I will read through the entire archives of The New Yorker. Or at least try. Devour whole entire pages of fiction and poetry and prose and truth. I will try to hear their voices without adding my own. I will not go hungry.
I will eat fresh peaches once a week. Soft ones. Hard ones. Sweet ones with the juices running on your arms brown from the sun. My arms are not brown. I do not tan. I am pale, freckled on my face if I'm lucky. I will eat peaches, even if they have no taste.
I will go swimming again. I will wear my black bikini. I will shriek with something called confidence when I go under the cold clearness of the waves. I will not shrink. Maybe a little. I will open my eyes underwater and pray for a fish to nibble my toes and when it does with its mouth sucking and small like sand, I will be still.
I will walk to a dairy queen and get a large icecream cone, just plain vanilla, and eat it outside. Even if there are mosquitoes. In my mind, the night is blue soot and tastes like smoke. There are red benches in front of our local icecream shop. I sat on them when I was little. I will sit again.
I will wake up in time to catch the sun. This is a difficult process. Too early and the sky is like silt in your eyes. Too late and you miss the smudging. I will wrap myself in a blanket and sit on the front stoop and see the sun burn the sky open if I time it right.
I will eat alone in a nice restaurant all by myself. I will wear my little black dress, my favorite one. Maybe fancy underwear. I will ask for a table on the roof, overlooking the street with the well-dressed people hurrying towards their definition of home. There will be yellow lights strung on vines as the evening dims. I will order sparkling water and drink it like wine. Eat oily pasta slowly, tear into soft crusted bread. Treat myself to dessert. Love myself and let it look like nurturing.
I will spend all day reading books in my favorite coffee shop. Or visit four cafes and order something different at each. A book each building. Here a cappuccino with Homekeeping. The table by the window, a cold press, The Maytrees. So it goes. The last I will stay in the corner chair until closing.
I will go berry picking and bring nothing home besides the stains on my fingers. I will not practice patience. I will reach until thorns remind impermanence. Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries. In my grandpa's backyard is a boysenberry tree. I will search the patch until I can name by memory.
