[heifer grazing beneath mountains/ invisible in cloud mist rain vanishing/ now though]

[heifer grazing beneath mountains invisible in cloud mist rain vanishing now though]  
-Derick W. Burleson, July 2008

 Another one drops off the list, daily: dodo,
black rhino, Pyrenean ibex, and you.

It's snowed for two days, a useless snow-dry,
light mist, too loose for construction.
For burying perishables under.

 In the woods, old spruce bearded
yellow-green, blacken their trunks and bend.

What will vanish next?

Stock like our neighbors' small shaggy
heifer, grazing innocently on winter hay.

Perhaps flocks of chickadees dee-dee-dee-ing
suddenly silenced. Me, cause invisible.

In my sleep.

Everyone knows a summer's rain doesn't make up for winter, though.
Nagoonberries, blueberries, bog orchids
spread tendrils beneath snowpack for months.

To feed our dogs, it takes wading
through clouds. Invisible underfoot
are the rhizomes, the runners. Mycelium.

Hope to stoke up vanishing hope.

Oh, it's a challenge, alright...

Quicker than you expect. Everything happens that way, doesn't it? Here in Alaska, we're inured. Sudden. Sudden onset of autumn, loss of daylight; sudden accidents in places we have come to expect-a plane crash, a shooting. Simply because it hasn't happened in a while, doesn't mean we don't know it could. Simply because it could, doesn't mean we've become immune. When one marries, or dates, or befriends an addict, one of necessity becomes accustomed to the notion that there is no past tense when it comes to dealing with addiction. I have said it so often in the last two years: There is no such thing as "recovered". There is only "recovering". What a tenuous thing our grasp on language, and therefore, on each other, can be. You see, I've been challenged. I mean this in an absolutely unambiguous way. And nor do I mean it to not-so-subtly refer to these two years past. I have been challenged. With language. With words. With an unabashed request that I use them. Type them down. Write them. Because I feel as if I've forgotten. Because it snowed in the mountains, today. Because it comes colder, and with a shortage. With a starvation, if you will. In any relationship gone awry, you lose your voice. In a relationship with an addict, you lose not only that, but your desire to speak. Your desire to craft full sentences. The satisfaction that generally comes with communication is lost. You are able only, even in the best of moments, to use loose change. Sometimes, not even that. Sometimes. Sometimes there is only silence, because you know from months of the hard way, that whatever you leave out in the open will be taken. Stolen. And used against you. You could leave a scrap of yourself on the kitchen counter with the grocery receipt. A dollar bill wadded into coat pocket, into crook of arm. An IOU whose signature line is too faded. It's all fair game, you see. It's all "ours". I am done with "ours". So as I have been challenged to find my writerly voice again, in turn I challenge you. Where best have you spoken? Do you remember the sound? Write it down. Today we spent half our time, my son and I, in the woods-as well you know I usually do when there's free time, or I feel somewhat lost. Get lost Then find your way out. And the other half? The other half I spent at the kitchen island with a chef's knife that was a wedding gift. And I halved things. Though they all ended up in the same pot. And I cored them. And dusted some with cloves, and other with curry powder, and all with a dash of lemon juice. Acid for preservation. Rind for flavor and color. Cutting across the core of one, I was compelled to stop and listen, to the decisive sound of the knife. To the quiet that followed. In the center, as we all know well, was a perfect five-pointed star. And I thought to myself, In the end, it was not temptation that Eve ate-if one believes that hype. In the end, it wasn't evil. It wasn't even curious. In the end, Eve ate the very thing we're all made of, didn't she?

Arbitrary Musings: San Miguel, Part the Last

I had intended to write this blog days ago, before leaving San Miguel, so that the chill mist of morning rising over the arid city could do its work on my sleepy brain. Perhaps it might have been better written then, more eloquent or more entertaining. Now there's no way of knowing. Saturday, August 17: THE. BIG. DAY. We are all up crazy-early, drinking weirdly-roasted coffee that tastes instant, even though we know it's not, not eating much. The bridal party begins the long, long process of playing dress-up at about 9 a.m., hair to be done, makeup, make sure none of the groomsmen go upstairs. After all the hype about how much there is to be done, there's a lot of hurry up and wait. Where to leave things out? Where to add them? To cast a writer's eye on which; to mention whom. First Look: My sister finally comes down the stairs in her wedding dress, followed by her bridesmaids all in teal. They make a vision against the yellow walls. I cannot describe it better than this photo does:

