XLI. august, die she must

indulge me

Last year I wrote about the tyranny of August just before attending my first bachelorette weekend. I suppose it is tradition now—I leave for another bachelorette next week and find I have drafted incredibly similar sentiments about this purgatorial month.

I wrote a bit about malaise, the flavor of the week. Malaise like treacle in the blood, clogging clogging. Without motivation or even instinct I am left to wait. This annual August feeling. I tried to determine what it might be asking of us. Everyone I know is feeling similar, chafing at the calendar. I wonder if it is endurance. Is August the price to be paid for those first bouyant nights in June, for ripe-berry sun-bleached July? Is it excess that is the problem? Too much of exactly what we wished for: too hot, too bright, too much open time. And yet many things to do; money to be made, rent to be paid, the sinking feeling that it will always be like this: still, overheated, looking to the skies praying for something to happen—a thunderclap, an email.

My string of pearls is dying. Desiccation creeps down the strands forcing me to watch the jaunty little berries shrivel up and die one by one. It is so violent and so slow, the diminishing presence of my terminal plant.

I have been reading, voraciously even, but it’s yielded nothing. Distended with words and time and expectations, I hope it all comes vomiting forth come September. Waiting for the storm to break, waiting for the storm to break. I made a tomato salad that just tasted like tomato salad: heavy disappointment.

And then I was reminded that all of this is the unskippable stuff—when the air is choked with water and there is no difference between your internal and external temperature—we must meet ourselves, drag the ill-tempered body along, take it to a friend’s house, talk some shit, sweat through another night.

xx

Mia