(a journal from under the waning gibbous harvest moon)

The full moon peaked on my birthday but i was sick then, so i stayed indoors. Two days later i am glad to be well, posted up safely for the evening, maybe two. It has been a strange day.

Despite knowing what i had in store today, i went to bed very late last night in favor of cute TV time with Mama. i realized it had been worth it when my alarm went off at 6:40 and i was feeling good. Skeptical about the hour, i called the garage at 7 to confirm my appointment before driving the whole eight minutes, through the fifteen mph local school situation, to make it. Fifteen minutes later i was traveling right back home. Did you know you have a get your car inspected and registered annually? i was a couple months late, but i’m all set now.

For some reason it was about nine am when my bestie started texting me about alternate dimensions and neutrinos, which are definitely very related in a way that is mindblowing and also somehow upsetting. Just before trying to wrap my mind around that shit, i figured something else out and changed some plans. Particle physics was a cute distraction, what with its strange and charm. i now planned to leave around noon or one pm to visit a place i’d never been. By the time i had made a little eggy breakfast for Viv and myself, and packed as best i could, this window was closing. My drive was set to be between three and five hours depending on campsites. (More on that later.) i have recently, i suspect in the midst of letting the realization that nothing matters sink in, forgotten how to rush. i have been slower paced and mostly late with some consistency in this life, but now i am unable to panic or worry about it. Noticing the time i certainly paced up, but i wasn’t about to make haste.

After finally packing the car i purposefully, as if i was done, locked the door to the house behind me before i left. The car engine was running when i realized i forgot things. So i went back to the house, unlocked the door, got things, pulled the locked door shut behind me again. i did that twice. On the third closing of the locked door i finally pulled out of the driveway. About two hours of indie songs from 2012 into the ride my laughter at my inability to pack after all these many years was abruptly halted by the sudden realization that i must have left something important behind. i glanced around and was proven right immediately and painfully: my pillow and Edmund were conspicuously absent. i reasoned that i had extra blankets and clothes and even a pillow case. Although psychologically strange, these losses didn’t pose much of a problem for only two nights away. The tricky one came later.

Forty miles or more since i’d had any cell service, i pulled over at a gorgeous pond rest stop for a smoke and discovered that i did not have rolling papers. Oh no. This would not do. Missing the best parts of snuggling already (yeah, you read that right, try me), could i give up my bedtime ritual? Without my phone’s help i wouldn’t be able to find a shop, and i hadn’t seen anything promising in a long while. Brace yourself for my pride in an underwhelming feat because i am delighted to have really come far in my abilities to reason and reconcile situations as i travel. My maps app was analog, so i looked for bigger roads and intersections. The nearest hope i found was the confluence of four state routes. There would be cell service, or a place to buy papers, maybe both. i drove six miles out of the way from my destination, one way, before i found a Dollar General and pulled over. i still didn’t have service but maybe they sold papers? i parked the car and looked up to see that across the street against an old timey log-fitted building was posted a chartreuse and black sign reading “Smoke Shop”. i laughed out loud. A dollar ninety and a super awkward but cute conversation with the salesperson later, i rolled me a spliff and drove the six miles, which included construction so it was about twelve minutes one way, back to my route.

Twenty minutes after reconnecting, i missed a turn. i had another spot marked further ahead, but doubling back might still be faster. Both options were a gamble. i get my free campsite information from free apps which rely on free-user good will in the sharing of information. Anyone can post a camp spot as long as it passes basic qualifications. Some that don’t qualify get posted. You learn that all aspects of each entry are worth a critical eye and some weighing. Of course this gets easier with use. My main concern about either of these sites was the location and time of year. It’s the beginning of fall in northern, nowhere Maine, and life is beautiful. The weather is warm and mild, the wind is soothing, and the skies stay brilliant. The summer green trees sport a rosy kind of blush that looks exactly two days of autumn old. It’s also Thursday night, a night when free campsites are few. Each of my two contenders was said to be located, respectively, down a long but manageable dirt road, tended by the state, and right on the exquisite water of Moosehead Lake. Either would be a long drive, but the one behind me was just that much closer. All other things seeming equal, i turned around.

Trust, trust. i put my faith in my gut and watched the sun sink toward the horizon as i made the missed turn and drove three miles up and down a rocky dirt road that kept me below twenty mph toward what i hoped was my campsite. i was busy re-memorizing my return through the maze of logging roads when i finally passed a sign with rules, then pulled up to a tiny turn-around with a boat launch at twelve o’clock. The single lane circle was closely surrounded by five fire pits, each with parking and a picnic table, each of which as i drove around i saw in turn, with increasing urgency, was full. All until the last one. Its vacancy was understandable, but i loved it immediately.