...she descends first to my father, then all the way down into the courtyard to her husband. I can't see their faces-I'm behind them, and above them on the patio, and honestly, that's just fine with me. This is their moment: the white-dress moment, the culmination of their love. They are holding hands now, walking towards the sun, away from me. I can't see it, but I know my sister's face is radiant. I know her husband is smiling. And then I think about worry. I think about "to miss". I think about "absence". And fonder hearts. And this time around. I do not "MISS HIM". All in capitals for emphasis, of course. I miss him in the way one misses the familiar while traveling alone: wouldn't it be nice to have someone to turn to, to exclaim over how beautiful, or how tasty, or look! In the way you begin to miss the daylight in Alaska, when fall settles in: it would be nice to have those extra couple of hours, but now it's the right temperature for fireplaces, hot tea. I miss him because he would love to be here, to sit and watch the sun set together, as we always do, merely in a new country, a new city, a newer world. I am accustomed to 'worrying'. I do not worry ABOUT HIM. I worry, but I don't-I worry about silly things, about whether we have food in the 'fridge for when I return. About whether he's getting enough sleep (he's not). I worry about the dog, frankly, more than I worry about 'what he's doing while I'm gone'. I realise that I have never had this; this reasonable facsimile of serenity. Always before I have traveled alone, wishing I had someone to 'share it with'; traveled toward someone who, all the while I was dabbing my eyelids with cold water and driving with the windows down, was moving away from me even as I raced to find them. Traveled having just left someone. Having been left. In limbo or otherwise. I do not worry about him because I know where he will be. I can see his routine in my head now; Not a day has passed that we haven't spoken, somehow. He tells me he loves me, that he cannot wait until I get back; that he's sad because he can't be there. I hear it all. I believe every word. How we wait all our lives for this absence of apprehension. How we know what someone will wear just to pick us up at an airport. The feeling of perfect stasis in the gut-there is nothing going on. There is nothing going wrong. In the heart. And then it's suddenly time to leave the chapel, to head back out into the scorching sun, and follow a donkey around while drinking shots of tequila from tiny clay mugs. True story. The parade is long, but it is hilarious. Spontaneous dances break out in the streets. True story. All of it. My mother is taking tequila shots. My father is taking tequila shots. The donkey is unhappy. More tequila shots. We are parading through the streets while strangers-locals, tourists, some guy who joins the party like he belongs there-clap and cheer the bride and groom. You see this in movies. You see this for real.

Because this: this parading through the streets, showing off to the crowd-this is what we're here for, aren't we? Shouldn't love be like this? A beating sun, a meandering line of family, of friends. Candy-colored clay cups, spontaneous dances. Spectators on balconies. We are all in love and we want to yell about it. Whitman said "barbaric yawp!". Over the rooftops. We are in love with each other; with the silliness of a donkey parade (with life's parade, with the parade of each other in and out and in again); with the charming confusion of being tourists in a foreign town maintained by ex-patriats. With being a tourist attraction to locals. We are in love with my sister and her husband and their love. And I am. I am in love. With a flawed, sometimes-cranky, beautiful man. Without all the agonizing over "whether we'll last". Without worry. Later, there are speeches. The sun goes down over the yellow casita. There are not one, but three fireworks displays, each one lit off from a rooftop closer than the last. We know we paid for one, for my sister. We say they are all for her. Because that's what we all wish, for ourselves, for the ones we love, when they finally find true love, isn't it? For fireworks. For all the fireworks in the city to be lit at once. For a faint smell of black powder. For the riot of the heart to be reflected in the sky.

If Rachael Ray could do it, so can I...

