clouds and umbrellas really aren't that different: clouds sing lullabies to owls & umbrellas are paperweights for people. i know it seems unrelated, really- i do, but children, canaries and cartographers have convinced me otherwise. of course, other wise women have settled for much less, but i can't give up the ghost of whimsy tendencies. i have to say it's the most colorful haunting. my sister and i are going on a wild hunt for olive pits in an old city in gaza. my parents left the pits as children in soils they were told to say goodbye to & the names they burned on wooden doors are romantically exhausting trails left behind. it is their legacy. how small is that? regardless, isn't there such a magnetism there for us- girls who live to love our family and find , tell, save, bury, and set secrets free?


sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.

I'm trying to read this book and it's such a marvel(l)ous one, even you know it is. We've read it so many times. But, my eyes are so tired and the words look too beautiful. I kept seeing them and now I can't stop looking at them. Each letter reminds me of a curve or angle in this city from the skylines, streets or roofs. I think it happens enough, but she probably would say its happened 2 or 3 too many times. My memory is so foggy. I'm not quite sure what is mine or how much I've given up or gained. 2 is my favorite even number and of course we live with 3's everyday, but it is the weirdest kind of pressure to endure and I feel it specifically on this one bone in the middle of my chest. It feels lighter when I float in the dead sea. I live in this city with certain people by the lake in a delicate house and there are certain beautiful things that only they can see. Especially in light of my little sister who is so innocent but not at all naive, I can't help but see transparent scales and feel fleetingly balanced. JD Salinger has started to live in a nook in the nape of my neck. Though he is brilliantly cloudy, he is the kind of gentleman who wears a hat and an overcoat too often- I would say. & When Franny wrote back to Lane, she did so in illustrated sorts of ways. I totally love her to pieces.

& then there is everything else & no one else and that is the most magnetic place for a girl to find herself. boots feel heavy on the first day of winter, but curls like snails shells do not. i am flying south for winter and even when it does make me nervous to walk alongside a war, i know its necessary. somewhere in the aftermath is a house that could have been an olive-y home had the history not fallen in the pieces it did. thanks for the best advice, though/ i feel wildly strong. "keep your eyes open, the room will spin less. sit still and listen to what's going on around you, you have to stay present. don't cross your legs. if you do, you won't feel as much and even though it kind of hurts, it's better to feel it, it means you're awake and you're ok." i gave blood weeks ago and the nurse kept repeating these lines. in a way, it was clinical, but in a 3:02 AM space, it is more like prose.

sincerely,

expatriette in tunis.

polish your craft, fold it once and give it to people who have a certain look about them. those were his guidelines, but not his rules. i immediately liked that i was only going to talk to him once and it was a perfect 30 minute city block. i felt like the best version of myself: especially considering all the green, orange and purple things i was about to buy and roast and puree to eat with an eel. i made a sauce that tasted like fresh grass and it reminded me of recess and playing cat's cradle with our backs up against the school's bricks. other little girls who had big hair and soft voices are at the heart of this memory.

sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.

i'm studying for cell biology and writing a paper about T.S. eliot and my brain is very blurred and i think einstein's dreams were born on playgrounds like this. the thoughts floating in my brain now are bouncing between signal pathways, non-covalent bonds, hyacinth girls, fortune tellers and memory and desire. also, today i was both impulsive and indecisive and bought too many cupcakes at the little glass shoppe and shared them with the strangers in my class. we all had a salty caramel and champagne moment and it was so light and lazy.

sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.