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Beach house

June 30, 2010

Inside, trails of sand showed where everyone had been. A ghost of a footprint here, a smudge of salty mud at hand-level there. If she could have cradled the house in her hand like a shell and held it to her ear, she knew she could hear their voices again.

Outside, seagulls hollered like old women as they wheeled above the sea. She stepped back into the bright summer light from the dusk of the foyer and shut the door behind her, still unable to sweep away the signs that they had, once, been hers.

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Bone and seed

June 28, 2010

In the words of the Chimila Indians, bone and seed are nearly identical. The hands of the then-living crafted urns large enough to hold a femur, urns with mouths large enough to swallow a skull, then buried it all deep in the earth, giving rise to the growth of those yet to come.

This is my lesson from the ancients: I must profoundly bury one set of bones before new life grows.

“You hold onto the past too tightly,” said the dark-haired woman in the island house. “You must choose to put it away.”

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Unchanging weather

June 26, 2010

These months have been windier than most, and I feel it more keenly than ever. Everything feels empty, swept clean of option and opportunity. The air passes right through me, rattling the shell of my heart against the bones that cage it. Someone walking by remarks there’s a change in the weather coming, but they’ve said that before. I’d be a fool to believe it.

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Show your work

June 24, 2010

I scribble solutions on the backs of envelopes, develop complicated theorems that explain the intersection of intellectual and physical desire, and write notes on my wrist: RED (like the flag), SAFE (as I’d like to keep my heart), PATIENCE (I hate this the most).

When I tire of problem-solving, I dance a slow waltz with tears unbound by geometry and calculus. The x and y variables don’t yield easy answers, and my heart breaks when my head can’t solve the problem.

“Show your work,” my math teacher said, and I do. I do. I do.

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Left wanting more

June 22, 2010

“I like your stories,” he said. “There’s a lot that happens between the words.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Sometimes they are only four sentences,” he said. “Sometimes I want just two sentences more.”

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The boxer

June 18, 2010

The whole experience left no physical marks, but I felt like a boxer after a fight, swollen-eyed and raw-fisted. The rounds, all of which seemed to last so much longer than three minutes, were nothing but deflected body blows, gloves held in front of my face, side-to-side glances in search of an unseen exit.

I knew I’d return to the ring time and again, chasing the title that has always eluded me. But at that moment, I most needed water, bandages, liniment, and the locker room’s cool floor.

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Steaming

June 16, 2010

“I’m on a thin wire right now. My ears are steaming,” said the bartender to the owner. “Just so you know.”

“OK,” the owner replied. It wasn’t, after all, anything she hadn’t already heard before.

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