you must: il faut

“I freed my hands and put a palm on the smooth skin of his cheek, taking comfort in the well-counseled patience for that which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and, most importantly, endures them.” - Amor Towles

[aderive]

my new therapist asks me about the puppy and i tell her i love him, he's great, he's tiring, he's so fun. she says i saw your whole face light up, your body shift, everything was bright and happy when you talked about him. and it does feel that way. i had problems before. i had shitty sleep, so many worries, couldn't let go of a lot of things. now the shitty sleep is because the little guy has to go outside and pee and poop in the middle of the night before we tuck him back into his crate. or break the rules and bring him into bed with us, snuggling between us, the way he wraps himself around our necks and shoulders, he's a little scarf, a little bandana. we debate if he's getting darker or lighter, are his spots spreading, is he learning impulse control, is he learning bite inhibition, are we doing it right. it is a blessing, a joy, to do with b. and i'm glad i just typed that bc sometimes it does not feel that way!! my cranky side. when he touched me last night just as i was drifting off to sleep. so mad. mad we're not engaged yet, mad he's stringing me along, mad he's making me wait. and yet. him lying on the couch. him coming in for a kiss when i ask for more touch. him making my chemex coffee that takes forever to pour through this morning. maybe this is just how it is. i love him dearly. i can let the mad go. i can care for me, love him, love me, love this puppy. assume good intent. he is who i choose. i joke, will i be happy when it happens? or just resentful? but i hope i can dive into the rich bright blue pool of joy and love and having manifested what i dreamed of, my partner, my guy, all the goodness there is and in the tougher parts that he's here as my teacher, my guide, my motivation. two horses sparring, back on their hind legs. and also standing side by side swishing our tales to keep the flies off each other's faces, scratching each other's backs with our big horse teeth. anyway it's friday. toward the end of april. less than one week left in this house, my beautiful dream house, my manifestation, the house that nearly broke us up but ended up being the home in which we'd grow our relationship, the home we'd bring our little puppy home to. a huge blessing. it's all kind of messy and chaotic. and where we're going is small and dark and i have to sage it, get the vibes right. i can make it what i want. a beautiful mountain summer! bats flying overhead and the crows and summer thunderstorms and walking to things and being right there in the heart of the world, not sweating too much. anyway lots of good. this is why i write, to remember!! to frame it! to come back to the deep bright blue rich beautiful wonder. blessed. always. grateful, always.

[aderive]

good job, past me, putting this on the 2026 playlist, so when i'm being a cranky little bitch from two nights of shitty fragmented stressed sleep i can get snapped out of my stupor and see my life for the absolute beauty it is: sun pouring in the window onto harper's pillow, her photo on the wall, my parents' rug in the living room, black tea steeping in the mug from argentina, b in the other room prepping for a call, feeling tender and smushy and hopeful after a first call with a new therapist. well-fed by the food truck down the street, tucked into bed for a few minutes of decompressing, airpods bringing ross gay right into my ears. stopped in my tracks. okay. yeah.

i tell the new therapist i really didn't want to start therapy again. i'd rather disassociate, scroll on my phone, distract, whatever. yeah i'm present outside, hands in the dirt, on my little walks, whatever. no dog to pet these days, but i'm okay. didn't want to do it. but she says - and yeah, of course, really - maybe you wanted something more and that's why you reached out to me. oh yeah. a ping. an invisible string. something snaking through, something propelling me from a to b, to fill out all the forms, to pay money just to talk to someone.

she starts the session asking what my strengths are. what a beautiful framing. i'm not sure yet if i like her, or if she'll be good, but i'm trying to remember these days that nothing needs to be perfect. something is good enough. everything is good enough. if the puppy isn't the right one, well, yes he is, however he is, whoever he is. oh yeah. she wasn't born. or maybe she was, but she didn't make it. he did. dreams shifting a little. it's okay to shift a little. it's good to shift a little? he's two and a half weeks old. his eyes may be open.

anyway. whatever it is. there will be days for dreaming, longing, getting etc. today's just for noticing. for pouring a little more hot sauce on the rich and french fries and steak. for holding tight and admiring the new daffodil blooms.

[aderive]

walking home from the gym, waiting for our puppy to be born, looking at the stars, i'm already thinking about her death. lord willing, in a decade and a half or so, we'll put her down, b and i petting her and holding her paw as she goes. we'll remember when we got her, living here in this house in this perfect tiny sleepy town, walking home from the gym, saying every day i wish we had a dog right now and i miss harper, planning our next several moves and the next few years of our life, me dreaming up the kids we'll have, that he may ask me to marry him soon, trying to hold tight to what if you get exactly what you want instead of letting my brain spiral into the worst of the worst. we'll remember how we longed for her, wondered which puppy she'd be, wondered if we were doing the right thing, remember how we got on the same page wanting jerry first but by the time we got to that page it was somehow too late and just wasn't meant to be. tried writing letters, tried making calls. we fought for that little guy, but he wasn't ours. we'll remember her early weeks and months as a puppy and the harder years and the sweet older ones, and lord willing, she'll live through it all, we'll get to say goodbye at the end, just like we sent harper on at the end, in that bright windowed room looking out on the mountains, with the jar of hershey kisses, long past the time when she'd eat anything at all, telling her how much we loved her, holding her and kissing her head til she was gone and again after she was gone, wherever dogs go, somewhere out there running off into the bushes and returning panting and happy.

