Sweaty, Absurd, Unearthed
April 22-30 / Nightmares & Morning Pages
4/22: I am outside and the world is green. I am spinning and the world is blurred or blue. It is April May June or just the beginning of all that and it is brown, blooming, warm in the sun. The world is alive and nothing else is as true as this.
I know the Earth is fragile, is sensitive, is sovereign and all connected. Every year growing stranger w/ age - stories and articles say the Earth can’t live like this much longer. Everyone feels the same way it seems. How do we love her, how do we love her better?
If I have learned anything of love, it is that it is elemental, something the Earth constantly teaches. We will never run out of ways to care. If I have learned anything from our blue planet, it is that it is only blue at a distance. Get closer and find reds, browns, greens, life always sprouting out of water and water like love, life on the other side of Death. Our home teaches connectedness and unity, carves circles and spirals so we don't forget forever when we forget for a moment.
I imagine everything on Earth inhaling at once and exhaling change, all crystalized. In the sun, I think about energetics. In water, I think of weightlessness. In the sand, I am insect. I am big cat under jungle canopies. I am a horse broken in the field. I am always lost in the desert and always in love on the mountains.
I am a small, small thing that loves w/ the ferocity of an ecosystem - boundless, belly up, unafraid of fire. I am sensitive and I am from a sensitive planet, w/ eruptions and droughts. I rest in the soft, swinging breeze of hope, where the wisdom of the Earth and the naivete of its creatures both say the same thing if you really listen.
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4/23: I go out to size myself up. Patchwork skirt and fringe, coffee from home, sunglasses in the Spring. I am thankful for the sun today and for my city w/ trash cans on the corners. I am coming up from Commercial St., taking a walk before work. I take pictures of books I might like to read, adding to an already long list, and I send easy smiles around. For some reason, since the eclipse, I’ve been saying, put me in coach! And now the bookstore is mocking me. I am a freak in a world of freaks, broke and mystical in my city. Lifers reenact Frankenstein, It lives! It lives! by the monument. I walk on the shadow side of the street and I turn a corner - where SPACE is and the square I saw Lazlo in the rain - and I feel a responsibility to my city, even if it is only a fantasy of my city, a fantasy of me. I feel protective. I believe we can teach each other, my city and I, something about survival. I know the evacuation routes. I know all the ways home.
I shop w/out my wallet, loitering really. I am cloying like bubblegum. I touch all the velvet, all the linen, summer is coming and I want to dress like a little boy at the peak of young, illusory freedom. Vintage jerseys and white cotton, knit loose like netting. I like how fleece softens over time, I like all the holes that let the air in. I think of crewnecks and tan lines and the linen pants I bled through all last summer.
I am mud still, mud in drag. I tease myself w/ choice. I only draw cards of coins.
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4/25: The Workshop Podcast, Pt. V (listen here)
The Workshop V, a podcast
I sit in a kind of awe this morning - fresh water, fresh sun. I am no longer a jagged thing in this life, but a thing soft on the wind, a thing of movement and light. On Tuesday, Benjamine and I agreed on the prompt unanimous, my mind has been w/ fire since. It feels like coming back home. It is easy in the sun, free and burning. Not desperate and spitt…
After the workshop: We danced around the digital bonfire as the mic was passed around, using our voices, wild wild after all that contained heat. MC was the real Slim shady, she rapped as much, she reminded the world. Near the end, the mic cut out and the bar’s voices lifted, all you other Slim Shadys are just imitatin’. I became we. The individual became the collective. A room of real ones. Chuck sang Sunday Morning. Benjamine sang Jumpin’ Jack Flash. The Portland Cryptid sang Teenagers. Red did Alanis and Hill did a duet to Cyndi. I pulled a growl from the roots of me and sang Fall Out Boy, the red so vivid in my mind, singing, the best of us can find happiness in miseryyyy.
Benjamine and the Rat and I sat by the windows, breathing deeply as the night flower bloomed. We toasted butterfly pea flower honey and suckled the stars like insects, trying to bring some of their magic down to our city. We are becoming expected guests here, the poets who come at the end of the month, who dance and wail.
Chuck and I hung around the bar as the smoke cleared and seats opened up. We poured ourselves water from a monk of green glass, the spout out the top of his head, and we talked sacred objects - spirals and books, stories above all. I felt giddy to again find someone w/ dreams similar to mine, someone else who doesn’t want to do it alone. I dropped them off at their apartment by Hadlock Field (the one w/ the porch) at the end of the night when everyone starts to feel like family.
My playlist was kind to me on the way home. I got there calm and quick. I had late night thank you’s to light up. I was unlocking the door and undressing before I even got upstairs. T sleeping precious. Another mouse somewhere in the house, Mallory all charged up. No one slept straight through the night, but I dreamed in technicolor and took my time showering this morning. While I’m writing this, Mallory is running up the stairs, meowing like I know she has something in her mouth, frantic. The little tortured mouse and her teeth in its back all wet. She releases and we chase it together, corner it on the stairs as it jumps. I catch it in a candle w/ the wick burned to the bottom. I set it free in the sunshine.
