Where July felt restless and exploitative, August so far has made itself felt with its small doses of cathartic releases throughout these days of diminishing heat. The heat is still there, though, in all manners of speech. There is no more scorching self-doubt, but rather an abundance of small fires kindling together a dark moor of seemingly endless land.

It is with this brief acuerdo de paz between the world and my own little self that I start wondering what will happen to me, eventually, when the year ends. I can already visualize the next five months through the rough sketches of projects, family events, spendings, and planning. Always sketches, always the possibility of things changing by the whim of an anonymous link I cannot yet see. How curious to think that a life like mine can be so simple and dull when seen through the eyes of habit and everyday pleasantries, while still at the same time be so full of mysterious improbability. To think that a small, little woman like me has managed to survive 218 days of this year, and managed to enjoy and weave her own trifling memories out of them, is quite a feat. At least it feels that way, thanks in part to these August’s nights.

Title poem credit —  August, by Peter Cole.