Slip down the canyon and end the year

Do we stop counting the months?

Collage by Hannah Hoch

Los Angeles, July 2024. No, way earlier. November, 2023. A flight from LA to London, where you bleed and bleed, bleed so hard it is as if it is the first time you’ve ever bled. Remember that girl you went to school with? 2008. Lives in Australia now. Remember how she got her period on an airplane and told you about it. Go to the pub with Mara, bleed more. Walk slowly, legs wide. See, you show her, something isn’t right. Remember Mara as a friend who understands pain.

A cyst. Jacob’s roommate had one. So did Andrew’s wife. Make a list of every woman with a cyst. Call them, one-by-one. Become friends with your cyst while she’s still around. Rub castor oil on your womb all winter because a French actress tells you to. Meet her at a wine bar in Chinatown. Tell your gynecologist about the castor oil. Does it help? It helps you have a shiny belly, she says. Look at yourself in the mirror with your shiny belly.

Back to London to film, back to LA to make money. Get a job for a special tampon, a toxin-free tampon, a tampon made of grass and dirt that will help us. Write ads about the tampon. Think about the tampon every single day. Drive from Silverlake to Beverly Hills, park by the old dance studio, now an IV drip shop. We can change the world if we change our tampons.

End of summer, lose your cyst. Lose your grandma. Wake up from surgery to a doctor from The Mindy Project at your hospital door. LA is not a serious place. Eight people on the operating table. Forget the wheelchair, wobble in the parking lot. Grandma died last night, and now you are cyst-free. You lost your job under anesthesia? Mom drives you home, says she’s a bit overwhelmed. Laugh.

Two days before Thanksgiving, go see Queer at the Vista. Walk out and get your laundry from Rory’s trunk. Thank you, seriously. Oh my god, girl, no problem. See the famous author on the corner. Notice how she has such nice skin. Drive home in the rain, imagine taking your hands off the wheel, and watch your car slip over the hill to the reservoir.

Buy cheese in Eagle Rock for Thanksgiving, a pear chutney from Orcas Island.

There’s a hike in Malibu above the PCH. Above nothing, really. Start the hike at 11. You can hike alone. End the hike at 2. Take photos for Mara, she’s still in bed with Covid. See, you show her. There’s the ocean. See! Look at how big life can be! Slip the last few yards and fall down the hill. A bit of blood drips drips drips between your index finger and your thumb.

It’s been four months since everything happened. Sarah feeds you Humboldt fog on toasted sourdough and tells you to stop saying that. Why? Because it doesn’t help. Call Mara and tell her to stop counting the months. Remember I got my first period with you in my bed! No, you forgot. You can remember now.

Drive to the base of the canyon.

Wonder if it’s time you stop hiking alone.