Today sits in view of the sun and I reach for fabrics sweet on my skin. I am my own kind of star after last night, my own kind of thing caught fire and falling to the Earth, at home w/ all my friends up here in the sky above my city by the sea. My snow tires are in the backseat of the Soul. Our sheets are clean, cotton white. Yes, I’m changing and a song is in my head from when my headlights found my driveway, moonlit and evergreen.
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4/26: I use my time this morning faking some kind of productivity which, turns out, is the same as actual productivity w/ more work to be done. T is taking me into the woods tonight and I have deadlines to meet. Out of shape, w/ work unfinished, I will go into the woods w/ my lover and try to find salvation in fresh air and a hard climb. The sun says, endure and gives me something to hold on to on the drive.
I feel wholly unprepared and lulled into the home w/in myself - preferring a luxurious pace and warm meal but I free myself of expectations and I pack according to comfort. Life unfolds at the same pace it always has. Wherever I go, I have time.
Sitting now by the fire - corn and rice and kielbasa, tents of neon and the river always rushing. We made it to the mountains, where layers of Earth lay, rock on rock, dirt on dirt, new life and dead trees and another allegory of love. I am w/ T and C and we have everything we need.
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4/27: The white mountains look purple from here but they are all mud and rock up close. I know because we just hit the dirt, just got in the truck after a hike, and we’re winding down, winding now, barefoot and speeding down the Kancamagus Highway w/ our shit all in the back.
The sun set shortly after we set up camp yesterday. We had lots of neighbors by the river at the only campsite open this early in the season. The wood we bought from the ranger’s RV was hard and burned hot hot. Dogs barked from site to site. The river was on the move all day, all night, never stopping. All three of us brushed our teeth in a circle and spit, spit into the fire. We took swigs of mouthwash and breathed fire before bed.
The sleeping bags were still zipped together from the eclipse. I brought two more blankets. No heater tonight. I burrowed for warmth, head under covers and my body close to T. It took me some time to dig up sleep, in the chill and on the ground. I focused instead on the river, the drool of the mountains, the constant flow. I don’t know what time this was but I surrendered to my body in the dark, venturing out to find the bathrooms, up past the parking lot. The moon led the way, whispering sweet to every leaf on every tree. On the quiet asphalt, I stopped to wink at the moon for just a minute before crawling back into the tent to hide until morning. Then I got to sleep, I got to dreaming.
Morning, like a blink. We had coffee and burritos over little propane flames. We packed up camp and layered up in the cold before we drove to the trailhead, just past the hairpin turn on these languid mountain roads. When we arrived, a father and daughter, their car stuck in the snow. T and C had all the tools, all the tricks, took twenty minutes to pull them out. Then it was all on foot for us. Walking, hiking, climbing, the ancient things.
Our layers came off quick and we were grateful for the spikes on our shoes to dig into the ice. T and C carried big old backpacks to test them out - their weight, their strength - in preparation for adventures sure to come this spring, this summer, on and on and on. Snow on rocks, snow on log bridges, snow forming rings around the base of trees. It was a fierce first climb, we felt it in our hips and knees. The trail wrapped around like ribbons. We felt the incline at the back of our ankles. The sun found us easily through the trees. The snow was kind, evening out the route. The trees let us lean & yank on them the whole way down.
The summit was an odd patch surrounded by trees. I splayed out on a pile of rocks like a lizard, where it was heating up. We made peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches there in the dirt. Cell service kicked in at the top but I stayed on airplane mode, communing w/ boys and bugs and birds. A group of three women passed through and asked me to take their photo. They had a small dry erase board w/ the name of the peak, the date and #16. They told us they were doing the New Hampshire 48 - a hiking challenge of 48 4,000 footers. I only recently learned that was a thing. On Monday, I interviewed a man in my city about his addiction and recovery. He is a runner and a hiker. He completed the NH 48 on the fourth-year anniversary of his sobriety. We talked about how physically pushing your body uses the same kind of mentality, discipline and drive to stay sober. I was drawing my world together, here at the top of a mountain in my home state. I was glad to be sweaty and halfway there. I was glad to be sober in the moment. I was feeling my body and trusting my body, knowing the hardest parts of the climb were also the shortest. I was in good company w/ my boys and the sun, safe though strenuous. And yes, I feel stronger.
On our descent, we slid through snow and rode out the momentum to stay on our feet. It was the afternoon now, more folks climbing up than down. The pressure changed w/ the altitude and it got slushier as we went, muddier. Our hips were really aching now, my socks and hiking shoes all wet. The path was giving way, melting in the sun the closer we got to the base of the mountain. We knew we were close when we crossed over the river. We knew we were home-free when we saw the red of C’s car through the trees.
