#abby here

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Dearest hearts,

In the time since I was last active here, so many things have happened. I left the city, moved to a farm, lost my dad. It's been a lot. And I do come here sometimes, but I'm still scrambling to keep up with my work (farming for a living with climate change is...a challenge) so it's not like before.

But I miss you. And as I was sitting on the porch with my coffee this morning, watching the birds, I thought I might tell you that. I was active here during the darkest parts of my life, and finding The Amazing Devil's music, and all of you wonderful people with it, got me through the worst of it. And now I have a life which has difficulties, yes—but in the mornings I get to drink coffee and watch birds building nests in a tree that I planted. And I wouldn't have survived to this point if I didn't have a lifeline. So thank you. Truly, thank you.

I hope, wherever you are, that you also have something good to cling to today. Good music, good friends, little moments of peace in the chaos.

Be well, dear hearts.

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Hi hello I just wanted to show y'all my fish. My fish and a bee. Betta and the Bee

Ok love you bye

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My wish goes out to everyone who isn't even hoping for a particularly happy new year—just a quiet one, a peaceful and even boring one, where nothing terrible happens:

This year, may we all be surprised by joy.

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Sing me awake with a song about pirates, and I will try to harmonize, sip the sunlight from your eyes 💕

(from Not Yet by The Amazing Devil)

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There's a Christmas bazaar in the plaza near the hospital where my dad is confined. Loud Christmas music blasting all day every day. But my favorite sound in the world can be heard inside a dim, quiet hospital room, when my dad starts snoring. Snoring means sleeping, and sleeping means a hard-won respite from pain. These days that feels like a miracle.

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The thing about speaking English as a non-native is that you can be all lah-dee-dah so confident in using it daily but every now and then you'll sit bolt upright and start frantically searching a word or idiom that you've used a million times before just to make sure that you're using it correctly and even if most of the time it turns out that you are, the possibility that you're not will never stop haunting you because what if???

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A thing I could never say out loud

*

I always figured I'd be the first one to die in my family. Mental illness is a fucking bitch and at my worst I thought if it takes me then at least I wouldn't have to mourn my loved ones. (Yes, it's selfish, I'm aware.)

But now the doctors are saying horrible things about my dad's cancer. I'm not prepared for this. I'm not the slightest bit ready to be the one left behind. My father is a solid fact of life. HE is not supposed to leave ME.

Fucking insane how life just goes on when I feel like my world is on the brink of collapse. And I still need to feed the chickens.

[soundsfaebutokay]

Said goodbye to the city where I can get anything delivered right to my doorstep and traded it for this view from my window. No regrets so far. ☺️