supposed to be writing (#34)
... on bugs and getting back to it
two acts to atone for
I raised a tiny square bug in the spring, whose dots were as big as he was. I never saw him eat; he just lay in the coolness of the grape leaves. He walked across my table and I let him, over breakfast, over coffee, one time when we grilled. He looked after my tomatoes, and he grew imperceptibly larger, and the rain drove me inside.
The sun had changed before I went back to see him. And in the street, I passed a different thing, which I thought was the kind that eats away at the trees. I veered left from my path before my thoughts could stop me, and in a singular motion, she flattened beneath me. Under the awning, the red of the doormat invisibly widened. It was over so quickly, and too late when I realized, and I felt so sorry for doing what needn’t be done. What business she’d had on the edge of that carpet–in slow motion, broad daylight–was none of my own. I stepped on Kafka, which sends her eggs scattering, perpetuating life in the absence of one. The trees overhead, whose cool shadows protect me, swayed in mourning, rustled somberly, and I rushed onwards before the doorman returned.
The question is then, why did I do it? When I found my friend (is that what we were), he was undeniably red, no longer the pillbox who’d scuttled about. His wings denounced him, and he sat so calmly beside me, didn’t run, didn’t twitch, when I brought the shoe down above him. And he stayed by the tomatoes til the mourning doves got him, and I thought, at least this is a circular thing.
Is it a question of remembering? In a manner of speaking, you already haunt her. She thinks about this when it gets too quiet, when the stillness rushes out from underneath the rolling seat. The roses were blooming in the dark of the backyard. And on the edge of twilight, the red-purple leaves of the maple recede into the slate on the other side of the fence. She reminds herself sometimes as a way of loosening the past from the crevices where it clings, like dust to the sides of the cordless vacuum. Is it a question of not remembering? If by saying ‘not real’ it could make the past different, let me tell you how it was different. If I tell myself how I didn’t understand it correctly, then that’s how it was.
The air has a sweetness I think of as hay, but the color is tinged like a purple leafed lettuce. The smell cuts across the grey misting morning, through the high heat of summer that’s begun to decay, through the hum of my tires through my cracked-open windows.
One barn that I drive by appeared out of nowhere, sprung up from the valley or rose up from the hillside from one day to the next. That part was startling, from nothing to something, and I wonder each time who decided that barns should be red.
feed me
miso flavor ramen noodles; soft-boiled eggs in the fridge; rice in the pot my mom gave me, jackfruit chicken nuggets, kewpie mayo; fruit flavored water; too much money on groceries; hungarian butcher shop pickles; post-app mcdo; surprise me wine; café au lait with almond milk, free coffee at work, bring your own coffee to work, make your own coffee at work, cappuccino; annual apple, local honey (2 ways), sweet round challah, the apple cake but i refuse to buy another bottle of kraken rum.
read/saw/heard/did
🎓 i did it, there was champagne and many a bad dr. joke
🍦 soft serve as a love language
🚚 new state who dis
🌱 i can walk to cornfields from my office
🍅 you’ll be happy to know the tomatoes survived the journey from bk
🌱 stonecrop; air purifiers with purple leaves; leaves of three let them be
📚 living a feminist life, sara ahmed
📚 la saison de l’ombre, léonora miano
🔨 i love a yard sale and apparently the move is to bid on storage lockers
🖼️ beverly buchanan, the idea was to capture something closely related to a feeling – i loved this, vibrant drawings of buildings, you should really click on the link.
📞 calling people on the commute is the new version of talking and walking
📚 de l’esprit des lois, montesquieu : “il faut que les affaires aillent, et qu’elle aillent un certain mouvement qui ne soit ni trop lent ni trop vite. mais le peuple a toujours trop d’action, ou trop peu. quelquefois avec cent mille bras il renverse tout; quelquefois avec cent mille pieds il ne va que comme les insectes.”
🎥 marcel the shell with shoes on no you’re crying
📚 territory of light, yuko tsushima – i couldn’t think of the title, which has disappeared from my shelves, and then it showed up in a clip out of the blue; i need a new copy
📚 sphinx, anne garréta
🌬️ remembering to breathe occasionally
it’s always
funny trying to get back to this project after a break, i feel self-conscious all over again. i’m no longer trying to finish a dissertation, but that doesn’t make writing any easier. it turns out that i still find ways to dance away from doing the work that i need to do - for myself, for next year, for some ostensible future. so we’re back - the newsletter and i, face to face at this desk that is not quite comfortable enough. sometimes sharing feels like oversharing, but now i find myself at a distance from most of my people again, and i remembered the reason i started this in the first place. and that the only way to start writing is to write.