[aderive]

today: said goodbye to my girl, the top of my gratitude lists for years, my silky eared food obsessed snuggly little girl who was by my side for almost twelve years. it's true what they say - no matter how long we get, it's never enough. fourteen. half decent ink paw prints laid around my office to dry.

the closest to death i've been. it was as sweet and holy as it could have been. big, wet tears, b there too, b there the whole time, i want to say my rock but that's not enough of a description. sending her on together. answering my any question about what he thought we should do for her the last few weeks, does she need to go out, should we try the appetite stimulant again, where should we take her on her last morning. and it was ultimately my choice, but when he said it was time as soon as it was over it meant everything. to not have to do it alone. i would have a million times over for her, my girl, done it alone, like we did many things alone, but it was a blessing beyond measure not to have to, to get to do it the way we did. as good as it could go. and still, around every turn, big fat tears. her pillow on the couch. the towel we used to dry her belly off after the last trip to mumy, still wet, brought to bed.

i feel unfathomably grateful. to have loved her. to have held her. to have talked to her as she passed, petting her ears, walking her all the way up, staying with her body after, we cried more, we left her on her bed, straightened her up. b held her head, said it felt so heavy. minutes before, she was resting her heavy head on us, my hand, his arm, like she was bridging the two worlds, like it was all one thread through. the last few days she seemed so ready, so tired, i felt for her so much this past month. so the softness, the ease of this end felt hard but necessary. i don't hate that she had to die, i hate that she couldn't have kept living pain-free, agile, easy, snarfing down breakfast and dinner. by this last week, she wouldn't eat a thing.

i'm proud of us, proud of her for going til the end, proud of all the tears we cried, proud of the way we held each other. today too: a storm, brief, when we got home from her last walk, when we came in to press her paws into the ink pad, before we had to get to the appointment. pouring rain, then a break, enough to carry her inside, dry her off, cuddle up with her on the couch for a few minutes. at home, all is well.

i do want to remember how perfect of a day it was. slow morning, breakfast with garden peppers and brown rice and beans and leftover steak, forever offering harp bits of steak, wishing for it to be different. hanging with her in bed. walking in one of her favorite spots, her drinking so much water, going a little deeper in the water than she wanted, the rain, dr. k crying, the room with the chocolate kisses and the cards from dogs already gone, afraid to look at susie then talking to her "she's the first dog i fell in love with here," harp's head resting on us, her labored breathing, her silky ears, a million times her silky ears, the way her head slowly lowered when they sedated her, how i couldn't tell the life had left, how holy to stay with her, to leave her on her bed, to walk out onto the wet pavement. to spend the rest of the day with a little walk, calling my mom, b packing up for his trip, lazing in bed together, reading dog songs, playing AARP tetris, texting my friends, making food, working out, missing her, missing her, missing her, bringing the towel to bed, still damp because i folded it over, she was just here, she was just here.

but i don't want to forget, so i had to type some words. made a list of ways to care for myself. thought of all the sweet people thinking of me, of us. holding steady. big fat tears. gratitude so big i can taste it. for her, anything.

[aderive]

one of the sweetest things i do for myself is make myself a little plain bowl of warm oatmeal (extra extra brown sugar + butter) on mornings when i'm really sad

[aderive]

my therapist and i decide to take a break because her mother is dying. of what, i don’t know because we don’t quite talk about these things, just around them. in the end of our last session for this summer she tells me a story of asking her mother if she would have done anything differently. she says she would have been more brave, and she asks how, and she says well i don’t really know. my therapist laughs telling me the story. i tell her i’m doing pretty well and i was thinking i should hunker down and save some money and keep doing my own exploring, so it works out well. it works out well.

i think of the things i want to talk to her about - my dad, my parents, my family, the ways i see myself in them and judge both of us, the anger i feel toward them for the ways they are, and then about acceptance and she tells me the story and i remember it’s not all that serious, we’re just here to experience each other in the time we have, i don’t need to curl up on the bed thinking about how the threads are connected in this big complicated way and there are all these tough things, i just need to go outside, touch grass, go pull some weeds from my garden, eat sungold cherry tomatoes off the vine. that’s all! that’s all!!!

so many things and thoughts and ways i want to be better, let’s get back to the ol’ journal, the ol’ walking meditations, envisioning my future, snuggling my sweet pup, loving b, making dinner, just living this life. that’s all. a priest taking care of the sacred.

a week ish with cal, my beloved nephew, how soft and warm and squishy he is and he looks at me and KNOWS me, he smiles at me, he likes my dancing and the way i boop his nose and pick him up and he grabs the carrier straps when i carry him, looks up at me like he loves me. smitten!! i’ve never been smitten with a baby before, but it’s easy with him. five months. i dream of a better world for him, or maybe just as good as this one, ripe strawberries. i tell my fam that at dinner, it’s all okay because of the strawberries, the bill and frank last of us episode, it’s all okay because we have ripe juicy strawberries that we plant FOR EACH OTHER, it’s all okay. it’ll be okay for cal. i hope one day i’ll have my own little ones, they’ll be his cousins, w and b will love him like my partner and i do.

dreams!! it’s warm out, harper is sprawled out on the futon at b’s, b’s at work, i’m going to eat a handful of chocolate covered pretzels and work some more, check on the squash plants outside, feel the sun on my shoulders, drive home in time for meetings, root in, make tea, buy little treats, kiss b, loop my leg over him, dinner with my girlfriends, worry about money how silly how real how ~it is what it is~, maybe a paddle soon, maybe maybe, yes yes.

