Environments
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You are in a field, a perfect field, a perfect allergen-free field. The morning sun illuminates a soft sage and celadon blanket of grass; light, fresh greens, ephemeral and new. Wildflowers bloom in small bursts of color. A breeze, so light as to barely be perceptible, whiles across your skin. The word “sensual” comes to mind. It usually does not.
In the distance there is snow melting on the mountain, and you hear, just faintly, the cascade of a waterfall. There is a song, too, a familiar one that you can’t quite make out. You walk in its direction.
Shoes off before stepping down into a sunken living room, a perfect rectangle carved from the field. You run your fingers across the plush, lilac velvet sofa that lines three of its four walls; you test the give of the carpet of tall, soft grass. Light reflects from the expansive glass top of a long, low table, anchored on a base of raw wood spheres. Along with the clover-edged staircase, the final wall contains sofa-height shelves, filled left to right with well-worn albums, a honeyed countertop clear except for a record player and its speakers. Birdsong fills the quiet as you flip to side two of The Legendary Christine Perfect.
The song follows the gentle rise and fall of the surrounding landscape. Lulled by the mild warmth of the sun, you lower yourself to the sofa, stretching out long as the celadon-sage-wildflower breeze does its thing.
— — — — —
Midday light, and a long table set for ten. Chairs askew. Napkins in various states of origami. An abundance of emptied green bottles of agua mineral, crusts and crumbs of sourdough, saucers half-filled with olive oil. Platters speckled with tomato seeds. Small forks, short glasses. The fan on the corner of the porch whirs and rotates. Your skin is warm in its absence, your hair wanders across your face as its attention returns. You sense there will be time later to gather the dishes.
Eyes adjusting to the relative darkness, you enter the wide front door of the house, following a frame-lined wall up the stairs and through a long, wide-planked hallway. A rhythmic ebb and flow emanates from the seascapes and you pause before the largest one, letting a fine mist of salt and damp settle on your cheeks, the bridge of your nose, your lips. You reach in and drag your fingers through warm, golden-white sand as minuscule crabs skitter in every direction. A thumbnail-sized gull breaks confinement, flying in the general direction of what you think might be the bathroom. You pluck a small red umbrella from the beach, placing it behind your ear.
In the bedroom you open every window, watching as the sky turns opal, then iron. The heat and humidity break with the first crash of thunder, and the curtains reach inward as you drift off, languid and loosely held by the bedsheets, and then it is October.
— — — — —
The light is golden and the air is crisp and it is obvious to you that this outdoor library will be lenient with its return dates. Your boots crunch over leaves as you pore through the stacks, gathering all you can carry. An overstuffed armchair, ticking-striped and curved, sits beneath the wide limbs of a linden tree. The leaves are fiery yellow, so bright that you see their color reflected onto your hands and arms. There’s music in the background, Hailu Mergia, you think, but it retreats as you open your book to page one. A hammered-metal side table holds a ceramic tea kettle and mug at exactly hand height, the smell of ginger and cinnamon permeating.
As dusk begins to fade, elaborate webs appear at the corners of your eyeline, silvery threads reflecting the glow of dozens of dripping wax candles. The spiders are hired actors, they must be, their work and their manner so professional. You too have a job to do, leisurely as it may be, and your pile of finished books turns into a staircase, shambolic and sprawling, which you climb until you reach a lookout. In the heights of the linden’s rustling leaves you lean over the rail, arms outstretched, taking one last deep inhale of paper and ink, cinnamon and ginger, before closing your eyes.
— — — — —
A kaleidoscopic blur of snowflakes on eyelashes, the night sky coming into focus. Stars, tiny and softly twinkling, reach from just above your outstretched fingertips until well past where you can see. It is safe to assume they are winking at you.
You cross the frozen lake, its surface glowing in the starlight, your cheeks flushed in the cold. In the distance, woodsmoke curls from the wide stone chimney of a house made entirely of fit-together windows. You hear the crackle of its roaring fire, a collage of texture and textiles visible through the half-fogged glass. Sheepskins piled into makeshift chairs, tooled leather ottomans. A long, carved chaise, piled with hand-crocheted afghans like on the back of the couch in Roseanne, though maybe best to call it Jackie and John Goodman instead. You climb inside.
Coat off, then boots. You wrap yourself in the thickest, brightest afghan before blowing out the already-lit candles on a very large cake. The presents piled on the hearth are wrapped in brown paper, yielding a dozen of those pens you like, and a stack of your favorite yellow legal pads. Cozy on the floor, back against the chaise, you feel certain you will write eventually. For now, though, you are transfixed by the fire and its warmth, the embers showering fleeting sparks, its soundtrack excellent company. It’s showing off but you’ll allow it, and the two of you commune until you have no choice but to give in to the late, late hour.
— — — — —
And when you wake up you are in a field, a perfect field, a perfect allergen-free field…
“Environments” emailed out 3.3.2026 with newsletter-exclusive extras. Subscribe for free here.