Now we have moved to trapezes, to aerobatics above a tenuous net, and everyone knows how I feel about heights. But there is an intoxicating dizziness only found in leaping from the platform, a satisfaction to holding the bar just tightly enough not to fall, but not so tightly it impedes dazzling tricks.
It’s worth overcoming fear of heights for the right reasons. Sometimes we only get one chance to take that platform leap.
Go, go, go, pounds my heart. Do not miss this.
She is navigating microclimates, moving from one small zone of temperature to another, slipping from hot to warm and back again. In one neighborhood the weather is reasonable, in another, inhospitable. There are storms by the water, and fog near the top of the hill. She carries a jacket and a scarf at all times. She is prepared for anything.
Are you there? she asked, as if she peered into the door of a dark room. She thought she could hear him breathing, thought maybe she could hear his skin against the molecules in the air.
She closed her eyes, imagining his face. She opened them again, hoping for more illumination.
In other news, I forgot to buy bread, she said.
Typical, he said. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
She scattered the groceries across the kitchen counters. She had lost sight of how to put them all away.
Quiet acts noisy at times, ringing gong-like amidst the din of living. It is possible to want too much, but not when echoes peal off the walls of ravines.
The clamor fills my ears, stomps into my brain like an invited guest. I can try to keep myself still, but as I walk by the produce salesmen, I realize they watch me; they spot my crooked smile. In my head I hear the reverberations, triggered by memory, known by heart.
100 Proof 