The picnic table at this site sits at a jaunty angle and almost in the brush, and there is somehow not much space for any kind of rig or tent. It has scant–if any?–flat ground, and i had to maneuver expertly close to the fire pit in order to get the car nearly level. i have been planning to make a couple small leveling blocks for Sorcha for a while; this lit the fire for making that a priority. The sun was preparing its final act, dazzling over the ridiculous and stunning Moosehead Lake, when i finally rested as evenly as possible and settled in to watch the sky. i feel comfortable enough, though my neighbors are nearly unbearably close. Despite not wanting to hear, i’ve vaguely enjoyed some of their conversations. There’s also an impressively whiny puppy around. i like smelling the camp fires. It’s nine pm and all is quiet but for the occasional murmuring conversation of a couple sleepy humans.

The stars are brilliant. i must attend to them.

the wind skims the water in shifting patterns, lines forming to twirl across the surface, sometimes silken, never static. reverberating in swirls that fade then reappear spiraling nearby. here close to shore the surface never breaks. how does this lilt look from the depths? a shadow play of silhouettes not quite complete, gliding through light not quite direct. seen from above the ripples dance in the gusts of air, suddenly threatening to splash before sinking into calm again. a chill. sunlight sparkles across the surface, bouncing off the supposed smoothness irregularly in minuscule rainbows. sun and wind interplay like an old fable, water highlights every effort they make. adds salt.

if you look away for an instant you’ll miss something. up above are scattered points of light so dense that at any second they could coalesce into a sunlit sky. the air is fresher without clouds. cold. the twinkling seems in earnest. some of the infernos have already ended by the time they’ve met your eyes. it is an honor to witness from the ground. a moon just waxing shares the deep, dark firmament. a sly silver sliver adorning the myriad sparkle. keep your eyes open for sweet bright streaks in space. by the time you’ve lost yourself in the depths you’ve forgotten what you’d wish for. you lean in to the wondrous night.

This day is heavy with the burden of water. It drips from the canopy, sliding down leaves and tree trunks into soft, welcoming lichen. Up ahead in the unkempt fecundity is a silhouette that can only be you, alone in the forest, like me. Laying thick between us the grey and green atmosphere obscures not only your image, but my will to call to it. Despite myself, I watch closely to see what the outline of you will do among the trees. As if in direct response to my earnestness, a lazy current of air that could not be called a breeze carries ever-denser haze into my line of sight. The green dims, succumbing to grey. I chide myself for bothering to adjust my eyes when I could easily look away. Instead, you fade as I squint, then disappear, wandering away behind the broad trunk of a tall pine as if into the end of your own film. I wonder if you meant to do that, dramatic. I continue watching for any sign of your direction until I am finally left without a choice. I have no idea where you’ve gone. I realize this gladly.

Mosquitoes love the damp. I offer them death by my hand, one last caress. I don’t count my kills but I do take some pride. Nature tends toward balance; creators and destroyers. Here are pollinators out in equal number, confusedly approaching my brightly colored undershirt in the grey. The yellow fabric peaks from dark sleeves, and at the collar, so that I have to lean down to find pink petals, meek and cowering under the all-wet green, then coax the bright butterflies off of me toward the nectar. Everything here is stimulated by the rain. I know you do not feel that way, but I don’t know what to do about that. Unless you need help moving to your next life, I suppose. Or a flower.

That you are currently up ahead of me ensconced in drama is more a marvelous, bad joke than anything. I wonder if you’d laugh with me about it. Did I ever tell you about the time I bought that pack of ladyfingers for you, but also one for myself? You enjoyed them as ever, all in one go. I even helped you eat yours, and watched you share it, all while I had my own, secreted away. You never wanted to take a dessert slowly, or even quietly. I guess that’s a thing I’ve enjoyed: you can really stoke a whole lot of happy excitement into one moment. And you’re good at sharing.

That was the beginning of my dessert stash, which I have since kept whether you were nearby or not. Even today there’s chocolates in my pocket. I realize that a little sugar boost might help you cope with the grey, so it turns out there is something I can do. The gulf between us is wider than ever though, filled with fog and spiderwebs and slippery moss over deteriorating logs. I don’t know how to find you without calling out abruptly into this silence so heavy it feels deep, as if there are suddenly hundreds of miles between us, or layers that would shatter catastrophically in the wake of my shout. I stretch my fingers through the wet air to tickle a fern before looking up again to where I saw your silhouette. The lush variety of greens surrounding that clearing is wholly visible, leaves and fronds shining wet, not at all disturbed by signs of humanity. Squinting again, I wonder whether, in this weather, you were. I have no idea where you’ve gone, and gladly.

A mighty shift is coming and everyone knows it. A fair number of the folks I get to chatting with have a preference to avoid the change; far fewer are preparing for it. Their reasoning varies. We all have our ways. No one wants to lose, but I reckon we’re all going to, one way or another. I am not personally particularly interested in standing up to anyone whose preference is to avert their eyes.

