I’m writing about the extraordinary.
Cognitive functions deteriorate with exhaustion; I once hallucinated midnight bicyclists and figures running through the woods after summiting Mt. Rainier.
I’m committing to following this path as best I can, although I can’t see the turns ahead and everyone disagrees about the map.
When Joanna and I bought groceries the next day from a store unironically named Winn-Dixie, the cashier chatted with us about our beer and asked, “So what are ya’ll doing later today?” in a way that made me feel rude for not including her.
Her writing was an act of taking a love that for centuries had been pushed to the margins and defiantly sticking it on the center of the page.
Standing there, I have a similar sensation to the one on the Peter Pan ride at Disney World when your pirate ship escapes through the window of the children’s bedroom to reveal a sleepy London beneath you.
Those who drive sex education policies, it would seem, care more about ideology than accuracy—more about ideology, in fact, than effectiveness, teen moms, or lifelong diseases, either.
Maybe the idea of just anyone traipsing into their precious little neighborhood and enjoying the benefits that they enjoy is too much to cope with. But the reasons ultimately don’t matter.
Never before in my life have I been physically stopped in my tracks by the scent of flowers. Never until I moved to Seattle.
