“To play a video game is to engage in ways of moving through space and time.” -Bonnie Ruberg, Video Games Have Always Been Queer

                I’ve been thinking about how I move through space. And sure, I can start by thinking about video games: I really liked Spider-Man on the PS4, mostly because I liked the mechanic of swinging through New York. I liked the rhythmic timing of when to let go of one web sling, and when to shoot another. I liked the huge arcs of each swing, down toward the cars and pedestrians, back up between the sky scrapers. Maybe a who we are is sometimes a how we move, and for a moment, I felt like the Spider-Man I remembered seeing on the screen.
                Video games are playing with something that happens all through our lives. One of the reasons I loved sledding as a kid is because it was a fundamentally different way of moving, of experiencing speed and myself, snow and slope and winter’s night. Crawling into a blanket fort changes the living room. Climbing under the table changes me. As an adult I’m usually more set in how I move through the world, and I usually only change the style of movement when there’s a ‘reason.’ A name. I’m going on a bike ride. I’m diving into the ocean. Ruberg reminds me the reasons are everywhere, or we don’t need them at all. These days trees have been reminding me of that, too. Looking up at their yellow leaves, I drift along beneath them. I kick my steps, scattering rustling colors. I spill myself out like a bucketful of warm caramel draped across the grass.