The Salt of Unfinished Games

The taste of dust on the tongue is the first thing I remember about being small. It was a dry, metallic grit that clung to the back of the throat after a long afternoon of running until the lungs burned. There was the smell of sun-baked earth, a sharp, toasted scent that rose from the ground whenever we skidded to a halt. My skin still carries the phantom ache of scraped knees, the stinging heat of a summer that never seemed to end. We were always breathless, always moving, our bodies vibrating with a frantic, unrefined energy that didn’t need a destination. We were simply filling the space between the morning and the dark. It is a strange, hollow ache to realize that we eventually stop running, that the grit is washed away, and the skin toughens until it no longer feels the texture of the world so keenly. Does the earth still hold the imprint of our feet, or have we simply forgotten how to press ourselves into the soil?

Somnath Chakraborty has captured this exact feeling of restless, unscripted motion in his image titled Ten Innocent Compartments. It reminds me that joy is often found in the spaces between our own heavy, adult footsteps. Can you still feel the ghost of that childhood heat in your own skin?