THE DRUG CALLED SLEEP

A lot of people use it. Some people, lots of women in particular, have a hard time finding it. You have to creep in the darkness to get it, which can be difficult. And in the dark, sometimes, you put your finger on it – there, there it is, right there. But other times, it comes so swiftly, so beautifully and it overtakes you so completely that you’ve no idea of the departure. Until later, the next day, at sunrise, in another time entirely - it is only then that you know - by the heavy light of your limbs and the manner in which your lids lift for first glimpse – it is only then that you even know you’ve taken the stuff. It is only then that you can begin again.

THIS OTHER MOVIE STAR

A movie is offered on the three-hour bus ride to the airport. Six small screens hang from the bus’s ceiling so that the film is a bobbing six-fold thing. Six leading men dangle above my head and move in unison. The leading man is attractive and I am compelled to watch the six of him, even without sound.

At one point, I do look away from the six movie stars and what I see, right beside the bus, is astonishing: soft rolling New Hampshire hills – here, coated in large swathes of black-green conifers, there, dusted in patches of dappled yellow maples and intermittently dotted with groves of already leafless trees, whose limbs reach upward. These are the White Mountains and pale sheets of granite, bare of any vegetation, appear from time to time. At the top of the scene, the sky is greyed with thick, low-slung clouds.

This other movie star, this landscape, is something to behold. It is a much bigger image than the six screens put together. Still, there is a division of attention for the rest of the ride to Logan Airport.

THE RABBIT HOLE

I intend to accomplish one small thing, check the weather, for example, but I am waylaid by a text notification from my sister. The text reminds me to check my email inbox, which leads me to responding to and deleting emails, one of which triggers something in my brain (inspiration? curiosity?) and gets me to begin researching something important, and this ultimately, mysteriously, somehow moves me to continue an ongoing project I have: shopping for clogs on sale. I don't know how much times goes by - five minutes? twenty-five minutes? I am never sure about time and where it goes - but when I look at the clock on the screen, I do see that I am late for an appointment.

I leave the house in a rush wearing a sundress and it’s 45 degrees outside.