Good enough

Outubro foi… anticlimático. Meio que um fracasso. Chuva, chuva e mais chuva, acompanhada de um vendaval que arrancou as folhas das árvores em tempo recorde, muito antes de eu ter tempo, inclinação e oportunidade de admirá-las. As lojas, geralmente cheias de caveiras e abóboras, estavam desprovidas de quinquilharias de halloween. Todos esperavam um Dia das Bruxas fraco e não estavam errados: um total de zero crianças bateu na minha porta em busca de guloseimas e estavam certos. Arriscar um vírus em troca de chocolate barato? Não vejo vantagem.

Comi todos os doces que comprei por precaução, assisti alguns filmes de terror, escutei minha (sempre maravilhosa) playlist de halloween, não fiz um jack’o’lantern, mal decorei a casa e fui para a cama em estado de sugar high, low spirit.

A boa notícia é que estamos vivos. E isso é bom o suficiente.

What the living do.

“Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.

And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss–we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:

I am living. I remember you.”

– Marie Howe