Yesterday a Canada goose honked at my car as I passed by.

ABOLISH THE POLICE But today I was on a crowded highway where everyone was going too fast—like legit no one was near the speed limit—and I had to stay in the right lane to pass a cop who had somebody pulled over on the right shoulder. I couldn’t go left but the cop was directly in front of my car walking toward his own on the shoulder, looking, I suddenly realized, smokin hot in his short sleeved uniform, hat included, and full-sleeve tattoos. I gave him an apologetic little wave to which he immediately responded with a gesture of “no problem” and whew! If I didn’t think of how badly I did not, did not, want him to stop me further down the road.

I saw so many bears in the Smoky Mountains that I had to take notes.

Whenever I spy an actually shitty tattoo, I play this little game with myself. This is kind of a secret and it’s a little embarrassing. But the game is called “hot? or hot garbage?” Cuz think about it. I have some shitty tattoos. So do most punk rockers. There’s Steve-O, and Nick Nolte. And all of my best friends! So whenever I see a shitty tattoo I try not to stare when I’m checking the person out. Because to be completely honest: I can never tell.

If this subject makes you feel anything but amused, please skip it. This is your trigger warning, as apologizing for discussing human bodily functions is not at all my bag.

I’m on a turn-out/pull-off between the river that runs the Nantahala Gorge and the road that carries, from what I can tell, mostly kayakers and rafters to their destinations. I just made myself chuckle with a fart.

I think the most important thing about pooping is privacy. That’s why it’s hard to discuss. We all have no issue holding dog shit in our hands with only a thin plastic barrier while it is still warm. Don’t even get me started on how ready caretakers are to discuss the poops of anyone under five years old. Include me in this, as I have enjoyed comparing my niblings’ turds to all sorts of different unrelated things. My favorite has to have been my brother’s son, Camilo’s cameatball, with a singular, prune-shaped turd from Rose as runner-up. In summation, privacy is subjective.

Let’s talk about pooping in the woods. You find your spot, dig your “cat”-hole, settle into your squat. The fresh air kisses your bum and carries away any malodorous leavings. When you stand, the earth covers your pile of waste as naturally as if it was never there at all. What is not to love?!

Okay maybe you have some tummy or bowel issues and this doesn’t seem possible. Or you’re bad at squatting. Maybe you hate digging holes? That’s my least favorite bit, partly because I’m often struggling in the dirt while my dookies are knockin’ on the back door. But like, what if you had a toilet in the wilderness: would you shit there?

There are folks I know with shitters in their backyards that are fully designed for enjoying the view. Some have half doors, some have no doors. This is even less privacy that I usually enjoy when I dig a hole. Have you ever notice how squatting hides your bits? But in these outhouses you get to sit down, which is certainly nice. I would like to take a poll about whether this is more preferable or if people need a bathroom to feel safe enough to number two.

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I return to this post having lived indoors, with running water and a seated toilet, for a few months now. It made me miss pooping al fresco, but if I’m honest I was already feeling that absence frequently. If you have the capacity, I implore you to poop out of doors, at least once! And as much as possible.

All the biggest and most extravagant butterflies I’ve seen have been those startled from dung or mud. I write now from a riverside perch in the Smoky Mountains where I’ve taken off my shoes to have lunch.

This morning I awoke to car doors closing and people excitedly chatting about the weather. It was 6:30AM and about 50F (so many emojis and still no “degrees” character), and I was grateful to have tucked myself into bed around dusk the night before. I hadn’t posted up in a busy area, but people get real stoked at national parks and I don’t blame ‘em. Happy strangers are not the worst alarm clock.

