Ask Alice

There's a secret in all of it that evades you. 

It's like you spent a whole summer slowly sifting towards it and, just like in dreams of running, at the very moment you're about to unlock the answer you are roused out of it, shaken away, it is gone. 

There was something about green grass under bare feet, 
friendships a lifetime in the making, 

something about sunlight and peace and animal companions and foraging in the woods, 
something about feeling full for the first time in your life and not hungering. 

There was something about expanse 
and now it's just out of reach. 

When you are not exhausted from reality, 
that's when the doors open. 

Stepping into Wonderland 
only requires the peace

to let yourself fall.  

Worry

New York City feels miles away, 

but I hear a loop of a train on the tracks,

a siren, 

a taxi cab, I 

start to smell the food and smokes on the breeze, I 

remember now how it feels to walk those streets, to
truly belong somewhere, there
must be something left for me to find there, a 
reason to still call it

home.  

Re:turns

There's too much to say of the space in between, too much magic in the Arctic Ocean, of walruses and polar bears and fjords and glaciers. There's a dive into the freezing sea that you'll never forget and a joy at discovery that you've yet to digest. 

Suddenly it's dark mornings in the Rocky Mountain West, and the slight itch behind your eyelids that it's time to get back to work, time to put the magic to words, time to return to the New York City streets that forever call you. 

You're not sure yet what step one is. 

But, oh, after so many years of dragging in the ditches, what a treat to stride right on the road.  

OSL

You board a bus and cross a country line, this summer never ceases to fill you with adoration. It's gift upon gift upon gift, and you even snuck in an extra lake swim when no one was looking. The four-leaf clovers inside your phone case begin to pile up and burst out of their holder, you're sure there's a metaphor in there but all you know is you feel joy at every turn. 

There are people on this earth who really take care of you, there are homes here to which you always have a key. There's a magic in there that you cannot begin to put words to. 

The bus rolls into Oslo. There's a transfer, a train, a sunny afternoon and the fjords glittering. There's an adventure ahead and another key in your backpack for later, gifts upon gifts that could never fit inside wrapping. You spent an entire life being afraid of Everything and suddenly you find that you're not. It's disorienting, but you do not kick it to the curb. 

I spent an entire life being afraid
of Everything
but I have an entire life left
to not.  

Rain Day

It's gray. Your windows face north and the sunlight doesn't reach your skin like you need it to. The computer stares at you with its demands and you're slowly realizing that maybe this little box is at the root of your weariness. Perhaps you were not made to while your life away in front of this little square with its incessant buzzing. It's a thought that bears mulling over. 

You think again about fire lookout season. 

They say the cloud cover will pass mid-day. You're not sure how long you can wait. One day you moved across the ocean and it taught you a life can take place in a million different ways. You've never been the same since. 

Maybe that's just what it is to live a life. 
You're never the same
once you've done it. 

Rokoko

What a gift it is, you think to yourself after the melee has quieted down. To live everywhere, to belong in any corner, to feel at home on any horizon. You see no more pride in the Stockholm inlet than the American Wild West, and it thrills you to realize. A whole life struggling with the either/or only to realize it's about the and/also. 

 Two weeks ago you were driving down English country road with a car full of dogs. One week ago you were alighting on medieval island shores. And here you are, staring at hundred-year-old rooftops in sunlight, squeezing more summer out of each step down the streets. I look at apartment listings and room shares, I look at country houses and sitting gigs, it's August and the world is still all opportunity. She writes to say life is a bitch and you haven't enough words to explain how wrong she is. 

We talked about you the other night, after the evening had gone dark and the children went to bed. Remembered your bright laugh and the darkness of your last few days. Remembered how we all walked out of that spring changed. I've never forgotten to be grateful for the lessons you taught me. 

Have never forgotten that staying alive
is the only reason I've done all these things that I've 
done. 

And I wouldn't want to live
without them.  

Ferry (v)

You drag a bag to the subway, light drizzle on the pavement and you fall in line with the Monday morning commuters on their way into fall. Their clothes have an air of defeat. Long pants. Umbrella. Key card. Didn't we just start the summer holidays, how are they over already? On the morning news, the meteorologist says even though it's the end of summer we've some warmer days ahead and you want to shout it from the rooftops. Don't give up before it's time! 

In the harbor, a ship lies waiting. One thousand, three hundred thirty-one people board. A few dogs. The Baltic Ocean ahead, not a speck on the horizon for hours until there, at the end, an island, a dock, another group of familiar faces and your heart grows to twice its size again. 

Yesterday, in a borrowed doorway, it was all goodbyes. A little too soon, always a little too soon.  Two years and change since you waved from the airport window. The years defy belief. His daughter grows into everything you could've hoped, a hundred years ago they waved you off on a train and she was just a baby. A thousand years ago you got drunk in a hidden bar and he didn't tell you she had already been dreamed into existence. Twenty-four hours ago you remembered what it is to carry a moment in your chest that is at once heavy as lead and light as air. The women on the ship say August is basically over but you know they're wrong. 

I will carry August with me
always.