A Slow Tumble

Essays

Oct 10

I’m taking a long nap near a soft-running spring. Frogs, birds, and nature collide in some sort of harmonic reverie. I’ve become a passenger in the universe as I watch clouds move like graceful dancers. I have no yearning. The singular moment is all there is. I’m bathing in the world’s nectar without having to towel off.

I’m taking a long nap on a Tempurpedic bed in a mattress store in the middle of Kentucky. The overhead lights flicker with the sound of the rain outside. Gerald has told me not to put my feet up, but I am in another world. The static hum of the store’s electrical power reverberates through the bed like a mild Honeymoon suite.

I’m taking a long nap on a very small blanket on the hardwood floor of a basketball court that doubles as an auditorium. I’m smaller than I can remember being, but I’m not too small. I curl into myself and try to pull a part of the towel, which I thought was a blanket, over my socks because one of them has a big hole in it, and my third toe on my left foot is sticking out. I fall back to sleep.

I’m in the waiting room of a pediatric dentist’s office in Park Slope. One of my kids must be inside with the dentist. I don’t know how I got here. A boy is telling his mom how badly he has to pee. She is scrolling on her phone. He walks over to the artificial plant in the corner of the room, takes out his kid wiener, and pees on the tree. It takes her three seconds to notice.

I’m on an airplane by myself. I know this because two randos are sitting next to me. I’m on the window somewhere in the mid-front of the plane. I don’t know how I got here. There is no screen in front of me. A Walkman bounces lightly on the tray table in front of me. A stewardess comes by and asks me if I want anything to drink. I order a Coke. She fills the plastic cup and gives me the whole can. I love her for a second.

I’m at an amusement park. I can see my sister and her kids up ahead of me. I can see my kids with her, too. I don’t know how I got here. A character that looks like Goofy walks by me, but it’s not Goofy. It has Goofy’s body but Arnold Schwarzenegger's head. I don’t blink. Goofy Arnold stops, sits on a bench, and starts crying. I catch up with my family.

I’m in the middle of a conversation with my college speech teacher. I’m telling her that I have mono and have been sleeping sixteen hours at a time, so it’s hard for me to wake up for an 8 AM Speech class and also give a speech when I have a fever every day. She long-forms about the rigors of collegiate academia, and I go to the Bahamas in my mind and have a conch salad.

I’m in the middle of a conversation with a clown on a unicycle, but I am talking, and he is only miming. He is doing that dumb thing where they make a box and try to climb into it. I keep asking him what time it is, but he is so high on the unicycle that he can’t hear me or isn’t listening. He mimes for me to get out of his way. I feel shunned, but I walk away and get some honey-roasted peanuts.

I’m in the middle of a conversation about existentialism and the universe with an older man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. We are in a museum because there are paintings and sculptures everywhere. I realize he isn’t talking to me; he’s talking to himself, and I am listening to him talk to himself. He doesn’t know I exist. I take a piece of Juicy Fruit from my pocket and start chewing.