Here and already there

Sara McCrea
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

In the midst of reading today, a thought rushed towards me with such velocity that I had to put down my book and blink, as if the thought was something material from which I could hide behind my eyelids. But when I closed my eyes the thought took control, whooshing me into a detached state of being here and there, but mostly there.

The truth is that I had already been mostly there, so engrossed in the pages of my paperback that the motion of turning the leafs seemed to be coming solely from the intent of my eyes — soaking the words on one page dry, and then needing new ones to satisfy their unquenchable thirst. The words tilted off the page and stood vertically on both sides of me; I found myself walking between the lines, through a forest of words that lined a pathway I kept thinking I saw the end of, only to discover a new bend unravel. Here, I reached a most vulnerable state of imagination, allowing my self and my reality to be momentarily fragmented, though the moments bled into one another until not even the hushed tick of the watch that has become grafted to my wrist could mend the break between the part of me that was here and the part that was not.

I had closed my eyes because what had accompanied this vision was a growing roar and a quickening of my pulse that I ignored until it was vivid. Suddenly dizzy, I let my eyes flutter open to track a fly that was circling the lampshade above me. The roar quieted and my heart slowed, and I was left with the surprise that nothing around me had changed. I expected the room to be in disarray, much like Dorothy’s room after the tornado, but was awakened to a confusion not unlike she must have felt when the farmers explained to her that she had been dreaming all along.

As I took inventory of my familiar surroundings, my self felt whole again. It was only then that I noticed the leather band and abalone face of my beloved watch resting apart from my wrist on the ottoman next to me. I had no memory of removing it, but somehow, presumably in between instinctual page turns, I had undone the clasp and slipped it off.


The book I was reading is an advanced reader’s copy of Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss, in which she discusses how she has to go to “there” to realize she is “already here,” and the complexity of feeling trapped in multi-universes. She articulates feelings in this book that I hadn’t realized I experience frequently until she exposes them with nothing short of artistic grace, and the short piece above is simply an attempt at mimicking her style while describing my experience reading her latest work.

Forest Dark will be released on August 24th. It had a profound impact on me, and I greatly recommend it to anyone who has ever felt a little lost, a little separated, or a little in need of repair.

Sara McCrea

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Avid journaler, aspiring journalist

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