maddyissleeping

ambitious project: map all the sounds my house makes when i come home late at night: the deck stairs, the deadbold on the outer door, the loose knob on inner, my shoes on the tile, which of the dutch stairs, where on the small stairs, the lightswitch when i had to, the door to avo's room or the attic, the door to the bathroom when i slept in the study room. take pictures of all these things and then label with sticky labels with descriptions. maybe try to record the sounds. talk about the sprinting between lightswitches. talk about running down the driveway. this house is another family member.

i asked maria something innocuous about the laundry or her brazilian cousins and how theyre like her and she said that brazil is just like america in that the younger generation is only concerned with the newest laptop or cellphone or whatever and has no interest in the most important things of life and that as soon as theres a war or something and were forced to make do, many of them wont survive, its the way its always been and will be. i was suddenly totally overcome with this sad kind of love for her and george and how apart they are from the world and how much they understand what they are and what we all are and how ill never be a part of their thing and really no one will and how it keeps us from being close in a way and how immutable, how absolutely certain, how unphased and unmoving and defiantly unflappable they are in the face of this huge chaotic incoherence that permeates the world they contend with, and their smallness and their mortality, it hit me in waves while i matched socks and she hung shirts.