Thursday, July 22, 2010

I consider what you would think, coming across me buried to my knees in a field, scaring away the crows, smelling faintly like jasmine only later, in your memory. I think I would like the feeling of the soil warm around my shins, the sun darkening my freckles and scalding the soft pink of my scalp, the rustle of things growing around my toes. No need for explanations when your only companions are stillness and breezes and thin papery leaves, earthworms and the occasional wandering dragonfly. Perhaps the best way to become tall and strong is to plant ourselves in new soils and see what happens. It could be that I am actually a tree even though I have spent all of this time curled like a fern. We can't always be sure when our secrets are lies.

A few years ago a farmer cobbled together some pieces of fossils, and science called it an archaeoraptor, a missing link. The farmer had told people he found something they all wanted to believe in, hope in the dirt somewhere in China. Everyone got mad when it turned out to be a hoax, but I don't know if it was. Maybe the only way to find a missing link is to make it ourselves.

(Seattle, I'm coming out of retirement for the weekend to take Block Party pictures for these guys. Let's drink beers in the street.)

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