Belgium | the post calvin

Burial of the Life of an Old River

In just five years, the Zenne was erased from the historic center.

I wish that loneliness were linear—I feel lonely in new ways, and old ones too.

What a strange feeling, to re-remember. How has this recollection been altered by time? What other pieces of it have I forgotten?

I collect these moments, these small intimacies with strangers, shoring up an evidence base of my own existence and its overlap with others’.

I feel the in-person lived reality of the bystander effect, to which I’ve always told myself I would be the exception.

As someone drawn to haphazardness in my organized religion, I was charmed.

I somehow want to “succeed” in my social interactions. Oldest daughter syndrome claims another victim.

Contrarianism is in a way innately consumptive—you take something in, and you become the opposite of it.

I can join the response to “Le seigneur soit avec toi” with “et avec votre esprit.”