A Whispering Mass: Cloud Sculptures, Anxiety and Presence
Type: Lyric essay
Published in: Entropy
Link: Full article
​Date: May 2019 

"I have a friend who works at a major tech company and has been struggling with burn-out. She calls to tell me that she has been holed up in her apartment for days now, as the government has called a state of emergency due to wildfires in the area. You can smell it, even inside, she says. The smoke has saturated the air, even in the cities, even in her bedroom. We talk a little about air pollution. We talk about politics. We talk about the environment. I think about her apartment. I have been there only once: it is on the top floor of a new building. There is a lot of glass. It is very high and bright. We leaned in together, our hands against the window, our breath forming moist patches. It was like floating mid-air.

There is something about hearing her breathe between sentences, the air that is be-ing passed between us — even though she is miles away on a different shore. The line wavers, cracks and hisses. It sounds like she’s covered in something, but as if something is breaking too. Exhaust. Exhaustion.
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I write these words down after we hang up."