Pivot

Squandering what I had in the name of freedom, I took off when everyone else locked down. I lived life in 90-day parcels, in Italy, Albania, Corfu, Mexico, and Colombia. On lonely days, I was comforted by the knowledge I’d chosen it. I joined sex-positive online gatherings, learned verbal commands, made new friends, and occasionally danced naked in morning zoom socials. I had a crush on a performance artist I met at an online party. Months later, we sold tickets for our first irl date. There wasn’t a second. I wrote in seaside towns, drinking black coffee and sparkling water, looking out over the green, clear water in Albania, and under a palm-frilled roof in Mexico and later, up in the Colombian Andes, where the horizon was punctuated by a volcano 70 kilometres away on a clear day. I forgot I was supposed to ‘pivot’ my business. Baulking at the word, my quiet, soft resistance ruins and strengthens in equal measure.