For seven years, I’ve been in a long-distance relationship with Minneapolis. Holidays were never long enough. I eagerly plotted my return, the neighborhood I would live in, the books I would carry to rose garden picnics. I networked. I made long-term plans with friends. My ballots have been absentee for my entire voting life, my direct deposits traveling halfway across the continent. When I renewed my driver’s license last year, I made sure to do it while I was home for Christmas, theorizing that I’d be back soon and wouldn’t want to deal with taking the test all over again.
The Surgeon’s Estate
The house had such a stupifying abundance of rooms that, every time I learned how to reach one of them, I would catalogue sights along the way, memorizing routes. It was like dropping bread crumbs. Each time I prayed for the ability to find the damn thing again.
Pass the picture of her mother in the yellow jacket. Proceed up the stairs dappled with carved chipmunk statuettes. Look for the giant silver harmonica in front of the fireplace. Enter gleaming lemon marble hallway. Sliding door, stove island with visible pilot lights, bio-lab variety hanging vent. Three stairs down, beige carpeted hallway, sliding door: bathroom.
“Do you know where Rachel’s bedroom is?” a passing boy sporting low-riding swimming trunks asked me.
“It’s at the top of the tower.”
“The tower?”
“Go up as many stairs as you possibly can.” Now was the time when I could have handed him some crumbs, said “make sure you pass the Renoir poster in the golden frame” or “at some point, the carpet changes color” but I’ve learned that these details are never really appreciated by the direction-seeking public. One woman’s crumbs is another man’s “why are you still talking.” He was already gone.
Branches #3: The Plan
I don’t know how to begin writing fiction, so … I’m not. I’m leaving the beginnings up to other authors, and branching off — from whatever I wind up underlining, dog-earring, generally wanting more of.
Currently reading: The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar Keret.
They’ll play a Keith Jarrett disc and everyone will listen, they’ll play a record and nobody will feel sad. And the ones who are on their own won’t feel alone tonight, and nobody will ask “Milk or cream?” because by now they’ll all know one another.
In the dream you’re aware it’s a dream, but that only makes slumber all the sweeter.
In the dream you have never kissed or hurt anyone, and everyone you will ever love is in your backyard. They are pouring iced lemonade and handing it to you, smiling. The wind is in their hair, their teeth are gleaming white, and they are full of anecdotes from their travels. They are wearing their favorite t-shirts. They just discovered their favorite band. They want to tell you everything, and in the dream you are a wonderful listener. You hold each person’s hand as they speak to you. “Tell me more,” you say to them. “How high was the wall? Did you speak the language? Were the breads soft like cake, or tough, like tires?” You are unladen with the past, light on your feet, trusting, entirely lovable. You are eager to fall in love with each of them for who they are. You are focusing on their words instead of your own. They wink and laugh and the sound of the wind in the leaves is the most incredible thing.
You are listening and nodding and holding their beautiful hands, pale and olive covered in fine hair, convinced that from now on you will mean every word you say, that any goodbyes will be brief and to the point.
Postcards From the Vermonster
What happens when you take ten total friends/strangers and put them in a two-bedroom cabin in the middle of nowhere? Shit starts to get real, obviously.
Real eggy.
An afternoon swim with watermelon.
Maple cookie button with heart imprint!
See all pictures from all kinds of fancy cameras here.
A Matter of Trust
We were lounging on the deck in our bathing suits, drinking shandies and dipping our feet into the lake, when the fellow who’d disappeared hallucinating into the woods returned to the cabin.
“Hey dude. How’s your trip going?”
“Pretty . . . good, I guess.”
“How long do you think you’ve been gone?”
“I don’t know . . . like, an hour?”
We tittered delightedly, taking joy in our superior knowledge of reality: the only thing to do when you’re tipsy on lemonade-diluted Magic Hats and your friend has been rediscovering God or whatever. “Dude you’ve been wandering around for like three hours.”
“Oh. Well, okay then.” He shrugged us off, letting his backpack shuffle down his shoulder and down to the deck floor. He stared for a moment into the water and then began rummaging through his things, looking pretty with it. We’d almost given up on him entirely as a source of entertainment, and had returned to our former conversation — until he yelped.