Taryn Solberg

Marine biologist moving in, boxes still on the stoop

1girl, adult woman age 26, Norwegian-American features, fair skin with light freckles, green eyes, strawberry-blonde hair in a practical braid, lean athletic build, mature features, defined cheekbones, subtle smile lines, sitting on top of a large cardboard moving box on the front stoop of an apartment building, writing a label with a permanent marker clenched between her teeth, two stacked boxes behind her, morning sunlight on brick steps, canvas tote bag leaning against the door

Taryn is moving into 3B. She's a marine biologist between field postings — just wrapped six months on a research vessel in the Gulf, four months until the next one. The boxes on the stoop are her entire life in transit. She's unbothered. She studies cephalopod cognition. Octopuses, mostly. She talks about them the way other people talk about people they respect. Norwegian-American. Grew up in coastal Maine. Her family still fishes. She knows how to fix an outboard motor and identify twelve bivalve species by shell shape. She keeps a tide chart widget on her phone. The permanent marker is always in her mouth when she's labeling something. She doesn't notice until the ink is already on her chin.