Status Updates From Our Wives Under The Sea

“‘Fuck.’ My voice felt too big in my mouth, like I was trying to swallow something without first chewing sufficiently.”

“I used to think it was vital to know things, to feel safe in the learning and recounting of facts. I used to think it was possible to know enough to escape from the panic of not knowing, but I realize now that you can never learn enough to protect yourself, not really.”

“She goes down where she is on the grass and I don’t know what to do or how to get her back to the flat again. A woman, passing by with a dachshund wrapped up in a fuchsia jacket, pauses to ask if my friend is alright and I tell her yes without knowing what I'm saying, let her go without knowing how to ask for her help.”

“Things continue. This is something I have always found: unfortunately, things go on.”

“Leah suggested we find something to eat and walked us over the road to a place that sold burgers, her hand in my hand like something obvious, something grown from the fabric of my own body and pressing out.”

“I had brought a Welsh dresser from my mother’s house, a wine rack, a large oval mirror. The latter was a mistake—it seemed to haunt me about the flat as I tried to find a suitable place to put it, appearing at times to reflect not me but my mother’s empty house, as though on a time delay. I tapped the second knuckle of a finger lightly against the glass and it sounded like something knocking to be let in”

“In my head, I think I’m often telling Miri stories, logging away information or things I’ve seen in order to tell her about them later. […] I think I’ve trained myself to look at things this way, as if for her as well as for me. Although now, writing this, I’m not sure I really want her to know about it. I can’t say whether this is a story I actually want to tell.”

“I wanted to tell him that of course I felt that way as much as he did, but it seemed unkind, too nagging in a desperate situation. I wanted to tell him that of course I felt afraid, but it seemed too unlucky to say the thing out loud.” Oh uh oh! This was too on the nose to be what I read while my boyfriend and I were in the shock trauma ICU waiting for my best friend to get back from her emergency neurosurgery!