here, somewhere.

a mark on a blank map

The first week I lived here, I woke up every morning cold, tired. Sick to my stomach. My house is out in the woods; now, November, enough leaves have fallen that we can peer through the branches and see our neighbors. But when I moved, it was still orange-autumn, thick and crackling and filling the air so it seemed we were alone.

I slept on an air mattress snagged at a tag sale. I unpacked a suitcase and then repacked it to paint the room. A little woman with long, white hair chatted with me in line at the paint counter. I want an accent wall to compliment my headboard, she said. She pulled up a picture of the headboard and fanned her paint samples like a magician wrangling his cards. I think this is the one. A deep purple color like pokeberry skins. I think that’s good, I said. I showed her my swatch; a pinky-beige called Paper Heart which she approved.

Carmen visited me and we slept on the floor together until my IKEA orders arrived. We built a bed and a bookshelf, then slept on the floor again when the headboard collapsed. Missing critical screws.

Matt and Foster put up a birdfeeder outside my window. I spy on passerines all day and wild turkeys in the mornings. I take walks in the pathless woods, climbing over low stone walls, sinking into mud around the creek, looping and retracing my steps until I make it back to the house. Back home.

The dog couldn’t be alone at night when Matt left. He cried and slammed himself against my door until I got up and let him out (all hours). This morning, December already, he whimpered until I let him out to run wild in the snow. Matt slept in while I made coffee; Rufus scratched at the door and I let him in. Drank the coffee. Scratched at the door and I let him out. Mug in the dishwasher. Water in the bowl.

There was a girl with huge, hazel eyes who visited the Museum with her six cousins (she explained to me), judiciously ensuring that they got a scavenger hunt for the littlest cousin, too shy or too preoccupied to come up to the desk. Another time, a couple prodded their grandchild, you remember Eric Carle? He wrote the Ugly Caterpillar. Ugly caterpillar! he cooed. One more favorite: a family of five sitting in the West Gallery, discussing the museum loudly. It smells like goats in here, the father said. Like pee, someone added. Like goat pee. The older daughter ran over to one of the illustrations, look, here’s the goat. Tapping on the wall beside it. Here’s the goat.

What have I done in two and a half months? Read well, slept well, watched the woods fill up with snow. Written two good pages and ten bad ones. Lived beyond my means. I am trying to sharpen this writing to a point, but every pass softens it again. Let me end things where I am: Bradly International. See the carpet with its tangled, airporty pattern, vacuumed into permanent submission. See the people flowing all directions, looking now at the ground, now at others rushing against the tide, now at the shops and restaurants with their kitsch decadence. See me, here, writing this postcard to you/me/us in the future, wearing my favorite rings, my hair in an awkward stage.