How the days go

I've taken too much on.

In the morning the fog rises just enough to hover over the fields. And the sun sets the red hickory's golden leaves aflame, but no one seems to notice. Passing through stone-faced and looking at nothing in particular.  I've stopped pointing it out.  Two days later, already the top of the tree has turned to brown, and the all the leaves had darkened, soon they will fall to the ground.  People aren't ready for beauty.  I remember once, on a sight-seeing boat trip to a tulip festival, two eagles circled a giant eagle statue as we passed through the channel.  I pointed it out, but no one seemed interested, until it was announced over the intercom system. Once officially sanctioned, they flocked over to see it.  Have we become so programmed in our daily lives (because we have to, and should do, so many things) that we don't see, or hear, or taste, or sense anything without prior vetting?

Someone unexpectedly asked if I had seen the meteor shower, I had forgotten about it  He asked someone else, who also had not.  Maybe he was just trying to connect, but he reminded me of me.

So before I went to bed, I opened the blinds and cracked the window, in order to look for shooting stars.

A fragment of a thing

You're dirty. You smell.  21 days wearing the same clothes will do that to you. You're also hungry, so you head toward the only place open for blocks and blocks. It's fancy, but you forget about how you appear, and you have money.  You feel entitled to eat. 

You enter, the hostess comes over after you stand at the counter for an uncomfortably long pause, perhaps they were hoping you'd leave, but you don't. You order coffee and a pastry.  It's a fancy dessert.  After you pay, she suggests that you might want to sit outside. You look behind you at the room, mostly empty, saved a smartly dressed table having drinks, a business lunch. Late. You hoist your pack and walk back out through the doors to the nice, but separate patio. 

You muster up some dignity, as you sit alone and wait. Think to yourself, "You don't know what I'm like in my other life. I'm not like everyone else. We'd probably have things in common. Under better circumstances."  But you don't say it.

In another life you're a: Teacher. Doctor. Lawyer. Own your own business. Bartender. Waiter. Stay-at-home mom. Carpenter. Cook. Artist. Singer. Writer.  You run meetings.  You do volunteer work. You drive a car.  You walk your dog.  Go to concerts.  You remember people's birthdays.  But now you're the same as everyone else they see.  A vagabond, traveler, pilgrim, hiker, taker, entitled.  21 days out, wearing the same clothes, clothes that don't come all that clean in the infrequent washing in the sink.  Clothes and pack straps soaked in days of sweat and miles of dust.  Any sense of stratification has long ago been stripped away, it's easy bonding with fellow travelers.  But you're not with them now.

You sit outside and relish your dessert.  Are you being judged for how you spend your money? After all, you could've had a cheap beer and sandwich like everyone else, but you have the money, and you wanted to treat yourself. You wanted to remember who you used to be.  You want to be the exception, you're not like all the others!  But you are.  You're an exile.  An outsider.  No longer unique, and you have now been cast outside normalcy, outside the city walls.  

You have become the Other.

To be continued (not immediately)...

What I Did Read

In order of finishing, though not including all the books I started and got bogged down in, but didn't finish.

1)  Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger
2)  Things that Make White People Uncomfortable - Michael Bennett
3)  Not That Bad-Dispatches from Rape Culture - Roxane Gay (ed)
4)  Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
5)  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling (The giant illustrated version which was fun to read.  And first time I'd read any of them, never really in my demographic.)
6) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (Read before, but I needed to read something hopeful.)
7)  Girls Like Us - Gail Giles (Young adult.)
8)  Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty (Recommended by a friend, and also, lighter than most of what I'd been reading, so a nice break.)
9)  Navigating Early - Clare Vanderpool (Young adult.)
10) Bitch Planet Book Two, President Bitch - DeConnick, Kelly Sue (Graphic Novel.  Read while doing laundry at a friend's house because our dryer had been out for weeks.)
11) Secondhand Time - The Last of the Soviets - Svetlana Alexievich
12) New Poets of Native Nations - Heid E. Erdrich (ed) (Another book that was a joy to read. And second favorite thing I read this summer.)
13) Calypso - David Sedaris (My favorite of his.  I appreciate the honesty.)
14) Encounters with the Archdruid - John McPhee (A book I put on a hold list, and then realized I had for years, and hadn't ever gotten around to reading, so I did.)
15) Razor Girl - Carl Hiaasen (Mystery.  The category of which made me confused on if this was or not, and then I thought, "Well, every book you haven't read is essentially a mystery, or you'd never keep turning the pages to see what happens next.  And yes, the genre is something else.  But...)
16) Yes Please - Amy Poehler (Far and away my favorite thing I read all summer. Struck a chord.)