This blog may be inarticulate and disjointed, on account of I just spent the entire day trotting a somewhat unruly horse across the Mexican countryside, rappelling off a giant cliff & then hiking back up said cliff to get said horse to trot once again back to the ranch. I'll skip over the sordid details of my sister's bachelorette party last night; suffice to say that, once again, it's exactly what I DON'T want, if for no other reason than that I look hideous in spangly pink, and despise guessing games. And there were lots of spangles. And lots of games being played. Today, we're off on an organized adventure: horseback riding across the countryside, followed by (if one so chooses), rappelling from what we're told is a 14-story cliff face. Apparently, Rachael Ray has visited San Miguel, and was scared shitless by the selfsame rappelling excursion we're eventually going on. http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/show/view/1389/ I'm not afraid of much. Not snakes, nor traveling alone (clearly), nor heights. We meet the hungover bachelor party at the local Starbucks and pile into two elderly passenger vans. I'm groggy and overheated but ready to meet this cowboy stuff head on. The entire ride there, our driver and guide, Andres, discusses the implications of Monsanto's buyouts and genetic patenting on Mexican national agriculture, land and water rights; I'm sitting too far back to join in. He's telling us about his history: how he speaks at least three languages, plays African percussion in a traveling troupe, wants to start a business that salvages found items and supplies for people to create mixed-media art with: metal scrap, rope and twine, beads, mosaic tiles, paints. I've missed this-the propensity of travelers to 'spill their guts' to locals, and in turn to elicit these responses that tell us how expansive human ambition can be. What ambition and the notion of success appear as from place to place, from person to person. The drive lasts about thirty minutes, winding from San Miguel out into desert scrub. More goats. More cows. Fewer people. What strikes me about it most is the sparsity of population. One either side of the road, heat waves rising from the pavement, are men, women, children in twos and threes, single-file wending their way between cacti to the roadside. It seems settlement occurs mainly on bluffs, and in order to get from home to the closest bus stop or market, locals must cross from one side to the other. Public bus stops exist in places so far away from the city center; groups of people sit patiently in the hot sun, waiting. The final ascent to the ranch looks out over the landscape. It is green, dotted with desert flowers-orange, red, yellow. A huge black butterfly is chased by a small white one. It is what it always is, the world over: idyllic, pastoral, rustic. Cut to the chase: we're heading out on docile, seasoned horses handpicked for each of us by the gang of cowboys. Mind you, at least three of the cowboys are under the age of 16, one no older than 8. Although the trail is mellow and slow initially, soon we're cutting across the hills, where it becomes rocky and somewhat treacherous. My horse, whose name I never caught, is not particularly adept at this walking thing. He stumbles quite a few times, catching himself, while I hold on for dear life and picture being fallen upon and smashed. Fortunately although he sucks at walking, he manages to make it all the way down the meandering, climbing trail, across the river (where we stop for a brief break, much to the relief of us amateur riders and our butts), and up, up, up to the top of the daunting 14-story (about 150 foot) cliff those brave enough will rappel from. There's not a lot of ceremony or training to this activity. As soon as we arrive, we're asked who's going: it will be myself, two of my brothers, our friends Roger and Silver, and the groom. One of the other wives is game, until she looks over the edge and sees nothing but rock and rope the whole way down. I confess: when she declines, I pause as well. I mean, none of the other girls are going. No one's going to judge anyone for not wanting to back down a cliff attached to nothing but a (slightly weathered) piece of rope ballasted by some dude wearing spurs, cowboy boots and a giant sombrero. We waver in so many ways, in life: simply-what DO I want for breakfast? Complex: Who am I, today, or tomorrow, or ever? And why? And what am I afraid of? Perhaps it's trite or cliche, but this rappelling adventure is analogous in so many ways to what I've done and overcome just recently: