Diary 15
RIVER TRAIL
We were all wading through the same waters.
The family speaking Spanish I heard first, then the children squealing and splashing from behind a rock I had to climb above to see. I noticed that the mother was in the water too, despite the large movements her children made; she wasn’t afraid of getting wet.
I walked further down the trail and found another nook in the trees where the water was shallow and cool. I contemplated shedding my clothes before I entered, but then I heard the next mother. She spoke to her child, gave them directions for navigating the creek. The mother’s head was visible through some bushes, and she eventually emerged into view with a dog that swam near her thighs. The child began to cry from a spot I couldn’t see. “Do you want mama to come back?” she asked the sobs, “mama’s coming back.” She shuffled behind the bushes again, the dog followed.
I sunbathed for a while with my t-shirt around my neck. Three men, each with their own dog, entered the water behind me. Their dogs sounded threatening, but when I peeked in their direction, I saw a simple game of fetch.
A couple playing Drake from a speaker lounged in the shade.
Nearing the end of the trail, a little girl met my gaze and waved. She wore a tankini and flip flops, and ran back towards her family ahead of me. “I was just going to checkout the trail, it looks like you have to climb, I also saw a fox den, I’m not sure but I think I saw one” she rambled, a grunt from her parent who wasn’t listening. I was listening, though, we were in the same waters.
NATURE VS. NURTURE // NERI OXMAN
I was listening to an interview with Neri Oxman for the “Time Sensitive Podcast,” where she discussed that historically, as far back as when we were still hunters and gatherers, women would give birth at night because that’s when they felt the most protected. Sheltered from the elements, with their husbands at their sides (typically out hunting for food during the day), they would have their babies around four in the morning. Statistically, women have continued to give birth around this time. “There is something to be said about Nature versus nurture that is still within us… the clock that has kept going since 200,000 years ago when we were first introduced to this universe, or evolved into it” says Neri. I loved how this put our biology into perspective- it made me think about the human body as a site of intelligence, of history. I found it so fascinating that the culture from hundreds of thousands of years ago has been preserved in us in this way.
MICROCOSM
Was craving a quiche at 3:30 in the morning. Missing some of the ingredients- a stick of butter, half and half, chives, red peppers- I drove to WinCo and bought what I needed. Shopping carts scattered the empty parking lot, and when I walked inside, canned and boxed food littered nearly every aisle. The workers looked undone, fraying at the edges from an overnight shift. “You have really beautiful eyes,” said a man restocking the shelves, jars of pickled veggies tucked under his arm. It was 3:30 in the morning so I hesitated to respond, didn’t know conversation could be addressed to me at this hour or that it was actually happening. Everything seemed illusory at 3:30 in the morning when most are not awake, and to be in the store at this time, while the workers prepared for the next day, felt like a microcosm of sorts.
QUARANTINE
Evening is blue and orange; indigo and the honeyed light of the lamp post, right outside of my bedroom window. Shades are the spectrum on which I measure time, primal instincts I suppose. The dull ivory of early afternoon on a cloudy day. Moss green on the fourth day. I read a book with a turquoise cover and am adrift in an ocean colored silver, a book with a black cover and am on my elbows in a battlefield stained hickory. Time exists within these novels, too. Trying not to count the hours I’ve spent in bed, but the subtle shades and tones I perceive from this one spot in my bedroom measure the time for me.
LOCKS
I have a habit of locking my keys in my truck. The first time it happened, I watched a YouTube video that taught me how to use the radio antenna to shimmy the lock, and now I rely on this tactic each time it happens. Makes me look like I’m breaking into someone else’s truck. Maybe I shouldn’t be sharing this technique on here.
WATER BALLOONS
Aria and I spent the afternoon playing with water balloons. One after another we snapped onto the faucet of a hose, watched the balloons swell with water as the rubber stretched to translucence that gave the illusion of the sun swimming inside. The sun scorched our backs. The water ran hot.
RHYTHM
On the freeway at night going 70 mph. I recall the neighbor playing mariachi music, earlier in the night, belting out the lyrics to songs that we sipped our drinks and listened to; not enraptured by any means but comfortable, his music sequestering the urge to conversate. Now I’m flashing past silhouettes of the hills like multiple exposures. The cars going south move in tandem, flickering past my windshield, their headlights throbbing like one organ.