Creature Read Free

you can pull yourself up and also keep track of where you’re going; the trail starts to disappear. My friend was wearing sandals and I think it was hard for him, harder even when we were coming down. There are small prickly buds on the ends of the dry grass that get stuck on my clothes whenever I hike here. They got stuck to my socks and dug into my legs. Every time we sat down for a rest I tried to remove some of them, but I always collected more. I thought I could sense the ocean by the color of the sky, but my friend told me I was looking in the wrong direction. It still seems as though the ocean is in that direction.
    On the way down, we became covered in dirt and had to go to the bathhouse. There, the lanterns shone softly. I hardly ever go when it’s dark out and I could barely see the other women around me, could barely see myself, when, after bathing, I combed my hair in front of the mirror.
    I like picturing that.
    Really?
    Yes.
    Do you feel distant from me?
    Yes, I do.
    The densho is calling me to evening zazen. Now someone is hitting the han. I love the han, the way the mallet sounds as it strikes the wood. The path is dark and someone is wearing a headlamp.
    I’m sorry.
    Why?
    That we’re distant.
    If we stop talking to each other, I’ll have to find a different way to communicate with you.
    Will it really be me, if I’m not there?
    I’m not sure, but I don’t know what else to do. Sometimes I feel close to you when you aren’t there.
    In the zendo, we sit. Someone clears her throat, and the person next to me carefully changes his position. My shoulder blades are tense and I want to relax them. They are usually like that when I sit zazen. Outside, I can hear a person walking across the gravel, and even farther away, a person in the dining room, talking.
    The land in this place is reminiscent of the desert. I think I needed everything that grows here. I’m happy, and I don’t know what to think about that. I know there isn’t a goal to find happiness, and yet I find it, even when things are hard. I don’t really want to leave.
    What do you think will happen then?
    That I’ll go back to being anxious.
    Isn’t that part of what you are doing there, to be okay with whatever is happening?
    Yes. What’s it like where you are?
    It’s hard. Someone I love is sick.
    A few weeks ago, a visiting Benedictine monk who was giving a talk in the dining room spoke for a few minutes about reading. I might get this wrong, but I think I remember him saying that in his tradition the word is supposed to send a person into the great silence. Just a little bit of reading is enough. When I read I usually want to do so for a long time, but to read a little and then to be with that reading in silence sounds very nice.
    Something about him reminded me of you, or what you might be like when you are older; I think the ways you both move around in your bodies.

I WILL FORCE THIS

Lately I’ve been having a hard time knowing what’s good. I don’t even know how to write. Maybe I am only a reader. I try to force things, force stories. I have to work on a story for many, many months before it makes sense.
    Still, someone gave me the opportunity to copy a piece of writing onto the wall of a gallery. I’d never done anything like that before. I called it a hunger text, because it was about a woman who didn’t have enough money for food. On the day I painted my hunger text on the wall, I wore an old-fashioned lace shirt that had once belonged to my aunt. I also wore a long wool skirt. The text was projected onto the wall, and I painted on top of it. I found it both relaxing and exhausting to do this all day.
    I will write about this experience, I thought. Now I am writing about it, but I’m not sure what there is to say, and whether or not saying it will be interesting for anyone to hear or read. I felt comfortable painting the text while wearing the old-fashioned shirt and the skirt. I wanted to make a costume for myself, even