When the mulberry tree bore fruit this year it was so productive that the boughs hung down and scraped their leaves ragged against the cement. Squirrels and birds came to feast and with each disruption more berries bounced free, collecting in tumbled masses that rendered the sidewalk impassable. Harvest was as simple as rustling branches for fifteen minutes with a big metal bowl and a laissez faire attitude about spiders in your hair. That minimal ask made it possible to freeze a gallon fruit in the middle of the busiest week of my summer. We picked seeds out of our teeth with grass stems and wondered aloud: Is it a mast year? Who is this abundance intended for? Are we the animals the trees are trying to save?
In July the humidity hung in the air and refused to fall as we packed and moved, carrying boxes through the springless back door and veering left across the yarrow studded lawn to avoid the sticky mush fermenting on the cement. The grass grew stiff and dry without rain, bending crisply to our weighted steps. At first the new path across the yard was visible only when the light hit the bent blades from the right angle, catching their silvery undersides. After two weeks the tenderest weeds succumbed to our churning heels and more and more bare-packed earth appeared, dark, then cracked and dust colored. By the end of the month the path from door to truck was visible to the naked eye even between uses. A fleeting desire path, left behind for the lawn to consume.
Desire paths have long appealed to my sensibilities. I like to imagine the burning needs of the individuals who trudge across the same vacant lot day after day, the dogged commitment to clearing a single route from the dead end of the alley to the sidewalk. The past year has shown me that longing can be a powerful motivator. Yearning can reel the future in like a fish you can’t believe you caught. My life has become crisscrossed with desire paths, carved with the passion of repetition beat against the status quo. What I’m trying to say is that I’m in the weeds, often, but I really enjoy the view. Recently, though, the path I have been bushwhacking has opened up from tangly and close to a sun warmed and wide, the soil packed down by fellow plodders who also turned their heads and let themselves be pulled by unspoken forces to step onto an unmarked hypotenuse. I imagine that, like me, they have begun to look about and wonder: if the unrelenting need to get from point a to point b without the inconvenience of a corner can shape and reshape the very Earth, what else can true desire accomplish?
Note: I’ve changed the name of this newsletter to better reflect what I’m writing about, but there will still be quilts and knitting.
beautiful. i have also recently had something big come to fruition simply because i really, really wanted it - and i am both kind of amazed that i even allowed myself to go for it and just so, so happy to be where i am now. i have a lot of feelings about it and you described them perfectly. (also that cassette holder is everything!)
I find something deeply kindred about your sensibility. Thanks for sharing it with us.