[aderive]

last year when i paid for my somatic meetings, the zoom calls where we'd feel into our bodies collectively, where we'd move our hands and watch each other move our hands and feel like we were moving them together, we talked about longing. today the longing is thick, i can taste it. it often is these days. kinda choking, kinda suffocating, but today, the hot dusty walk with no trees and no shade, and then the heron, my heron friend, flying over the canals, there for me, always there for me, and i felt the weight lift a little from my throat, from my chest.

the equation just doesn't work out and i am longing. this phase of life: not making nearly enough money, forever feeling choked by the money thing, and longing longing longing for the next steps, longing for this home that i've really been longing for since before pink door, maybe since childhood. longing for a family of my own, for a partner and a baby. for real talk about it all. but also loving and longing for and then receiving the most delightful life these days - b curled around me, rubbing my back, touching my leg, kissing me, planning wedding trips, planning dinner, making time for me, and my long dog walks and my 3.5 mile run with leanna and the ankle's feeling fine, everything's fine, there's so much blessing here, so much joy, so much of what i want to fill my beautiful precious days with.

just found this new noah kahan album, i am smitten with all of it, all these songs, and i'm glad to have a new little album to dive into, passenger and the way these sounds sound. typing this from b's couch, swamp cooler on low, just ate toasted banana bread slathered in warm butter, before that i launched my new course and sent my email newsletter. been talking about these courses for years and the first one is live, out there, DONE!, beautifully done, and i really enjoyed creating it and i hope people enjoy going through it and i feel good about it, hopeful.

the elm street house though - oh yes the longing - the duality these days, holding both truths. not enough, not yet, not what i ultimately want but also really good, really nourishing, really joyful. i pray i will find a bishop house before the winter. universe, lord, please. this house had big windows. i hardly let myself dream, envision life in these homes anymore. but this one did check all the boxes. still, it feels like a square peg in a round hole a little. i don't have the money. if i had endless money, if i felt like b wanted to move in because he loved me and wanted to take that step enthusiastically, if i wasn't all caught up in this lack, this hole of i don't have the money... if only, if only.

anyway. new noah kahan. longing music. harper snoozing on the floor. the first course done. knocking out client work this afternoon. i am blessed. i am lucky. i am longing. all at once.

[aderive]

grateful now to be home, in my quivering forest, to hug my mama when she picked me up, to look out over nashville, to get home to ginger barking and my brother and becky and temple running around happy to see me, to huge sunflowers covered in bees, to dahlias blooming, to the chorus outside, louder than i remember, all the green, highway median flowers, ALL THE GREEN, the moist wonderful chirping summer here, even lightning bugs in the grass then, as willis said, moving up to the tops of the trees. now, the chirps, back and forth as if they're talking to each other, whatever they are, crickets, cicadas, etc.

the travel was easy and beautiful, blessed. now i'm in my bed, a sunflower my mom picked beside me, a peach in a paper towel in the cup holder for me on the drive home!!! wowow lucky lucky me.

today christi said i think that's such a gift too to let people see how it can be ok in uncertainty. you did such a beautiful job of that with austin. i think about it constantly. what a gift you gave people. you're a projector, so we rely on you to show us how it can all be ok. i mean, truthfully, everyone is living in uncertainty. i just think we think about it more.

i feel distant from b, but he said so beautiful, so green! said love you, said goodnight honey bun, and he's not so far away. i think i want deep talks and he doesn't give me that, then i think of our talk about meg's parents, mine, his, how forgotten he was as a middle child. person 1 meg says. i find out b's top two locations, the first of which is our current home. ortiz asks him if we're going to move in together, he says no i don't think so and i ask him about it later, calmly, easily, if it means he's not interested in moving forward and he says of course not. that last night in mammoth, it's pouring rain and he's grilling salmon and i'm preserving all my veggies and making roasted potatoes and he's looking up the recipe and we're curled up together on the couch and then in bed, blessed, the rain outside, the new grill, grateful to be in my space, in my home, to have asked for more space in his home, to be able to see where things go, grateful to have this beautiful man to learn with and learn from, the future uncertain, the future always always uncertain.

and for now this - just here - about to watch the new episode of the bachelorette, fall asleep, maybe get a little high, listen to the peepers outside, having traveled across the country to this perfect beautiful home. sure, dreams of consolidating, living with or closer to the people i love, but also this, the beauty of both homes stretched far apart, how lucky, how incredibly hugely beautifully lucky.

