the city feels disheartening. the world goes gray with overuse. every street, the state of a waterlogged napkin. everyone I know right now is hurting. at the cafe, my mouth utters an order to a tired barista, but the script reads ‘I’m sorry, I hope things get better soon,’ ‘It will get better, but soon feels so far from now,’ he passes my card back to me.
the collective grief is palpable. a friend is forced to move back home, a family member struggles with work; we are all holding our breath afraid to fall sick. my best friend and I talk about rage rooms. fantasize about an abandoned house on the far end of town; a crowbar or a baseball bat. windows left intact and no one to hear for miles. it’s taken years of stretching, examining our anger between our hands, like yards of fabric at the craft store, to realize it wasn’t made for scraps. last summer, it seemed easier—a camping trip out in the mountains, a quick drive with the windows rolled down—there was more room to scream when we needed to. hurl rocks across the lake. run up the trailhead until our calves pulsed. with the tree branches empty, the apartments stacked on top of each other like Jenga blocks, and everyone at home all day in the quiet, we don’t know where to put it. we don’t want anyone to witness. but this seems stickier, unrelenting.
it’s evening when Austyn recommends we head over to Marine Drive. the street rests along the Columbia River’s bottom lip, lined with a harbor for the local yacht club and bars offering clam strips. By no stretch of the imagination is it the open wild we need, but I can feel our posture start to shift in the dark of her car, side-face smirks, chins up. when we get there, the parking lot is mostly empty, with a bare and shallow shoreline. the sun snuggles into a hickey-purple sky and the lights across the river spill out onto the water. at first, we couldn’t find rocks,
but a plane was coming in to land at the airport behind our shoulders. its belly lowered closer, twin-jet engines roaring in its descent, and we screamed. holding nothing back, bodies folding in as if to squeeze our volume out like tubes of acrylic paint. we screamed raw, clanging, ugly yells.
it was after that, grins beaming in the dark, that we walked farther and found rocks. there was no hesitation between us, no embarrassment or looking away from what was in front of us. “fuck you, you motherfucking asshole.” Austyn let out in the water, hurling fistfuls of river rock back to the gorge. “are you fucking kidding me?” my throws came out less in words, but a howl; all arms and raw throat. my screech echoed down the banks after me. we stayed there, taking laps to find more rocks buried in the sand and watching another plane come in, carving a place to put our anger down, until the beach and the horizon were empty.
to allow that frenzy to take over, not only to be witnessed, but shared, was a new naked we hadn’t felt. the rush was leaving us, and our heavy arms wrapped around each other. I have held so much admiration for Austyn, but this moment surpassed any reasons prior. it felt like a privilege to hear the difference in when she let go. how grief cracked our voices in two. there was a moment of disbelief at the riverbank, staring out and knowing while I had never been to Marine Drive before, I could not believe I was in this spot again. scorched vocal cords, a sickly weight sleeping at the bottom of my stomach. I understand there will be so much still to endure, to call myself stronger for, but I don’t know how much of me there might be left to find. even writing this, I know the idea doesn’t hold water, but it feels just as incredulous and genuine at the moment.
we will keep moving. I will continue on because that is what people do; we find new ways to be happy all the time. but now I know, when the ugliness comes again (and it will just the same), I will not swallow it down. there will be more rocks, more riverbanks, warmer weather with more trips to plan. I will not give myself away to make space for it to live.
with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
venmo: schuylerpeck