6.15.99

I'm tortured by the bright light of suddenly summer. Vigor it brings me too much to contain. I only desire living it out, wearing it thin with holes of fatigue. I'll bike you hike you work you till the clouds come again; when I lie in bed, head and limbs heavy dead. Does the smile make me not me? I think that the smile is always me, but somehow not a language in which others are fluent. They do not understand the nuance, the potential for complexity. Maybe the silence. I could not say. But I know that complacency is punished with disgust; that redemption comes in the reclamation of body by the loving hand. Thank god they were willing to drive so far for tea and a hike with me. Thought I would succumb to the shivers of decompensation. Companion feet falling on the earth beside me, behind me. Just the company, voices other than my own. Observing the flattened ferns, fallen trees. I stood on that hanging bridge, swaying by my own imbalance and making it steady again. I dared look down, fearless, to the rushing water below. Liquid silver bromide capturing every color of the valley and sky; and then with every toss and roll and swirl, effacement.

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