Turned in all the rest of the partially read, and picked up Carrie Fisher's Shockaholic and finished that...I think I would have enjoyed knowing her.

Summer Part II

And for Part II: Whidbey Island (Oak Harbor, Dugualla Bay, Deception Pass State Park.) Days of heavy smoke from all the surrounding wildfires.

Pier in Downtown Oak Harbor, August 15/L Herlevi 2018

Roadside Poppies, Dugualla Bay, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Northbeach, Deception Pass, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Nature Trail, Cranberry Lake, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Where the Sea Meets the Sky, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Nothingness, W Beach, August 14/L Herlevi 2018

Summer

Keep trying to write, and then running out of steam.  In the meantime, some pictures of my summer. Part I: Mt. Rainier and the North Cascades. On Mt. Rainier it was cool, and cloudy with expected thunder storms (and relief from the smoke and heat.)  In the N. Cascades, the smoke was at hazard level, and it was around 90 degrees F.

Mt. Rainier Nat'l Park, August 11/L Herlevi, 2018

Meadow in Cloud, Mt. Rainier, August 11/L Herlevi 2018

Electric Forest, N Cascades, August 15/L Herlevi 2018

Newhalem, August 15/L Herlevi 2018

Newhalem, August 15/L Herlevi 2018

No more rush to finish a book

Was trying for the blackout in the Library Book Bingo again this year.  Blackout is 24 books.  Even though the deadline is technically Tuesday, and even though I technically could have finished a couple more books by then, I decided to turn in what I had today.  It was kinda' fun to do last summer, I was immobile for most of it with foot injuries, so had lots of time to read.  I finished 16 (I think) this summer, and got part-way through about eight others.  Several of those I just returned, I'll probably do the same with the rest.  It's good for me to be more aware of where I'm giving my time/energy/money/life.  I don't think I have any obligation to finish books that had become a chore to read, take on work that wasn't mine to carry, etc.  I'd like to not always find myself buried in the weeds; I'd like to begin to follow the good, good for me.  Believe I'm allowed to have good things.  It started to feel like a requirement, even if I put it on myself, and it's the end of the summer, a beautiful weekend, and I want to enjoy it.  This is all new territory, and good for me to be aware of; to put into practice.  (Also, I have had a headache for a good day now, and don't want to read anymore.  Partially, earlier dehydration, partially, possible food-born illness, lite.)

I will say though, I like participating in the challenge.  It helps nudge me to get around to reading books that I've been meaning to read for a while.  I like getting suggestions from friends.  I like that the categories expand my horizons, get me out of my reading auto-pilot.

Pretty much all new housemates as of this weekend (except the man that lives next door to me.)  So far, the household feels pretty social again, that past year was very anti-social overall.  Fingers crossed things work out well.  For all my complaints, my landlord does often find good people to move in (there have been a few scary people, but that's been true every place I've lived.)  I'm guardedly optimistic.

I should go to the garden, been over a week since I've been.  Planted beans, and had a nascent cantaloupe, should see if it's still around.

How it feels

Summer is winding down, and I wonder where the time went.  The heat continues, making the attic unbearable to sleep in.  Everyone has moved out of the house, save the one I like living with the most.  And we'll clean it all out, and it all begins again.  Feeling inner elation.

Here are a couple of pictures from 2017.  I don't feel melancholic, but there's still an appeal in that idea for me.  It's an end of summer, and a change in the weather signalling it's time for a new beginning, a new year to start.  I can start again.

Following the light, March 31/L Herlevi, 2017

Melancholy, March 31/L Herlevi, 2017

As of late

Woke up at 7, thinking it was 4 am because it was overcast, realized quickly I needed to get to work.  Had been having a dream where I was in a job interview that my mom had applied me for that I didn't know about, wasn't prepared for, wasn't dressed for, and a job a definitely didn't think I was qualified for (it was either a principal of a school, or a journalist...I could probably have pulled off the journalist thing).  I tried to come up with an answer to why they should hire me as a principal, and came up with some answer about being an outsider and shaking things up.  The interview was in a community center, all the chairs were set up in a circle, there were maybe 30-50 people there to ask me questions.  Right before I woke up, I leaned over to my mother and asked her if there was anything I should know about the job, and she said, "I told them you were 24."  (Wouldn't they figure it out that I wasn't?) I woke up before I got to answer any questions.  Curious as to what my dream me would've come up with.