finding the love of my life, and yes: having doubts. About who'd be happy, and who would look at us as if we were crazy. About whether or not we shouldn't just elope, run away, have our happiness to ourselves for a while. It took me almost a month to get up the courage to tell my parents, who, shockingly, are happier for us (almost, not quite...) than we are for ourselves and proceeded upon announcement to argue over who knew first that we were in love. We live so often in this type of controlled fall: the cliff we cannot control, nor the weather, nor the circumstance, but with one hand for strength and the other for balance, with the heart for courage and the brain for clarity, here we are anyway. We ascend. We descend again. I watch first my brothers, then Roger conquer the cliff. From far below (we can't see the bottom totally), all we hear are whoops and hollers. Everyone is exhilarated. The cowboys are highly amused. Finally I detach myself from the onlookers and march up to the anchor point. Eff it. Go big or go home. It is, in fact, easier, technique-wise, than it really looks. Most of the effort comes from your upper body as you suspend yourself with the left hand and control your "brakes" with the right. Ok, so that's an exaggeration: there are no bloody brakes. Essentially, you wear thick leather work gloves and hope to god your grip and arms are strong enough to carry you the entire way down. What a metaphor for life THAT is. At first, I'm doing alright, leaning back into the harness and divvying out rope steadily. Then, I lose my footing and start to spin. (Funny, this is in no way synonymous with how I fell in love with Robert. I knew the second I saw his smile as he came down my driveway, that I would marry this man, if he'd have me...) Cooool, well...now this is happening. It is extremely. High. Up. Oh, look. A vulture. Nice omen that is. My nature is to try and control. To be if not methodical, at least practical about problem-solving. When one is spinning 100 ft. above any sort of blessed firm earth, one has two and a half choices: keep spinning and freakin' out; just let it happen and engineer one's way back towards stability; just hang there and hope someone else pulls your sorry ass back in. I am proud of this: I choose number two. No screaming. No crying. No flailing about. I hang and let rope out, and hang, and let rope out, and gradually come back to face the cliff rather than the open, daunting view from up here. And yet, as I come back around to put my feet against solid rock, I miss that view: you truly can see everything from up here. Birds. The rest of the cliff face. Tiny dots that are my brothers and Roger waiting below. THe cliff face is reassuring only because I'm where one is supposed to be while rappelling down a giant cliff. Not because, any longer, it represents terra firma. It is what, technically, is meant to be faced; the other direction holds the definition of the sublime: awe mixed with fear. I am slow-my left shoulder, damaged from boxing, is starting to ache, but I make it down, straight through the thinnest gap between rocks, and am suddenly on my feet again, shaking a little, but nonetheless exuberant. Roger gives me a hug. We throw our heads back and yell up to the watchers, receiving whistles and catcalls back. Little did we know that we'd have to hike back up the rocky trail to the lookout point! We're getting our workouts in, today. Then, we're saddled back up and taking a mercifully short, flat (ish) jaunt back to the ranch for a home-cooked lunch: tortillas that are not yellow or white, but nut-brown with local corn; a dish of green chile and corn in sauce; "potato salad". Fresh ranchero cheese, whose source bellows from the cow-yard, flicking flies with its tail. This is not "authentic" in the sense that it is untouched by tourism; it is authentic in the way that a student exchange, or a gathering of two cultures permeated with modern commerce may be: we're tourists, yes, but we're eating 'real food'. They are ranchers, cowboys and cooks, yes, but what they offer us is the best they have, perhaps not what they'd keep for themselves. I'm exhausted, and I want my husband here. He'd be proud of me. He'd have done it himself. Our controlled fall isn't over: the wedding is coming up, ours. I still have nearly 24 hours worth of flying before I'm home in three days. I smell like horse and my own sweat. My left arm aches. I love him in a way I did not realise possible. It is better, far better, than its counterpart, this spinning. The wind picks up over the ranch, while we eat and eat, and love.

