lindsayliveshere.org

Extremes

I’m up and down. That’s the best way I can put it. Up up up and down down down. And up again. Riding so fast on a moto and then sitting in a hot room with a weak fan. Electric conversations: what’s happening in the Khmer Rouge trials and how Libya is churning; then curling up inside, alone in a room of opaque languages. Sipping from a coconut on a beach. Eating peanut butter crackers from a crinkly package on a bunk bed. I am looking for an inner compass to match the camping compass I carry. On the beach you asked me: What’s the word for the line where the water meets the boat? The line of flotation? The watermark? I’m not sure, but it changes, as the wooden boat bobs up and down, and me along with it.