Other recent things.  Saw an owl sitting on the ground while I was walking around at lunch yesterday, looking for a place to sit and read.  I was actually looking for rabbits.  Eventually, it raised itself up and flew into a nearby tree.  Seeing it during the middle of the day, and on the ground, was odd.  But it didn't seem in distress or injured, at any rate.  That was unexpected.  Saw a river otter surface and munch on a fish a couple weeks ago when I was walking near Lake Washington.  And then a short distance further, a bull frog.

Went to the beach on Saturday to muck around in the low tide.  The eel grass is way more extensive than it was last time I was there, hard to avoid, very little open sand.  I saw sea cucumbers (which I somehow originally missed, and then noticed through my camera lens while taking a picture of a worm), and then I found them everywhere; ochre starfish, sea anemones, barnacles, a live moon snail, wooly chitons, limpets, and lots of different seaweeds.  Got sunburned, too.  And probably food poisoning somewhere down there, was sick all the next day.

Low Tide, Golden Gardens, July 8/L Herlevi 2018

Sea Cucumber, July 8/L Herlevi 2018

Golden Gardens, July 8/L Herlevi 2018

Saw a friend I last saw four years ago, and probably not for 15 years before that.  Another friend invited me along to see him and his wife who are in town briefly for a visit.  I had some anxiety about it, kinda' dumb, he'd been one of my best friends in college, but we'd fallen out of touch.  It was good.  Eye-opening: reminded me of how it is when someone loves you openly, doesn't withhold, isn't punishing...when someone makes the choice to love you.  Attraction might not always be a choice, but love is.  I made a choice at 21, and I would probably make the same one again, but damn, it's nice to know someone loves you.  (It was always mutual, if not romantic.  It's the value, the worthiness recognized in the other.  He always treated me as if I was an equal, that I mattered.)  Meantime, "too busy" feels like "not choosing you."  Everyone is busy.  Everyone makes choices.

Cheers.

The week

I had a really good tomato salad on toasted baguette this morning.  It had the perfect balance, and I find I want no other taste, so I guess I'm satiated.

I felt an embarrassment of riches yesterday, and I prepared a bunch of food, but ate leftovers.  Half motivated.  Mostly stayed off-line, so even though I slept a good chunk of the day, I also managed to read, clean the bathroom, wash laundry (so, it'd have time to air dry...our dryer has been busted a good two out of the past eight months), go grocery shopping.  Feels decadent and productive; I blew off any expectations, feeling buried in "shoulds."

On Saturday, I took my sheets over to a friend's house to use his washer/dryer, as my drying rack can't accommodate them, and I'd been having night sweats and really needed to wash them.  Was holding out for the landlord to come through, but he just sent out a link to a laundry mat.  Sigh.  We went out for dumplings while the wash ran.  (The food was wonderful.)

I woke up on Friday morning with the right side of my throat swollen, as if I had inhaled an insect in my sleep and it had become lodged somewhere in my sinus tract.  Hurt to talk.  Hurt to swallow.  Went to work anyway because I needed to take care of some project stuff, but then went home after three hours.  Dosed up on elderberry syrup and tea and listened to the radio.  On Saturday morning, it hadn't improved, debated with self if I should go to a pharmacy and see if someone could run a test for strep.  Went for a walk instead, to visit the lake.  A misty rain greeted me when I got there.  Walked anyway.  Went to the farmers' market.  Smacked my head with a glass bottle because I forgot I was carrying it in my bag, and threw the bag over my head in an attempt to evade a crow's angry dive.  Made plans to meet my friend, and by the time he stopped by to pick me (and my laundry) up, the throat pain was fading.  By the time we finished lunch, it was gone.

Last week was rough.  Part of me thinks that throat pain was collective grief.

The prior Friday I gone to a professional baseball game, I've only ever gone to one other, and all I remembered about that was that we were in nosebleed seats, and the most interesting thing that happened that night was as giant carrot walking through the bleachers and people scrambling to get a picture with it.  I'd been on the fence about going again, but I think I'd said I was interested, and someone sent me a ticket in the mail, so that sealed it.  Anyway, this one was really fun.  I know next-to-nothing about baseball, but the people on either side of me were fans, and seemed happy to explain what was going on.  It was a good game, too.  We won, and there was a fireworks show after.

