humming along

august 23

august is so full it’s bursting. of beads of sweat and ants in the bathroom and the uncomfortable  shifting of bones as they feel out a more spacious home. the back of my neck prickles with the proximity to everything, like one big pot of soup. i float somewhere near the middle, cutting a cord and hanging onto the limp string.

when i was very young, i used to think the ever-present tone of hissing cicadas was the sound the sun made when it was really hot out. i remember visiting a family friend who lived in st. paul, and while we walked on a little wooded path, they exclaimed that the bugs were really loud this year. i looked up at the red-orange sun of late summer, realizing then the mystery had been shattered.

it has been a month of passive observing. i felt things hit me in the chest and absorb. the full moon shared my sister’s beautiful face, pale and glaring. i had to look away from the shining intensity of it as it followed me home. the blue line train’s roof once reflected waves onto the station’s ceiling; when the cars pulled away, the reflections leaped around like the foamy green northern lights i saw in march. the train howled through the tunnel and out. lightening bugs blinked lazily through curdled humidity. the milkweed on the corner of my block grew as tall as me. i counted two monarchs this month and mourned that small number.

sometimes, amy and i gathered in the living room to spend time with God, the purple neon butterfly grace made for me for my 22nd birthday. God’s hue oozed onto the cream walls of our most beautiful room, and i wished the previous tenants had left them lavender so God could have some company when we retired for the evening.

God (2022)

i rotated my plants for something to do. i hoped it’d turn them into well-rounded individuals and i grinned gleefully when i saw them reaching out toward the sun in the “right” way. i loved coming home to observe how much they’d grown while i was gone. sometimes, i’d wait days to visit the living room because i liked to be surprised by their ability to climb all over each other more and more with each passing day. one day, the tendrils of my pothos will curl across the yellow-orange hardwood.

i went to a swedish restaurant for the first time this august and was very charmed by the whole experience. they gave me pickled cucumbers as my side and they reminded me of the quick pickles my grandma would serve at dinner but fancier. she used to have us over every wednesday, and we’d eat our quick pickles and our roast or takeout chinese or hot dish, and then we’d watch dancing with the stars or sometimes the bachelor. from the other room, we could hear the faint sounds of my grandpa watching wheel of fortune or maybe reruns of his favorite show, the mentalist. he only watches westerns now, the old man’s prophecy always to be fulfilled.

after the swedish restaurant, i called her and we talked on the phone about the bachelorette and how silly all the contestants are and i told her about the pickles and how everything reminds me of everything. she was having heart surgery the following morning so we discussed our aversion to hospitals and i mentioned that when she broke her hip a few years back and i stayed with my grandpa, he requested meatloaf despite my being a vegetarian at the time. by coincidence, she had just made meatloaf in hopes that they could have meatloaf sandwiches the next day if the doctors didn’t make her stay at the hospital overnight.

everything is becoming so scattered i don’t know how to keep track of it all. thoughts drip together like sweat beads, and i can’t remember anything that happened over the overwhelming desire to wipe the dampness off my brow and upper lip. the beauty of august is that it signals an end. i typically push forward shoulders first through this hot month, looking forward to the comfort of cool wind and changing leaves. but the end posts always stretch out farther and farther in front of me. my paternal grandfather used to tell me that a great way to run long distance is to pick a point along the path to run to, then pick another point up ahead once you’ve reached that first point. august felt like a kaleidoscopic, ever-moving goalpost. now, on to the soft.