Back in the...er...saddle

Letters from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: Anna y Hector, con amor siempre No matter where I am in the world, I'm the first one awake. It is 6:37 a.m. For two hours already, the neighboring rooster has seen fit to announce dawn, albeit the sun isn't even close to up, and everyone else in this house is sleeping. Jet lag weighs on us. I've spent almost 48 hours trying to get here, suspended primarily in that special limbo reserved for airports, for those who have everywhere and nowhere to be. Staring at arrival/departure boards and occasionally a cell phone upon whose face the time keeps auto-updating; sustaining consciousness in four or five hour stretches punctuated by dozing off. I've already finished two novels. Three cups of overpriced, but strong, coffee. A bagel with lox and cream cheese. One questionable poem. Upon finally, finally touching down in Queretaro, Guanajato, Mexico, what one sees is an expanse of grass. That's right: grass. Some common variety: red-seeded little banners waving over the ground. Grass is grass is grass, right? One sees it & is comforted by the fact that it looks, at least a little, like whatever field one's driven by countless times, back home; wherever, of course, home happens to be at that particular juncture in time. I've befriended a girl from the flight in, and we wait awkwardly for the driver holding signs with our full names on it, that we were told would appear to shuttle us the hour and a half from Queretaro to San Miguel. She's meeting her parents: ex-pats, like so many who make up the town's population, with a summer home in San Miguel. Her father is an architect. She wears a blue sundress. Her name is Lauren. The contrast between San Miguel and what we've just driven through to get here is stark; it is, in essence, what one expects people to expect of Mexico's countryside. Little herds of goats, or sheep, or cattle being driven along the road. Dogs and cats meandering-thin, some of them, but most remarkably healthy-looking. Tarps strung up over roof-less shacks advertising all kinds of street food: menudo, chicharrones, tacos of all kinds. Fresh fruit stands everywhere: pineapple, papaya, mango. Cacti poking up from the landscape. Prickly pears. Dust. San Miguel segregates itself along the skyline: colorfully-painted buildings, signs advertising art galleries, shops and music venues. Although I've read a bit about the town, its history and its current affairs, it nonetheless surprises me to see the streets dotted with Americans: women in white pantsuits and straw hats, gold jewelry, big earrings, watches and rings. Once at risk of becoming a dead town, over the years, beat poets, artists and those looking to escape from the U.S. revitalized San Miguel and made it their home: Neal Cassady, Erica Jong, Stirling Dickinson. It is decidedly "touristy", and yet I love it already: so much color, majestic cathedrals dotting the skyline as we descend a (very steep, typically-cobbled, somewhat treacherous) hill, then begin to climb another. My parents' rented casita sits atop yet another hill, accessed by a weird tunnel, which leads up yet another giant hill of a driveway. It's yellow. The door is answered by Teresa (the elderly Mexican woman, who speaks no English, and will cook for us every day that we're here), Sharyn (an ex-pat who pronounces all my tattoos "just lovely even though your mother doesn't like them"), and my mom. Despite having traveled as a family throughout our childhoods, this trip feels different: I've recently announced that Robert and I are engaged. Shockingly, instead of disapproval, I was met with my parents arguing over who first decided that "Robert should marry their daughter". Things feel...cleaner, somehow, between us now. More level. I wish he were here, but this time around, it just didn't work out. Teresa is in the kitchen picking the tender leaves from bunches of cilantro stalks. She rapid-fires something at me in Spanish, but I'm too jet-lagged to manage it. I stand at the table and eat prickly pear cactus fruit. A banana. A strange, slightly-bitter custard apple type thing called a cheremoya-these have recently started cropping up at Fred Meyer and Carrs back home, but as Ive read the seeds are incredibly poisonous, and the skin of the thing very closely resembles that of an alligator, hadn't braved up enough to try one as of yet. It's delicious. A pain to pick the seeds out and suck the fruit from them, but delicious nonetheless. I say hello to my sister and her other half, Hector. My brother is crashed out on one of the guest beds. The maid of honor and bridesmaid are up by the pool, sunning in the 75-degree heat. I decide to power through it and go into the city center with my father to buy wine and candles for outdoor tea lights. The streets are cobbled poorly in places; you must tread carefully, as if perpetually stepping over river rocks. Transportation here comes in outdated forms: 4-wheelers are a vehicle of choice, as are dirtbikes, the public bus, and very, very old Volkswagen Rabbits and Beetles. We pass villas, casitas, groups of kids drinking shave-ice concoctions from plastic baggies, tops tied off and straws inserted, like improvised juice boxes. This is what I've missed: sensory overload, the overwhelming urge to immediately run into each shop and open-air market to smell, taste, and touch whatever wares are inside. Dad buys his wine. Candles are purchased from a funerary store; they're hand-dipped, naturally, but are generally meant for placing on graves or taking to church to light for a loved one. Perhaps it's morbid to use them to decorate a wedding reception. Perhaps it's perfect. As fatigue sets in, so does an inability to articulate any longer. I remember this feeling well-staying up sounds awful, but so does sleeping. The sun sets over San Miguel below us as we all do some catching up. Teresa quietly disappeared hours ago, leaving behind her huge pans of beef carne, sauteed onions, fresh tortillas. A red salsa and green. A huge bowl of fresh guacamole. So we eat. We eat, and the wine flows, and there are stories and histories coming from everyone. It's astonishing to remember that most of us (except Hector) grew up together, alongside one another, and are now all around the big stone table on the veranda, looking out on this city with such a commingling of "American" and "Mexican" and a few things in between. We came to celebrate Anna y Hector-their matrimony, their love and their representation of life across two worlds. I think of Robert: of how we finish each others sentences so often. Of how I knew from the first time I saw him again that I would marry this man; I didn't much know or care whether he would want to marry me. Of what it means to finally find your "travel buddy for life", to face outward on what unfolds for you with all the exuberance of San Miguel's bright orange storefronts, its candy-colored stone walls.