[aderive]

this bright sunshiney morning, the world feeling like a storybook, like golden hour in a movie -- a guy throwing a ball to his dog, a kid with a backpack on my way out of the complex, a guy on a little foldable bike, the sun through the trees looking magnificent, the way it felt on my face, ugh, lucky to be alive. after yesterday’s hammock fall, this morning’s walk and the safe DI was a godsend. deep breaths. dreaming of my safe space, a big porch, sunshine, grass, a tree or two, love, gentleness, ease, calm. not my spinning spinning spinning. coming back to b who kissed me when i walked in. b who slides his arm around my waist. b who i saw in the DI when she said picture someone who loves you and i saw him looking at me on the paddleboard yesterday.

all of this and also a head full of anxiety, the way it pours in, slips in the cracks. in the podcast she says think of it like you’ve taken the anxiety pill. it’ll be here for the next 20 minutes, hour, day. then it’ll pass. amazing, always, how radical acceptance can lift the weight, lift you up just a tiny bit, but enough to see what’s real.

processing a lot, digging in, being present. just trying to be here. just lucky to be here.

[aderive]

this morning when the parade started i had a handful of papers on a clipboard, judging sheets, and my parents in folding chairs next to me, and i was choked up, thought i’d cry at the parade, could hardly hold in tears. the kids in the marching band, the band teacher i’ve heard such good things about, the lives people create here because they are called here, summoned here, pushed out of their nest and land here among these incredible sharp hills, these endless lakes. my mom asks how many lakes are in the county, i don’t know, but i’d like to.

my time here is up, i feel it in many ways, but i also feel sweetness here and it’s the balancing of two truths. i want to be in bishop but i’m also home here, sweetly home, in my little place, battling the moths every night, cuddling harper, sliding open the glass doors, all my things have places in their cabinets, my parents say they’re comfortable here, it feels like home, they’re grateful to walk the same trails, to mark their health by it -- 2022, my dad says, and i can still go to mcleod and convict -- and i already look forward to when they come here next, after a gap of time and a smattering of other visits at home, at w’s, at a’s, maybe in between, a beach trip, etc. all the dreams all the dreams -- and i also, we all maybe, think of their aging, what years they’ll have left, how many visits we’ll get here, how many visits we’ll get doing these things, the walks, the sits, them driving and flying and renting a car and stopping at the weed store and driving here, such a long journey, them coming to us. time, man.

it’s been such a beautiful blessed visit having them here. i’ve been light and easy, taking deep breaths, telling them i’m so glad they’re here, i love them, trying so so hard to temper the angsty teen -- in this time, this blessed time, i don’t want to be that way. i am breathing through it. not always acing it, but i’m trying. conscious about it. my therapist says observe and i am trying, but trying to be light too -- not my prescriptive, shitty self i can sometimes slip into with them. i don’t want to be the angsty teen. we have another day together, bless it, i’m looking forward to it, and to the trips we have on the calendar. i love them dearly. i am blessed to have them. blessed to have their quirks, to be their daughter, for them to be proud of me. dad gives me a new yorker article about a horse as i leave, says he wants to know what i think of it, and i’ll read it tonight, of course i will. this is how he loves me. this is how we love each other. we push and pull and tug and it’s strange and i’m grateful for it today. i can’t stop thinking of the quote once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future i stumbled upon yesterday or today. it’s something else.

and while we’re together, y is sick and w tells us she’s seven weeks pregnant, if all goes well they’re due in february, they’ll have to do genetic testing and it’s all precarious and new but he’s excited and my parents are thrilled, incredibly thrilled, obviously trying to be chill and contain their excitement but they’re so so happy and he too and i hope she is too. i’m happy too, but being cautious about my excitement. i’m worried, always, what will happen, will it work out, will it be okay. i will light a candle for her and them and the tiny baby forming in her belly that is so, so wanted. and for the sometimes insurmountable grief in the world these days.

but world be damned, i am grateful to be feeling light. i light up when b texts me from the mountain, says he loves and misses me, i have hard and good conversations with my therapist, an angel she is, and an angel i am for caring for myself and loving myself as i have been in this era. i have worries and anxieties but these days i am missing b, can’t wait to have him back, have his warm body in my bed, kiss him, love him, move with him, go for walks and beers and jump into lakes and get sun together. snuggle with harper, watch tv, watch movies, eat together. i love him so much. i’m just so glad he’s thinking of me, missing me, feeling good about us. i feel supported by him, loved, gently held, even from afar.

funny how w gives us the news and i’m excited but also immediately think i don’t want that when this past year i have only gotten clearer on the fact that i do -- i do want a child, children, three if my life will work out that way -- so to immediately feel a no was interesting. the being pregnant, oof, yeah not sure. but today i was thinking about it, had a brief dream of what it would be like to be with b and it felt intriguing, calling, not him-or-nothing, but i felt what m has been saying -- she’d be really excited to do it with a partner, on her own not so much. to create something between you, from making love, then to do it together, to make the decisions together, to bring a child through the world and then send them off... that does feel rich. my mind may change a dozen times. who knows.

for now there’s this -- my parents walking with me around mcleod, harper running fast and chasing sticks and rolling in the sand. all of our bodies still moving, still carrying them, still letting us all move through the world like this, bless it. dreaming of the future, what’s next, but also being very very here. choked up at the parade. the california breakfast burritos!! their sweet condo around the corner from mine. letting things be what they are, not reading any more deeply into them. harper curled up in a donut next to me, breathing softly. i’m sure there are moths in here, buried in the curtains, won’t come out until it’s time for me to fall asleep. and that’s okay! it’s blessed. i’ll pick up e this week and deliver her to the PCT, i’ll see my parents and family briefly this weekend, we’ll watch the jon videos with the girls, then b comes home, my sweet b, and we’ll laugh and kiss and roll around and i’ll be grateful and still and breathing deeply through it all, happy happy for the busyness for the chaos for going going going. all you have is everyone.