Myself I have focused on the old ways of living and dying. Truthfully I am not sure I would survive given certain unfortunate conditions. Not that I’m the type to take it lying down, mind. Anyone in my acquaintance knows that I would not go quietly. Neither will the upset be any kind of pretty. This storm has been crossing the expanse in our direction quite a while now, slow but sure, picking up wind and speed along the way. It’s probable to do no one good continuing to expect the shining bright sun.

I’m not afraid to tell you it’s the first time I’ve been truly aggrieved at letting friendships fall by the wayside. I don’t want to leave anyone behind, but people won’t be led like that, not when it comes to living free. I am no more fit to lead than the next, and well, I believe it right that everyone have their own mind about a thing.

I figure on teaching the young ones best I know. The future might be dim but our wits can’t be. We got plenty needs dealing with before we might see us on an upswing, and I’m sorry about the kids’ lot in it all.

A small good that’s real mighty in all this is the folks who come along ready to talk about preparing for what’s next. The best good is when it’s folks one’s been acquainted with a while already. Sometimes a body could get to feeling they were all completely alone in this mess, but that ain’t quite the truth. It surely feels isolating now though, what with all signs pointing to worse before better.

We each do what we can with our lot, I reckon. It does no good to fight nature, nor to force any free person to do what they don’t want to. I guess we all oughta hold tight and tend to our own.

There was no oat milk or lactose-free cottage cheese in the few markets i visited in Wisconsin. You probably already know why: “America’s Dairyland”. i guess lactose-intolerant people can just gtfo? Don’t worry, i’m going. But not before i find Lake Michigan, which i’ve met before but to whom i hadn’t cried until now.

i’ve gone too far east for the relevancy of my bird book. The comfort i find in identifying birds slips away as my wheels roll toward the familiar. Everything feels new somehow, and i just want to keep crying for small miracles and great beauties. i’d prefer to mourn lost lovers and ex-friends. Instead, the cool wind comes off this great lake to dry my tears falling for ever more serious issues, none of which are mine to share. If i had a lover i might whisper to them of my new distresses. These days i whisper to myself alone.

The “we” with which i am most familiar, we are growing up. There are babies now, welcomed and adored. i am quite excited to make their acquaintances. People paired off are signing paperwork about it. Everyone is following their own personal dreams. i am learning what it’s like to have seeds of hope that grow roots, but will never bear fruit. What it’s like when you thought “maybe someday”, but now she is getting engaged. How it feels to expect especially strong friends to exist that way forever, only to be faced too soon with the truth.

i’m learning to cultivate my own happiness from loved ones’ joys, no matter the envy inspired. i have found that at this intersection loneliness waits, as patiently as the devil at the crossroads of adulthood. Some days it’s more difficult to pass him by.

Life gets more real as i head east, somehow. Maybe it’s that everyone is free to move about the world again. Maybe it’s that my phone has better service. Perhaps i simply need to satisfy my cottage cheese craving. i know this is a lake, but i can’t shake this feeling here from the too-close shore: that i am watching as the sea takes her most massive gulp, the harbinger of a tsunami of new feelings for which i’ve never prepared.

the broad sky welcomed you

to breathe

roam free

grow

despite yourself

you turned around

as many loves come and gone

as moons in these wide skies

now all the signs remind you:

East

which has always been home

while the vast bright blue

fluffed with cozy clouds

beckons

asks you to stay

the way a cowboy might

quiet like

offering wild freedom

open spaces

animal comforts

home is here, now

and all the places you’ve been

skies you promise

to be gone from only a little while

heading East

hustle and bustle

strangers loud, stressed, depressed

in the hem of a too-close horizon

a foreground of vehicles and pavement

enough

to snatch the breath from your throat

as if that’s all you can remember

of a place you called home

before

this wide expanse

wrenched your heart from its safe spaces

leaving only sky

it startled you on the seventh day

now, in the seventh month

it’s where you feel alive

i’ve been trying to identify clouds. By the time i found a book that would help, i had made it to Wyoming, where the massive sky hosts such an assortment as to feel like a master class for a novice like me.

Stratus clouds have no real shape or discernible structure. They are easily found: spread thin between earth and sky. The Eeyore among clouds, listless. Stratus clouds’ accompanying barometric pressure helps a lot of living bodies agree with low energy. Tut tut, it looks like rain.

The storms here come on slowly then pelt down water in big, fat drops the way only the most massive of summer clouds can deliver. This rain moves around the gigantic sky to let go distant downpours, each miles from the next like so many massive jellyfish. From a dry perch beneath bright blue, you might easily spy wet weather overshadowing elsewhere. One can’t help but marvel at the breadth of sky which allows such visibility.

