The Week

Tuesday, 6/25/24

Conemaugh means Otter in the Unami-Lenape language. Before heading back home from my parents, I stopped mid-way and rode my bike along the low, meandering, blue Conemaugh River. I toed the shore and basked in the slow delight I have every Monday and Tuesday. My “weekend” is Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. On Mondays and Tuesdays, a peaceful feeling overcomes me knowing that most people are at work, minding the grind, worrying about this or that, and here I am, basking in the sun, toes in that liminal place where water and earth meet. I could stay here all day or I could slowly wheel my way back to my car. No one expects anything from me. If I want to be a customer buying a book or a coffee, I can be a customer buying a book or a coffee. I can take my time cleaning up the house, throwing money at bills, planning a menu. If I want to mosey through my yard and stare at plants, I can mosey through my yard and stare at plants. I can stare at walls. I can sit in my car until the good song ends and no one is expecting me. I am no one, I am nothing on Mondays and Tuesdays. I don’t exist in chronos. I am an otter with rocks on my belly simply because I imagine that I am an otter with rocks on my belly. I will admire the rocks on my belly and when my belly gets too warm or dry, I will flip over and disappear into depths.

Later, I am reunited with my favorite company, Brian. Earlier in the day, I told him that I couldn’t wait to just sit on the patio with him and that is precisely what we did. He has gotten into the habit of keeping his camera nearby to photograph the birds that zig and zag through our yard. I told him about the cucumbers growing in the garden and he told me about how shocked he was that a rocket launch happened today despite poor weather. That ironically, the rocket was launching a back-up weather satellite. He says the phrase in-orbit storage and my mind ran away with the phrase as he continued talking about space politics. I imagined small things in space. Dandelion heads. Fish hooks. Clipped finger nails. Space as storage unit for forgotten detritus.

During silences, I looked at my bare leg like it was a fossil indicating time and happenstance. Stretch marks like water ripples or graptolites. Scars like Neuropteris or slickensides. Protrusions and hollows covered in a fine, bristly lichen. My mind zoomed off into the high blackness, away from the norms of shaving, self-hate, and the desire to have a polished, smooth body that does not look like it lived or loved or hurt or thought of anything beyond itself.

Wednesday, 6/26/24

I commuted, worked 10 hours, and commuted back home. Then life picked up again and I rode my bike to the river without sweating. The breeze, dry and cool, had no accent of rain although it was in the forecast. I sat on my thinking rock in the river, watching all the bubbles go by. I thought about the math of the bubbles and how that language altogether eludes me. Bubbles rising. Bubbles flowing over stone. Bubbles encountering other bubbles. Bubbles encountering dismembered pincers, algae, glass, pebbles, and silt. My feet submerged, they lose sense of the water and it isn’t until I wiggle my toes that I feel water moving again. Positioning my legs and elbows just so, supporting my chin on the base of my palm, I could have fallen asleep upright in the river. My eyelids rose though and to keep myself awake, I thought of the river being full of murdered and emaciated bodies--full of water that despite the obstacle of dead bodies, would do its best to flow right past them.

These days we have especially been flowing right past murdered bodies and other horrible things. When I float into space, the rivers of dead bodies are just pointillism.

The river continued to move like a rug being pulled down and down, revealing whatever one wants to imagine.

One drop of the river would not maneuver over a stone alone, even in the steepest of rivers. Millions and billions of drops of water coming together with the force of gravity, moves boulders.

I rode home, mostly uphill, and barely broke a sweat.

It later stormed, hours after I watered the garden.

Thursday, 6/27/24

Brian and I unfolded our chairs and sat side-by-side at a free outdoor concert, mostly to people-watch. Brian felt nostalgic at the smell of cigarette smoke in summer--it reminds him of his father who used to smoke. For the past several days, I have been seeing the onomatopoeia phrase “Hawk Tuah” everywhere and I then saw it on a man’s shirt as he placed his bottle of lemonade on the ground and unfolded his chair. Brian gave me a look and we discussed how new this phrase is and how quickly it became merchandise. I look up the origins of what led to the sensationalism, rolled my eyes at the boring results, and tucked my phone away. We eventually went home and I made cucumber/tomato salad with the cucumbers I plucked from the garden. We watched two clowns argue on TV as train after train blew past--horns blasting in what I like to say was protest--outside.

