Went camping for the night with Coil. Went up into the Catskills to where I helped on Boothe's movie shoot last year. Exactly a year ago. Was trying to book a campsite the night before, there were none available because of Labor Day, then suddenly as if the site glitched, there was one. When we arrived we carried our stuff from the car along the edge of the lake and crossed paths with a man I recognized - I had just been looking at his photo online - he's in an experimental theater group in the city. I had just been thinking about reaching out about a casting, and then we walked past each other three hours north in the forest. We arrived to our site and realized it was one of the best ones, beautiful and secluded, right on the water. The late afternoon light refracted across it and sent ripples up into the trees. We took off our shoes and laid on the earth. The sun set and we cooked chicken sausage, peppers and zucchini on the fire then stared at the stars. A toad hopped through our site and a beaver visited while we slept. Today we went to a water fall then to Alder Lake. It was a bit cold for swimming - summer was already turning over into fall up there, the air was thinning and red leaves were just beginning to show. Right before we were going to leave the sun was feeling suddenly warm and without another thought we stripped and hopped in. Last lake swimming of the season, we said. I felt something fall off me. The inverse of a winter coat. I thought of the beginning of summer, the first time I swam at the beach. A huge weight lifted off me then, was carried off into the waves. It had already felt warm for a while, but the last, deepest layer of winter finally loosened and left me. This summer a different sort of root grew in my depths. The fresh, crisp air helped comb out bits of it. Fall is clarifying, I'll give it that. We went to the diner in town and spoke of breakups and death. The old man taking our order couldn't understand us and kept having to send a younger waiter over to untangle our words. On the TV, ABC News reported on film industry conferences, men digging themselves into holes, and snakes. Are you seeing this? I asked Coil. Is the universe pranking me? The red white and blue diner sat at the top of a sad cement hill. Out the window was a boarded up building and an American flag flailing proudly under a troubled sky. The night before, in the tent, I had been afraid to acknowledge the night's silence. Not a single cricket sang. What is earth without song? This summer was infinitely quieter than the last, which still felt thick with life. All I hear from my apartment are endless parades of sirens. Their shrieks steal my dreams. Back in the city, I dropped Coil off at their apartment and a man on the street wailed, disoriented and alone. I thought of the previous night's campfire - it told me that on my upcoming trip abroad I would come to understand something that I have been attempting to get to the bottom of for a very long time. It told me this in bright blue flames the shape of mountain peaks. As I sat in front of it I thought, hot embers sound like rain drops when you close your eyes. It is astonishing to live in a world both overly reliant on sight and yet unable to see. If you close your eyes and listen it is immediately obvious that everything on this earth is made of the same thing.
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