In a break from the storms under hot, clear skies yesterday i embarked on a three mile hike at 4,000+ feet. i could see the pouring rain, far far away, reaching toward the ground as if those storm clouds were Michelangelo’s God, the earth Adam. So much of the heavens are visible from heights like these. i heard the thunder about halfway in. Perhaps i quickened my pace then, or not. Presently, a few drops fell—gratefully smaller harbingers than thunder, which seemed itself to have subsided somewhere over the valley. For sure i tried to speed up then; i knew the rain would come strong. Those warning droplets proved especially cute compared to the torrent that soon followed. As the rain fell, thick air gave way to the fresh aromas of a grateful earth. Through the water between us, a white-tailed deer noticed me only enough to bound a few yards further for her snacking, unperturbed and intent. i kept walking, not quite hurried, but determined. The only way out of this storm was through.

It wasn’t long before the heavy clouds passed again, a wake of fluff and blue left behind them. It was there i changed my soaking clothes, envied the deer’s coat, and smiled at the sky again. Hello, cumulus, old friend.

new-to-me fauna, coast to coast, over six-ish months:

roadrunner

elk and their speckled babies

black-tailed deer

bald eagles

one golden eagle

bighorn sheep

wild donkeys

sandhill cranes

jackrabbit

a young coyote

mule deer

pacific seals

pronghorn, which are not technically antelope but a lot like ‘em

busy gophers

owls

quail, who are hilarious

a wolf

ground squirrels, which might also be known as whistle-pigs ? but prairie dogs do way more whistling

prairie dogs

banana slugs and painted snails

zebras in a coastal pasture

hundreds of buffalo and their “red doggy” babes

wild horses

a scary amount of locusts

lizards of the redwoods

one very long grey snake

hundreds of swallow-tail butterflies that i scared from their mud

a curious mountain goat

marmot

the only swimming songbird on this continent

golden crested squirrels

a young black bear

big fat salamander in a cold mountain lake

two moose

too many mice

noisy, bold rufous hummingbirds

trout swimming upstream

one massive grizzly butt, loping off into the forest

other cool birds: Ravens, Phainopepla, Pine Grosbeak, American Coot, Bullock’s Oriole, Marsh Wren, Barrows Goldeneye, Osprey, Clark’s Woodpecker, Godwit, Grey Jay (aka Robber Jay), Pileated Woodpecker, Goshawk, Curlew… et al.

A pair of sandhill cranes flew overhead, shouting about their mornings with honks like operatic geese. If i wept then it was because i would like someone with whom to start the day. Perhaps i have roamed too far. i can still hear a long-gone friend giving me shit for not being able to settle down anywhere, the echoes of that conversation reverberating through all of the years i spent too long in one place. i wonder if roots are the way to affection. If by settling down i could find forehead kisses, someone to play with my hair. A gilded cage that i’ll inevitably break my own heart to escape. The whole wild world is out there. This nearly-summer morning in the hills is bitterly cold or breezily warm, depending on the sun as it rises. Darkness and light. Wind rolls through sagebrush the same as over a calm lake: undulating surfaces, shimmering blue-greens, whispering. i pause to watch a lone elk standing at the peak of a ridge still in shadow. i am rewarded with a head-toss accompanied by an adorably high-pitched, nasal grunt. Someone unseen responds. They squeak back and forth like this, to my delight. i wonder if they are discussing breakfast. Yesterday i made coffee where i could see a family of bison grazing. Buffalo are playful whenever they are in groups, and slow all the time unless threatened. They are vocal, democratic, affectionate. i dream of belonging to a herd.

(addendum to “a day in the life”)

Throw pinecones in the river to see how long you can keep an eye on them as they speed away

Look up a lot

Get to know the clouds

Study, so you can call nature by all of her names

Whisper when you do

Talk less in general, except to yourself

Tell yourself jokes

Notice unfamiliar sounds, like the gopher ripping grass from above ground to drag down into its hole

Watch the gopher do this for as long as you want

Check every hole and nest, cautiously

Follow tracks

Identify scat

Climb

Do not dampen your enthusiasm

Try to drink a gallon of water every day

Scream wildly once in a while

Hold yourself when you cry. Imagine the embrace of the person who’d make you feel loved enough to let it all out

Let it all out

Touch all the trees you can reach

Be naked in fresh air whenever you can

Climb mountains when you feel like it

Eat fresh snow

Greet every living creature that comes within two meters

Don’t take it personally if they don’t respond. Every hello is a generosity

Greet blood-suckers ruthlessly. You’ll know them when you see them

Make eye contact

Bow toward hooved creatures

Crouch low to greet dogs

Caw raucously at ravens

Write postcards to the humans you like

Ignore the rest as much as possible

Pay attention to yourself

Dance

Stretch

Breathe

Take up all the space you need

Every day somebody wants to talk. Happily fewer than i expected offer unsolicited advice. Some worry for me needlessly. Several times now someone has started a conversation by noticing my license plate and saying, “You’re a long way from home!” One guy thought i must’ve driven “a third of the way around the world, at least!” A lot of old guys talk to me like i’m their idiot grandchild, and i don’t mind one bit.