My first hike, to Laurel Falls, was brief but busy. I knew that it was popular—paved and short—and even arriving at 8 was kind of late. On the way back from the falls I heard Chinese and managed to say “good morning” in Mandarin. Were these two ever delighted! We walked the last half mile or so together, chatting (in English) about life in Asia vs here. It was hard to say goodbye at the crowded parking lot! People were lining up for our spots though, and so we said 再見

My second hike was a big loop through a gorgeous forest. Not quite as wet as a rainforest but the scents of spring were plentiful. I would have been stopping to sniff the air more than anything if I hadn’t walked up on a wildflower touring group! These people were nerding out over every third flower and taking up the whole path. When I got “stuck” behind them they tried to let me pass and I refused, asking if I was okay for me to tag along. I learned so much and forgot most of it immediately, but if anybody’s interested in next year’s 73rd annual wildflower pilgrimage, please get in touch. I’m serious.

Now I am watching yellow butterflies and black ones with blue tails. They flutter up and dance around, landing again together in the waterside mud. I wonder what they find there.

Last summer I was in unceded Shoshone territory camped out on a cliff overlooking a river about thirty feet down. It was sweaty summer weather and while I knew I wouldn’t swim in the glacial Boise River river, I did want to go dip my toes in. I scaled down the cliff to find myself on a sandy little beach that I hadn’t seen from my higher perch. I was relieved to have made it down the cliff and fairly trotted right onto the wet silty sand, startling and setting flight to hundreds of yellow butterflies that had been camouflaged in the mud only a half-second prior. Hundreds of bright yellow wings opened and rose gracefully but spastically all around me, swirling and swarming around their spot even as I stood there frozen in astonishment. After a moment in the gentle kerfuffle my eyes adjusted to notice the darker colored butterflies, lots of black with some blue-green. Surrounded by soft wings I just stood there until they settled a bit before realizing that every movement I could make would be disruptive. I felt as though I’d disturbed a secret place, so startled were the bugs, but I wasn’t unwelcome. Butterflies have no choice but grace, I suppose.

Back here in Cherokee country a raven just flew past with a mouthful of yellow wings. Can’t even be mad.

I resent screens for being the method by which I must connect with other humans. Out here, I am connected to the whole world, though the quality is universally considered “alone”. Last night I was interested in sleep just before dusk. In the glowing ever-deeper green evening ebb of activity, I gathered myself fully into my open tent/trunk. A few minutes later, in the duskiest of forest light, a Pileated woodpecker cackled into view not twenty yards from my perch.

Do you know these animals? I have certainly become inured to the stature of most predatory birds. We joke that it’s not really a Maine day if you haven’t seen a Bald eagle, but my pop’s house near the Great Lakes gets eagle visits all the time. Pileated woodpeckers though are this uncanny mix of hoppity hopping tree-loving bird and actual dinosaur that is maybe too heavy for that branch. Like many woodpeckers from around these northeastern climes, Pileateds have a red crest. Unlike any other however, that crest is an actual flat top. Literally they look like Jim Carrey as the Riddler but only on the very top and in a much more flattering shade. Also the rest of their outfit is much more stylish and attractive. So going back to the flat top, maybe just imagine peak Fresh Prince with fire-engine red hair. I really have no way of doing this bird justice but I am just going to soldier on here; if you haven’t looked it up already, please be my guest. The ‘do is significant, but not half as much as the bird’s size. These giants are the size of newborns, I swear. They come in with their impossibly recognizable hollerin’ to land, as is the style of woodpeckers, parallel on a tree trunk. Unlike others though, Pileateds will make you put up your hands to measure and wonder, “That might really be as big as a baby.” Here I am, watching this enormous bird who for some reason has not stopped shouting, wondering if this is it: finally an opportunity to communicate with a dinosaur. This megafauna hops from one tree to another, staying in my, admittedly narrow, sight and calling out with some consistency. Am I being threatened, I wonder before laughing at myself. Indeed this bird could do serious damage but what the actual fuck would it want with me? Before long, my monstrous friend swoops off, its wingbeats stifled only by its yelling.

