I have a haphazard way of sinking myself: I like to see if I can float first. Holding everything in two arms that can carry babies but not boxes, lying flat under a weeks worth of unfolded laundry, counting the different specks of light that drop through peak-a-boos in the blinds. I’ve got words spread across a screen that are totaling up to almost perfect. I’ve got concrete under my feet instead of quicksand, a sturdy dock looking over cloudy lake, a swing set above a puddle of mud. Two hands, wide open and full, there’s no room in here for more, only less. It’s the business of adding that got me here, holding up what I want most against what it will cost me — the debt of time, of money, of opinion. How many letters does it take to spell love? You might say four, but I see at least 22 different options and every one of them looks upside down and backwards but not wrong, not right. I want to know how to call a good bluff. Like Sara, like the way waves of an instinct slow from a clammer to a calm, with certainty and a little bit of fearlessness. I want to move in the direction of the sun, leave the wind where it may blow, call the coast and let her know I’m coming home soon, kiss the plains on the cheek, wrap the storm clouds in my favorite sweater, hug a tornado around the waist, toss a cool washcloth to the sweltering summer, pack a bag and never come back.

But I like to float before I sink, win the monopoly before I flip the board, set my roots down just enough to feel it when I pull them up again.