Bison (Bison bison) are also known as American Buffalo. It is okay to use either term. This is official technical information, please pass it on.

One day everybody at the bar wanted to talk to me. We were each of us alone on a Sunday, and i felt like singing Sheryl Crow: the good people of the world are visiting Yellowstone, waitin’ in line with their families, drivin’ slow in their cars…

The bartender was a classic story-filled dude who got excited to tell me all his national parks anecdotal horror. He’d worked in Death Valley, Olympic, and Yellowstone. People have died in incredibly freaky ways in at least two of those places, and he had a chilling bonus Grand Canyon story. When i went to the geysers later i thought about the awful accidents. i felt a boost of curiosity instead of realistically cautious, like when i wonder about what it’d be like to jump from somewhere too high, or drive my car off a bridge. Could i really just break through the crusty top layer of a hundred-degree, bubbling, acidic underground waterway? This is that “call of the void” thing that happens to everyone in some form: you experience thoughts of doing something horrific as part of your brain’s mechanisms to convince you not to do the thing. Seems like a weird glitch to me, but it works. i did not go near one steamy puddle.

i saw a dad visibly tense when his child put a small foot on the edge of the thermal pool boardwalk. His voice was calm and gentle though as he said, “We don’t step on that board, that’s the boundary.” It is with genuine awe that i admit that i don’t know how parents ever have a good time.

Recently though i did have the privilege of witnessing some parents making an intentional masterpiece of it. It seems like dreams coming true kind of just means you have more work to do, no matter what your dreams have been. But the work then doesn’t feel like it anymore. In this way i can understand how parents might enjoy themselves, abstractly. It makes me more excited to be heading east, where i’ll spend time with some old loves who have new babies.

The last time someone saw me near my car and noticed i was “a ways from home” i said, “Nah, she’s right here,” and patted Sorcha like a pet. That guy was visiting feral cats along the shoreline of Port Angeles, Washington. He told me about how he and his wife like to feed the cats, catch and fix them if they can, and otherwise let them be. Rock-dwelling beach kitties who hid from everyone, but came right out to eat snacks from this old man. He wanted to tell me about other things he’s done, like when he hitchhiked a lot of the same states i’ve now driven through. i wasn’t bored, listening to him. He surprised me finally with a $20 gift card for groceries. He said, “You always have too much when you don’t need it.”

One morning i met a man with a horse and we talked about Steven Rinella. i guess that guy lives in Bozeman now. My equestrian stranger does too, though the trailhead where we met was over an hour distant. “I like a quiet forest,” he said. i lent him sunscreen and he put on his chaps as we discussed big game and bear safety. He gushed about his love of this countryside, and i realized i was somewhere special, in yet another new way. Cowboy country, i am arrived. The horse did some business as they moseyed on along.

i get stared at often. Looking like i do, alone in places where most folks have company, it makes sense that people would wonder. i used to get really prickly at people like this. Turns out though that whenever i make defiant eye contact with a looky-loo, they immediately gush about whatever it is they were staring at. Ultimately most people who have “staring problems” actually have socially awkward problems. For real, i recommend everyone try this: be kind when you catch someone staring. i bet you a beer they were just admiring.

i was sitting in my car at one of the Columbia River Gorge waterfalls when somebody walked by then backtracked. “Are you from Maine?” i shrugged, truly in an effort to avoid getting tangled in the question, “Kinda.” This man then launched into the story of his experience on some hill in Maine that when you’re driving up it feels like you’re going backward but it’s an illusion. i had to admit i’d never heard of it. He immediately lost interest and wandered off.

At the Yellowstone gate the attendant noticed the pizza box on my front seat and joked that she’d trade me the map for a slice. Just when i had been wondering what the fork to do with my leftovers! i made her take two while we both giggled like we were getting away with something. i’m real amped to be able to share food again.

i pulled over at some turn out on the coast of Oregon to look at the sky. Next to me a Texan vehicle playing something loud and clubby pulled up and parked. Out the passenger side of that car, while i rummaged in the “back seat” of mine, a big man scrambled out. He was smiling, and without even meeting my eyes he offered me some kind of greeting. He, his companion, and i spent the next forty minutes laughing like old friends. They were coworkers who’d been on the road six weeks, he told me before she came around the car. Upon her arrival he excitedly demanded that she ask me how long i’ve been on the road. He already had that information and thoroughly enjoyed watching her jaw drop. We laughed a lot that hour together.

The massive Hoh Rainforest (WA) logs look so cozy all covered in moss. i found one that had been well-loved and stretched right out on it, looking up at the canopied overstory. i could have spent all day there, but the foot traffic was a bit much. One woman shouted at me, “I’m sorry, but you are life goals!” and it took me a sec to figure out what she meant. Another person i’d already met along the walk told me i looked great up there. My cozy log time didn’t last any longer than was fun.