It is in moments like this, when I realize that my fears are actually predicated on complete unreality, that I can discern my own humanity from the animal my soul longs to be. Later in the evening I had to take care of some uterine twaddle (the lengths I am trying to go to not write “blood” y’all, smh) and wondered if I’d be attracting a bear. I triple bagged my garbage and sprayed the whole car with peppermint before I realized that the fear itself was based on what? An urban legend. Bears aren’t sharks! That didn’t stop me from leaving the top off the coffee can while I slept, but it did allow me to fall asleep peacefully as the crickets and frogs chattered.

There is a tree here who creaks and wails in the ways of fairytale witches. She leans in one direction and nearly squeals, another direction provokes deep whining. Her sway changes again and the nasally sound is lilting, almost singing. At first when I hear this I wonder about a bird, but that’s just the wild hope of a strange human who’d like to make a new friend. In the dark the tree could easily be called creepy, whispering and complaining to the apathetic night. I listen to the gusts that travel through the treetops, never even touching my tent, like waves high above my head. The trees lean and tilt, but only one or two make any fuss about it. I look to the deep blue sky, the trees silhouetted and stark, stars peeking through thei branches. I am a sea creature, way deep down in the calm below the surface. These massive fronds are my shelter, lilting in the current. I wonder if kelp creaks under the weight of waves.

In actually wet news, the creek beside which I’ve nested this evening is definitely some type of babbler. At one point in my near-slumber I imagine I hear people talking. I wake up listening intently to the flow of shallow water over smooth rocks. I recognize the weird change in pitch that has occurred. I cannot explain or really even illustrate the moments when a bustling waterway changes its tune, but it happens, and can be truly disconcerting. We like to think a non-living thing is constant–rocks and water aren’t really a conscious combo–but nothing on this earth is constant. My little brook has been chattering all day, but only in the depth of night do my senses awake to its conversation. I have been indoors a long time, and will need a moment before my forest senses return. In this way I find myself, wide awake long after tucking in to bed, delighted by my own annoyance with this guilelessly talkative stream.

A beloved friend recommended me the book The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, and I love it so far. I think it’s a fairly quick read overall, and I recommend it to anyone who needs a little burst of surreptitious wonder in their lives. I’m not going to give too much away but our sweet author is deeply afflicted by illness and finds some comfort in overhearing their snail’s nocturnal munching of a calm, lonely evening. My pantry happens to be directly under the head of my bed, which is helpful if there are unwelcome guests in the breadbox–they always go for the bread or oatmeal first. I sure did wish it was a snail when I awoke a couple hours before dawn to the sounds of nibbling. That sound, more effectively than any other, jolts me immediately from dead sleep to usefully alert. I don’t hesitate as I grab my headlamp and put it on maximum brightness, dangling it toward the floor from my bed in an effort to startle the smaller creature. Then, like the omnipotent giant that I am, I reach down to remove all the food from the floor. I am glad to see that only one bread bag has a half-inch nibble out of it, barely missing a few crumbs. I’d caught the little dude in the act, glad again to have the pantry so close to my hearing. Now, to smoke ’em out. This involves a lot of noisemaking in the predawn blue and I didn’t really enjoy it, but my univited visitor was finally evicted as the sky lightened, and the woods didn’t seem to mind. The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to bolster my security. I couldn’t find a weak spot, and so the possibility of a subsequent intruder is decent. But any fear I might have of encountering animals fades directly in relation to time spent in the woods.

As if I could ever consider myself “alone”.

Whenever I am stuck in a standstill, bumper to bumper—why is it so frequently Virginia?—I like to time the whole thing. I want to know how long it will take until we all start moving again, but I am even more interested in who’s going to get out their car first. You know that person who needs to see the whole arc, and maybe they’ll learn something. Perhaps just knowing the scope will ameliorate some anxiety. Or it won’t, but I like to see how long it takes before somebody feels the need to walk around.

