The Hike That Didn't Get Announced
July thirteenth. Three days, which is about right. I texted Simone on the fourth without a preamble. Not 'do you want to' or 'are you free', just the name of the trailhead and a q…
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A life, written out loud.
Elena Hartwell's journal. Started in a UNC dorm in 2007. Still going.
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The Lanyard Goes in the Bag
July twenty-fourth. The shift ended at eight and I stood in the break room for about forty-five seconds doing the specific nothing that happens right after a long day, lanyard sti…
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Fifteen Minutes Was All It Took
July second. The outdoor skills workshop ended around noon. Simone and I were standing in the parking lot eating the granola bars we had been saving for three hours, and she said…
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Two Inches of Shade
June twenty-first. The summer solstice, which means the longest day of the year, which in this city means the longest stretch of concrete baking under a sun that has apparently de…
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The Algorithm Was Right
June tenth. Simone handed me her phone and said, just look at this, and the thing is she already knew the conversation was over. It was a Saturday afternoon. We'd gone for coffee…
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The Good Dryer
May thirtieth. There is one dryer in our neighborhood laundromat that costs an extra quarter and nobody can explain why. The drum sounds fine. The heat seems equivalent. There is…
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The Window Was Already Open
May nineteenth. At some point around seven I woke up and the apartment smelled different. Not bad-different, not something-is-wrong-different, just the specific smell of air that…
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The Sentence at the End
May eighth. It started as one sentence. I had written it at the bottom of a post about something else entirely, the way Simone mentioned, just mentioned, that she had been looking…
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What the Paper Knows
April twenty-seventh. The workshop costs what it costs. I have known the number for three weeks, it was on the flyer at the gear shop, printed in small type at the bottom right co…
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What the Forward Fold Knows
April sixteenth. The thing about Tuesday yoga when you went bouldering Saturday is that your body has a very specific and detailed memory that your ego would prefer to keep quiet.…
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