[aderive]

wait but what defines grief (loss) -- you have to work hard to figure out how/why to live after -- and you do -- us rubber band tangible movable determined humans we do

[aderive]

sitting on the porch under my down cloud blanket in my lovely new chair from jen, post-5-min meditation, checked that off the streaks app, watching the clouds go by in my little circle of sky between the pine tree branches and the red wood condo and pete’s deck floor, the across the way neighbors’ wind chime chiming softly, birds chirping, a slight breeze, it feels like fall, feels like winter is coming, but it’s spring, even though it’s summer, but it’s never quite full summer here until it really really is.

i saw a comment on woodshed’s instagram the other day, someone saying they know a move is coming but don’t know when or where and how that adds a sweetness and a presence to their current life. since covid and since i decided this condo is no longer a fit for me, and really this town too, it has added a sweetness. also some anger. also some irritation. i can’t get out even though i could, i guess, if i wanted it badly enough, if i wanted it at any cost. but i just don’t quite yet.

the aspens are rustling, quaking, their fresh green leaves soft still so they’re not as loud, not as noisy, as they are in the late summer and fall. i do love this place. it is so deep in my bones. i thought i’d never let go of home, the appalachians, how they tugged at me, and i wonder if i’ll feel the same if or when i leave here.

b left this morning to go back home. i can’t wait to go down there later today and see my garden, see if the drip is working, see if the tomato plants are growing, put their new cages up, pull up all the weeds. i had a dream the garden flooded because the drip was wrong, and then there was a loose cow eating all the lettuce. i loved that dream, love that the drip and the garden are in my dreams. b was here for a few days and it was delightful. i love him dearly, even love our little tiffs right now, the way we care for each other in a kind of fumbly bumbly way, trying to figure out how we interact and how to love each other while also learning (still, always?) how to care for ourselves. it’s fun and bright lately. he leaves for the mountain in a couple weeks and i’m oddly not that nervous. radical acceptance? if he comes back and leaves me, good, not good, ouch oof heartbreaking, but if that’s what has to happen it’s what has to happen. i hope he comes back loving me, and me him too. i think we will.

life has a lot of richness these days, a lot of color. the spring green. the bright grass, bright green aspen leaves, driving from my home down the hill to b’s, my someday home??, the hillsides green, commenting on it, and immediately remembering my parents saying this isn’t green and laughing because it’s not in comparison, their lush green hillsides forests mountaintops, but this for here is green.

a lot of things have unhooked me, it feels like, from this home. like the shade cloth i saw somewhere hooked into the ground with dozens of little caribiners, like many of those have been unhooked and i’m hanging on a few left -- b being here is one, my friends are a big one, the things i can do here another (now - garden hike backpack climb paddle ski walk swim - someday horses perhaps), my identity as someone who lives here (talking with miles yesterday - the grief/difficulty of losing your identity as X who lives in the sierra etc. - it’s big, it’s a leap, it’s something), the fact that i have a home here even though i’ve outgrown it, even though it’s not big enough for my dreams and what i want the shape of my life to be. it is still blessed, hugely, in this chair on the porch, the birds chirping, hearing cars drive by, seeing the dark murky clouds toward old m where meg and i will walk later this morning, bright white clouds above, a perfect spring early summer storm day. and it’s not lost on me that these mornings - or any time - outside chair or hammock times aren’t guaranteed, i’m remembering the months of smoke, the 2020 summer when i went home for several weeks leaving things with b all strange and strained and came back and the smoke was still here, still going, he went on a fire job and we both came back and still it just kept going, the fire not out until christmas or so. and last summer too, the smoke days, the wind days, the smoke even in bishop, impossible to out-drive it. so i am savoring these clear, bright days outside as much as i can.

presence and longing, back and forth, moving between both, existing in them both at the same time. such gladness, gratitude, joy, ease in the moments i slow down, ease into. but longing too -- for this home i’ve been imagining in my head and heart for a year, two, something like that. space outside - to do this, sit in my chair, write in my journal, listen to the birds, just exist out here where it’s not about me and i don’t really matter. i want to be able to throw on slippers or nothing just bare feet and pad over to my garden, to check the tomatoes, cup of tea or coffee in hand, bedhead, maybe in a robe, see how they’re doing, pull a few weeds, make a list for the day. i want a table outside maybe with an umbrella or a shade cloth, an outdoor outlet, so i can work outside, be outside even when i’m tied to the computer. i want a space to entertain, to host, outside, a table for outdoor dinners, a fire pit, chairs, i want people to come over for a while and then we all go home, and i fall asleep with b in our bedroom with the windows open. i want a yard for harper. for her to be able to go right outside in the morning, smell all the smells, lay in the sun. inside i want big windows and brightness. i want simple things but for them all to work. i want it all to look good, feel good, things have their places, their bins. functional. i want space for people - willis and becky, my parents, ashlyn and kate - to stay, a bed i can make up and pull down when they come over, bedside tables, all the comforts, i want to comfort them, i want to host them sweetly in my home. i want that separate space and ease.

