On Sink Plants & Saltwater

6/5/24

On the last day of school there was a plant growing out of the sink in the barn bathroom. A two-inch pale green vein taking root in expired plumbing at the end of an expired year. 

Where I live in June is in the moment after a goodbye. In the second of hesitation that follows, the tragic tether that pulls you down, makes you stay, makes your throat ache. In June I hesitate, I am stagnant, I am ripening. June is for reopening wounds and for closure. 

6/6/24

Stagnation (calm before the storm) is heavy in June. There is a plant growing in the barn bathroom sink because there is always new life growing in places we don’t expect it to be. 

6/16/24

moth to flame. girl to cat.

Lizzie fell in love with Otter at the Jersey shore. Otter is notoriously antisocial and mean, but Lizzie woke up every morning in relentless pursuit of his friendship. By the last day, he was rubbing his head against her ankles and letting us take pictures of him. 

We inhaled sappy mornings and waded through saltwater and wind. We held books like babies, set between our pinkies and pointer fingers. We napped on towels and picked shells from packed sand. When Lizzie asked God for a dolphin, he gave us a small dead shark, beached in our path, with two seagulls eating its organs. 

A person in the sun will always go stale. A shark will always ruin the tranquil slowness of two teenage girls on a beach, and unprotected shoulders will always burn. 

6/18/24

In October, I read a Dan Chaon interview as homework for Elements of Fiction. He said he’s most interested in “the decisions we don't necessarily mean to make, that we haven't planned for, but that still nudge gently, yet permanently, through the membrane of one self and into the next one.” 

In Elements of Fiction, Mika called writing “evidence of life.” I’ve spent this year watching my skin shed, pressed between membranes of selves. I want to live where my feet are. So I’m writing to plant myself in June.