It rains in Texas. It rains big spit like drops against the over grown grass in the backyard, turns dirt to mud, makes the porch smell like we live in wet woods always. It rains in Texas and you might forget there had ever been another place before it. It can feel like Minneapolis if I forget where I am. June in all of my lives is something separate, as if it doesn’t count so much against the passage of time. We play more in June than any other month, and we play a lot.
It’s been a long time since I’ve sat out back and watched the evening turn grey and listened to rain in trees, rain drip down the wood where it leaks. I am not sure what I thought I might find in Texas. It feels like a place one could get away with a lot. The kind of place where you could set your heart out to pasture. The kind of place you might forget to leave and spend many a rainy evenings remembering someone you don’t let yourself remember too often. You have to keep yourself company when you keep that kind of company. Memories like places we visit and forget to come back from.
I’ve been wondering lately when I might write about something else, but I could write about you for the rest of my life. In Texas I fill the bathwater so high that if I breathe too deeply it might overflow. And I’m probably wrong but it seems like it should mean something. I feel okay here wearing my feelings so close to the surface like maybe the humidity draws them from my pours, and therefore it’s not my fault.
There is a train that goes by in the evenings and I can hear it above the clatter of rain in the yard. The storm I could smell coming since the afternoon. A part of me wants to do nothing but walk around and eat soft serve in this neighborhood for the rest of my life and talk about the ways people wrong each other. There isn’t much thunder but it does roll toward me in that way thunder does. I wish there were more to be done about the things we cannot do anything about. I like the way no one minds when things grow old here, in fact I believe they prefer it. I appreciate this in people.
THE LITTLE BLACQUE BLOG 
Ahoy, from Bamfield.
Quite enjoying your work. I am a young woman living on the fringe of Vancouver Island in a tiny, colourful remote village. I, too write poetry and stories and oddities. I have been slowly taking steps to start sharing some of it, and have found you and your work inspirational; thought I would say so. I was especially taken by your origami idea; since I read it I have been dreaming up other metaphors for the ways we morph for love. I wouldn’t love to idea share or discuss if there is a platform for such activity. All in all, wishing you a continuum of lovely and gut wrenching days; for the ever inspired.
With humble admiration,
Amelia Vos
Your words sing. Thank you so much for reading. It’s for moments like this and readers like you that we feel just a little less alone in this world. Your island sounds enchanting.