Friday, 6/28/24

We don’t take illumined insects for granted in this house. Night came and we shuffled onto the patio. I sat and watched the display of lightning bugs as Brian set up his camera to photograph them. One can’t help but try to decipher the glowing messages as they wax and wane in the darkness. Is there a pattern? Is there a rhythm here? Shortly after, we went to bed. The next morning as I awakened in the dark to get ready for work, one bright message blinked on the bedroom floor. I picked them up, delighted yet empathetic. All that glowing they must have done for our closed eyes.

Saturday, 6/29/24

All day, I felt as if my upcoming weekend would be sublime. Off to a good start--walked in pouring rain from a thunderstorm to get to my car and slowly drove home from work. For reasons unknown to me, I was very tired the rest of the day. I slowly started the process of unearthing all my art supplies so that they were no longer out-of-sight/out-of-mind.

I didn’t have to water my garden but instead lazed around the house all evening like a bed of dirt, waiting for something to sprout.

Sunday, 6/30/24

I watched the morning’s dark brightness from the living room. Rain coming, I sit in my nest, book poised in my hand, thumb keeping it open. Earlier, I walked barefoot in my dark garden, the chicory’s face closed-off. Things are growing and it’s magical to me yet of course it’s as simple as planting and nurturing.

In the book I’m reading, I read about maladaptive daydreaming. Huh, so that’s what I’ve been doing all my life. All this time I thought it was rehearsing, but it has always been something way beyond rehearsing. There is a secret I keep about this lifelong imaginary world and it’s going to stay that way, not out of shame, but out of respect to that sweet, innocent part of me.

Brian, Silas, and I packed up some books and chairs and drove to sit lakeside, away from people, and read. Silas and I waded in the lake as cumulonimbus (what used to be called cloud 9) loomed and toppled over itself in the distance. It continued to emerge from the lake of itself, crawling ever so closer to us. We’ll have to pack up in about 10 minutes, Brian said. Storm’s coming. This is the difference between us. If alone, I would lie on the grass and daydream myself through the storm. Brian--my tether to reality, safety, and having my feet on the ground--says things and I listen. He’s not my keeper, but he is my harbor. We drove home, the storm following us down the blade.

In the evening, Brian built a fire and sat with me on the patio, watching birds. I don’t know if it was because I had two beers in me but I couldn’t stop laughing as Brian kept talking about his camera being in sports mode. His camera nestled in his lap, ready to capture any bird passing by in the evening light, before the bats came. Everything he did that evening, I asked if it was in sports mode.

Monday, 7/1/24

My precious Cosmo turned 10 today, on his made-up birthday. He and I awakened early, just the two of us. I put on a movie and he rested the curl of his body on the curl of my body, his heartbeat against my foot. Silky and bold and smart, he knows exactly what he wants and usually gets what he wants. He’s like my stubborn, wonderful mother. Placing both of my hands flat on his little, long body, I want to believe that I can feel all ten of his years. I want omniscience. I want to see the little, white puppy running the streets of Chambersburg with his brother. I want to see the first human face he saw. I want to see what made him run away. I want to see the reason why he is afraid of older people, and belts. I want to see Brian’s face when he saw Brian for the first time, before Brian even knew I existed.

Packed: Book, notebook, pen, pencil, water, La Croix, snack, wallet, bicycle.

I spun the wheels up the riverside Lower Trail.

Saw: Snake, a fisherman, overgrown paths to the river, a deer drinking from the river and then disappearing into the emerald world of July, fish jump, an impressive sycamore tree, a cardinal dancing across the path, retirees on their Monday afternoon bike ride, rock walls, waterfalls, fossils, slag, an ant traverse my leg.

Felt: sun&wind, the ant traversing my leg, the bike’s saddle, stinging nettle, the coolness of the river, rocks, slag, hunger, thirst, satiation, lucky.

At the end of the ride, I learned that Brian has a perforated ear drum. I imagined holes inside of holes inside of holes.