Still In There

June twelfth. I opened the sketchbook because I thought I'd written something down, a measurement, maybe, or the name of a plant I'd looked up. I was not thinking about the cord. I had not thought about the cord in weeks, maybe longer. But there it was, one finished row of square knots in natural jute, sitting in the fold of the pages where I'd tucked it in April without deciding anything about it.

I stood there for a second. Not a dramatic second. Just the kind where your brain catches up to your eyes and goes: oh, right. That. The sketchbook has held stranger things than this, six drawings spanning almost a decade, the accidental apartment record I only recognized as a record when I'd already made it, but this is the first thing that isn't a drawing. The cord is not a drawing. It is a single row of knots I made on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon with Simone, before either of us consulted the instruction sheet, and it has apparently decided to live here now.

the cord, still there, not going anywhere

I did not find what I was originally looking for. I'm not sure I looked very hard after the cord turned up. There's something almost funny about it, the thing you make casually and set down somewhere and then forget, which turns out to be the thing that's been quietly marking your place this whole time. I closed the sketchbook and left it on the table. It didn't seem like there was anything else to do.

not sure what I was looking up. the cord was more interesting.