CHAPEL OF THE CHIMES Summer Solstice, 2016 

By Noor al-Samarrai

The pleasure of an unplanned meeting. Running into people you know, like bumping into ghosts.
A presence you thought had left your life, or someone you believed was far removed, but whom 

you suddenly find sharing the same air. 

Like Sam, Anna, or Rebecca Solnit with her signature hat, and hair under it. 

The body disguised as something else entirely. A key, a beat. A drumhead on which (diluted?) milk
dances. 

This year, a new association with ashes: a co-worker who couldn’t get off in time to visit her father’s
ashes on the anniversary of his death. The ashes and their vessel were in her uncle’s possession, all
the way down in San Leandro, or maybe somewhere further south. A five hour long trip by public
transportation. He’d offered to split them with me, but I didn’t want them to be spread out all over the place, his
soul disturbed.”75 

Groceries I know I got because I photographed them on my phone in pre-departure nostalgia. 

Clover organic whole milk in its red carton. Red, always means whole milk. 

A half dozen eggs.
Easter egg radishes. 

Grape tomatoes. 

Dried dates. 

One beet, sans greens. 

Three yellow peaches. 

One white peach. 

Two pears. 

Three shallots. 

One yellow onion. One head garlic. 

One bunch mint. 

One basket of red figs. 

One jar of preserved lemons. 

One box “organic girl” brand salad greens. 

One mystery product, unidentifiably shrouded in reflective plastic. 

It was Ramadan. I’d arrived at the chapel with Ariana but she
had gone earlier, the presence of ghosts being too much. I left with Patrick76 as the sun fell. We
shared dates and walked with his bike back to Grant Street, where I was staying. It’s easy not to eat,
just takes a little practice. 

75 Truth is, I don’t know what to think of the body, its rest, and its relationship to
the soul either in life or after death.