50 Things: #s 11-15

Here we go again. It's been a hideously long week, one of those during which it was interminably hard to focus on the good stuff. This is such a deliberate action: writing down everything I have to be glad & thankful for, instead of just 'intending' to do so...

11. Refusing to take someone or something for granted. I think we're all guilty of it sometimes: steamrolling our way through a relationship or experience, then ending up on the other side realising we didn't live it to the fullest, simply because we assumed it would "always be there". Or that, whatever it was, it would continue to operate on maximum output without receiving anything in return, a photosynthesis of the interactive world, where one entity is capable of "making its own food", so to speak. But it feels incredible to lift someone else's spirits by reminding them of how important they are to you, how their presence in your life is a boon & a privilege; it feels liberating & symbiotic to return energy & nutrition to something else you love: nature, a community you're a part of, the communal conscious of a cause or goal. Remembering every day that what surrounds you is NOT a given, & treating it accordingly, is so, so important...& so appreciated by what's giving of itself to you.

12. Reading a book. Also, smelling it. I'm a weird kid. I smell things. Flowers. Apples. Sometimes people. Reading a book, for me, is based fundamentally in tactility: the sensation of pages between your fingers, the curious ways in which paper takes on its own life, yellowing, fading or feathering at the edges. I do not care for new books. They smell like sitting on a freshly-disinfected & papered doctor's exam table feels: crinkly, awkward & cold. Old books are rad. When I buy (yes, buy), inherit, or find a new-old book, I am first entranced by the sensation of legacy that goes with each one-I always snoop around & try to find old notes, inscriptions, dedications: to think-I'm going to be reading something gifted to someone by a loved one. Because that's what reading is, now, isn't it? A gift. Back in the day, this kind of readily-available dissemination of information, the wild import of recorded history & human cultural exchange, was unthinkable. Now, I can read whatever I want (well, OK...that's another debate about the transparency of the world's media & censorship, etc...), whenever I want, however I want. It's interpretable, accessible & at my fingertips. Say what you will, but I would rather huck 3 volumes of Collected Works-authors interchangable, take your pick-than stare at the screen of a Kindle, or whatever you call it. Books are sacred objects, in far more senses than one.

13. Road tripping. I know, I know. That's such an antithetical thing to say. I'm a bad hippie, & I know it. But I love road trips. It doesn't even have to be by car. I also adore public transport while in another country, or just traveling in general. There's something timeless about packing a car with gear, snacks, mix CDs & curiousity & setting off to see exactly how far you can get before you HAVE to stop. Something ambitious & exhilirating, although simultaneously frightening, about wondering if you got on the right train & are ACTUALLY headed to Lille, France, or Lodz, Poland, or wherever. Yes, yes, yes. Fossil fuels. Twisty, turny, morally-reprehensible associations with big oil, etc. Pollution. Good hippies don't drive, they thumb it. I'm aware. But once a year, or once every 6 months or so, I get the urge to throw a bunch of stuff in a pack, strap in & just go...as much for the sake of the getting there as to see where I can go.

14. Foraging. It's how I was raised: to seek out the stuff in the woods that's tasty, medicinal, & there for the taking, & take it. Not just a subsistence living skill, it's a lifestyle. It satisfies the survivalist & medicine warrior, the woodsman & the apothecary, all at once; to work for one's food & concoct one's own remedies takes us back to digging our soles into wet ground, to a place & time when, because they were so necessary, these things became an art. Now, I forage dwarf huckleberry, salmonberry, & miner's lettuce. Wild ginger. Mint. Granted, I'm not making miracle cures with these things-I'm simply using what I've read & know about plant lore & traditional use, or experimenting with what happens when berries are cooked down with sugar. It's a constant reminder of my connection to not just "food", but ecosystems, seasonal patterns & flora. That, & I really don't mind not having to pay for jam, tea, & salad greens. It's $10 I can spend on, oh, old books instead...

15. The first cup of coffee. It's 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday right now. Silly mortals. This one needs no explanation.

