Dandelion Bones (A Zuihitsu) Deborah Brown Things that lose by being photographed: Sunsets. Stars. Storm clouds. The sky in any form. Moments with friends when my ribs hurt from laugher. The cool night air on walks through neon-lit streets. Intricate shadows that branches cast on the sidewalk. Tall buildings. Christmas trees. Traffic lights reflecting on wet pavement. Raindrops.
Depressing things: Dents in new cars. New Year’s Eve in Alaska. Fireweed season, and the way the colorful world shifts so quickly as frost, snowdrifts, and shadows paint everything in black and white. The first time I skip the song I’ve been listening to on repeat, or when my favorite songs just sound like noise. Entire pages of writing, deleted by the computer. Somehow my writing always feels worse when I try to recreate it from memory. Sleeping too late on a sunny day. The guilty feeling when you don’t like a gift someone gives you. Sunday afternoons: something about them just feels like a cemetery. Those days when I find all my friends too busy to talk. Empty mailboxes. Rotting fruit. Bad pieces by favorite artists. Chipped mugs. Arriving at the airport with no one to meet me.
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