In one day at Yosemite i overheard no fewer than five different people exclaim, “Maine!” when noticing my car. One particularly cutely high pitched voice was followed by an alarmingly comical, but definitely serious, two-syllable “Mom.” i swear i could hear the eye-roll. i got to witness a kiddo practically jump in front of my parked car, which i was luckily approaching. Turns out he’d been checking off the states and i was the first from Maine. i did see another Maine plate at Yosemite but i didn’t tell the kid that. i threw a fist pump instead, “i win!”

Strangers being “friends you haven’t met yet” is a terrifying prospect. i prefer strangers staying that way: regular, flawed, single-serving human interaction that is almost always kind and sometimes playful. To remind me of the friends i already have.

In the morning i will snuggle with the sun as she tries like an impatient lover to wake me. Her early warmth will seep in, slowly coaxing me from my bed. i like to wake up but not to get up, so i’ll roll around about it a while, taking the window covers down so i can see the new morning. Depending on where i’ve parked, this often ends with me simply tumbling to my feet out the rear passenger door, amused.

My day begins with a”morning spritz”, as they say, and simple sustenance—oatmeal and coffee—usually cooked over a propane flame in my little water-boiler. i’ve only recently started to build fires for only myself. A few months ago, camp neighbors treated me to the sweet joy of a morning fire; sometimes now i like to indulge in it alone. It feels like a form of hygge in this quaint, strange life. i gather the wood from around the site, arranging it to build a small combustion that creates warmth and heat unevenly but brilliantly, like a romance. Predictably, the fire goes to smoke before i’m quite ready to put it out.

Some days after breakfast it’s time to mosey on down the road. When i’ve found a good site, i stay put as long as i have enough drinking water to do so. Neither staying nor leaving limits the way i spend my days, which is not at all unique. i stare at nature a lot, especially birds. i talk and text with loved ones, go for walks, stretch, dance. i read, write, and create small beauties. i happily watch downloaded TV. i talk to myself all the time, and while driving i sing my little heart out. i always try to make sure i know before dusk where i’m staying the night.

Where i’ll park to sleep is a matter of locale. A lot of places are unfriendly to overnight freeloaders, so i will wander off the beaten path for something subtle. i understand that in this particular little vehicle i could probably easily park anywhere, but i am notoriously bad at being woken up. A knock on my window seems truly nightmarish. It’s not a risk i’m willing to take, if i can help it, though i expect it is only a matter of time before i face this fear.

i prefer to park alone in the wilderness rather than a well-lit parking lot, but there are too many other factors for any further blanket statements to make sense. Everywhere is different, and i won’t scoff at a truck stop. It’s ultimately a game of pros and cons, the variables of which are woven intricately. i like to be able to put my tent up and see the stars out my window. A private place to pee nearby is helpful. Other factors include, but are certainly not limited to: level ground for sleeping, facilities/water access, traffic, privacy, noise, weather, the intended use of the area, et cetera. The most exciting situations are when i have human neighbors, overnight or otherwise. (The notable among these usually get their own separate write-up.)

These past few days i found a stream skirting a tiny peninsula to make my home. It took me no fewer than three dance songs to find level parking; by the time i exited the car a nearby camper was coming to check that i was okay. We laughed at me together, and i knew i had chosen my spot well. i slept under stars especially bright as the moon waned to new.

In the dark that now settles so long after i’ve tucked in, i listen for animals. Often i am pleasantly rewarded with frog songs, coyote howls, night bird calls, and hooting owls. One spot had donkeys, another horses. Although it used to be a big part of my nights, no longer am i bothered by rodent guests—i finally found a way to make them feel unwelcome that doesn’t involve podcasts blaring into the darkened wilderness.*

Once in the depth of a waxing gibbous night somewhere on the Pacific coast, i went to scoot from my bed out the rear passenger side for a quick pee. When i opened the door, there stood a skunk, not two yards away and totally illuminated by the moonlight. We both froze before i quickly slammed the door again. It decided not to spray, and i gratefully chose a different exit to do my business.

Every day is similar. Every day is new.

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*See the post titled “simply brazen” for details.

Fir fronds, dropped from their boughs in the hot spring sun, carpet a paved trail already wet with snowmelt. The smell breathing from the warm blacktop through the pine needles hits my senses like a slow start to a hearth fire: suddenly the fragrance has permeated my world, an earthy succor for low spirits. Much of the pavement is still fully blocked by stubborn piles of packed slush sprinkled with dirt and leaves, mauled by footprints. The untouched snow off to the sides crunches and molds into itself when i grab at a handful, bare fingers warmed in the eighty degrees of sunlight. As i walk my palms ease the old snow into a dense ball of ice, perfect for cooling my neck and chest during the uphill climb toward the ridge.

