i been doin this thing where i get up at 5AM. it’s not the kind of getting up i used to do with an alarm, nor is it the kind after i’ve finally gotten the chance to sleep til i’m done sleeping. Both of those awakes are from an old world. In this new world i get up at 5AM cuz my body said it didn’t want to sleep anymore.

i make breakfast for me and the cat and brew my perfect cup, tidying around the kitchen as i go along. i will drink my coffee while i have a smoke in the sunshine w the birds, which is lovely af and my favorite. It’s too early for them to be bathing but by the time i get out there they’ve been singing for several hours. The noise is only them, and the sun has been pretty consistent and gracious in joining me often.

Going inside, i will turn on my latest favorite “chill” playlist. Awake now but groggy cuz it’s still early and now i’m stoned, i lie down. The cat usually joins me, which is also perfect. Then i settle in to take deep breaths until i find myself in that weird space between awake and dreaming when your thoughts are kind of like listening to Danish for the first time as a native English speaker. Clarity feels close but is, in reality, quite far away. But clarity isn’t why i’m doing this. Instead of forcing my thoughts to disappear, i let my brain off leash in a controlled environment: chill tunes drift around while my imagination, jealousies, paranoia, obsessions, dreams, optimisms, criticisms, and all their accompaniments just run amuck. These fuckers need space to roam, so this is what i give them.

i chill there hard for what feels like hours, all of my brilliance and idiocy spinning and twirling to the beats of foreign composers toeing the line of “coffee shop chic” so that i can never be completely bored, or entranced. The mess of my brain is a house party starting slowly like maybe it won’t work out then, as guests arrive, building to epic shades of disaster before pulling back cuz it’s almost dawn and we’re getting sleepy now anyway. Instead of regret and squinted eyes though, the end of this rager feels like clouds parting. The clear sky in wait, all the partygoers plum tuckered out.

This is a thing i do now, and it’s my favorite way to start a morning. My brain is full of nonsense that needs to breathe. From 5 to 8AM, i “meditate” my own way. For the rest of the day? My brain cooperates.

https://vimeo.com/417748253

If you don’t fuck with cats then we are never gonna get sexual. (You can be allergic and still appreciate cats.) Cats get a bad rap just cuz they do them all day every day with no concern for anyone. We should all actually be more like cats. They know what they want and they’ll let you know if you’re fucking it up. If you aren’t the kind of caring and patient that can handle the feedback, we are not gonna jive in bed. We can be friends, for sure! But if you can’t pet a pussy you can’t pet a pussy. i don’t make the rules.

How early in the day is too early to try calling friends? What times are off limits?

A major takeaway here is that we should all give up on taking responsibility for things we can’t control. We could maybe even get more comfortable with admitting we don’t know things.

A worry of mine is that if i’ve wronged a loved one they might not tell me, instead trying to get over it on their own. The actual fear is that they might carry some hurt or lingering anger toward me without giving me a chance to apologize or try to assuage their injury. i want that chance, and i like to give my friends that opportunity also. i don’t think everyone appreciates this.

Which leads me to wondering why we only “define the relationship” when it’s romantic. Even then, we leave out a lot. We each look at relationships differently. People assume their expectations and understanding are shared because they’ve used the word “friend” or “partner”. i would like to move forward from this point writing definitions of these relationships as i go along. Every human is different and so too is each relationship. i think an appreciative and focused conversation between people who care about each other would work wonders to prevent confusions and unnecessary injury.

i knew i would have to change a lot of things when i chose to pursue my most honest self. Instead of going full throttle, i tried to modify, rearrange, keep. i gave up finally, on a lot. i grieved all of it. What i hadn’t prepared for was the continuation of goodbyes.

It’s strange to feel as though you are loved only for being familiar, rather than valued as a creature who might grow and evolve.

i must be guilty of this also, but it’s difficult to find the right perspective when one is looking at oneself.

Someone on whom i’d given up long ago came back around having changed dramatically. The work they’ve done is impressive and beautiful, inspirational actually. It wasn’t that they were so horrible, just that things hadn’t worked back then. Now we are friends and i am quite glad of it.

Extroversion is a curse. What good is being charismatic when there’s no one around to impress? i am wilting, in a way. Still beautiful, but drooped. A bloom under appreciated.

Today i will write rituals for the Flower Moon, who arrives tonight. Prayers for the courage to blossom again, to see this isolation through. i will also work on designing curricula for online courses. My excitement about these things comes from deep. i want to honor and elevate those feels in this time of dopamine dry-out. Thank fuck for creative projects. Thanks Universe for being so vast—making me insignificant and important au même temps.

A bit wilted, still so bright.

There was a lost life on our doorstep in the morning. A beauty, robin, gone. My path blocked by a little body, at once desperately important and insignificant.

Every trouble seems the same these days.

i picked it gently from the pavement with a scrap of old cloth. i could feel soft down, tiny bones, ribs that recently held a beating heart, wings that had flown. How fragile, how worthy, this small thing felt.

i cried for it, for all of us. So important, so insignificant.

i needed to do something to honor this life, however small. A death on my doorstep felt generous. An invitation. This departed robin was a sign of nothing but that change is necessary, insistent, unstoppable. That we must—always and for the sake of everything we hold dear—accept the invitation. We must grieve.

At the suggestion of a clever friend (“build it a little boat and send it out to sea. on fire.”), i gave the bird a burial fit for royalty. A pyre carefully built, a place thoughtfully chosen. The pyre was proud, the body beautiful. i wonder if ever a robin has been so exalted in death, so beloved after living.

One death. 239,000 deaths. One honorable funeral. One crying human. Grief is not linear, nor timely. Only necessary.

For nothing is important or insignificant without our choosing.

——-———

And then this happened!