The Innocence of Eros

An Ode to Fog and a Goddess in a Satin Dress

Block Island, photo by author

“This time of the year there is a sun shower around sunset. Every day we get a rainbow!” I texted a friend a few days ago.

“I love when those regular patterns set up,” he texted back, and all of a sudden I was whirling through all the weather patterns of my life to land in the back seat of a car in Pt. Judith, Rhode Island in 1974.

I’m with my family. We are waiting for the Block Island ferry, parked at the edge of a bulkhead we can’t see. Fogged in. Nothing is visible past the edge of the car, my parents vague presences in the front seat. My little brother next to me, I feel encapsulated, like I will be in the back seat of the car forever looking up at the front seat. I will never grow up. Time has stopped moving. I have no authority and the fog knows, pressing in on the car doors, diminishing my world until I am the only one in the vehicle, until I don’t have a body. I am just an awareness looking out at a world that has disappeared.

Then my father turns on the car radio.

(Interrupting this regularly scheduled broadcast to let you know there’s an audio version of this essay at the bottom of this email for paid subscribers. It’s only $7 a month and you can cancel at anytime. A paid subscription is a way for you to support beauty and truth in a world that says don’t dare dream. Please consider supporting me financially and thank you for reading. Now back to 1974. What’s playing on that car radio my Dad just turned on?)