301-400
301-310
1. How did you find me.
2. All this time and that’s what you ask?
1. I’m not fighting you.
2. All I want is to talk.
1. I can defend myself.
2. That’s cute. How about acting normal. Order a drink and let’s chat.
1. -
2. Vodka tonic, please. Two.
1. -
2. You jump to the punchline without telling the story. That couple to your left, hear what they’re saying about us? They sense something strange, but can’t place it. We look nothing alike, but they think we’re twins.
1. Don’t bring anyone else into this.
2. The world brings itself to us. I didn’t find you. We found each other.
311 - 320
Fruiting bodies build off twining lines. Purpose born of random searching, working toward the sun. A terminus bursting from a node. An investment, determination. The little birds keeping an eye out for bigger birds and climbing threats. Inherited memories of sharp things above and below. Balance of reaching for the light and staying hidden for safety. Calmly balancing on the edge of survival, guided by gravity, magnetic forces, unknowable cycles of existence. All for the goal of persistence. All simply to continue being beyond the individual. Existing purely to contribute to the being of other things. To all other things.
321-330
Here we are. Your personal Hall of Formative Memories. We don’t have a lot of time here. If we stay too long, we become a formative memory, building a recursive loop and that’s just messy. You may delete one memory. What’ll it be? The time you were caught masturbating by your roommate? The dead body on the side of the road? Oh. That one? These all have deep, complicated ties. We don’t know how erasing it will affect you. You sure? Understood. When you wake up, you’ll be a different person - someone who doesn’t remember her saying she loves you.
331-340
I really got into foraging while living in Northern California. I knew a lot of forest edibles where I grew up, but the Pacific coast and its diversity of biomes set up a smorgasbord of native plants. I recognized a few of them - pineapple weed, plums, mulberries. There were so many more though. Wild fennel, leeks, blackberries, wild radishes and nasturtiums crawled along the roadsides. But my favorite was early spring patches of miner’s lettuce. There was a house nearby that had an elevated yard and it grew at eye level. I like the subversion of eating other people’s weeds.
341-350
“But aren’t you curious whether or not you helped him?”
I listen to counsel of years of internalized social training. I don’t want her to think I’m being an asshole, but I can’t just say, “No. I don’t care.” I need something more gentle, understanding… humane. Not because I helped the young man out of narcissism, but because my help was just me being human. Kindness as existence, not act. How do I say that?
“My help was unconditional to whether it helped him.”
She shakes her head in exhausted disapproval. “Why do you have to be such an asshole.”
351-360
I’m a terrible cook. I lack culinary imagination. A synesthetic ability to see raw food and taste it’s combination with other ingredients. I’ve learned my lesson and buy pre-made food. But soon I feel I’m a grown adult and should make my own food and I confront my lack of culinary skill and go out and buy a bunch of leeks and beets and coconut milk and tofu skins and I have absolutely no idea what to do with them. How they get from raw food to yummy-on-my-plates is absolute wizardry. I’ll stick to doing dishes.
361-370
Remnants, pieces, bones and space once filled. That’s what we leave behind. Long-lived ripples of things long done. We don’t have control over what we leave behind. The only difference from the moment we are living and when we’re dead is that we are no longer affecting the world. The universe will fill in where we were and everything consciously decorating our lives will come jangle and crash together, creating a still life of what used to be. We don’t get to interpret that pile of bones, feathers and dice. That’s for the curious descendants to be bothered with.
371-380
The small room is cramped. Loved ones there to share his final moments. He is propped up on the small bed, comfortable and aware. There are tears, but mostly smiles. And food. So much strange food. His granddaughter at his side holds a tray of oddly-shaped berries with pointy, mottled skins. An old friend sits with a plate of something purple that smells like curry. There are fruits he had never seen. Nuts shaped like bats. Pickled meats. He tries them all. He thanks everyone who came to heed his final request, “Bring me something I’ve never tasted before.”
381-390
Snow is falling. It’s time. A long, beautiful fall is being put to rest under a gentle pile of leaves and sheet of white. The trying season has come. The earth will be locked in place soon. It’s all tightening up. Preserving itself. It’s inevitable and welcome. It’s harsh, but vital. Not everything survives. Costs will be paid. Energies conserved, passed on. Memories are preserved. The color of a cherry is most vibrant in winter. The sweetness of a blackberry is at its peak in the frozen months. It’s the season of memories and enclosed hope. Time to celebrate endings.
391-400
What am considering “beautiful”? That’s the entire point here i guess. Can trash be beautiful? Are brightly-colored things conveniently beautiful? Can unpretty things be beautiful? Can i hold experiences? Let’s be honest, i could take a picture of a thousand random objects and call them all beautiful in their own way. What i try to keep reminding myself is that seeing beauty is an intentional act. This isn’t about just checking off boxes, or writing a list. It’s supposed to be about taking an action. Wait. That’s why i added the writing. Right. It’s me being intentionally difficult again.