade soup, sweet seeded-grapes, and apple cider for the rutabagas, moon radishes, orange and purple carrots, potatoes of all kinds, and kales with diverse textures. sunchokes, or jerusalem artichokes (helianthus tuberosus), cause outrage and excitement alike.
imari texts: “i had a great time with you today. it felt like another summer in florida. felt like a kid again. the hot dog, walking in the park, watching the fire hydrant burst with water and watching everybody get in. truly felt like I was reliving a summer in 2008. i’m so glad we got to see each other again!” that was a couple months - waiting in parks for something that wasn't coming and sweating on the subway seats. (summer & graduation)
during the ripeness of golden hour, i'm hearing flittering of bird wings and i’m wondering who thought me up. walking with grumpy via who squints her eyes just so and growls at me. her sister walks smiling beside us - taking it all in. as so many things are: we are a mass of particles, building up and calcifying. i can hardly make out what my form might appear to be to others. i am bits of sediment, dry skin, ideas collected and passed on, centipede legs, eyelashes - i see myself moving across the earth as the earth, building up and breaking down, leaving bits for others to amass. who next found the angel figurine i left in the park? who is missing the purple geode we discovered on the sand at the beach? i’m remembering ivy eats houses slowly and we are watching the deterioration and growth around us always. via must feel my hand evaporating within hers because her grip gets tighter and she kisses my cheek. at once i am flesh again.
a little drift wood of grief floats down my river. i don’t want to talk about what i did or what i’m doing - i just want to do it. its a steamy, miles davis 'round midnight kind of evening. i’m sweating thinking about fire and how it burns as i watch the candles drip wax slowly. thinking about aging, about growing. thinking about principles of life and morals i hold myself to. i don’t resonate with the jealousy that i sometimes feel - it confuses me and isn’t what i’d like me to feel. but to really know ourselves we must accept these ‘lesser’ emotions and really reflect on the why. i want to do great things and live a weird life and be healthy and feel secure. letting people come and go in my life is important. now that's enough thinking and its time for sleeping.
moss lake is a basin in the catskill mountains with one family of loons living in it. there is a father, a mother, and a child. last spring, they lost their other baby bird to a particularly cold morning. there is one man whose job it is to watch the loon family and make sure they are okay. around the lake, there are hundreds of different types of mushrooms in between logs of carpeted green. there is an army aviation base behind the mountain and their test flights are so loud that the entire lake shakes. boomed out of sleep by the terrifying noise, jess and i were sure it was the end times for us, and we had sleeping bags and two layers of tent to zip through.cc
im reading you the sweet little creatures in this section of the encyclopedia: rice rat, meadow vole, southern bog lemming, water shrew - you point to that one (sorex palustris) and say that's you (excellent swimmer, preys on small aquatic animals, nocturnal, has tiny ears and eyes). i go on: star-nosed mole - this one is obviously me. then there is little brown bat - both of us can hardly believe the cuteness of its name - myotis lucifugus, little brown bat. will i ever get used to this world?
in someone's backyard we learn about pawpaws (asimina triloba), a native fruit to northeast US. i had never tasted a pawpaw before and i got to savor the familiar vanilla-banana taste in the form of thick ice cream. the crowd that had come specifically to learn were a selection of seasoned pawpaw foragers, excitable fruit explorers, shy botanists, and one writer for the new yorker. after watching them plant two paw paw trees in deep narrow holes and admiring the garlic scapes, flowers, and herbs they had growing on the roof, we walked to the water where a pink sunset hung behind little miss liberty. a group of miscellaneous adults had a big array of watermelon salad, shrimp, fresh bread, wine, and guitars spread out and welcoming. that is how i got to talking to a breeder of both orchids and exotic fish (these creatures have more in common than one might think, it turns out).
on the green velvet couch, the cat is fighting ghosts in the corner. we are eating spicy chips and watching something we have seen before on the TV. quietly in love and the fall is strangely warm then frigidly, nose-drippingly cold. we've moved out of our last apartment, and the end of an epoch feels transitional rather than monumental.
& i graduated college this summer! i'm proud, excited, embaressed and amazed.