Clam Chowder

We sat in the sun, cold wind cutting through our sweaters like knives, whipping our hair around our faces. Eating hot clam chowder with plastic spoons from paper cups, we imagined it was all balancing out, that somehow, cold wind versus hot soup equals a comfortable neutral state. We split a mini baguette with our hands and drank cold bottled drinks. Surely that was the unbalancing element that left my chest cold. I felt as though I was topless.

​Sometimes the wind stopped, and I thought I would be warm, and maybe it would not return, but then it did. I thought of my jacket left in the car, but felt that going to get it would only make me colder. The soup would get cold too if I backtracked to recover what I should have brought in the first place.

​Ah, but the sun. It made me optimistic. I believed a sweater would be enough. It was beautiful and bright, and I imagined we could eat outside, bathed in its radiance. Huddled on the bench, I focused on eating my soup. It was gritty, as if sand was a crucial ingredient. I ate faster to stay warmer, clinging to every morsel of heat.

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