The first person to hit the pavement in these circumstances seems to be one who will invariably look down the length of highway, one hand on their hip and another over their eyes, to survey the scene in both directions. It took this guy about six minutes, and I would be out there too if I wasn’t driving. I love getting out of the car in standstill traffic (see previous post titled “independence day”). Inevitably none of us can do much besides wait, on the hot pavement or in the cars full of cool air. Some boldly cruise down the shoulders toward escapes in which they seem confident. I watch as one man exits a car in the right lane to ask if the folks in the left can give him an out. He gestures at their driver side to roll down the window using the antiquated but entirely recognizable fist-in-a-circle motion. They back up cautiously to allow him through, and off he goes toward who knows what.

Eight minutes in, the heat from the pavement and packed-in vehicles threatens suffocation and I succumb to the need for air conditioning. I am listening to a podcast discussing the life of Malcolm X, whose rage I find perhaps the most inescapable of all righteous angers. I appreciate that the people involved in this discussion do not apologize to or try to placate their audience regarding X’s hatred. I remain stupefied that seemingly so few marginalized people are even half as hostile.

Now we’re at twelve minutes, and there are other folks disembarking. They chat and stretch and walk around. Our pioneer surveyor had long since returned to their vehicle, but makes another appearance now. Not even a quarter hour into our delay we are already giving in to social habits that we usually leave behind as we drive. See now why I like to time it?

I’ve been thinking about my harmonica. These are decent practice circumstances—the car in park with windows shut. I remember the notes I learned last week. I give “Mary Had a Little Lamb” a shot. I hit one note horribly and the next with perfection; the beauty of learning. I’m proud to repeat this ridiculous song incrementally better over fifteen more minutes.

It was ultimately a half hour that could have been spent waiting. Some people drove off, others mingled on the highway. Most spent the time in languor. Under the hot sun and in the privacy of my own home, I made a lame attempt to play the blues for us all.

I’m listening to birds sing the sun down in Shenandoah National Park. It’s my first NP this year and I was pretty stoked cruising in to purchase my annual pass from the entrance gate folks. The young babe there with blond pigtails and a ranger uniform caught my energy in the best way: “I like your tattoos. You look cool,” followed by a genuinely sweet smile. I carried that for most of Skyline Drive.

Every US national park pamphlet discusses origins and “the first people who used” the land, like for resources or vacations or conservation. They rarely talk about the indigenous tribes, and then mostly to appropriate their lore (see: Devil’s Tower, FKA Bear Mountain). Shenandoah National Park, as far as I know, is on Shawandasse Tula and Manahoac land.

I stayed in my friends’ sisters’ family home last night. In a room like a great room with two story ceilings and a wide fireplace chimney bordered by windows and pale yellow walls, there is hung a portrait of a young woman and a little girl on a sandy, grassy beach. The room for all its height feels accessible and well-loved, but the beauty of that artwork needed the space to breathe for sure. The two subjects, tight knit and shuffling among the tall grasses and sand, wear clothes that speak of another time: layers of skirts and blouses blustering about in the sea breeze, also bonnets. Their hair escapes in wisps, aglow in places, the whole painting is doted on by a not-quite-summer kind of sunlight, in which our ladies seem to be telling secrets. They walk tightly together toward the onlooker, possible interloper. In the evening when we arrived it struck me how I’ve seen so many paintings—too many!—as or possibly more glorious than this one, but that this one becomes everything it should be because it isn’t surrounded by others similarly impressive. The work flourishes by not being in among a crowd. Perhaps all art could.

Sunlight streamed through those great room windows in the morning, gracing the still-conspiring duo, and whatever else. I was forced to admit I hadn’t thought the painting could have been more beautiful. I didn’t take a photo of it because it felt sacred then, but now I wish I had.

I find myself only two hours from where I set out around midday, slowly leaving family.

I am in another home theater. Last night I watched the first two John Wick movies with my uncle. Tonight I’m watching music videos with a friend I met on the eve of the new year 2008 in Taipei. When we tell the story, he always makes sure to add: Kiah was in a shopping cart. I spent so much of my night in that shopping cart that I had bruises on the backs of my legs. This old friend and I have seen each other a few times since I left Taipei. The story stays adorable.