and also i don’t know that i’m ready to jump - hanging on a nail waiting for b - my mom says some of us hang on nails and maybe we shouldn’t - but i love him and why be in such a rush? i want the dreams to come to fruition, but not at all costs, not at the cost of losing him and tying myself here. there’s a lot to figure out, i just don’t know. for now it’s june, it’s bright clear sunny with clouds moving quickly across the sky, i have the whole day ahead of me, some hours to work, an hour or two with meg, a couple hours tonight in my garden, falling asleep w/ b, a bit petting harper, a bit feeding myself, making more tea, tidying up the house. a few more minutes sitting here, just listening to the cars go by and the birds and the slight rustle of the aspens, lingering, pausing, appreciating how quickly my fingers can write the things my head wants them to, how smoothly the words go together, how much easier and simpler it is than clunkily writing words in my journal - always ending with thank you, thank you, which is where i want to end here too - thank you, thank you - but i’m so glad to remember these keys can be the place too. xo

[aderive]

one day in her office with the tiny fountains and giant teddy bear, my witchy therapist tells me it’s all connected, as in once we get to the core, you’ll be healed, as in it’s not a million problems, just one. another day she says you’ll never be where you were before and i walk out into the sunshiney parking lot taller than i have before, carrying all the right weight, feeling like a part of the world rather than something misplaced. i drive the three minutes home with a big, goofy, nearly-drunk smile on my face.

to write i play my current favorite song, the one that croons like the forest loves the rain, and today i’m writing because it’s about to rain, or it feels like it might, and that heavy, bloated sky feeling is one of my favorites. next to the rain drops hitting the pavement. next to hot sticky georgia thunderstorms. next to green grass in north carolina. next to gently pressing my face into granite. next to a really good kiss. next to learning what your friends love the most.

the book meghan recommends says, feeling unworthy goes hand in hand with feeling separate from others, separate from life. and i guess it’s this that’s rolling around in my head.

here in mammoth it has quieted down, but just days ago it felt like a rift through the town -- we don’t want the tourists, but we need them, but we do want them because they’re humans like us and haven’t you had those times where you connect with their humanness and they just light you up? last week i was the tail guide for the sweetest family, the mom a kindergarten teacher, the two teenage girls joyfully quietly riding along in front, the dad perched on top of joe waving back at his wife every once in a while, and she left $60 and work there is so rushed that i didn’t get to tell her how much i enjoyed talking to her. and then there was ava, the sobbing child who reminded me so much of myself, and how i told her i’m proud of you for staying on and then had to rush her horse back into the yard and help someone else off.

it’s all so fast. it’s all so connected. in tahoe, the news station pans their cameras from the tourists go home signs to the long line of cars driving into town. i’m part of the urgency too, the angst. i don’t get enough sleep and i’m banging the steering wheel or hitting my shin on the dumpster or spilling the water. but there’s something deeper -- my therapist says breathe through your heart which only sometimes makes sense. ross gay says sorrow is not my name and christi says it’s just love and all the people in my life live it a million times over so i can see it and be it. and i guess that’s what gives me a tiny, shiny sliver of hope in all of this, this wild world... that somehow i walked out of judy’s office thinking i won’t go back to where i was and i haven’t. there are bad days and tears and hopelessness, but far less than there were before, and instead i like to spend my time digging in to who humans are. dreaming of what we can be, do, become, hold sacred together.

we’ll never go back.

we can’t unsee it... the extraction capitalism requires. the ways the resentment toward tourists here built up for a million good reasons til it bubbled over, like i’m sure it will again and again. how it asks us to look at it. the hunger and ache and murders of so many innocent people. the sorrow endless, the grief too big to hold.

but my human design says when healthy, i am fundamentally optimistic, “hoping and dreaming for the best in life for everyone, including yourself,” and i wasn’t always this way, in fact wasn’t ever this way, and somehow that has turned, and i can’t help but think it’s possible for all of it to turn, for all of it to melt into something far better, truer, holier, demanding of even more soft reverence.

No matter the pull toward the brink. No

matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.

There is a time for everything.

[aderive]

bu every color of your love i’ve seen enough, i want another

b asks if i want anything when he runs inside the mobil, i say no, but he returns with two its its and puts one in my hand, and i look at him and want to say I LOVE YOU right then, and i wish i love you could be a casual easy thing, like i didn’t love LOVE him in a big i-need-something-back way but just in a FUCK DUDE, I LOVE YOU, like i love you as a human, like i’m happy to share this space, like i feel lucky and connected way, but i didn’t, i just said wow with a big smile and then said you’re amazing thank you and when i peeled mine open and started driving he reached his over and we cheers-ed its its and drove home.

my body says i love him so much and i have to hold it back, hold its waist and say hey honey you don’t, or hey honey you do in this moment but you don’t need to do anything, and you can’t assign too much to this. i think that’s what i don’t like - the holding back - the waiting - the wondering if he’ll “come around,” if he’ll start to feel the same. i’ve been here before. sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn’t. does it ever mean good things? i would like to jump in both feet, but these capricorn boys are showing me a different way. what he says to me all the time - “don’t overthink it” and “don’t try so hard.” his world is rigid, structured, straightforward. not void of emotion but emotion lives in a box and he only opens the box when he feels like it. me? i’m fully porous, fully permeable, so much comes in.

