"My ‘ideal community’ is made of women over the age of fifty, Mom, angry teenagers, coyote pack sounds, forgotten bananas in the freezer, and the permission granted in banal niceties such as ‘sorry’ or ‘thank you’. I was on a competitive swim team for most of my adolescence and I never got good. People kept thinking I’d improve my time, be faster, everyone else seemed to be doing it, but I never did. I became obsessed with getting faster, but not because I wanted to earn points for my team (I was far away from ever doing that) but because it felt like a funny abstraction for others to support me. I think about that time often because I loved my teammates. I was even voted captain, but the coach wouldn’t allow it, because I was too slow. She was a total asshole."--Cara Benedetto
http://poeticresearch.tumblr.com/post/116334973747/area-sneaks-sheets-5-cara-benedetto-thom