I have been so spoiled lately, on couches and in guest rooms. I have camped less than half the time since I left Maine. Tomorrow I’mma get to it.

Gonna stop numbering my days cuz it’s fucking with me. Today I reorganized my car, sat around with family, and enjoyed a delicious dinner. I’m still indoors but now re-optimized for outdoor adventuring and gettin antsy! New tent is due to arrive imminently, big thanks to my mama.

Today I borrowed my cousin’s dog for a nature adventure. I’ve been practicing trail running, but she barely broke a trot.

My cousin has a house in Baltimore and it’s cute as hell. I don’t know how to commit [to anything] but I do believe Baltimore is an excellent place in which to build a life, for a myriad of reasons. I’m sure glad I have folks to visit in the dazzlingly vibrant yet genuinely approachable Charm City.

Somebody said it was like piles of cats everywhere. Some on top of each other in chairs and on couches, some tangled in and playing with rope, other kitties attacking each other, tumbling around. I was an outside cat who had to be let in and out constantly, which suited me just fine. There was ample purring, some hissing, definite caterwauling. Many compliments, much helpful preening. Fourteen weird, sweet, cautious but cuddly kitty queers.

It was hailing when we left our too-big cabin. The precipitation continues further east, but it’s warmer, which is nice. I made it to my family late in the day, Lenape and Nentego land.

My tent is weathered to points of serious deterioration. There’s tape in places. Last night the zipper busted. This I cannot fix. In all other ways, everyone’s day was pretty perfect. I’m near sure of it.

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I spent most of the day traveling from noisy city to hilly country. The sky let fall a handful of hail as the last of fourteen kinky queers gathered in a giant rental property. People immediately set up rope hard points and made dinner. We all sat down to discuss dreams we’d like to manifest, and consent. Everyone is cool as fuck, safety aware, and capable in their chosen roles. No beginners, no bullshit. Lots of self-awareness and support. Being here is already a dream made manifest.

We had the kind of encyclopedia that you ordered from a magazine, or perhaps our grandparents had bought it from a door-to-door salesperson. The whole collection was only sixteen volumes, maybe twenty, and comprised the entire potential reference capabilities in our household. I’m sure we had a dictionary somewhere, and various field guides, but if I wanted to know about culture or people or the world at large, it was to this shelf of magazine-quality information dressed up in fancy leather that I was resigned. Always when I went to investigate something in this promising reference library, I invariably felt some kind of injustice had been committed. Even before my age had reached double digits, I was well aware of adult deception. These purported reliable sources did not contain all of the facts. It was obvious that truths were being kept hidden, and even moreso that stories had been fabricated. Why, I would wonder abed after hunting for my Easter candy, would it matter that a bunny brought the eggs? To this day I wonder. I served the justice of telling my little brother the truth behind this strange secret. I don’t remember him caring, but I haven’t forgotten that my grandmother did. I like to think, though I do not quite remember doing so, that I had researched the Easter bunny in those lame encyclopedic tomes. It was my ongoing and quite fervent mission to reveal the truths that were being hidden from us children. If I said it wasn’t fair, adults would tell me that life’s not fair, and would leave me puzzled as I cried that they might be, if they so chose. How could I ever trust them or their books? I pledged to grow up honest. I even wrote myself a note, in high school, that as a parent (update: uncle) I would trust children with truths, and believe theirs in turn. I suppose it wasn’t only the lack of compelling information about the world outside my own that made me want to run away.

