How

Bright sunlight and the last ravenous chapters of a book, I sit on the veranda and let my skin sizzle. The halter straps of my bikini folded down around my back, I don't realize till later I am a replica of my mother in the late 1980's. Cheek to shoulder, my skin is not the youthful plump expanse of softness it once was; we fight the inevitable demise of our bodies by maximizing sun exposure, by painting our bodies that fresh, golden color as far as our modesty allows. While I ran around the sea shore, picking shells and excavating ecosystems, my 35-year-old mother would sit, just like this, staring at the sun patiently until there was none left to be had. My chest freckles now like hers did then. We will never be 15 again.

The thing is, writing words is the only way I could ever make sense of this world, of what it is to be alive in it. I said once I'd sacrifice my unborn children for it, and the years that have passed since then haven't quite managed to wash the reality of such a thought from my veins. The proximity of Real Jobs, of normal lives and steady incomes, of proper housing and vacation plans for the coming year, may have made them less threatening, more imaginable. But they carry no less the scent of defeat than they did before. I am not ready to give up.

I guess I know by now,
that we will meet again,
Somehow. 

Baby, Sometimes

Vacation days and you forget there was ever a time of early mornings and busy days of someone else's bidding. Shuttling to the train station, picking up and dropping off angels from other cities, other lands, every day is a parade of lazy meals in green grass, unmentionable amounts of coffee, drifting conversations and hysterical laughter. You show them the city as if it is your own and it makes you adore it as you never did. Look, there across the water, there's my church, do you recognize it? They never love its beacon like you do. They have not seen it burn in the midnight sun after drunken stumbles homeward, like you have. This affection creeps up on you, catches you unaware, softens your violent adjectives.

Still, the phone seethes with friends unseen, nights unlived. Your heart weeps at missed connections, at the endless time remaining until your paths may cross. You try to balance your commitments and fail. There aren't enough twilit nights in one summer to satisfy your social heart.

It beats steady, now. You enjoy its vitality, while it lasts.

4:43 a.m.

A ferry that left in the middle of the night, and we arrive the mainland at dawn. A quiet bus ride through sleeping countrysides, the grass is covered in ethereal mist. Folklore whispers that these are elves dancing, and I am comforted in the memory of what magic such stories held in my childhood. That there was a way to explain the world without a god, without a fury, but with spirits in connection to the earth, to the cycle of things. I watch the thin veils drape the landscape, while sunrise casts a tangerine glow on the resting houses, the still trees.

We cross the bridge at the south end of the city, my south island spreading out before us like a giant in repose, the churches, my churches, standing tall at the top of their respective hills, keeping watch. We dive into a tunnel and emerge at the other end, in the old town, with its ancient buildings and narrow alleys, and for the first time in all these months, in all this treacled anguish, I love Stockholm and am grateful to be here. The sun continues its steady gait across the spires; I rest.

Gammelgarn.

The tent is cool in the night breeze. I stand outside it looking at the stars, no sound but that of the sea, comfortingly rolling to shore with the repetitive hush it has. We hadn't planned on swimming tonight, the evening was windy and cold, but as we stood and stared at the crashing surf, we couldn't help it. The brackish waters poured against our naked bodies; we laughed like children and rolled along the waves.

Later, in the bathroom mirror, I saw new tan lines had formed. Soft white streaks against scarlet collarbones. Tender skin, I couldn't help but smile.

Summer has arrived, at last.

Delirium

Just make sure to pull all the plugs before you go, the hostess said. Early morning, the party was winding down, she was leaving the old barn to go to sleep. We weren't ready. We turned up the music, ignored the rising sun, and danced until our legs gave out underneath us.

Hours later, the sun warm across the wheat fields, we stumbled giddily to our tents. The remains of the party lay scattered around us, bales of hay upended on the floor, empty liquor bottles strewn across the tables. We felt 15, as though the whole world had stopped for a while and there were only these bodies, our bodies, beating steadily into the night and laughing. My tent-mate said she had never seen me look so awful as when I crawled, limp and expended like a ragged balloon, into the tent that morning.

The day after passed in a cocoon of agony and manic laughter. I lay in the grass for hours bemoaning my existence and the shame of my frivolity. But in every painstaking breath, I knew. Madness is always worth the aftermath to come.

Pitched

This is the way, I remember it now. There is the farm, there's the house, here we are. We crossed the sea in black of night and by the time we arrived, dawn was creeping across the island and into the fields.

There's a silence about the country. It makes your nerves unwind, but it makes me restless. A calm that does me no good. Before we had closed our eyes, the roosters were up. A thin mist crept along the grass, the homestead seemed perched, waiting for mad things to come, preparing by keeping still. We closed the tent, my wide eyes staring into the blue nothingness an inch away. She slept in an instant.

Morning without night before is a most delicious occurrence. When the world lies quietly waiting for your next step, when it belongs to no one but you who are awake to see it. We must savor those moments; we own so little, once proper morning returns anew.

Lights On

We stood outside a convenience store and looked in. Dark July night it feels like autumn, but inside shone a bright, cold, icy light and shouted its wares to the street. Tragic coolers stood half empty with bottles, screaming colors painted themselves against the window canvas, and in a corner hung a sign saying Send Your Faxes Here! The scene perfect for a camera lense, I missed mine, I wanted it there to help me tell the story. To help me say that the picture made me inexplicably sad, at the blaring white inside, at the peddling of unneeded items after hours when the kids are drunk. My words cannot say them, enough.

Green grass grows slowly in my lungs. With every breath I melt into the bed and let the inadequate letters slip off my tongue. They matter little now. I will get you the picture, instead.