Two slices of tomato eaten over my sink, directly from the cutting board, nothing but a shadow of salt and pepper. Sweet, blood-red acid dripping down my chin. The juice slurped straight off the board, microplastics and all. A good rule to follow: Always let someone know when you’re thinking of them, like when Anum texted me months ago about a “bomb heirloom tomato” she had.
I am setting myself up to fail; toggling between watching tennis on the TV, texting the boy I like, Twitter, Instagram, sips of the Spindrift leaving rings out of spite on the coffee table. What else is left? I’m not writing because things are so busy and yet I am so bored. I nap at 3pm and wake up groggy, then wired.
It’s hard to do three things at once, even four or five. I try to count my three on my fingers. Work, love, friends. What else? Maybe fantasy football or running or trying to cook dinner. No room to contemplate or create when there are men to be benched and garlic to be minced.
I didn’t realize until the chimney swifts came out tonight how badly I had missed them. So many things on Earth seem to follow the same pattern of rising action/climax/falling action that I wonder which came first: the plot or the story? A single swift coming into frame, then a few others. Soon I’m questioning whether they’re in the hundreds or the thousands, though there’s no way for me to count. The swifts swirl above me for what feels like it could be seconds or minutes or hours; I am so enchanted that I lose a dimension or two, until I remember my phone and try to hold what I’m seeing in the palm of my hand.
Of course, there’s no way to. But the fool has to try over and over again. The piling chirps make my ears ring — the gentle choral roll of crickets with the haphazard pattering of acrylic nails on a keyboard. It’s maddening how so many things sound like other, different things.
They start to form a flight pattern, maybe a “torus,” which I just googled. Maybe a cone. I’ve seen this before — about a year ago — so I know what to expect. The swifts will circle around the neighboring building until the ones closest to the bottom can manage to swoop into the chimney, where they will rest against the vertical brick walls inside. My uneducated guess is that they try to fly in a tornado-like formation to make it easier to suck themselves into the chimneys. There must be some reason for the whirling mass above me, after all. 20 minutes or so go by, and they start to drop into the chute. Because of their toe anatomy, chimney swifts can only perch on a vertical surface. Before humans built chimneys, the birds perched in hollowed out trees, often flying around non-stop until nesting time. After humans built chimneys, they said: This is good enough for me.
In my hypnotized stupor, I realize each of these tiny little birds in the leviathan cloud above me has its own tiny little brain.
I prefer a firmer tomato, so I had gotten to the farmers market a bit too late. August is when everyone attacks what’s left of the peaches and tomatoes while the vendors are somehow bringing out apples. An apple at the farmers market in August feels obscene. I like just got here. Can you wait a second?
The conversation has shifted to the weather. I suppose just as the weather has shifted as well. My roommate from Florida says: Enjoy the three weeks of nice weather before it gets darker and darker and colder and colder. As I spread my arms wide to catch the breeze in Baltimore yesterday, Sriram tells me: I’m going to miss summer. But to me, each summer feels even more endless than the last. August, of course, is a cause for psychosis. Winter, too, in fact. So when fall and spring come around all I can think is to hold on to them, no matter how slippery, for as long as possible. My grip is tight, though maybe that’s what causes the slippage. I could be holding them gentle and loose, cupping them in my hands like water.
I have finished all the tomatoes. The peaches are close to rotting in my fridge. Peach recipes is what I google after eating the cobbler Maddie brought me this weekend. How can I keep the fruit just a bit longer? A cobbler is one way. A jam is another.
some things:
missed yaaaaaaa :*
i was gone for 2 months living la vida loca again. my bad
I listened to “The History of the New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department” by Zach Helfand on my long run this weekend (as a #TheNewYorkerAppUser) and found it really delightful and fun, especially as a sometimes freelance fact-checker :-)
During my hiatus I also read “The Trouble with Wanting Men“ by Jean Garnett who Jenny and I mostly know as the author of this kind of wild essay on opening up her marriage [to the guy who was the recording drummer on Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud]. I think at the time that I read this I found it refreshingly curious and helpful for processing a lot of my woes. In particular, I liked the idea that we’re in a somewhat confusing liminal period where we’re trying to figure out where heterosexuality might go next. I haven’t read it in like over a month so don’t hold me to anything I just said :)
before writing this I watched this video on chimney swifts:
I’m watching The Summer I Turned Pretty, obviously, so every day that isn’t a Wednesday is torturous. I have thoughts on every single episode and detail so I’m happy to discuss with all people of all backgrounds. Otherwise I’m watching the rest of Hacks, which I forgot that I really loved when I first started watching it
I haven’t finished reading a book since April guys :/
I turn 28 next week btw if you even care
I had a lovely birthday party this weekend with soooo many of my amazing friends and the feeling of having all these sweet, funny people in one place was not unlike the feeling of watching hundreds/thousands of chimney swifts swirl above me. just sublime, i love you all
cheers xx
PM
I audibly laughed at the apples part at the farmer's market >_<. I'm so so happy you're back on substack! Keep going :)
Happy early birthday, P!!!