201-300
201-210
She covered her mouth, “Gross! How can you eat that?.”
“Maybe your ‘ick’ is my ‘yum’.”
“No,” her nose recoiled and grabbed her upper lip in defense. “That’s just gross. Nobody thinks that is yum.”
I took another blissful bite. “Well, i do.”
She fake wretched and turned to spare me from whatever her face was doing. “You’re just weird.”
That made me think. Does liking something make anyone weird? Doesn’t it seem weirder to harsh someone who is obviously enjoying something?
But she was walking away, i made my point and spit it out. I’m not weird, i’m antagonistic.
211 - 220
It’s like hearing through your fingertips. Like being the needle as the world spins under touch. Songs and grooves, rough and smooth. A million tiny vibrations to build a whole, a vibe. The persistent resonance of the tangible intertangling with your being, rattling about your skeleton and cavities, amplifying in your amygdala, distorted by your dentition, equalized by your equilibrium. A torque and tumble through every tiny impression and depression. And you vibrate to all the freakish frequencies of your unique crystalline structure, the particular way your carbon has locked you into form. That’s what telling a story is like.
221-230
It’s been a very wet season in a very wet year. We all know it’ll dry out and get dusty again. But for now, we watch it soak in. We feel it mix and melt away our salts. We pull it up our stems and in our leaves. We make everything we always make, but now its juicier, more full. We don’t know where to go with all the water, so we watch it wash off our hands, onto the ground and seep underground. All the while complaining how it’s been a very wet season in a very wet year.
231-240
A long time ago, I lay on the forest floor. Found a lovely patch of moss under an oak tree, and laid down. A few minutes, I closed my eyes. An hour, it was mid-day. A few more hours, it was night. Seasons, years, decades. The oak and entire forest breathed around me. Covered in mulch and consumed by the forest. Bugs and worms and fungi worked around me, but avoided me. I couldn’t be eaten, or even cracked open like a stone. I couldn’t become the forest, so I sadly dug myself out relearned how to be human.
241-250
How many gods have been lost to memory? When a stream is drained, diverted and locked underground in a concrete culvert, has it lost its divinity? Does the magnificence of wild fruit diminish during cultivation? Will the worship of the internal combustion engine continue as the electric drive takes its place? How many sacred trees have come, thrived and died? Are they all expressions of a whole? Is that how we veered toward monotheism? How do we remember our forgotten gods? How do we remember their music? Will they ever be lost if we remember how to sing their hymns?
251-260
Be brave against the northern wind. Stay strong and proud in the blowing snow. Stand and hold the burden and yourself against the cold, within the fading sun, the deepening snow. Hold yourself tight and peaceful and timeless. Be passive to the fury of the bitter ice. Allow yourself to do the only thing required - survive. Be brave against the northern wind. Be patient under the weight of grey months. Tolerate the killing storms. Focus on being. Rest, resist, be resilient. And when the sun returns, when the ice recedes, open yourself to the brightness of the light and thrive.
261-270
Ephemeral and unbalanced. The ghost of a wandering washing machine, shaking the house bones. Always and never when it was. Little tremors rattling loose the mortar, making the plaster dust dance in sunbeams, the overgrowth grown over the masonry and window treatments. The shake and shudder hitting as soon as you’re convinced the children it’s over, they can go back to bed. The fresh sky where the ceiling used to be is only temporary. Enjoy the view while you can. While you clean up their toys, pulling the string on the pull-toys out of the rising tide of liquefaction.
271-280
I’m a forest animal. I’m at home in the dark and leafy chatter. The rich stench of loam and compost, pine and tannins. Ocean beaches are a terrifying wonder. The constant noise, persistent and cyclical. The enormity of the sea. The clear delineation of biomes, a sharp, but always moving line between earth and sea. The mysterious, inhospitable deep lingering offshore. The smells of strange things washed up and bleached, but the somehow cleanliness of the sand. Tiny stones and churning water and still here a forest of life, windswept and ground down, just a transition to a new medium.
281-290
(part 1)
He quietly closes the motel room door behind him. She stands at the mini fridge admiring the dull expanse of undecorated beige walls. He walks past and motions vaguely around. “Have a seat.” She knows she’ll have to calm him down, so she plops playfully on the foot of the bed. He offers her a plastic cup of bottled water.
“No thanks,” she smiles and watches him cross to pull the blackout shades closed. “We don’t have to do this,” she offers. He looks at his watch for some reason and answers more forcefully than expects, “No. Let’s do it.”
291-300
(part 2)
“Okay. Well…,” she pats the edge of the bed spread. He nervously takes off his watch, setting it on the microwave before sitting next to her.
She puts her hand palm up on his thigh. “Give me your hand.”
His hand settles onto hers. She smiles again.
“It’s okay. I’ll start slow.” She follows his gaze toward the microwave. “That’s a nice watch.” He nods numbly. “Focus on it. Is that watch real?” He nods. “Is it true?” He winces, but nods. “There is truth in the world?” He slowly nods. “The election was not stolen. That is the truth.”