Ah, 2024… what a disintegration you have been. The great undoing, the ultimate solvent.
In recent months I have watched two people close to me emerge from complete breakdowns that left them unable to work, perform expected-life-tasks, or function in any recognizable way. I have also been plunging through my own mid-life moment with a sudden cancer diagnosis I was fortunate enough to catch in its early stages.
I’ve been playing around with conscious and lucid dreaming lately, or the practice of bringing awareness into my dream life. These kinds of night journeys are sometimes referred to as waking up while asleep, and they’ve taught me a lot about my power to choose.
The other night I had a dream that was all about emotionally navigating a particular relationship in my life (I know, I know so original). Anyway, there I was bumbling around this dream world I’d created when suddenly I was aware of the emotions I was feeling and how I was using them to affect my interaction with the other person.
Then I became aware that I could choose the emotion I wanted to feel, and that this choice would change the dynamic between us.
This person I thought up
This person I am
is becoming something else
entirely
The bath she fills
drop by drop
and the crumbs on the table,
new foundlings
Patterns assemble
but less fixed
more space in
the kaleidoscope’s eye,
grounding
Days are songs
their verses come hither
and loving,
alone in the bath
is ecstatic drowning
I just got off the phone with a friend who is going through an Enormous Life Event. It’s one of those rites of passage most of us will experience—the passing of a parent—with all its attendant emotions, requirements, and mind-splattering world alterations. In short, it’s an effing lot.
Summer in Portland—those longed for, beatific days promising dry weather for play—is as much a darling as dominatrix.
There’s the constant pressure to get outside, and then there’s the still, hot air when you do. We run for shade and we bathe our delicate Pacific Northwest skins in sunscreen from hairline to pinkie toes. Ahhh, we sweat at each other, glorious. And won’t it be an even more glorious fall?
I noticed him as soon as we parked. Short and bent, his lank mane of greying hair and months-old beard spilled over a loose black rain jacket that appeared to be fashioned out of a can liner. I remember noting that he carried nothing.
Let’s talk about this year for a moment, shall we? Wait, you’re burned out on that? One more 2020 meme and you might junk social media for good? I understand, I do. But the below is a conversation that seems to be showing up just about everywhere in my life right now, and I think it merits unpacking.
I finished a nine day cleanse yesterday, and to celebrate I walked myself around the park (naturally). This was the only movement I had any real energy for, and even then I could only manage one loop.
The temperature was perfect on my arms. I let myself feel it. The sun was as soft as warm cotton, the grass smelling of seed. The soccer kids were all practicing their artful crosses, balls sliding into goals. Perfect.
Most of the cleanse felt nothing like this.
The other day I drove home from work with the radio on as usual, avoiding potholes and generally disappearing into the glaze of sun off my windshield. The sky pulsed blue and dogs lifted their legs at trees. A summer evening like many others.
I made it home as usual and parked. My partner, Kate, appeared from behind the front hedge with her bike. I got out of the car to greet her.
