1.9.09

Notes on a Night Swim

ROAD ENDS AT WATER           

Three-quarter-fat moons

A mauvish, immaculately grey man-made lake, edged in woolly, unruly pine tree cutouts

Glen Miller from a car, with a bike in the back seat

Virg: It’s times like these that I realize why I’m glad I’m not fat.

Everyone else:  glad I’m not: ungrateful, sick of life, of the unexpected. planned. pretentious. afraid of water. afraid of letting go, letting in, giving up. afraid of what they think. glad I’m not dumb, too old, too tired to learn, to change, to go for a swim, when the road ends at water.

Virg: This is why everything I have breaks (lightly touching her grandmother’s chains and pendants), because I have no regard for them (hands to the air, and back down with the released trinkets, a pair of wings and stones to her sides and chest).

Balancing acts.

Virg: She said, you may not be able to do it now, but you will in one lifetime.  I admired her optimism. You have to be grounded to the earth.

What’s that marker for? I asked.  Virg: There are models weighted to the bottom, waiting for headlight photo shoots.

All hams are hit and miss.

Virg: Well I haven’t perfected my routine yet.  I’m only 22. 

4 comments:

rosalyn said...

beautiful photograph.

Kaitlyn said...

i love the photo-narrative idea. it reflects the story well (no pun.) the photographs are gorgeous. it would be nice if I could see the photos as I'm reading though.

mooresy said...

These are nights worth remembering. You've made Virginia effortlessly elegant in the way you portray her...I can see her hands in breezy movements, and her light words bouncing out across the lake to echo back with meaning. This is such a beautiful, succinct capturing of the moment. The photo is perfect.

Unknown said...

i second peepee on the idea of a photo narrative. this is by far the best solution for a case of clemson-sickness.

also: i think this is at the core of multilocalicism. all i'm missing is sound.