We took our shoes off first thing, saving the unpacking for when we got home or, more realistically, tomorrow. Then T and I were the ones stuck in the snow, needing a good heave-ho from some hikers we saw up the way. We are back on the road now, homeward bound on a sun-drenched Saturday. Out tonight, once we scrub all this dirt off of each other.
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4/28: Open Tabs #2, for paid subscribers
Open Tabs #2
A collection what I’ve read and dove into this month - 70 recommendations in total. My messages are open for recommendations, reflections and open conversation! Cover photo from the Mershy site (below) XO, G BOOKS IN MY HANDS Heaven Is A Place On Earth by
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4/29: This morning returns me to mess, a mess scattered through the house, a mess that reminds me just how powerful two people on the move can be. My lover and I, home only to sleep this weekend, scattered and heroic in the sun.
It is Monday and I won’t have these to myself much longer. The myth of summer is traveling to our side of the world again, a high of 65* this week and I don’t know, life just doesn’t always feel as generous as it does today. I roll the green between me and last night’s dreaming and I know love is everlasting. In a world of dirt, mess is generative. Hope and luck are swinging together in the yard, conspiring a new world.
I wear white this morning, buttoned low in my nearly empty home. Lately, love is kept in piles. Piles of clothes on the floor. Piles of coats discarded by the door. Papers and pamphlets piled to the left of me and half-read books piled underneath, a floor below where I sit now. In my mind, the future stacks abundant w/ plans or possibility. In my heart, loved ones like idols stacked one by one.
This weekend had a theme of family, of love when it forms tunnels old and deep. Friday morning, I was a home w/in myself and by Friday night, it was my boys and the moon, my boys and the moon and the dirt. We sat by the fire and ate in the dark. Saturday, we entertained extremes, one two three, no one left behind. We did ancient things, hiking the curves of the Earth and sharing all we had. Saturday night, T and I dressed ourselves up to play. My cousin celebrating her pregnancy in a fancy function room w/ finger foods. Red stretched tight around my aching hips. My boy all overgrown and wearing a chain of gold. Around my family, we all talk the same - we drop our r’s and laugh w/ mouths wide open, love is always in the room. And yesterday, I had the day off of work. We had rain in the morning. I worked on my article until the streets were dry and the boys and I had to go.
What happens on 4PM on a Sunday? I forget, it’s been so long. Hometown drive down, half-there and hazy, free of responsibility. I am horizontal in the back of the Vibe, all patched up after the accident. Then it’s ribs on the grill and sleeves rolled up in the sun and sheep shit under Merrells and cowboy boots.
We are back in Hometown NH, at the house of an old musician, on the farm of an old man not yet retired. T and C’s mom’s friends over for T and C’s mom’s 66th birthday in the town they raised their families. I wander the rooms, the barn, over the grass as it dies. There is a drum set in the living room and a big window overlooking the farmlands from the bed and two tables pulled together for everyone to sit around. Homemade carrot cake in the fridge. The three of us, we are the youngest in the room. We are gracious.
I dream of aging now, in a pained, hopeful way. Beauty grows deep, deeper w/ time. How much is in our world that we get our use out of & how much never changes? I am thinking of every last fork out on the table and the layers, layers of dust on the bookshelf in the bedroom. I look around at all that composes a life in wonder.
I am a wanderer at heart and the future is fickle. I know what I want to take w/ me through life but I can only speak for now, can only bring what I can carry. But I know my skin will show my story like the trees. I know love isn’t going anywhere. I see exposed beams and imagine waking up to the sun grazing the farm, over the hills, into the woods on our wavy patch of the world here, in New England an hour and a half from what I’ve been calling my city. The trees all twist here like I remember, every season, braiding together up to God.
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4/30: Maybe it’s true, maybe I can only write about hope on golden days but there were golden days before me and there will be golden days after me. Hope doesn’t need my body as a tether, it just needs me as a believer. I can do that, as long as Spring yawns like a lion into summer, as long as love is found under every rock.
My heart, the most animal part of me, eating when it is hungry and trusting the time it takes. This morning and a palette of gray, the promise still holds, this hopeful thing, the deal between us and our world (something foolish like love will save us all).
The day before today, I believed in April May June. And now May June July. The sun waiting & sitting outside w/ me, like catching up and losing track of time. Sweaty, absurd, unearthed - the Magnolia is in full bloom and May is a sneeze away.
The body of my city is changing, bloated and full w/ color, everyone’s mouth open and everyone talking. The city of my body, changing too, sweaty, absurd, unearthed. I am in my city, touching the soft parts. I am in my body, ringing bells at dusk. The sea is free, the sea is free, coming right up to your feet and taking pieces of you w/ it.
This entry is a part of my Nightmares & Morning Pages series, where I write every day and share the good stuff. Subscribe to keep up with me & share what you like (please).
My messages & chat are open for inspired journal prompts or anyone who wants to pick apart the world with me. Catch you on the next go around 𖦹
G