patterns

some things you recognize before you understand why. a herringbone weave. a row of polka dots. a checkerboard floor. you know the pattern before you could ever explain what makes it a pattern — it's just felt, immediately, the way a familiar voice is felt before the words land.

i spent a week noticing patterns the way you notice them as a child: as feeling first, structure second.

herringbone

the weave on the coat ran in opposite directions, row after row, and somehow that disagreement is what made it feel orderly. i sat in the fold of it for a while. it didn't need me to understand the logic. it just needed me to sit there.

polka dot

the dots were uneven — some bigger, some closer together than others — and that's what made it handmade instead of printed. i stood next to it for scale, mostly. it's a big teapot. i am not a big anything.

gingham

red and white, checked, warm from the sun. it's the pattern that means "we are about to eat outside" before a single plate has been set. i didn't bring food. i just liked being on it.

houndstooth

the floor broke into jagged shapes that didn't resolve into anything until you stepped back. up close it was just teeth. from a distance, a whole hallway agreed on something.

stripes

the deck chair had been folded and unfolded so many times the canvas had gone soft. stripes are supposed to be the simplest pattern there is. this one had earned every line.

checkerboard

light fell across the tile in long diagonal pieces, and for a second the pattern wasn't black and white anymore — it was light and not-light. i stood right where the two met.

i don't know what it is about a pattern that gets recognized before it's understood. maybe that's true of most things worth noticing.