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June 8, 2023

everything else: track changes

dear internet,

“like a baptism,” said my flatmate, “but dirtier, and with ducks.” she was trying to convince me to swim in the canal, a narrow stretch of sky-coloured water occupied by boats and birds and, in summer, people. when i went to the canal last summer i walked along its banks and in the hedges there were wrens and chaffinches. when we went to the canal last week i did not swim but stretched out on a blanket and read three pages of a book, while to our left two men practiced stage combat (swords, shields), and to our right two women sat in bikinis with their knitting. a decade ago in another country i laughed at the europeans who at the first sign of sun lay on the grass and took off their clothes; we’d look out at them from behind glass, insulated with our air-conditioning and brain-freeze frappuccinos. now i am the person preparing to sit on the grass in my swimsuit and to swim in the canal with the dirt and the ducks. it is nice to notice change, growth, difference, newness: the way i have learnt to cut the hard, fresh bread that my flatmate brings home weekly with a serrated knife the length of my arm, or how sometimes i order a beer. i’m knitting tiny little squares and piling them up, watching my movement become more automatic, a lattice of loops appear. the squares don’t add up to anything but one day i’ll look back and see what they were building towards.

love,
t

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