The ravens arrive squawking to each other mid-air, above and below the path: mountain criers bringing news from all around. What more eerie, wise creature could be so loud and also welcome? i listen closely. Perhaps i am eavesdropping, or perhaps their messages are for all to hear; feathered foot soldiers gossiping as i strain to understand. i ask questions of these ravens, and they cluck with curiosity, but offer me nothing. Like any henchmen, they will need bribes before they share information. i know better than to play this game with birds so sly. i walk on as they wing past, raven business remaining between them and their sky.

At least one river whines faintly up from the valley below. Rallied against rock and carried on the wind its cries grow louder. The melt of thaw makes gluttony of all waterways. They roar the loudest they will all year—creeks, rivers, streams and all their mighty cousins will fatten up into their banks and carelessly, aggressively reshape the land that holds them. Spring break is in full swing, and the current’s flow thus bolstered echoes throughout of torrential indulgence. The mountains proudly scatter this information around as if aware they will grow taller in the water’s rush. The sound reverberates around the valleys—a song these giants together have been singing ever since they were droplets on pebbles.

In these vast moments i know god is nearby. i can feel elysian music best when i can see the movements. i am lucky to have chosen a clear day for this adventure: i can see holy splendor in every direction, the only other signs of humanity so small as to be insignificant. To the north is the ocean. i can see the land beyond even that, with yet more mountains; a place we of this bordered land are currently not allowed to visit. It seems an impressive waste of energy and resources—too often life as well—to bother keeping people inside invisible land boundaries. The world is so vast, yet governments so petty. Why would anyone want to stop another person from seeing these beauties? If i could, i would take everyone to all of the places i’ve seen gods.

Today my pilgrimage is personal and though that wasn’t the original plan, it’s much better this way. Atop the ridge at last, i say my thanks as i settle down to take it all in. i can hear Chinese and a language i don’t recognize among all of the English and Spanish. Visiting a national park is a lot like walking into the most diverse block party of all time: a family event where everyone is just trying to have a nice day then go home. As i sit in the sun and take in the uncountable mountains under the glory of our pure blue sky, i can feel eyes on me. They wonder at my aloneness and investigate my tattoos, so many of which are exposed now under the brilliant sun. One especially small onlooker contemplates neither my tattoos nor lack of companionship—a chipmunk notices my snacks. i talk to the little rodent about how i will not be sharing, but it only creeps closer, right on to my backpack set next to me. i am quietly giggling at it now, whispering, and together we create a convenient moment for everyone to stare at me outright.

“Oh wow look at that!”

“You’ve made a friend!”

“Is that a chipmunk?”

“Oh he’s a brave little guy!”

Though they are meant to be heard, very few of the scattered statements are directed at me. Still, i look up from my new friend with some small pride, and announce casually to all in attendance that i am now a Disney princess and should be treated as such. Amid the chuckles, a raven heralds my coronation.

It feels a little bit like going to the dentist after all the rough roads i’ve ridden in my sweet Sorcha. They’re rotating my tires, and i asked the guy not to be mad at me when he looks at the skid plate.

i don’t mind if people see my mistakes as long as they don’t judge me, but since that’s all any of us seem to do anymore, i get why nobody else wants to be seen. Anymore i aim to be a person who leaves plenty of space for people to be less than their best, but expects them to try.

This is Sorcha’s fourth oil change since we hit the road. i’m collecting the stickers. There are all sorts of milestones to clock—i have no idea how many actual miles we’ve gone. What i do know is that i treat my whole life like i treat my car: with a healthy degree of care, yet audaciously. Yesterday i had to coax her up a dirt road she thought was too skiddy–technical term for the orange dashboard light featuring the car atop squiggles–just like i had to gird my loins for some looming bad news from someone i care about. In the end we made it up that dirt hill, and i’m not getting any lovin’ in this state. Instead, Sorcha gets her work done, and i’ll take a hike i’ve been eyeing, my own tune-up. My heart feels like her skid plate looks: a bit worse for wear, ready for more.

i wrote to a friend today that i am satisfied. How lucky can one be, to feel so? Here, in the words of Hafiz, with apologies for the image quality.

Truck stop showers are, first of all, a total boon. You pay $10-15 for an hour and a half in a sparkling clean room furnished with a shower, toilet, sink, bathmat, and towel. Usually also a washcloth. Sometimes you can hear convenience store soundtrack, which is often modern country. Also the room is cold and there’s no door on the shower but the water gets and stays hot, usually. Once, i had a massive tub.

i have historically not been into showering, and even now am happy to wait well over a week between the experience of being wet and warm but also cold in spots while i try to exfoliate. i did have to improve my camp cleanliness strategy, though. After recently going through a baby wipe usage crisis, i made my own. i visited a thrift store to get a big glass jar with the rubber closure and metal clasp, you know the one, and then some washcloths and a pair of scissors, which i tested on the fabric in the store. My jar is clear with painted tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and leaves. Along with a lot of water, i used a bit of concentrated, natural liquid soap, body oil, and essential oil, all of which i keep on hand.* Now my sponge baths are much more pleasant and thorough. Bonus: i’m making less waste to wrangle around in my car.

i do enjoy my weekly-ish shower, though, these days. i like it because i can clean everything that isn’t clothes. (i do not hand wash clothes unless in crisis.) As i pack for my shower, i love going into my little kitchen and pulling out everything i can scrub. It’s like five dishes and three silverware but it feels so nice to be able to clean it all thoroughly.

