A sense of futility this week. Another lockdown looms. Days ooze. Time feels weird, like it’s collapsing in on itself. My imagination stretches a few hours—what to make for dinner tonight—but further than that feels mildly painful, like an ache behind my eyes. One night, we watch the movie Babyteeth, and the oddball character, Moses, says, “I’m not ready to be functional.” Yeah.
At the same time, small pleasures feel enormous. I eat a peach over the sink and stand there, mind blank, staring out the window. I eat a tomato sandwich in a rush to avoid the toast getting cold. I eat a hardboiled egg marinated in soy sauce and find myself staring at my fingers, wondering how much time passed.
A friend reads the Ross Gay poem about Eric Garner and writes, “The last line of this knocked me on my ass.”
Midweek, a dental appointment for a crown. More anxiety than usual. My dentist, who knows I’m a journalist, is curious if my sources know if the virus is organic or designed, he’s heard it was part of an AIDS cure, he’s heard things on the radio he really shouldn’t say, he says, before inserting a drill into my mouth.
In the small view, small things count more. Peaches. Poems. An ache in my jaw. New ways to measure time have new appeal. This morning, I drank a cup of coffee that tasted like melon, like edible flowers glazed with sugar. None of that’s anything I would have wanted in my coffee a few months ago, but I like it now.
“Peaches” (1869) by Henri Fantin-Latour
The Ross Gay poem is “A Small Needful Fact.” Try his book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
The coffee is “Idido Washed - Yirgacheffe” by Wake Forest’s Black & White Roasters
Any books mentioned in this newsletter are available in a Bookshop list