Etrange Histoire

There is an alarming amount of sunshine outside my window. I just drew the blinds to hide it, but it is very persistent and I think I will be forced to walk out the door in a moment, as much to boycott this pitiful attempt at shade as to inquire of the sun’s schedule for April. I enjoy having great washes of sun during April because the flowers grow more vibrant and the greenery flourishes. In turn, my skin becomes rosy and I inadvertently look radiant, even when I am sitting under a tree with my nose stuffed in the latest Latitudes section of the St. Pete Times. Right now, I rather like the stripes thrown on my arm and on the floor by the sun streaking through the blinds, but I must be firm and not allow this shade to consume me.

Flowers in April

1) The fence down the street has vines and vines of bougainvillea climbing all over it. If the vines were black and jagged the fence would look like a scene from a low-budget horror film, complete with gritty film quality and black bats flitting about the gray sky. But these vines are brilliant shades of red and green. The red looks like fresh blood on the tip of my finger after I have given my life to someone else’s veins. Blood does not have to be macabre. 2) There are two types of flowers that make me blush and I become frantic when I smell them – orange and night blooming jasmine. The blossoms of these trees are so beautifully scented that I wonder why I gave Burberry so much money for cherry blossoms and vanilla with a hint of silky linen.

The Color Red and Temporariness

When I am desperate for attention I wear red lipstick. Most of my friends have never seen me wear red lipstick. I don’t wear makeup very often, and especially not lipstick because it is so temporary. Temporary color on my lips does not suit me. I like to last until the end, a long, flowing river that will someday reach the sea. Red lipstick does not flow to the sea, but comes to an abrupt halt the moment the sea is near. Being in St. Petersburg, a tiny peninsula in the shadow of Florida’s larger peninsula, red lipstick is doomed to fade and falter quickly.

However, I do like temporary environments. Traveling keeps my environments moving in such a way that I am not quite nomadic, but neither do I crave lipstick for profundity. There is too much to see in this world to be caught up with the shade of my lips. On the bright side, I like that red lipstick really shatters my eyes when I wear it and makes them slightly prismic.

There is a particular shade of red and a particular shade of turquoise-blue that are inseparable. The love affair between these two colors is manifested each time they unite – they make my lips tremble when they are side by side. My passion soars and I am engulfed by a tumultuous wash of envy at the realization that two things could be so perfect for each other. My envy is not malicious, but curious and yearning. I want to belong to something so unarguably. I think people are too fluid to belong to one another unarguably, the way this red belongs to her turquoise-blue and vice versa.

On Water

I have been growing more watery with each passing moment of my life. I think that St. Petersburg’s peninsula within a peninsula is pouring water into my veins and asking me to flow through the world and be okay with change. I have never resisted change, though I have at times fought certain fluctuations in the channels of my life, when water was not so beautiful. The last few months that I was in New York I precipitated change with tears. This was not beautiful; in fact, it was rather pitiful. I was no watercolor painting, but a chalky smear of my original self, my pallor contradicting the tear-stained red sheets in which I laid my defeated body each night. These days, I prefer the way Florida sends water streaming through my hair while time’s fingers pour streams of salt over my skin. I feel more alive that way, and I think I grow younger each day.

Adrienne’s Photography

In Particular, the Sea

The other night I walked at the edge of the water with Russell. The moon cast its light on us so smoothly that we looked a little wet and everything yielded its own color in order to adopt the fierce whiteness surrendered by the rays of the moon.The only things that maintained their color were Russell’s eyes – they were especially green. The sky was crisp and black and flowed down into the water so that they seemed united. I love unity and I hoped that the fluid unity of the water and the sky proved my theory wrong. Fluid things can belong to one another. They can flow in and out of each other and always maintain themselves and even have time to suspend a multitude of stars and support abundant life, all the while thinking of each other and waiting for the moment when the sun perishes beneath the horizon, the moment when they can gently fold into one another so that they become a single body of water that breathes endless beauty into our eyes. I do love the sea during the moments between dusk and dawn.

Adrienne’s Photography