New Project: Autobiography of an Unreliable Narrator
Driving home from Panera, I saw the first three splatters of raindrops on my windshield before I saw any fall and realized that it was finally raining. My neighbor has her door open to let in the air, a decision I replicated when I realized that it was much cooler outside than in. Although it will still be too warm to sleep under it when I go to bed, I will put the summer blanket that has been banished to the floor for a week and a half beside me on the mattress, knowing that I will wake up at 3 am feeling cold.
“The heat broke” is the phrase that comes to mind, of course, and I am reminded of that scene in all those movies where a child was sick, and her fever finally broke. Living through this heat wave has been like the fever dream of our collective unconscious, where reality melts around the edges and it’s hard to find any sort of narrative drive to push things forward. We’re not out of the woods yet--it is still summer after all-but the high won’t be back above 90 for at least a week, whereas it’s been over 100 for days. But my motivation has crawled out from whatever cool, dark place it was hiding, and the creative circulation in my brain is starting to decoagulate.
I will have to be extra frugal for the next few weeks to make up for the A/C-seeking behavior I have engaged in, but that is the least of the things that now seem possible. I am halfway through my classes to be a Doctor-Otter and a month from my 30th birthday, and this feels like the prologue to a volume in the story of me. I will admit that I have had similar feelings in the past; I hope to conspire with the Universe to increase the longevity of this new beginning.
“The heat broke” is the phrase that comes to mind, of course, and I am reminded of that scene in all those movies where a child was sick, and her fever finally broke. Living through this heat wave has been like the fever dream of our collective unconscious, where reality melts around the edges and it’s hard to find any sort of narrative drive to push things forward. We’re not out of the woods yet--it is still summer after all-but the high won’t be back above 90 for at least a week, whereas it’s been over 100 for days. But my motivation has crawled out from whatever cool, dark place it was hiding, and the creative circulation in my brain is starting to decoagulate.
I will have to be extra frugal for the next few weeks to make up for the A/C-seeking behavior I have engaged in, but that is the least of the things that now seem possible. I am halfway through my classes to be a Doctor-Otter and a month from my 30th birthday, and this feels like the prologue to a volume in the story of me. I will admit that I have had similar feelings in the past; I hope to conspire with the Universe to increase the longevity of this new beginning.