Border crossings peak on full moons. Walking where the ocean meets the hushpoint of the shore, I imagine a country founded on kindness. What is war? Who profits, who dies? These are the secrets of seawater and its fish, of Seawitch and the slipperiness of time.



A child tries to grasp a stream of water as it gushes from the faucet. We draw lines in the ocean, yours and mine, as if it’s not all the same water anyways.





“Which bodies can go where might be the central question of our century”, says Olivia Laing. Walking in the Sonoran Desert, I feel like a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye. I later learn that this is in fact one of the most surveilled parts of the world: spy cams in saguaros, military intelligence sloshing forwards and backwards between Israel and Border Patrol.


  


One day when exploring the clubhouse behind Seawitch, I stumbled upon an exquisite stained glass door. Coming across it felt like coming across a body. Shattered glass returning to sand under a gnarled ficus, I too sense the molecules of my existence rearranging. But this grief is not worth the poem.






Seeing the sun clamber out of the misty sea, morning radio filling the room, a breeze. Breathing space to regard history as something glacial, as the buffalo below understands the line between water and sand. A pair of slippers, a park bench, a hot bath, some cerebral tea. May this hospitality extend to all desperate strangers. Stay as long as you like, you’re welcome here.







The above words and images were made possible by the time and space gift of Seawitch, a residency for the feminine to find strength in solitude. Thank you Ali Van for breathing Seawitch into existence, and for prompting this exploration in sand, hospitality, and nomadic practice.