Proximity is always on the lip of my mind. If I’m walking somewhere, I think in invisible string–tethered to this, to
that and to nothing. Corners snapping connections and the bus coming drags another taut, reels me in and I get home
somehow, like a magic trick. I am here and then I’m there, and so my used-to-be present place is now another
then. It’s a game of vision and space. The only thing I think about when I am sitting still is the pilates teacher
talking softly and matter-of-fact about people who draw their shoulders in as if protecting their heart. She says you
have to sit up straight and push back, let the bloody beast be pulled to the ceiling on a string. You can practice this
and feel strong and proud of everything your body is carrying around–the guts, the thoughts, ghosts of cells once
regenerating now gone. I imagine them like the atom bomb fall out–shadows burned into the sides of houses.

Once I said to someone, “I think it’s all about my proximity to others that I focus on to keep me sane.” Whatever I
am between the things I can immediately define. It’s silly and true, really. Silly that I think this and vocalize it and
true that the line remains blank until I can flail out my threads and figure it out. The proximity. My here to your there.

Lately I’ve been spending a thick amount of time by myself, and I’m starting to see another side to
the nickel. Realizing the distance, the mattering distance, is the self from self. The solitude is taking string and
tying knots and staying close. Is it what we do alone that truly defines us? Those coffees at tables with books and
pens and headphone-less walks from the bus stop to the front door. After I take out the key but before I turn the lock,
the second the shower shuts off. That precisely solo and definite half of a breath that escapes us right then. I’m
talking about that. When I focus on those type of things I can’t help but feel some relief, as if the best chorus is in
an endless song–how you can have nothing to do with any of it yet own a universe.

I think about getting older at weddings, when I note the wonderful amount of gray in my hair and around kids, like
my niece. I like talking to her because I have to simplify things a certain way–I have to explain or ask with a certain
absolute, and I hear the wonder come back in my voice when we have an interaction. Last year I carried the
getting-older bit like a pinched nerve; I turned 28 and the state of the current dawned on me in a new way. At first
it was the coat that didn’t fit but choked me, or that amusement park ride where the floor drops away and you’re
clenched to the wall with force and speed as it continues to turn. A bigger hopeless than the usual insecurities. Is
this something that everyone feels at one point or another? I had to give it time, but I settled into it. After all I will never
fear a clock, only the blank pages and the moments wasted when I didn’t write. I say that with an affection.