40. join me, if you’d like: lift one of your hands into the air with your other hand. you might look plain ahead, or away from your hands down or to one side, or up & right at them, your hands, which might be still or unstill, some degree of unstillness you & your body decide. you might close your eyes & listen.
39. if you’ve joined me, if you’ve decided to listen maybe you’ve also noticed there is nothing to listen to. let a little slack into your body, a part of your body or all of your body, and jostle out some sort of sound.
38. if you’ve joined me, if you’ve decided to listen maybe you’ve also noticed there is too much to listen to. let a little slack into your body, a part of your body or all of your body, and jostle out as much sound as will go.
37. if you’ve joined me, be gentle.
36. if you’ve joined me, continue to be gentle.
35. you may join or unjoin at any time.
34. i’ve chosen one finger and one small square of flesh: you can, too. i press the meat of my left middle finger into the meat just over the crest of my right shoulder, just where the hook of my hand fits & settles. i let the rest of my body go wherever it goes.
33. that is, i put a small warm pressure on a small & persistent pain.
32. that is, i’m not going to keep telling the story. and i am. my body is.
31. here i am, gently listening.
30. there you are: are you here? are you listening?
29. can you hear me?
28. if you can hear me, go outside.
27. if you can’t or don’t want to go outside, don’t.
26. if you can’t or don’t want to go outside, step or lean or reach or look or think to the left of your body. yes, like that.
25. if you’re already outside, go to the left of outside. step over or under what you need to.
24. whether you’re outside or inside, make a small noise.
23. can you hear me? i’ve made you this small noise.
22. if you’d like, i will take your noises on this walk. if you’d like this, take a deep breath. if you’d like to keep your noise with you, take a deep breath. i hope to see you when i return.
21.
20. hello:
19. i’m sitting still while a walk moves through me: the music still goes, the chill comes off my upper ears slowly, feeling returning, a feeling returns: that way your muscles pop when you move & then still, that way a walk tells you what to do & then asks you the same. clear sky information. layers of fabric. layers of temperature. green grass w/ the snow piled long behind it. stone & the stones just lying around it.
18. i’m not actually sitting still.
17. if it’s quiet where you are, add some noise.
16. if there’s noise where you are, add some more.
15. there are too many ways to make a noise to start counting now. there are too many places inside the body a sound can come from & too many places outside the body. there are too many places. there are too many ways.
14. is this how it goes, the noise?
13. did you too lean into it just now?
12. join me, if you’d like: tighten all your muscles around all the sounds.
11. or, lean your whole weight against the sound as though a very sturdy wall.
10. or, fall into sound’s well.
9. do you ever find the bottom of the well? do you ever find the edge of the wall, where it folds into something else—another room, an alternate route, a decisive corner? have you come to contain sound’s entirety?
8. yes, you do. yes, you have. you can set sound aside, if you’d like to.
7. & you can hold sound for the rest of your days, or the rest of mine.
6. in another version, we’re flipping pages.
5. there is one way to move followed by another. this is like and unlike sound. i’m noticing my own punctuation, a limb with a comma inside, the roll of the question as it moves through me. once. more than once. this hard stop. this waiting on. dot dot dot my fingers against a solid surface, solid as air. when i lose my place on the page, i just move until the word comes back to me. sometimes it isn’t a word at all.
4. here: here’s another way to move.
3. did you feel that?
2. now, may i squeeze you gently on the right shoulder on my way out?
1. you might not do any of this. you might not have been here. i might not be there now: might still be on the hill visiting that one tree: might be alone in the room lifting one hand into the air with my other hand, trying not to move, or trying to move, always already actually moving. my hand might be on my shoulder and it might be on your shoulder. i might be going and i might be arriving. hello: i’m so glad you’re here.
I am attempting to be a Goat without a plan. The plan? Write & write. Move, too. Hoof-to-crag. This first newsletter is the rolling of figuring out, a figuring out that owes big gratitude to Shannon Smith and Nate Logan especially, whose words and miles have been with me since one kind of beginning, making this beginning feel more possible.
& if you’re reading this, you also made this feel possible.
& if you’re reading, if you’re moving — thanks to you, dear reader, dear mover, for your company — I’d love to hear from you.
~ JJ