January 2nd: Andie Klarin
THE FOLLOWING IS HELD TOGETHER BY NOTHING BUT TIME
I wrote down: first thing in the morning and I am already thinking ‘how cliche to begin first thing in the morning’, after that the day passed. It went on; belonging to one of us at a time for a few minutes each. I made cherry green tea, I read three books, finished one, I went to an aquarium, I rode an electric scooter on cobblestones and lived on unscathed. I want to wrap my arms around the back of that time and tear it open again. I want to tell you about my day and destroy each part of it as we go through. I want to fling them hard behind me: living fish, strawberry jam, morning fog, other people and animals. This is the first day for me to make meaning in this way I don’t know yet.
I remember peeing around 4:30 am and picturing someone viewing me, captured for art. Another part of me was already asking: and how does that make you feel? and what do you think that means? As if knowing I was making something meant I was in control. I was still asleep. My body was capturing information but not recording it or interpreting. The day hadn’t even begun on paper yet. Already I was using it as a frame to imagine what others might think of me inside it. I can tell I value beauty when I step out of the frame and think about how I live. I think it's beautiful. I try to only wear and eat pretty things. All my friends have soft, interesting hair and full round cheeks like baby angels. It always smells like summer camp even in the very beginning of January at 6 am on my balcony.
I want to fling them hard behind me: living fish, strawberry jam, morning fog, other people and animals.
I remember the smell today. The air in California has stayed that similar since I was a child. I have had enough days to know how to do this shit. I smoke weed whenever I want. I try my best to stay off the internet but I don’t let it torture me. I don’t believe in going without. I talk to whoever I find myself missing. There are some people who haven’t heard from me for long awful stretches and I feel guilty but I don’t miss them yet. I write whenever I want. Usually around third or fourth thing in the morning. Dawn belongs to my perfect cat, Usidor, who needs me the moment the night looks to leave.
At 7:00 am I write FECUNDITY at the top of a new notebook page and begin tightening the writing in a poem that is still holding its breath to end. I think on the yellow tablecloth on the kitchen table. Thank fuck for other people. 7:40 or so Nat comes in and Emmylou yowls in the doorway for her breakfast. New sound and movement inside the day! New will to make the day with! By 8:30 we are walking, drinking coffee, petting neighborhood cats, making all kinds of plans. We go to the store for produce and dairy products. At 10 am we make salad because it sounds good. Before 11 am I cry in awe. Do I have to stand by that? Do I have to make it mean something? Can I just confess to you?
Do I have to make it mean something? Can I just confess to you?
I wake up Kate, put on a pink dress, heat up a slice of pizza, and we pile in the car for the aquarium. Out the door around 12. We are there the whole middle of the day. My attention takes everything from this place for this time. What do other people need? Where can I put my body to be out of the way in a crowd? I still want to see the trout, the sea moss, the nurse shark and I’m feeling brave enough to feed the macaws. We move as a dotted line across a paper map. We spent too much money to be this fatigued. Most days, in the middle of the day, I get mad at myself for being exhausted. How can I let this happen so early? While so much precious is happening?
We eat popcorn by the handful behind a dirty piece of plexiglass. On the other side, harbor seals move the way they do on land. A day doesn’t have to mean more as it gets longer. It doesn’t have to go on only through time, it can hop across other distances. Kate has been keeping a log of all the aquariums she visits. I watch her write the animals perform under the heading ‘Long Beach’. I wonder what makes a watched meal different from all the rest. Are other animals in different parts of the country checked out from their audience by comparison? I read over her notes. Inconclusive.
I am having fun getting sore, pacing and observing. A child wears a tail that wags, a child tells her mother this is the best day of her life so far, a child sits criss-cross applesauce just in front of where I’m walking, she grabs onto her mother’s pulling arm but stays put. She is staring up at a whale strung from the ceiling. I buy three postcards to hang above my bed: an otter, a puffer fish, and a ray. On the ride home a man I am floating past yells out pretty in pink! for no reason other than just to say it. It's nice being who I am. I like being me in the world but thank fuck for coming home. The two screaming cats. The pink blanket and my book on the teal couch. We made it back to the front gate around 4:30.
Ben was on the porch next door stripping and winding up Christmas lights. Craig ran out the front door as we came up the sidewalk. It feels good to be somebodies’ uncomplicated and pleasant neighbor. We ordered Chinese take out from the place they say is best in town. It got to us early at like 6. We watch a couple episodes of our show about mold. I liked it better towards the beginning, before the plot had to answer for the world it built. Now it is just nice to be watching something. My evenings are about passivity. I wear myself out by 7. It's as if the day is being taken from me. I take a hot shower. I use my fancy soaps and then I put on a long black cotton t-shirt that goes down past my knees. I don’t write anything down. The day is lopsided. The day starts heavy and the back side is exhausted. If I was living to tell you something, I’d keep enough of myself alive to tell a story with. But I’m living to fall asleep by 9. I’m living to reach night and feel I need it.
Andie Klarin lives in Long Beach.