MILLINOCKET, Maine: INSTALLATION 2018

 GIRL WHO LOVES GLACIERS, by judith goudsmit

I dreamed about it first. I was ten, maybe eleven and had heard about glaciers in school. I started looking for pictures of glaciers. In books, magazines, at first, then on the internet, in museums, documentaries. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I suppose it was all research. Because it couldn’t be just any glacier. I was looking for my glacier. Or I’d like to think that the glacier was looking for me. On July 21st  it found me. I quit my job, gave up my apartment, broke up with my boyfriend and came here. Please don’t worry. I planned it all out. You will all leave me here. And once you’ve left, I’ll close my eyes, I’ll fall asleep. Snow will fall, water will slip between my limbs, on my face, down my back. 

Beat.

In winter the water will freeze and my whole body will get attached to this glacier.  Another layer of ice will form on top of me, thin at first, then thicker, and eventually, this glacier will start to move, together with all the rocks and debris that have been trapped inside. I’ll have become a small air bubble, in the midst of millions, billions of air bubbles from all different time periods. It will be like that for years. Thousands of years. There probably won’t be any humans left. No plants, or animals. And, eventually, after all that time, in the midst of this empty transformed world, he’ll let me go. I’ll drop into the water, in a big bright blue iceberg, and I’ll look just like this. Floating gently, bobbing up and down in the water. Like I’ve just fallen asleep.  

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