One of our fonder family stories involves my then-kindergartner brother taking off down the road from our home armed only with fresh undies and a toothbrush. He was my hero that day, despite my skepticism and the likelihood that it was I who gave him up before he got far. I read as many books as I could about adventurous kids; I still do. My Side of the Mountain remains glorious in my mind, as well as the entire Narnia series. (Pa que lo sepas, there was nothing in the latter to persuade even my childhood mind to believe that god was anybody significant.) In the waning glow of my trust in adults I tended a budding faith in all underestimated young adventurers. Wasn’t I as capable as Lucy and Peter? I knew myself equally pure of heart, and similarly in need of respite. Parents don’t believe their children know what’s good for them, I suppose. Nearing the end of a halfhearted slog through undergraduate tenure, I found myself applying to grad schools with a depressing, panic-inducing resignation. In those weeks, sleeplessness would leave me only temporarily, and then horribly, as in the midst of the rest I so dearly needed I would startle awake clutching at my chest and gasping for air. I was thus plunged into apathy, giving up on most of life and nearly failing the capstone project of my minor. I had started to expect that my entire existence was going to suck if I did it the way the lying adults wanted me to. In my final semester of university, I finally began my plan to run away.

My mom, nearly exclusively among the adults around whom I was raised, always did her best to see me when she looked at me, and hear me when I talked. When I admitted to the deep suffering of my final semester and asked if I could put off graduate school, she didn’t even take a breath before agreeing that I should. There was a pause though, I remember, before she let me know that I was my own person now. I should probably go to grad school, but it would be entirely my own choice, my sole responsibilty. She let go of her managerial duties as parent then, and let the evolution of her role as a trusted, supportive equal begin. It was my mother who taught me to question authority, and it was she alone I trusted among adults. It was also she who, upon hearing of my decision to teach English in Asia, bargained that she’d pay for my ticket if she could choose the country. In my fledgling state there was nothing to do but agree, and so my ticket to Taiwan was purchased.

Teaching in Asia was a natural choice for me, it felt wholly in line with the life of my dreams, and not at all scary as a concept. Susan, Peter, Edmund and Lucy didn’t take guidebooks to Narnia; they didn’t do research before stepping into a place wholly unknown. I arrived in Taipei at the tender age of twenty-one with a well-packed suitcase (gracias, Mama), a contract for employment, and no clue what I was getting into. It was my very own clean undies and toothbrush combo; I was running blindly toward anything new. Bravery asks that one choose to overcome an unfamiliar discomfort in order to accomplish something. Cultural discomfort wasn’t new to me, though. I was a bisexual, biracial, human who’d been assigned to the female gender and treated alarmingly thus. All of this confusion even as I struggled to reach eighteen in a village of fewer than two thousand all-but homogenous, very privileged people. A whole new continent seemed no more daunting to me than every single day of high school had been. I thought happily that abroad I would have the excuse of being foreign to shelter all of my insecurities. With trepidation made palatable by the immense hope offered by a new experience, I cried myself to sleep on the plane to Taipei.

Through the Catskills into the Poconos, all the way to friends on occupied Piscataway land.

What if driving is a party and some people suck at dancing? You’re gonna roll your eyes at the idiots in the club, so why not on the road. Tailgating is hilarious to me. It makes me anxious, for sure, but it doesn’t hasten me the way the other driver surely hopes. Driving culture out west is so much more chill. There’s turnouts everywhere—I will let folks pass me all day. Today I saw this little sporty thing stuck behind a big rig. It was dancing from one side to the other in their lane, real close up behind the truck. I guess they were making sure the trucks driver was aware of the anxious vehicle behind them: “Scoot over, get seen in the left mirror again!” What is the truck driver gonna do? Fuck that little car. Nobody cares, dude.

I was eating peanut butter breakfast in my car at 10AM when a dog in the old sedan parked next to me noticed. It leaned its squishy pink nose against the window that had been cracked enough to deliver the scent, and stared at me. It was a big doggy, something broad and beefy with a face that could go from cuddly to pugnacious in a fraction of a second. It seemed to be sharing the back seat with a small human. I could see feet sticking up from somebody laying down on their stomach. The feet wiggled around, occasionally tapping the window. The dog continued to beg as I chewed my sticky bread.

