everything else: three january days
dear internet,
one: drink
i cried in the shower thinking of a coffee my grandmother used to make. later i would joke to a friend about this, narrativizing it (‘and that's how i knew my period was due!’), but the truth is that the moment was not proustian, it was not nostalgic or even complex, i was simply thinking of how the coffee was so perfectly and equally all of its component parts: hot, strong, sweet, milky.
two: walk
i made tracks on new snow and then turned to look at the footsteps that hadn't been there until i created them. the snow was sliding off leaves, making startling loud thunks, and beneath the leaves the blackbirds were rustling, and behind them the dirty algal water stood still, and further in the distance were the joggers going past bare-headed, and the cyclists, and the parents pushing their children on sleds. i walked longer than i had planned, across the slush of a four-way street and to the lake. i was so cold that i was experiencing everything both viscerally and at a remove, some things immediate—aching fingers, unwieldy layers, precarity of icy ground—and others rendered unreal by their blanketing. the lake was a dark uniform grey, and the people around me, although they laughed and talked, seemed oddly muted, like characters in a half-remembered picture book. then the cathedral bells began their long deep ringing, and the snow turned to a sharp, audible ice, and i began to walk back home.
three: knife
too late, but still earlier than usual, i registered the darkening of my vision for what it was and took a paracetamol. through the first dull wave of pain i sat with my head in my hands, a posture that always makes me feel strange, like something someone in a movie would do—something for an audience. then i went to the kitchen and chopped, very slowly and carefully, three cloves of garlic, half a red onion, and nineteen cherry tomatoes. a month ago the knife i was holding had slipped from my grasp and made three nicks across two fingers, but today, despite the fact that i had to occasionally pause to close my eyes and take some long breaths, i progressed without incident. earlier in the day i'd taken a walk that had left me so exhausted that the whole way back i had to chant in my head, just a few steps more, just a few steps more and you're home, and now in the kitchen i was continuing this bargaining, willing myself to the other end of the meal. i was generous with the olive oil and remembered to add sugar to the tomatoes. my pasta, of which i could not eat more than four spoonfuls, was perfect, the best i've ever made.
love,
t