Hey Loners,
I come to you with a moment of clarity.
A fog lifted.
I clean the bathroom. Walk to the market. I split a pomegranate in the first warm golden hour of spring. I can taste food again. I make a salad that's inspired by Calli Music's "Sorry, I love celery salad." I don't have the same ingredients, but I take a turn into Basque-country as she does by adding tinned squid, smoked paprika to imitate Espalette peppers. I have fun. I can't believe I'm having fun again. Chop the cucumber. Cutting things at an angle makes them elegant. I only have the juice from a jar of olives. I pour that into the bowl. Can’t believe I’m a whole Michelin star, a culinary supernova. Let’s me burst forth flavor like the squeeze of a lemon.
I love food that moves you when you're stuck. I want to travel. I want to see the churches in Paris. I want to sit next to the Seine. I'm simultaneously out of my mind and want out of my mind. There's a part of me that feels the calling to witness. I'm not sure what, but I think it to be true. I can't say I feel the siren song to bear life, but I'm supposed to see something and tell you about it, Loners.
I'm supposed to tell you that the rain cleared and I was damp at dusk. A baby bird fell from a tree. It lay still before rustling. Chirp. It takes a step—Chirp, chirp.
It tries to fly once. No good. Fly again. Nothing. Once more with feeling and we're off, my neck follows it up the branch. It was the first time I'd lifted my head all day, or that's how it felt. Whenever the sky is doing something marvelous, it feels like that. Do I use my neck? The sky is wining orange-coral-blue, looking like a hot ember in a dancehall. I see a rainbow that shakes me. I stand there for a while.
People walk past me and stop and look up.
"Oh."
“Mom, mommy look.”
"I don't look up too much."
"Nice time of year."
"Ain't that a bitch."
"You alright?"
I'm okay.
Nature is doing that thing that makes you feel whimsical and biblical. I'm peering through the stratosphere for new heretics on a gasp of OMG as my eyes take in the entire width of the sky and see the whole rainbow. The orange and the indigo stand out so much, saying, "I can't believe I have eyes. Attempt to finish the walk home, but I keep looking back—the sky's molten and bruised now. Turn me to salt. The colors blow my mind.
Savor the sky like it's the last and first time and go home. You know that feeling that suffocates and takes pleasure away. I was sitting on hold for what feel forever trying to connect with the Customer Happiness representative for My So-Called Life. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons plays as I peel the wall paper. I don’t feel real sometimes. I’m not even sure what real is and I know that’s not true because this keyboard is real. The feeling of loss feels real. The dread feels real. Just not the body, not what to call it.
The budding flowers and grass have a hue; the downtrodden mud seems a hearth for worm and not a grave. The walk is glorious. I think of the bird. I think of my heartbeat. A flash of Pantone swatches before my eyes. Depression's chokehold loosened, and I was able to take an ear between my teeth, shove my forehead into the orbital socket, and run for it. I'm afraid of so many these days, and I forgot that my body's judicial scales are empty pots and pans when your ceiling is dripping. I've slathered spackle on the roof. Shoulders tense, sore. I’m doing my best.
On Saturday, I take old oatmeal and make it into pancakes. A little of this, a little of that, and into a hot skillet of ghee. I'm trying something new and something old. My phin coffee filter dripped hot into my glass full of soy condensed milk.
Sit before the plate, and I can hear the birds chirp. It's just lovely. C. rings me up, and they're having a long day. I talked to them earlier this week, and they say it's nice to hear me sound so alive. "No offense."
I laugh, "You can hear something like that?"
"Well, I've tried to get to know you, and this is the fruit of my efforts. I can hear this kind of stuff, and no offense, but you're alive now. Hope you can enjoy it."
The moment is just a moment.
Can't say it extends further than this, and I can't say it mends what can't be fixed.
The phone call ends.
Take a sip of my sweet, hot coffee.
I'm alive and alone.
Godspeed Loners,
thank you, i love these <3