In the midst of this wholesome scene, somebody blasting Fleetwood Mac came along to occupy the space opposite my neighbors. The driver rolled up and parked, then got out to check. He then launched into some loud grumbles about “what the fuck parking”, gesturing angrily at something invisible from my vantage point. His bodily indignation reminded me of Elmer Fudd, or Danny Devito. “Did you even SEE the LINE?” he berated the rear bumper of a car occupied solely by a dog and a child. Beside them, my window was wide open. I wondered if this man was aware of his audience of three, none of whom had much stake in his battle. The dog alone could have won it for our side. Having released his full volley of insults toward an impressively harmless parking job, this frustrated individual strode back to Stevie Nicks still crooning. He proceeded then to pull his SUV right up to the sedan, within inches. I don’t think even he knew whether he would bump it—he certainly could’ve done some damage to the offending vehicle. Our villain didn’t choose recklessness though, and when the engine cut off I think we all expected the dude to finally go about his business. Certainly nobody drives to a parking lot just to argue with parked cars. This man stalked off only about ten feet before he thought better of it, and turned back toward the scene that had so upset him with a finger raised. All three of us were watching with varied expressions of curiosity as this lunatic began stomping toward our cars one last time… then faltered. As if finally realizing how much nothing he had achieved for all his fury, all in front of an apathetic audience, our party pooper, fueled by unspent rage, finally exited the scene.

Sometime during the drama, the kid had sat up and I had put my breakfast down. Now the dog again took notice of the wafting peanut butter as I finished eating, and the child returned to its backseat relaxation.

Nobody cares, dude.

When you leave, it is from your family, but not a place you’d call home. The leaves are black now in their muddy graves, sodden from the months of snow and relentless wet that follows. Beech alone cling to their branches, bleached so white in the long winter that at first glimpse they look like bones hung for the vernal equinox. There were showers in the predawn blue this morning. The pit pat of drops on your tent would be soothing if you still trusted its weatherproofing; a shell that was once a true shade of blue now as pale as the cloudy mid-morning. A heavy, hollow tap tap tap tapping interjects, resounding–you’re reminded of the pop of fireworks on the streets of Taipei, gong xi–and you can spy a downy woodpecker hopping along barren branches. Of course it is all good luck, and you are certainly celebrating now. The Canada geese will eye you but not budge from their breakfast in a pond on the edge of a forest that chirps and buzzes relentless. When you arrived last night it was a million frogs who peeped and croaked nonstop until dawn, mating. In this perfect place, alone among the birds but for one dog and its human, several miles back, you’ve finally ensconced yourself in the flamboyant fecundity of spring. Nothing feels more like home than this.

First time barefoot trail running, and a waterfall.

Today’s tunes:

• “Voodoo in My Blood” Massive Attack
• “Rain” grandson, Jesse Reyez
• “Old Bone – Jim-E Stack Remix” Wet
• “Extreme Ways” Moby
• “Muy Tranquilo” Gramatik
• “Que sera” Wax Tailor
• “Watch it Grow” KR3TURE
• “Be, I do” Nightmares on Wax

This place is called Ducky’s Pond. It is full of noisy frogs, accompanied once in a while by geese. Somewhere in Mohawk Territory.

A final full, bluebird day in the beautiful forested hills of New England. I only interacted with two other humans today, both of whose company I enjoy. I spent most of the day with that absurdly cute cat, Voltron, and a book recommended by my beloved friend.

Do the thing [you don’t wanna do] for five minutes, then rest.

I think I’m still in Wabanaki territory, but I’ve crossed multiple state lines, and hiked a granite mountain midway. I’m bedded down in my car in my friend’s driveway with no light pollution whatsoever, bug noises galore. The sky is cloudy but the growing moon is nonetheless bright. I look forward to the stars.

Today is my last in Maine for a while. I have been packing Sorcha with ease: last year’s gains in understanding and efficiency remain strong, and I’m traveling in only two seasons as opposed to all of them this time. From nine months to four and a half—here goes nothin’.

does one listen now? We are here and nowhere, isolated and surrounded. Everywhere connection without connection. Whose ears hear the a story from the mouth of another, in this din? Who pauses? Who plays? Who is not triaging their own wounds, hastily, frantically, absent-mindedly?