Let Me Get That For You: Choreographed Movement For Being Caught in a Sudden Rainstorm

It's taking me time to emerge from a cocoon made something of vital attention and action, and a pandemic. Somewhere, in between it all, I was in grad school. Next semester will be my last. Even as I type that sentence, I feel the soured pain of denied pleasure spread across my face in the beginning of a smile. (It's too early; don't jinx it.)

Since ending my most recent semester last week, I have been wrapped in literature, the news, protest, information, a new razor and a satisfying bar of soap that smells of walnut shells and tar. There are a line of masks hanging by my front door. Some are clear face shields. Most are black. There is a green one in there for a surgical flair and because it feels a bit more precise than the others do.

Today I needed to hide out. The day has been spent mostly in an orange bikini top, a thin black slip, and with a freshly painted pedicure I did myself. A deep blue-green.  I have been watching films in Spanish and noticing, again, the pause and dance that happens in doorways with con permiso and with pasa. I feel satisfied in recognizing the conjugation in the sharp edged gossip of se follaron.

I've spent a good deal of the day on the floor.

Today, no book holds my attention but, in the one book that held my attention for a bit longer than the others, a man is found laying on the floor by his assistant. The assistant asks him if he's okay, if he fell, etc. and the man responds with annoyance at his questions. He is simply smoking on the floor and is it really so strange? He goes on to proclaim the function and necessity of laying on the floor at times:

The ground or, in this case, the floor, is the safest, firmest and most modest place there is; and, as well as providing the best view of the sky or the ceiling, it's an ideal spot in which to do some thinking [...]You'll have to get used to seeing me here, because once on the floor you cannot fall over or, indeed, fall any lower, a great advantage when it comes to making decisions, which one should always base on the worst possible hypothesis, if not on sheer desperation and its usual companion, meanness, then there's no risk of your giving way to sentimentality or being disappointed by whatever decision you happen to take.

be loved; be well,

k.

[Image: Guy Bourdin]
[Excerpt (As if the punctuation did not give it away):  Javier Marías, Thus Bad Begins]