but regardless, i want to remember the its its, looking him in the eyes to thank him, him touching my leg driving home, all the ways we’ve spun around each other and grabbed at each other and when we come in for kisses and feel like we’ll swallow each other whole. and i want to remember telling him i didn’t think he liked me and him saying that’s a ridiculous thought and i want to remember getting into my head about the talk about w and how it stung him and how i put on a podcast and dove in and came out the other side an hour later.

how it’s possible to do that - to shift - to move your energy in a different direction. to zip up, to put out better things.

also this, though, hugely, bigger? less confusing so i write less on it - more simply beautiful - video chatting with my sweet fam, dreaming and scheming trips to all be together, how we long to be together. and then to get back to service and to have c tell me she’s pregnant, she’s PREGNANT, the weight, the hugeness of that i can hardly fathom and i haven’t cried yet but imagine i will sob big beautiful tears many times over it, how beautiful for she and her love to bring more love into this world, how beautiful, how lucky i feel to get to be a part of it.

[luminousdetails]

Women

(after Molly Brodak)

I love how an extra hair tie is always choking their wrists

I love how the ladies room door swinging shut feels like an exhale

I love that the best way they’ve come up with to avoid lipstick on their front teeth is to suck on their index finger

I love how they dab at the corners of their nostrils after snorting a line

I love how they snore louder than men

I love how they’re quiet as a church mouse when everyone in the house is asleep

I love how they surprise themselves with their joy, pushing it down a little bit with the palm of their hand over their mouth

I love how the moon follows them everywhere

I love how they swarm like bees when something bad happens

I love how they have their own languages and 90% of them have to do with what it means when they touch their hair

I love how they chew on straws like a rat; I love how they hoard napkins

I love how they can always have a fresh pot of coffee going

I love how salty they are; how mosquitoes lay down their lives for a taste

I love how squirting is a secret, and also a language

I love how they wish they could squirt hot sauce or Merlot

I love the intricate Russian nesting doll system of their purses (a pouch for lipstick inside a bag for makeup inside a tote)

I love how anger thrums florescent inside of them

I love how anger is a helicopter stationed directly over them

I love how anger wakes them from a deep sleep

I love how they say “I love you” like a command

I love how they say “I love you” like a treaty

I love how they say “I love you” like a wave just before it breaks

I love how you can shut them up with silence

I love how all their silences grow teeth and bite

I love how they can fit an eye-roll into a blink

I love how they can fit ten different outfits into a backpack

I love how much they love splitting a side of fries

I love how their legs are softer with two-day-old stubble than they are freshly shaved

I love how they drag a razor all over their body and don’t even think about it

I love how they shove cotton all the way inside their body and don’t even think about it

I love how they can always crowd source a band-aid

I love how easily they ask for help

I love how you can scare them just by driving fast on the freeway

I love how you can scare them just by not texting back for a day

I love how you can scare them just by closing the front door

I love how they always remind people to eat

I love how they wash cucumbers

I love how they love to touch their own bones

I love how they all have blankets in the trunks of their cars

I love how they gasp even when they see it coming

I love how they gasp when you stick two fingers inside of them

I love how they use their whole body when scrubbing dishes

I love how they can strain a scream into a sigh

I love their terrible memories, riddled with holes like an unfurled accordion streamer

I love when they tell men they sometimes disassociate during sex and men say that sounds cool

I love how they leave their bodies without ever visiting an online forum on astral projecting

I love that specific face they make in front of the mirror

I love how standing in front of mirrors makes them sick

I love how standing in front of mirrors makes them swell

I love how they know how to cry without making a sound

I love how they will drive five hours

I love how they always want to know what they can bring

I love how they love to eat dinner in bed

I love how they stare at one spot on the carpet in waiting rooms, and twist their ring around and around their middle finger

I love how the same thing happened to their sister’s friend’s cousin

I love how they say hello to every tiny dog

I love how easily they’ll get on their knees

I love how their backs always hurt from the weight of some invisible force

I love how they can fit through almost every window

I love how they’re scared but they’ll do it anyways

I love the dark patches of hair fertilizing their armpits

I love how their bodies are always trying to kill them

I love how they stay up late reading about serial killers

I love how they’re always ten minutes late in a cloud of perfume

I love how they’re always the last to discover their own bodies

I love how they have convinced themselves they love to sit on the ground

I love how they didn’t know they had bodies until they turned eleven, or twelve, or even ten

I love how they cry on their birthdays

I love how they’re each assigned one long dark nipple hair

I love how their gut speaks in sonar and never stutters

I love how, in high school, their AP Government teacher puts a post-it note on their desks that reads, your public opinion is showing – pull up your neckline

I love the texts they receive at 2:37AM

I love how their ear gets crushed against a man’s breastbone

I love how they sit like origami on public transportation

I love that they feel things all the time like warm dry wind or undertow

I love how they close down the dance floor

I love how they are making a concerted effort to apologize less

I love how they are always slightly dehydrated

I love how their fingernails clench half-moons into their palms while they are sleeping

I love how they run hot

I love how they love their therapists more than their mothers

I love how they are always folding sadness into dough

I love how ghosts love their light footsteps

I love how men follow them home and the moon does nothing

I love how they lock their front door and it does nothing

I love how they say sorry and it does nothing

I love how they’ll lay across everyone’s lap if the car is full

I love how they are always looking at the treetops and stars

I love how they always have an astrological explanation

I love how they scrape black pencil along the inside of their eyeballs

I love how they sneak kale into everything

I love how they’re all waiting for an overdue email

I love how they ask for the long version when someone is telling a story

I love how they drink their placenta in a smoothie

I love how sorry they are for saying sorry all the time

I love how they teach themselves to swallow everything sharp

I love how they swallow so much they should have spat out

I love how it all lives inside of them now.

