The mud pit.

Jan 22, Brownsville.

Days of grey but I don't mind the grey, and suddenly one shade more grey, the bottomless mud everywhere, endless, sticking to your shoes, everywhere mud inches thick, slick, treacherous, a few hours and then the rain starts again and erases any hopes of coming out of the sliding pit, where every step takes on unknown dimensions, allowing in mud, having to calibrate one's steps along the valleys of mud left by the trucks' tires, walking to the truck and back, just going out, leaving the circus which every day turns into more of a prison already. What a difference a year brings. Last year in the sunny field two exits down the highway and the cortege of rainbow-colored artists, the Chinese, the Russians, the Kenyans, Ekaterina and Guennadi, the camaraderie of practice, hanging out, getting to know each other fast, going out together, old friends, new ones, the year ahead promising, my head full of pictures and projects, Dylan three-month-old in the scarf hanging from my neck, sleeping while I worked, took it in, smiled.

Seven-month pregnant doesn't explain it all. Tears of frustration or for unknown reasons, a recipe that didn't turn out, un repas raté, Dylan that won't nap all morning and clings to my legs and falls and cries and won't ever leave me alone like the perfectly normal toddler he is, the trailer getting smaller by the hour, and suddenly so many things I can't speak, tears that will just come out and no words to take their salt away, knots in my stomach, tears for a missed shot at hashbrowns, Fridman's eyes on me feeling like two ice picks in my brain, judging the weakness, the inexplicable tears, the stubborn tears, and the man in my life infinitely far away, leaving me in my loneliness in the trailer in the middle of all the mud somewhere on the U.S.-Mexican border thousands of miles away from anything else.
Dylan finally fell asleep.