I’m thinking about this now because it doesn’t really apply anymore which is both nice and sad! Nice because life is quiet now and sad because life is quiet now.
“I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels. This thread. All our feeling, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up.. like it’s all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed.”
There is surprisingly little to enter, in this immense bright smoky landscape, and what she wants—someplace private, silent, where she can read, where she can think— is not readily available. If she goes to a store or restaurant, she’ll have to perform—she’ll have to pretend to need or want something that does not, in any way, interest her. She’ll have to move in an orderly fashion; she’ll have to examine merchandise and refuse offers of help, or she’ll have to sit at a table, order something, consume it, and leave. If she simply parks her car somewhere and sits there, a woman alone, she’ll be vulnerable to criminals and to those who’ll try to protect her from criminals. She’ll be too exposed; she’ll look too peculiar. Even a library would be too public, as would a park.
