To truly know a land is to become it—to embody its storms in your bones, taste its dark soil beneath your nails, know the tangled history of the people who walked before you.
The emblem, not the animal, mattered. We swatted mosquitoes, made no pilgrimages to Vermont to see bears and moose. I wanted to get as close as possible to my potential animal totem.
Past the break lies motherhood as I understand it: the rawest life that lifts and falls and crashes against beauty, and the eternal potential for heartbreak.
My sister used to accuse me of intellectualizing mental illness when I spoke of our brother’s brain, his schizophrenia, in scientific terms... I never knew how to explain what I felt—that science could be a way of loving something more deeply.
Now, nothing is ever quite salty enough for you. You have been caught shaking salt onto your bread at fancy restaurants, tonguing the rim of your margarita in order not to waste even a grain.
Sometimes, thick clouds roll in like doubts, and the god-like giants are obscured to the point where I almost swear they never existed. Other days, there’s no questioning their presence.