June is brimming with possibility. The weather is changing and I am beginning to long for air conditioning. But only in the mid-afternoon when the breeze takes a lunch break and the heat builds up and rises to my head. I went for a swim to cool off but I hit my head and that did nothing to ease my anxiety and took me back to 2015, which is certainly not where I want to be again. This is why I never swim backstroke. I do feel odd this morning but I am not sure if it’s the heat or my head. It’s awfully still this morning and it’s not even noon. There’s sweat trickling down my neck and normally I like the heat pressed against the skin, but today I feel dizzy immersed in questions and worry, gasping for air like there’s none around me in this stagnant pre-noon slump. It’s funny how I find it easier to breathe in the water than on dry land. I am not sure if swimming today will clear my head or confirm that I have a concussion. I do not have a concussion. I cannot have a concussion. I really am the kind of person who needs to wear a helmet at all times.
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Plan B. June is brimming with possibility. It’s Gemini season and something about air and play and leaning into the flow of things and being carried by the wind. It took me forever to figure out what I would do. I wanted to stay here but do I have a reason to stay I ask again and again and again. I wanted to find one. But there are so many books I want to read this summer and all of them are in English and not in the library here. I wonder about this duality of language and place. I’m flip-flopping back and forth through paradox, laughing at the mystery of where I’m headed. As I do. It’s Gemini season after all, so of course everything I do doesn’t appear to make sense. And what part of my life has ever looked like it’s making sense? Tomorrow I might finally hike up the Hoher Kasten, simply because I’m terrified of it. From my kitchen, the Hoher Kasten looks like an eagle looking off into the distance with its wings spread, ready to fly.
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June is brimming with possibility. Everyday I write down new ideas that are begging to be birthed. I’m trying to write them but it’s brutal and hard, and it’s mostly drivel but maybe I have to write this drivel to get somewhere else. Somedays there’s the temptation to drip it all out, vengeful, mocking, like Lorde: “Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark.” Hah. I could be the Taylor Swift of blogging if I wanted to. The drivel comes out in my morning pages and I know I’m not supposed to judge, but dear god, this again? This is why I need to hide in libraries this summer. Let me turn my pain into poetry, like poor Kierkegaard writes: “What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’–that is, ‘may new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.’” Oh I’ve been listening to Melodrama a lot.
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Everything is flitting in and out right now. I tried holding onto air but there’s nothing to latch onto, which is probably why I started dancing through it. I’ve noticed my body is changing and I’m not sure how I feel about that. My pants fit differently, so I went shopping for new ones. It’s just the heat, I tell myself. It’s the move coming up. It’s the changing weather. Spring to summer was rain and sun and rain and hot and cool and hot and washing away and new; my body responds to the seasons, to the up-down, up-down. It’s trying to figure out what to hold onto, what to let go of, what to grow into. It will settle. It’s air—just breathe, feel through, don’t worry. Be kind be kind be kind.
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June is brimming with possibility but I’ve already said so many goodbyes it feels full of endings. And yet, June is brimming with possibility. I am not afraid to cry these days. I have a new plant I hope to keep alive because there are still things to nurture, things to look forward to. I’ve been listening to “Delicate” on repeat in the kitchen. I had a party and someone tried to predict my future with a deck of cards, but there were no love cards in the future I chose. It bothered me for days until I realized how ridiculous it was. I am surrounded by love right now, here, right in front of me. Everywhere. I even feel love when I swim underwater, my arms outstretched, sunlight dancing on my skin. There is more love in my future, I know it.
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My birthday is coming up soon and I have a plan. This is important because I’m one of those people who likes birthdays. June air is brimming with possibility, ready to lift me up the mountain, through the water, across the ocean. Take a deep breath and plunge back underwater, one more lap, one two breathe, one two breathe, one two three breathe, one two three four five breathe, mountain to my left, one two three….
I can’t help but smile in the water.
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June is brimming with possibility.
Sarah the Adventurer 