In which she finds the space to breathe.

It's the details that push me through these heady, humid days, with a smile on my face. In the space between each small perfection, I find the room to breathe. Here are four of the things that, without fail, lift my lips into smile:

The way it's sweltering and hazy all day long, and then at night, a hushed cool descends over the whole of Alexandria. So perfect that you have to stop what you're doing, just to breathe it in. A slight wind scatters through the trees, and it's almost as if Summer is sighing along with you.

The way my kitten's face looks when I come through the door: her shock of blue eyes lighting up, her ears perking, and then her entire body hurtling across the room, and into my arms.

The smells, sounds, colors of my favorite local coffee shop. I inevitably come away buzzing with caffeine, even though I only drink tea; my finger-tips stained with smoke smell, even though I hunch in the very corner of the non-smoking section.

A certain two boys who work at our local video store; fabulously geeky, they were three years below me in high school, and are now strangely handsome and grown. They smile when I push through the glass door, and call me either Kinz-eey, with syllables long and drawn out, or Robin-Kinzer-Robin-Kinzer, my full name quickly and on repeat.

It is amazing, how the smallest of kindnesses can turn a light on inside of you, and keep it glowing for hours.

ooo

ooo

The soundtrack, on repeat, to my recent days:

1. "Cut Here", by The Cure. (It's so hard to think 'It ends sometimes, and I should really watch you dance.')

2. "Angeles", by Elliott Smith. (It'd be forever, with my poison arms around you.)

3. "Grey", by Ani Difranco. (What kind of paradise am I looking for?)

4. "I Loved You, So What", by Ani Difranco. (The mathematics of regret; it takes two beers to remember, and five to forget.)

5. "Iowa", by Dar Williams. (I went running through the screen doors of discretion.)

6. "Heartfelt", by The Butchies. (I've been walking around asleep, thinking about you.)

7. "Hype", by Tegan and Sara (And I have always felt this.)

8. "She's An Angel", by They Might Be Giants. (Does it mean you have to throw your body off a building?)



I wanted to plunge my hands into the absurd pink and brown cake she'd left by the microwave, squish the icing between my fingers and lick it slowly off. I wanted to fish the soggy piece of food from her cat's water bowl, and re-fill it, clean, to the brim. I wanted to listen to the cds she had laid out; The Smiths, Cyndi Lauper, Magnetic Fields; for two people who bickered so frequently, our tastes are alarmingly similar.

I wanted to wait for her to come home, busying myself with something trifling and domestic; wanted to have an omelette, a glass of lemon aide waiting for her, when she came through the door. I didn't. I waited until her car was gone from the driveway, and eased through the un-locked door, moving hurriedly from room to room, gathering all of my things. Tank tops, umbrella under the bed, books.

Then I carted my television down the driveway, bruising my wrists and scraping my shins in the process. Frowning away the tears in my eyes, I slammed the car door, and drove home.

"today i am leaving, in every sense of the word
but i'm in love with your memory already
and i will go singing as the solitude sets in
in time with the rhythm of everywhere i have been"