The Weather Report – January 5, 2015
Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, New York, United States
High: 37℉
Low: 23℉
Sunrise: 7:21 a.m.
Sunset: 4:43 p.m.
Humidity: 42%
Dewpoint: 0º
Moon Phase: Full Moon
You should wear: Your skeleton on the outside, naturally.
You’re going to feel: Some days the air seems more solid than a mixture of gases, like you can lift it, or chew it, or wrap some up and throw it in the freezer for days when you don’t feel like you’re getting enough. You can swallow it whole. You can throw it away.
Clear skies early in the day. It will become overcast later in the night. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.
☁
In the note you wrote to yourself before you fell asleep last night:
Wake up and smell the coffee. While you’re at it smell the carpet, smell your wallet, smell the faucet. Smell the water falling from the tap. You won’t be able to. Just when you learn to not take advantage of your senses, everything that helped your body grow into what it has become today — strong, albeit simple and terrible — will turn against you. Smell the water again. Still doesn’t work. Is it your nose that’s broken? Or is it the faucet?
On your way to the corner store you feel the initial layer of sweat forming in the direct center of your back, along your spine, like the weak drops of water that never make it out of the hose with the rest of the stream. You see a man with not enough chin. You see a man with too much chin. You see a woman with no shoes at all.
Buy a bottle of water. Show the sink how you perform regardless of her opinions. In the dim quiet of your evening room, no help from the continuously honking trucks passing by, you listen to a recording of his voice. In it, he reads a single poem to a large audience. You think, “Yes, we can all hear you. Our bodies work similarly that way.”
Your sister says it’s strange that your childhood memories begin after age 9. You always have to reassure her that before then, that wasn’t really you anyway. Don’t worry.
In bed, the note picks up again.
Tonight begin your prayers with, “Dear Heavenly Mother, I recognize my sins. The dog is in his cage. Today was one sweater’s worth. Have you eaten? I left the lights off for you. The air conditioner is running but now I am sure of its mold. The window next to my bed is open too. We like the cold coming from both ends. Preferably the bottom one. In your name. Amen.”
People talk about what would happen to our planet if we didn’t have the moon.
As if we have a choice.
As if the moon does.
Sarah Jean Alexander wrote a book called Wildlives. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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