Cotton

Today I stumbled on to my most important moment thus far.

I found an art installation under the Highline Park.



The subject matter was cotton.

It startled me to see it, however I wasn't scared and I wasn't in love. No one else was there. Bails made benches and I sat alone. I dug my fingers in and instantly realized why you were upset when I took the replica decorations off of sisters shelf. I hope they are still there. The burlap and the metal wrapped around felt like prison and I longed for a field. The living cotton plants against the worn brick buildings in strangling black pots shared my desire. They told me so in their weeping. There was a tangible stripping of my entire being, and I could feel it filling Papa's pride in self-employment, and Mamaw's desire to get out, to go to art school. It was the first time I understood them both. I could hear "Cotton Tail Over" on the c.b. radio. Through the crackle and the friction of the car I could distinguish that the people saying it were unaware of the privilege they were experiencing. I wish I would have known you as a child. I started to sing "We are standing on Holy Ground/and I know that there are angels all around" but those were the only lines I could recall; the silence of the city sang the rest. There was nothing religious in it, only the spirituality felt when music runs up your arm like the chills and down your spine like sweat.

I didn't stay long. I don't know why I had to leave; maybe because I was so far from home, I became aware of the dawn ending the day (as it used to do), or the fear that someone would find me stealing the dry stalks with the cotton still clinging. I was going to like and say "I am a writer and I need to take this home!" but then I realized that wasn't a lie, and you wouldn't be afraid to just take it. As I walked down the street it was as if the cotton stalks were holding my hand like an ol' familiar friend. Much older. I felt as if no one else in the world could understand me in that moment, not even the South.

When I got on the train, a kid was reading his son's story about a girl in class who gave a boy a bloody nose. Only you would understand. The boy said something I couldn't quite decipher, and the dad told him, "That's not true"! That's how I knew he was a kid, because everything his son said was true, as is usually the case. I suddenly wondered where everyone around me was from. The local is a dieing crop. I wondered if they knew where they were from, as I do.