a couple of days ago we visited a land inhabited by deceivingly accurate portrayals of life. we grew so entranced by everything we saw. we spotted a very strange looking crustacean flanked by a really thin looking squid positioned upright. she quipped about how it looked just like a pen, and when we went to the store we made it our life's only mission to find it and buy a replica so that every time we confessed to our journals we'd remember the day. but it wasn't there. i think about it now and i laugh because what kind of a mentality is that? to just be so sure that something will be there, will work out in our favors, will come back despite all odds. i can't afford to think with such ironclad naivety. people are not infallible. funny as it is, i can't expect to find a squid pen, and no amount of determination can make tangible something that doesn't exist.

but the whale, above our heads, floated as lifeless and seemingly ordinary as a chandelier. a half idyllic half menacing scene at the bottom of the ocean. we laid underneath it and felt so small. our worries and problems themselves seemed even more infinitesimal. i pretended i was submerged underwater, letting all of my troubles disappear and become one with nature, and she was the only person who could listen to my thoughts.