The surfer, she tells me she met a woman at a 40s singles mixer. The type of woman who reschedules her flight home to Colorado so that they can have sushi in California. There’s a sweetness to tales of the dating world when I’m in a monogamous relationship. I feel only a little bad about appropriating them to satisfy something which I can’t put into words.

Imagine the world in which I hadn’t spotted the surfer in the queer Catholic Slack space of Vine & Fig when I did, that one day she was there. I have no right to define the surfer’s hardship. The day her parents kicked her out because she’s queer. The way she seeks to remain a parishioner in a space that can’t hold both her and the woman she loves.