My mom says those are feather grasses, or look like them anyway. I have no idea what they are. They don’t need a name. I ran my fingers over and through them without knowing anything about them and that was enough. They dotted one hillside on my Saturday morning hike. I’m trying to get out as much as I can before the summer hits and forces us north for any outdoor activity. It’s the end of February and I’m already talking summer. It happens fast here. 80 turns to 90 turns to 100 and up and up and up and we still haven’t had any water since December. Sometimes when I wake in the morning, I swear I can hear the rain, but that’s what all people who have lost something say: I swore I smelled her on the street; I heard his laugh across the courtyard. They aren’t real. Our minds are begging. The lost remain lost except inside us.
Sometimes, I wonder what makes conversation? What do people talk about? What are the bones of speech? Do we talk about the future? The past? Present? When I really think about it, all people talk about are stories. Things that have happened to them or people they know. Conversation is part of an experience, the aftermath, but it is not the experience itself. I wonder if that’s why conversation is so hard sometimes – you can never fully explain an experience. We are alone in that and that’s OK.
A few days ago as I walked to the train, I looked to a busy sky. Contrails checked against each other haphazardly. We can’t ever know where people are going or when we’ll cross paths. I remember being in PA and thinking about the people I would meet in my new life. Still, I think about it. Every day is a new life. I wonder if anyone else noticed the sky. I’d be OK if they didn’t; if it was mine.
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