[aderive]

today’s one of those days it feels like maybe the universe is speaking right to me, like since i’ve been open to the opening, since i practiced breathing through my heart earlier with judy, it’s rewarding me? commending me? affirming me? maybe that’s a stretch. but it feels good. it’s a happy day, and i’m leaning in.

waking up slowly. sharing the BWH article. meditating and journaling with my tea. a workout, a hard workout... a hard workout is essential. then a beautiful drive to crowley, and seeing that neighborhood full of bright green rustling aspens and the stream and the glimpses of views to the lake, and THEN the horse barn, the corrals with the lake right behind them. it’s too good. it’s just right good. it caught me. i couldn’t stop smiling. and shannon’s yard, the full yard full of desert peach, wishing i could stay and savor a bit longer but then i found my very own desert peach just down the road and was all alone and could scream to it i love you so much!!!! shocked that the universe is this way. shocked that the world can be THIS good despite, because of, in the midst of... you know.

and then! the feeling of the new shoes on my feet. shannon and i texting about house sitting, how she thought of asking me, that there’s a vortex in the neighborhood, etc. etc. etc. thinking this will be mine. this, or something better. yes. this is it. expanded!

a beautiful therapy session with judy. frustrated but committed. going forward. breathing through my heart DAMNIT. yes i will. i promise. i will because i love her. i love you. i love me. i love you, baby girl. we’re in this together. i will because i love you.

and then! the beautiful coaching call. asking for help. being met with votes of confidence. being met with joy. sharing. being open. ugh i love them! hanging up the zoom call and saying awww i love them so much. i do! i love them! these strangers on my screen. who knows if i’ll ever meet them, but i love them.

then a climb with dane, an ease, a simplicity, a no issues, no conversation, no hard questions time spent. being present, using my hands, my arms, my body, to move through this world. feeling scared and then moving on to feeling other things. a few kisses in the parking lot at the end -- making out, how illegal this feels, how wrong, how i pray every time that we’ve done nothing wrong but lord it feels that way these days, especially in public. the austria hof lights were barely on but otherwise it was a ghost town at canyon. watched him drive off on his motorcycle. expanded -- someday i’ll ride off on my steed too. someday!

and then voice messages from amara, soft and sweet, saying she’d like to catch up more, connecting on some soul level. how many times i’ve wondered how i’d make friends and then beautiful souls step into the frame long after.

how blessed. how lucky. it’s a good day, so i had to capture it, swallow it, breathe it in deeply. thank you universe. i see you, i hear you, i love you, i’m with you. we’re with you. babygirl and i, we’re in it with you.

[aderive]

I want all of it - all the things to do with living - and I want them to keep feeling messy and confusing and even sometimes boring.

when i get medium-level depressed, sometimes i use an old tool - imagining dying.

so today, on my walk full of song and gratitude and self, i said i don’t want to die. i don’t want to miss this. all of this. all the messy, confusing, boring parts of life.

nina riggs is told she will die. and now we’ve been told many of us will die, around the world, no matter how rich or poor or what political party we vote for or if we’re black or white (although like most things i’m sure there is a class aspect to it too, god fucking damnit).

but what i need to remember and what i am clinging to is this: if i die, i miss out on this. all the beauties of right now quarantine and all -- coming up with new ways to cook foods, cuddling with harper, going on evening walks, meeting my friends to wander down dirt roads three feet apart. i’d miss scrolling through instagram and choosing a new show to watch on netflix and checking my tinder messages. i’d miss calling my mom, hearing her hand the phone to my dad. i’d miss the veggie delivery box. i’d miss texting emily to see how she’s doing. i’d miss the v-fit classes and the sound of the pellet stove and the vanilla incense molly got me. i’d miss the sparkly light and how cold tonight’s walk was and how beautiful the clouds are as they move around this winter paradise. i’d miss mammoth, quiet, sleepy, quarantined. i’d miss lexie’s wine night that she invited me to and i don’t attend. i’d miss all of it.

but - tonight’s walk - what i loved, what i cherished, what made me want to keep living for a long long time even if life looks like this:

- someone somewhere was grilling and the smell of charcoal was such a familiar, human, summer scent

- MJ and kevin drove by twice in her big truck and waved joyfully at me both times. i texted her after and said it was a miracle - it was

- i walked by salsa’s and smiled at the guy cleaning the window inside. he smiled back

- the sky was BLUE above me, cloudy on the mountains but BLUE above!

- i was listening to gregory alan isakov and singing and humming along because the world was empty and it was mine and i wanted to speak joy

- the trees were covered in snow pillows and frost

- i saw jenae cleaning her car and caught up with her from 25 feet away. she asked what i was reading. we told each other to take care.

- i saw matt and wished him a happy early birthday

- i pushed the crosswalk button even though the stoplight has been broken for weeks

- i crunched through fresh snow and felt the familiar give of it under my feet

- the snowflakes on the street poles sparkled as i walked by