It Is June

A student from years ago reached out to me and asked why I had not written anything in the month of June. Why I had not even once used the phrase, June is island, which it is, now more than ever. This is one of my favorite phrases, that for years now I have reckoned with in the month of June over and over, and here I was doing it again even though I did not notice I was doing it. I have felt separated from myself, partly because of the world, and partly because of my place in it, and partly because I think this happens from time to time.

I have also taken up a very meaningful correspondence with my favorite poet, a series of letters in which she has received a grant for, and we write back and forth and much of my wondering and hurt and imagination has fallen on those pages lately. We started before the Pandemic. Last winter when she came to the sea we said, how important for us to keep a record in this very particular way, and if it shook down that one of us should be a success then these letters might be of interest someday. A grand idea, I know.

If I can tell you anything about right now it is that I am equally interested in a birds ability to see the magnetic field of our earth as I am about the heat in Arizona. I spend a lot of time looking for seashells with small holes in them to string on fishing line. I read more than I talk to other people. I think a lot about having a baby. I think less about you having a baby. I grow tomatoes and am still wishing I could see my mother.

I do not know what happens next. I cut my finger open with a kitchen knife and got six stitches that still ache along my knuckle.

Read other thoughts on June, too see what I mean: It is June, It is June, It is Long, and there are more. 

Perhaps, all this is just to say, that we are still here.