December 1, 2019
After the hurricane the water oozed through the cracks in the door frame and the gaps in the window frames. We watched the water seep through the indoor patio, forming a shallow pool in the living room. We were asked to fight the water by filling pails from the pool in the living room and dumping them into the yard. I took the books upstairs and then sat stubborn, allowing for the inevitability of its tide.
The water was clear at first, pouring in and draining out in turns. When the tide inward prevailed it turned very dark. Our internet and telephone connections went out and the level of the water rose steadily. When it reached our waists we observed it from the top of the stairs. On our final day in the house the flow had stopped, leaving still water full of stray tall grass, swampy from the bayou’s mud. We saw small fish swim from the powder room to the kitchen. The surface of the water held many red floating cockroaches. Stray items drifted alongside the cockroaches, like our slippers and a clay vase.
For a month or two I have been feeling as though my body is lumbering through thick water much like the water that eventually made the fridge float from the kitchen to the dining room. I am finding it difficult to remain on the surface as I am very heavy with mind. The water is law school, life in a body, capital, expectations, and dreams.
It is the dreams that catapult me most directly into the swamp. Dreaming as a woman feels very unfortunate and limited. Framing society as the culprit for this obstructed feeling does not address the rhythms of an innate biology that takes hold of the body. Too many of my thoughts are relational in nature. I think about lovers, friends, and myself. I perceive my limited propensity for abstraction beyond these themes as a shameful flaw.
Being a woman comes with a certain power, too. I am a desirable lover for men and women heavily involved in their own dreams, which I champion easily. Their ideas on the world are more abstract than my own, their dreams more defined. I replace my own with theirs and this is how I have always lived.
I remember committing to swimming through the rooms of the house, forcing doors ajar against water’s remarkable weight. It was a very warm and clear day, the neighbourhood had sent a jet ski to save us. I held my few possessions over my head and boarded it. The narrative fails now, mind is not a transient hurricane.