Fizz bar & grill

walking

I am still getting over a cold. The other day I had a fever but I ran out of cold medicine so I had to walk to the store down the street. This is an illustration of a dog surprising me as I sleepily focused on the beautiful leaves on the ground instead of my surroundings. In the moment it felt so exciting and life-altering. I enjoy how mundane it actually was.

dead pigeon

I was sitting in the grass waiting for a friend when I smelled something foul. Sure enough there was a dead, eyeless bird beside me. A rock cradled its head like a pillow.

"There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." - Sylvia Plath

I was fully dressed and ready for the day earlier, but something knocked me into undoing it all and slinking into a puddle of water:

Warm. the icy cold tub shakes my skin into thousands of tiny bumps while the shrill contrast of steaming water hits like lightning. for a small time my body is very tense and alive. then it sweeps into a deep calm. toes swishing water everywhere. examining the visual distortion as it moves. making my belly sink and emerge like a whale’s back.

My fingers turn into little prunes and the water loses its heat. the bathroom seems even emptier than before. with a lonely shiver I am leaving deep blue, soggy footprints in the rug as the drain gurgles down gulps of cold water. I put back on the clothes that might not end up seeing the real light of today.

A Walrus in My Stomach

“I am not sure when mourning is successful, or when one has fully mourned another human being. I’m certain, though, that it does not mean that one has forgotten the person, or that something else comes along to take his or her place. I don’t think it works that way. I think instead that one mourns when one accepts the fact that the loss one undergoes will be one that changes you, changes you possibly forever, and that mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation the full result of which you cannot know in advance.”

- Judith Butler, Undoing Gender