sticky grief tears

and a few of my favorite seasons

LIFE RX 21 OCT 24

the sun, and an excerpt from Elisa Shua Dusapin’s Winter in Sokcho:

The temple was built into the cliffs above the beaches. The nuns were meditating, we'd have to wait. A fine rain began to fall, dampening the ground. Then, suddenly, a downpour, rain funneling down on us, falling in tortents. We took shelter under the overhanging roof. A raspy sound of chanting filtered through the walls. Echoing across the courtyard. The building was dotted with statuettes of dragons, snakes, phoenixes, tigers, tortoises. Kerrand walked around inspecting them. He stopped in front of a tortoise, knelt down and touched its shell. A nun had told me during a school trip that each animal corresponded to a different season.

“There are five of them,” Kerrand counted.

“The snake is a kind of pivot point, without it the ses-sons can't change from one to the next. The tortoise is the guardian of winter. In spring, the dragon has to find the snake or the tortoise won't allow it to pass.”

the aleatory

Here are some of my favorite seasons:

High school football (drink Josta with lawnmower clippings mixed in bc you’re country kids and that’s the druggiest thing you can think of)

When the return of the sun after a long winter startles you, as if a hot-blooded animal had landed on your arm

Family put back in their boxes on Jan. 2, resumption of normal radio listening and solitude

Hopeful era of thinking this is the year you will make preserved lemons to gift everyone for Christmas, if you started yesterday (delusional) (current)

Deep winter listening to Ray Davies on the car radio talking about how in the early days of the Kinks, he destroyed their amp with a knitting needle (passenger seat only)

First sign of spring when the bathtub smells like mud

Discovered a new salad that you really, really, really like

Fool’s spring when undergrads put their pasty stomachs to the sun in nearness to a boombox

Tears pooling in the hollow of your throat, then a chocolate malt

August day of a slightly darker blue, insinuating the unstoppable death of the sun

Blind winter

Coffee in a saucepan winter

Softball practice got me looking good (bc of the sprints) (smells like hay)

Rings of Saturn summer

Turning in final papers and looking for a summer job waiting tables largely as an aesthetic project (sorry Austin Diner)

New friend

Continuing to live In Spite of Everything (February)

the assignment

find the snake, or the tortoise won’t allow you to pass.

writing prompt

make a list of your favorite seasons (and share it with me!)

a chune

“Schöne Hände,” Cluster & Eno

If I could make a holiday, it would be a commemoration of the last day that you wear your winter coat before spring cools and hardens and becomes real enough that you can trust it with your bare arms. Specifically, a commemoration of the objects you left in your coat pockets on the last day you wear it, because they are always shockingly honest about who you were and what was happening. Carmex, movie theater tickets, a lipstick color you tried to make happen, a fistful of cough drops. Never anything important enough that you go searching for it, but never anything casual enough that it lacks a very particular psychological odor. In my holiday, we would go around leaving five dollar bills in each others’ pockets on the last day of winter coat wearing so there was something nice to find in the future, on the first cold day. But of course, my holiday is impossible: We never know exactly when the last day of winter (observed) will be. Otherwise our pockets would be vainly composed, and not so honest. Should I write a book of impossible holidays? y/n

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credits: small spells tarot deck by Rachel Howe
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
“Schöne Hände,” Cluster & Eno

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dear diary, what is going to happen to us when we get to the end of this tarot deck? To me? To you? will we choose another deck and keep going? Are the pages of the calendar flipping by in montage? I learned today that grief tears are sticky because they contain an elevated amount of protein (in case you ever wondered if there was substance to your grief the answer is yes, and it’s protein) and I learned this because I cried some sticky tears for my childhood, and then googled “grief tears sticky.” (Don’t worry, I’m fine—it’s the kind of cry where you suddenly understand yourself better than before, so ultimately nice.) But I do suppose sticky grief tears are making me think about endings of all minor kinds, including the end of this project. And what will we do with ourselves then? soft breezes? boss you around? tell you my favorite things to yell at the batter during the baseball game? XS

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