Saturday morning, a man in my basement told me my housemate was in jail for assault.  He was a friend who'd been staying with her in our house for a while, I guess.  I had to work at On the Boards, so I let it go.  While at work, I got a series of frantic texts from one of my other housemates, regarding the person I'd met earlier.  I don't know what's true, but my housemate was trying to get a hold of our landlord to get the locks changed.  Across the board, all eight shows of the NWNW were fantastic, but I was overly distracted during the final showcase because I was trying to figure out if it was safe to go home, and I was having trouble reaching anyone.  Finally, one of the men who lives next to me, told me he was home and would be home all night, so I wouldn't be home alone.  The housemate who'd been in jail, had moved out earlier in the day, but the stranger still had access to our house.  It was late when I arrived home, but without incident.

On Sunday, I went to the zoo, to get out of the house.  The landlord finally stopped by and changed the locks.  I called home for Father's Day.  Got some difficult news.

Monday, the head of my work area called me over, said he needed to talk to me.  My colleague's (and friend) partner had been killed on Sunday.

On Wednesday, my boss called me over, and told me another colleague/friend's mother had been killed in a car accident on Tuesday.

On Wednesday or Thursday, my sister contacted me regarding my parents.

I started reading a book of essays about sexual assault, "Not that Bad," Roxane Gay, and another book of first-hand experiences regarding the changes in the USSR/Russia since 1991, "Secondhand Time," Svetlana Alexievich, and seeing parallels.  And I kept finding myself holding my breath while I was reading, so much so that I had to keep forcing myself to inhale.

So, grief?  Yeah.  And I cried some last week for my friends, and for myself.  But I don't feel a great need to cry, and I don't know what to do about the grief.  It isn't overwhelming, still, solid, and assertive in the pain.  Maybe it only needed to be acknowledged.  So I did.  But I also want to take pleasure in things, like the feel of the sun, or the breeze, or the rain, or the perfectly balanced flavor of the salad.  To be present, and take care of what I can, and only that.  I'm trying to learn how to not dissolve into someone else's needs.  I'm trying to learn to stop losing track of myself.  I'm trying to learn to stay visible and real to myself.

Sunday

The crow gets me as soon as I get to the sidewalk, swoops down from the apartment roof across the street, just when I think the coast is clear.  The baby is in the tree just beyond our front steps.  I went to the coffee shop to write, first time in a long while.  A crow was waiting again for me, this time in the alley as I made my way back home.  Right before the walkway to the back door, I was greeted with a sudden agitated cawing.  I tossed out a piece of an omelette I was carrying, it appeased a different crow, one I wasn't aware of, who dropped down out of the neighbor's yard to snag it, but I was able to get into the house.  Can hear angry cawing outside, down the street; another interloper to ward off.  Sigh.  I'll need to get a big hat or something.

49 degrees this morning: Junuary, indeed.  High today is only 60 F.  My watermelons sprouted a couple weeks ago, but have been dormant since.  Now it's too cold to transplant.  Had a staged reading last night.  Our call was 7 pm, left with what I thought was sufficient time, and decided to take the light rail rather than the bus, as bus got stuck in traffic and I was late to rehearsal earlier in the week.  Made it to the U-District by bus on way to the light rail station, only to be stuck in traffic once again, having forgotten that it had been the UW's graduation earlier in the afternoon.  Beat the predicted rain, or so I thought, and made it to the International District with a little time to spare, so walked to Pioneer Square for coffee, and as soon as I got to the counter to order, I looked out the windows to see people covering their heads and cowering under awnings in the sudden downpour.  So I got drenched afterall.  At least the plants I have in the ground are getting adequately watered.

Wanted to stay for the talk-back after the reading (the play was about Enron and it's aftermath), but didn't relish waiting at my bus stop Downtown late, so, asked a friend that was leaving for a ride.  He was taking a car share.  Put in both our addresses before his phone died.  Driver took him home, but the reservation had dropped my address.  My friend got out of the car and left me there, not concerned if I got home safely or not, saying some incoherent thing about his cat being outside.  Making me feel like I shouldn't have taken him up on his offer to be able to ask him for a ride.  I guess it should've been enough that he showed up to the show (I appreciate that, I do.)  The driver said he'd take me home if it was less than two miles, which it was, so he did.  I could've walked, I suppose, but I appreciated him taking me home: it was late, deserted, and there's an unavoidable sketchy stretch.  I made it home.

Have notes for myself regarding the performance, but it's all a learning experience, and it was fun.  Makes me want to make more of an effort to do it more.  I have so much to catch up on.  Finally have the energy, and the time.  (Bought workshop access, online, months ago, that I haven't had the energy to devote myself to, but am finally coming back into clear enough mental space...three of them, actually.)

The wind is kicking up, I can see trees waving, and birds flying close to the window.  I'm working later today, but rains means I can stay inside until then...maybe the crows will let me leave the house in peace.

The rain has begun.