day 3
Wake up early to head to the beach. Read a memoir that unmoors you altogether, shifts your guts, breaks your brain, quarters your heart. You remember how reading Mary Gaitskill, Lorrie Moore for the first time when you were a kid—literary mother—which now, Mom, is a return to self. Get so into it I bake and burn and ouch and oh well, and here's my souvenir, it's fine. Get into the water. I approach as prescribed: medical bath. I don't know why. Rx says: Walk out into water until you're waist-deep, dunk your head in, wait 5 minutes, Deanna. Do it again.
Shower, tend to your burns, lay in bed naked, sleep a bit. Move to the pool. Read again, but this time I can't concentrate. I haven't moved on yet from the morning. Get into a conversation with the barista. ¿Tienes hijos? She tells me she and her 12-year-old daughter—la única—competitive powerlift together. Actually and legitimately, very fucking cool. Makes me wonder what Mat and I are going to lift together. And really, I hope we like each other by then. I'm sure we'll both be all hormonal rage, but maybe we'll partner or conspire or learn together. We'll see. And then I miss her in this moment. I think about how she'll traverse girlhood and I get sad, thinking the only way is through it. She's going to get smacked and fall and bleed no matter what path she cuts. I'll have my journals from when I was her age, which maybe she'll treat as field notes, primary sources, a warning. This line of thinking further dissects my already quartered heart.
I take another bath. I look at my face closely then. Is 37 young? Is it old? Am I now invisible in the way women talk about? If I'm invisible, I'll dress for myself tonight. I try my hand at looking wild and soft and sexy all at the same time.
Drinks at the lobby. Drinks at the rooftop bar. I pour my guts out to a guy in a cowboy hat and his wife, Brianna. They pour back into me. We take shots. They show me photos of their creamy, round-faced baby. Delicious, I say. I really do want to bite her. I can't help it.
Walk through the mangroves towards the beach. The sun sets. Lights turn on. I'm buzzing with energy: too much sun, too many drinks, too many words now moving through me. This state I'm in feels instructive. I take notes. OK, I think there's something more here—this open-heart, mind, soul, wild-soft-girl-woman way of being. I conspire to bring her back with me. Maybe she'll meet my friends, my family. They'll love her? They'll hate her. I'm not sure. I don't care.