I have been thinking about winter, now on the hottest day of the year, now about winter and fall.
When I took that picture, it was Bruce's birthday. We were ice skating and then we would go for drinks at a hotel bar on top of the city, so expensive we could only buy one and then sit sipping for an hour, melting on the linoleum to the irk of chumps.
A few minutes after that picture (Suzanne in blur) was taken, I would fall, inexplicably. I was not trying a trick. I have been skating since I was three, since learning from my aunt on an Indiana pond. I would fall and it would hurt, and a vein would turn colors in my leg, like dish soap in a puddle of water. The nurse would send me to the hospital. The specialist would ultrasound my legs, and peer at the results, glass-shatter on screen, and say, Call tomorrow. I don't know if you can get on a plane. I don't know if it's safe.
I have contacted two agents, and two have written back: one said yes so far, one no. Tiny steps. I am trying to write four letters a day: two to friends and two for this writing career. Tiny, tiny.
We talked of December. And though my mind went to white cover, I am trying not to whisk this time away. I am trying not to long for back-to-school clothes. I'm trying to think of this day to begin with, this morning under a chandelier made from a tree stump and glass. I kissed and I didn't wish myself anywhere, anytime, else.
The heat in the underground station. I blew on a latte and the milk skipped the table and fell on the marble like snow. It will never feel exactly like this again. This part too, although hot and dry and tar and my hands hurt from typing, this part also is magic.
In truth, it doesn't matter what day. In truth, it doesn't matter how long. I'll keep sending the letters. I'll keep making the bed--sometimes with petals--and closing the door and going out in the world and meeting you after.
What matters is the small beginning. What matters is one yes. What matters is the doctor called back the next day and said, yes, the clot was negative, not so bad. Yes, you can fly, you can go to Texas. And you know I did.
