It's September; I am looking for a coat. The dry grass trembles stiffly in the wind, mist sharpening the brown into a shimmering copper. The rain smells like cake, like a warm inside. I pick my way through a back closet. The rough felt of well worn wool brushes against my face. It's itchy in an intimate way. The kind of itchy that reminds you of the comfortable and the uncomfortable, the difficult charm of history. My fingers find a piece of thick blue fabric, feeling the warm weight. I wrap it around my shoulders; it takes the form of a coat, an old, itchy, lovely, dusty, blue coat. All bundled up, I step out into the rain.
I walk down the street. The pavement is like a piece of fruit disolving. Relieved it no longer has to hold itself tight, it smells like wet berries and fallen plums. We are all rotting, relaxing, and our juices are seeping into the dry earth.
I head down the street, to the edge. I watch the mist tumble out, and in. As my hair becomes wet, I sit down on a piece of driftwood, slipping my hands into the pockets of my coat. The sea and the sky are both grey: two greys, two blues, two moving things becoming one. The ocean is clearer than I have ever seen it, and hard. The sky breaks on its surface. We sit there for a few moments, my coat and I.
On the edge of memory, of making, I skip stones. Eventually, they sink. I can see them fall to the ocean floor. Everything smells. The salt, the dirt, the mist, the stones, my coat. I run across the sands, hoping my fast moving legs will set me free. I leap from my log, but my coat holds me to the earth; it’s good for walking, good for sitting. I am glad to have it around my shoulders as I stare into a sea, a vast vague sea.
The coat was my grandfather's and he was a fisherman. For him an ocean held no fear, but it was full of fish.
I walk down the street. The pavement is like a piece of fruit disolving. Relieved it no longer has to hold itself tight, it smells like wet berries and fallen plums. We are all rotting, relaxing, and our juices are seeping into the dry earth.
I head down the street, to the edge. I watch the mist tumble out, and in. As my hair becomes wet, I sit down on a piece of driftwood, slipping my hands into the pockets of my coat. The sea and the sky are both grey: two greys, two blues, two moving things becoming one. The ocean is clearer than I have ever seen it, and hard. The sky breaks on its surface. We sit there for a few moments, my coat and I.
On the edge of memory, of making, I skip stones. Eventually, they sink. I can see them fall to the ocean floor. Everything smells. The salt, the dirt, the mist, the stones, my coat. I run across the sands, hoping my fast moving legs will set me free. I leap from my log, but my coat holds me to the earth; it’s good for walking, good for sitting. I am glad to have it around my shoulders as I stare into a sea, a vast vague sea.
The coat was my grandfather's and he was a fisherman. For him an ocean held no fear, but it was full of fish.
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