Cry That in a Small Town
where to shed a tear in 21 square miles
There are so few places to be alone and sad in small towns. You have to really search hard for it, cruising side streets and back roads for a patch of solitude, someplace to cradle your thoughts. A spot with a flat surface to scribble helps, but above all, it must swallow tears without raising alarm. These voids of social construct are rare: Bars are too exposed (though drunken weeping might blend in). Woods? Too much of a gamble. An errant dog tick might disrupt the tear flow, and living in an Appalachian Trail Community raises the odds of encountering a day tripper or a thru-hiker. School grounds, playgrounds, and the library are off-limits. No manicured “sitting parks” here, just gas station parking lots, package stores (see: drunken weeping), nursing homes, a senior center, and the errant place to grab a bite (see: bars).
As you drive, you remember a place: the cemetery. Your town has three. But you pick The Big One, the one you love most. The oldest, the one brimming with stories, written and un. A place full of flat, smooth surfaces to scrawl on that has entertained tears of every flavor and variety. The one with a mausoleum’s stone-grey portico, its shadowed alcoves perfect for vanishing. You fold yourself into the cold steps, a ghost among ghosts.
From here, you face west and watch the summer dusk torch the oaks. Crows stalk the lichen-crusted headstones, hunting for oddities. Tattered flags droop in the cool air, heads bowed in either shame or respect—their secret.
From here, a cover band bleeds from the old stationery factory next door, the lead singer clinging to every last note of a tired refrain: a plea in G minor. From here, the cat-piss tang of the yew bushes mixes with juniper on the breeze. From here, wild thyme punches up through rocky paths, its purple carpet blanketing the rows, its sharp spice dancing with decay. From here, a shriveled fruit of the cucumber tree—the largest of the magnolia family—hangs in the balance, an empty chrysalis. A northern flicker’s breathy trill pierces the traffic static, then vanishes, spotting you. From here, a marmalade cat picks its way across a car-filled parking lot, white socks pristine.
From here, you tally the days: this Friday, on this particular day, in your thirty-seventh year. How did you get here?
From here, a striped pebble glints in the gravel—a “wishing stone” your mother’s voice echoes. You pick it up to check if the stripe wraps fully around. The quartz band unbroken, you slip it in your pocket. A wish on reserve.
From here, the freight train’s growl shakes the valley, a rusty heartbeat. Shadows pool at grave edges, a bookmark paused mid-sentence. Your thoughts unfurl like wild thyme, clawing the loam for answers.
From here, you measure the distance between breath and bone. What would you give to stretch out beneath the shifting light, to wait for the cucumber tree to drop its last chrysalis—just the place to make sense of it all.
Flotsam & Jetsam
Flotsam’s accidental sea junk, Jetsam’s stuff tossed on purpose—but both are just debris (and Ursula’s moray eel minions). Here are some random ideas and other things I’ve mentally yeeted overboard.
Currently reading “ Didion & Babitz” by Lili Anolik, and I’m obsessed. Obsessed with Joan, obsessed with Eve, with Lili and her hyperfixation. Finding a cache of boxes on your subject du jour is every Need To Know-er’s dream come true.
Eve (left) & Joan (right) We’re all likely living for the little things (LFTLT) right meow because, honestly, what else is there? (And I say that as a generation that has been consistently “LFTLT-ing” since our collective trauma-rathon began in 2001.) So when I saw this beautiful soul sharing radis beurre on TikTok, it got me so excited for spring and french breakfast radishes and bougie butter (we’re talking fat of the land, beurre d’isigny aop shit) and Maldon (flakes of privelege). The way it rolls off the tongue in French. Get me a meadow, a straw hat, and a patchwork quilt—I’m ready for cosplay. I took five years of French in school (see how I carefully avoided the word “studied” because ne’er once,
mon ami… immediately had to correct to mes amis bc more than one friend is here… see what I mean? jamais étudié) and was lucky enough to visit overseas, and I still think about the fresh baguettes slathered with butter that we DIPPED IN HOT COCOA in the morning and sometimes again for a petit goûter (afternoon snack) bc the French have been LFTLT-ing since day one. Condiment Claire is a fav TikTok account of mine, and I recently found she has a Substack as well!
Seventeen-year-old me at Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France Does anyone else feel like a total fopdoodle when it comes to IRAs and investing? I try to listen to or read things on these subjects to “enhance my financial literacy” and “get fiscally ahead,” but my brain does that thing when you’re listening to someone explain new game rules—radio static.
There’s something about Trader Joe’s Chocolately Chocolate Chip Dunker Cookies (it’s not the name) that is diabolically satisfying to me. Maybe it’s the way each little cookie bobs to the container’s surface like a spyhopping cetacean begging to be picked. Maybe it’s the way the cookie and chocolate coating soften into the most perfect mush when dipped into a hot beverage. Probably it’s both of these things.
Working on a handful of deep thoughts about paper towel dispensers, and I’m wondering if anyone else has thoughts. About paper towel dispensers—in all forms—specifically.
Two songs to add to your spring playlist: Everything is Everything by Lauryn Hill and a Bohemian Rhapsody cover by The Braids.
Stay in motion,
Tay