Amanda Sandlin

I desperately attempt to drag answers out of myself and I’m just too damn tired for it. So like the earth outside I will go to sleep.

Day 12/100

“My heart says this is timed perfectly,” a friend responds to one of my stories about how I’m on my way to an artist residency in Norway, despite not feeling called to pick up a paintbrush in months.

Eight hours later, our plane descends over Iceland through a thick, pre-dawn mist. I can’t see any semblance of a horizon, and it feels ominous in a way I did not expect. I kill time while we taxi (knowing exactly what I am doing) swiping through old photos when I inevitably stumble upon one of Dewey.

As always, the tears come immediately. In my grief-y, sleepless fog, suddenly it feels like winter again, and I am alone. “Oh god, is this what I am in for on this trip?” I wonder. “I need a sign today, Dew,” I plead into the grey.

The sun begins to rise during my next flight from Reykjavik to Oslo. I see a thin bar of pink over a dark expanse and take a breath. Daylight makes everything a little easier.

After we land, I hop on a hushed train beelining to the city center. There’s a noticeably different aura of calm here. The window blurs blue and white as snowy countryside streaks by.

I step onto the platform, taking in my first big breath of fresh Norwegian air, and look down at my feet.

A single feather.

I always told Dew, “Stay close by sending feathers. Don’t forget the feathers.”

I pick up the delicate white wisp from the wet pavement and zip it into the left chest pocket of my jacket, the one closest to my heart.

9+10/100 Days of Seeing

I reheat the remaining two inches of coffee in my cup. 15 or 30 seconds? I settle on 30, but open the microwave door after 21. The neighbor’s dog Macy barks at no one. I crouch on her front porch step and she licks the tip of my nose. It’s March 1 and my collarbone bakes in the sun. I resist the urge to make any of it mean something.

8/100 Days of Seeing

Big metal vats spin in the chocolate shop where I’ve been spending recent nights. My decaf Americano comes with a single square of sour chocolate that softens on a warm ceramic saucer.

I think about a conversation I had with my hairstylist yesterday.

“What do you like to do in your free time?” I asked her.

Between snips, she chuckled, “Well, we have a two-year-old, so that’s really not a thing.”

There was a time when that could have been me, and I blew the whole thing up—packed my Suzuki hatchback to the brim and drove across the country with my screaming cat under the seat. And the thing I am sometimes scared to say—I’m so glad it’s not.

I put my headphones on and replay the same song until I’m sick of it. It’s Saturday night. I watch two older men debate one table over. Newspapers fly, coffees jostle. My foot taps, “I wave goodbye to the end of beginning.” A suitcase lies half-packed on the floor at home. A rising in my chest as I open a blank page.

7/100 Days of Seeing

Miss you, my sweet. 6/100 Days of Seeing