Somebody Please Clap for Me

Approximately three seconds ago, I pressed Send on a submission of 4 poems to a Canadian literary magazine. I don't know what possessed me. I saw their call for submissions and threw some old poems in a document and now here we are. The whole thing took about half an hour and was 110% uncharacteristic of my utterly fearful self and her great need to obsess. I did not obsess even an iota. I barely proofread the poems.

Now that it's over, I would like balloons or fireworks acknowledging the significance of this accomplishment. It feels like that kind of a feat.

After work today, I met my brother and he took me on a bike ride through the river valley. There is a river that divides my city in two, and it turns out there are paved trails all along it, on either side, from one end of the city to the other, and it turns out that those trails are gorgeous. Deep enough in, it seems impossible that you could still be in a city. It's all fields of grass, ice-blue river water, the shadows of tall, sandy cliffs.

I had a moment, biking through this expansive field of wild, gold grasses with my brother next to me, trying to explain how to use my gears, where it seemed absurd that I could ever want anything else. Where the possibility of school, of relocating, seemed unthinkable. Right now, I'm not sure I want anything more than I want to be able to live with myself in peace. I know that. I've known that for a long time. On the trail today, that peace was something I didn't even have to reach for. It found me, and followed me, along the river, next to my brother, under the same sky I've always known.