About Saturday
I pick it up from the sidewalk and begin to tear away the browning guard petals, what’s left is a lopsided collection. Sometimes I wish that humans, too, had guard petals.
I can confirm that honey burns. The sugar starts to smoke above 350º, flames clinging to the sticky paper, the sulfur, potassium chlorate and binding glue of the matchstick, all of it gone in a single strike.
They are papery fine and drenched, the dew drops darkening as my shadow falls across them. A peony head, heavy with water, the stem pinched clean at the base. I pick it up from the sidewalk and begin to tear away the browning guard petals, what’s left is a lopsided collection — feathery petalage, light pink and pearly, translucent in the sunlight. Sometimes I wish that humans, too, had guard petals.
In this way, I’ve always thought that plants tend to make more sense than humans. Give them water, and sunlight, and they will take up space without judgement or gesture. They bloom, they die, they grow again, a cycle marking years and years of roots beyond us humans. My friend, who just got back from China, told me stories of the trees, some of which had stayed in place, longer than the States. Even trees grow in a way that shares the finite room. None will grow or go so far as to get into the others’ way, no wind-induced abrasions there.
Humans are, a far less instinctive blue print. On Saturday night, I heaved the contents of my stomach to the floor. It was not a pretty mess, and there’s no way to write about it eloquently. But I will say, after, I was lighter. With my vision floating between the hum of the overhead lights and the rhythmic clack of my heels on the tile, I surveyed the wind speed, measured out abrasions, counted my pulse, and made my way home. With help from my friends. It would seem that, oftentimes, the path of least resistance is the one where you lean into whatever is closest and clearest to you. Pick one thing you know is true, and begin to build from there. Sometimes you do the most you can, and then you can be done.