50 Things That Feel Really Good: #s 6-10

Here are a few more. Again, in no particular order. And, at their core, evidence of my own journey back through what's helped make me who I am. Or, more accurately, helped me realise who I'm NOT...

6. Reminiscing over a past love. And being able to laugh about it. Hoo, boy. This one's a toughie. So many times in the past, I've caught myself getting down over 'losing' someone. You know the deal: you're single, & not really dating, & while you're doing the dishes, you catch yourself wondering what happened to the person who used to come up behind you as you did so, to steal a kiss or just say hello. Here's the thing...we don't ever 'lose' people. That's an emotionally-dissociative fallacy. They're not lost at all. And more times than not recently, I've found that the following is true: I catch myself getting all nostalgic, & a specific memory comes into my head: laughing uproariously while twined together in the back of a cab, making the cabbie laugh uproariously too. Waking up freezing to death, except for my back, pressed up against his front. BBQs. So many things. And my heart breaks a little. And then, improbably or not, I have to laugh. Because it really was funny. Because it really still is. And because remembering that I've loved that way, & been loved in return, kinda sorta feels really, really good.

7. Drawing the line without crossing it. I'm not a mean person. Or a snide one. Or a negative one. I CAN be all those things, I guess. But it's not who I am. What feels really good, & really right, anymore, is the ability to draw the line about who I'm not, without letting myself step over that line into the territory of defensiveness, or negativity, or malice. There's some stuff I just don't do: polyamory, drugs, pool/billiards, tofu, cats (OK, most cats). I don't do massive festivals like Burning Man or even Rainbow Gathering-I know, I know. I went. I saw. It wasn't my thing. There are things I absolutely MUST do, or perish (I haven't perished yet, but I'm telling you, I would...): drink coffee, train in combat sports, have a dog, use the wilderness to recenter myself, give the people I love my all. Here's the deal: being able to draw the line on who you are, or who you're NOT, without crossing into that territory of identity occupied by judging yourself against the judgements of others, & the Selves of others, is a neat trick to learn. Because it teaches you exactly how far to go, based on how far you've come. Anyone who asks you to compromise an action, emotion, intention or other fundamental part of yourself is not worth your time. Draw that line, & politely refuse to cross it.

8. Sleeping. Dude, I'm not gonna lie. I really, really like to sleep sometimes. Especially outdoors in the sun, on the couch for random naps, with my dog for a pillow, whatever. I do the stretching-sliding-rubbing-face-in-pillow-snooze-button-abusing thing too. True story.

9. Recognizing and engaging in your true spirituality. This one has taken quite a few years, trials & painful tribulations to conclude on. I was raised Catholic & decided that wasn't for me; it wasn't easy, & still isn't, & sometimes it gets lonely, being the only one in the family who doesn't have that in common. It was a little over 2 years ago that I genuflected & sat in St. Mary's Basilica in Krakow, Poland, staring in awe at the manmade beauty of the place: gilt-framed votives, huge, towering candles & candleabrum, stars embossed on the domed ceiling in metallic paint; awe fueled by the absolute devotion of the people, tourists or not, to the symbology at play. I wondered if I were in the wrong, if I should still 'believe in God', as it were. I've dabbled in Buddhism a bit, & am wholly in love with the gods, goddesses & divinity of Hinduism. Some of my closest friends are 'pagan'. But devotional spirituality, to me, just isn't the way it works. I'll tell you what I do know: that I have faith. In so, so many things: sunrise, the goodness of men despite an ongoing world climate punctuated by hatefulnesss; in where the Center is, & where to find the juciest wild apples in fall. In my family. In myself, even though I'm totally self-deprecating & the butt of my own jokes. And just about every single day, something or someone makes me throw back my head & laugh. The cedars are shot through with light. I take a minute or 5 or longer to meditate, do sun salutations, take a walk, close my eyes. I read something touching, inspiring, & brave. A friend or loved one sends me a message. And I have no idea what you call it, this faith, but I have it. It's benevolent, loving, powerful & authentic, so whatever it's called, whatever it is, it's there, & I believe. I believe in you, too. Yeah. You.

10. Kissing someone who really can kiss. Oh, man. In the words of Iona from Pretty in Pink, "I don't usually go for younger men, but when the Duckman kissed me back there, I swear, my thighs went up in flames." Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go away for a moment. Into dreamland.