SWORDFERN
Rooted, I used to think.

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Purgatory - Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019
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Day Thirteen - Thursday, Feb. 07, 2019
Atonement - Thursday, Feb. 07, 2019


Wednesday, Apr. 30, 2003 @ 10:46 pm
Sea to Sky



I woke at dawn, my mind clear and ready to write.

Across the bridges I drove, my sister in the passenger seat and the ocean over her shoulder. I left her downtown in a flurry of pigeons. Her black shoulderbag flashed the sunlight into my eyes. I blinked and was transported to the treed malls of campus.

Petals flocked like the pigeons, pink rain spattering down from the clear blue sky.

Two hours of blue-sky studying. There's Andrew. There's Ali. There's that Guy. Tick tock two hours of blue-ink writing.

Down to the shore, sun-baked dashboard, sea soaked air; my lips salty in the brine-laced air. A handful of seaglass in my pocket later, I flipflop past the lounging firemen and sail back across the bridges.

I watch the wind twist a white dandelion head and the blowball breaks up into anenome tentacles. The seeds scatter into the sky.

My Dad comes home from a funeral. His hair is whiter than I remember and there is new scalp there, new bald freckled skull exposed just like Grampa's. He comes down the hall. I'm sorting notes. I look up.

I follow him up the mountain. He paces the start. The air cools and dries out the further into the woods we go. The whoof whoof of the grouse sounds and reverberates off the towering cedar trunks. He lets me pace the second half. I push on, he falls back. Pushing sweat, passing trim-looking women. The chunky girl is passing us... and so is that old man. God the semi-mountain air is liquid cool in your hot lungs.

Honey lager. Congratulations. You made it. It's all over.

And it is. Life begins. There, in the tinned fish and vegetable aisle is the first boy you kissed, his hair still a ball of red fire. Meet Lilian. Hello, Lilian, you have found yourself a keeper, if you're into that strange sort of keeper. I'm jumpy and heart-racing excited for some reason. Does he see how fat I've become? Oh wait, Lilian kinda has a double chin. Alright, not so bad. Wow I'm really hyper. Next aisle is my Biology 12 teacher. Christ, this is such a time warp.

I come to rest here. ASDF JKL: and then I read the email. We cannot interview you if you are overseas.

Heart sinks. I was so high, the highest I've naturally been in my life. One of the best days ever. Bliss. Sad content. Wonder. Life changing and accelerating. Heart slammed into a wrought iron gate. The hinges wail in protest.

I take back my heart and hitch it up to my veins and arteries and let the blood flow again. This is the choice: time vs money. Life is short. Life is life. I'll live. You don't have the right to steal my time.


Roots | Shoots