Camping on the road and doing dishes is annoying. i only use a few but it takes water, and usually either soap or effort or both, to clean them. i’ve gotten into the habit of collecting water. i fill my drinking water from the machines outside stores, reusing bottles as long as i can stand them. Other water i am happy to gather anywhere, and lately—at the same thrift store but less on purpose—i found the perfect water spout thing. It slides into my trunk next to the bed and is stabilized by the same bungee that holds my bookshelf. Next to this 1.75l blessing is a box containing a dish sponge, homemade liquid soaps—one for skin and one for everything, towels, and ironically, baby wipes. To use my little sink i open the hatchback and unhook the bungee from the cargo position into a more useful attachment, allowing the spout to stretch out from the rear of the vehicle for use. It’s a really good way to do daily dishes, and i mostly don’t take them all into truck stops anymore.

The strategy of truck stop showering is to take up the whole time, use every second of your hot, running water. i do a full series of skin and body care that usually starts with a face mask while i make sure all my things are where they need to be. When i’m ready, it’s dishes first while i stand in the hot water. i like to get the first layer of adventure rinsed off before soap. After bathing, i take advantage of the private space, too, and stretch in that mirror as much as possible. It feels important to move when my body is so completely warm. i put on all my lotions while i dance around.

i do miss baths, but i like getting good at new things. Everything is so much easier to enjoy when you do your best at it. i will probably never stop visiting truck stop showers, nor strategizing my tiny home furnishings. i owe some of my skill in these rubber tramp enhancements to those folks i’ve met along the way, but these things are born too of personal necessity. Sorcha, my car, is specific to me now. Her corners fit my rhythms, everything according to how i move myself and use my things. This kind of optimization is full of reward, and potentially unending. Just out here doin’ my best.

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*If you’re considering doing this, i truly mean just a bit of each, maybe a teaspoon of the soap but 1/4 that of body oil and a few drops of essential in a quart container. Put the cloths in before the water, then the ingredients. Close, shake, let settle. Squeeze excess back into the jar before use. Rinse and reuse as needed!

Anyone thinking of owning a prius should know that mice are kind of their biggest fandom. Apparently these particular engine blocks are highly hospitable to guests, and whew, do i have tales of tails. Just now, just tonight i caught one in the act. i heard the familiar noises and had gone through my regular routine of turning on the car and a podcast and having a smoke. That’s right: there are familiar noises and a regular routine for this. i been living in Sorcha for a cumulative seven of the past ten months, so i am learning. Usually my deterrent routine is pretty effective, along with maybe a flashlight under the steering column. Often i can get some rest. Ah but no, this was a special guest.

i tucked myself in again thinking i might sleep. That hope was quickly dashed. i listened carefully as i turned my body around toward the front of the car. No sooner had i angled my searchlight when i caught the creature perched comfortably atop a gallon water jug i keep on the floor. We both stared and i shouted, “WhatTheFuckGetOUT!” affronted. That wee animal was too scared to run but i was offended at seeing it look fearless. After it took off i laughed at us both, and waited to see what would happen.

This tiny mouse had bulging black eyes, small ears, and a light brown coat over a bright white belly. It looked healthy, maybe even new. It looked like a teenager, reckless and gorgeous. i know this because i got to see it not once, but twice more, before my pitch reached an effective octave. It’s true that as the battle continues the urge to act out in anger increases. Upon our final encounter i made such a ruckus that this whole two inches of svelt rodent responded by stretching wide and flattening itself against the floor of my car in the way cartoonists admire. Despite appreciating this, i banged on the dash and shouted at it to get the fuck out you are not welcome. Let me also say i had asked politely before even seeing this dude, and several times since. This time, it scampered off and i’ve heard nothing since. That doesn’t mean i can sleep, not after so much excitement. Maybe i’ll see dawn.

On the busy, forested two-lane highway outside of Warm Springs, the speed limit signs say 55 but the trucks scream seventy. The narrow road slices through wild land, speckled with snow this time of year, surrounded by densely packed conifers and muddy winter detritus breathing. Somewhere in that wood sodden with spring, somewhere astride the paved road, a smaller sign peeks out. It’s just tall enough to spot, with that sugary, highway green background clashing gently against the evergreen landscape. The sign is predictably squarish with simple white lettering.

45TH PARALLEL

HALFWAY BETWEEN

THE EQUATOR AND NORTH POLE

You can barely grasp all the words going past—it’s these times i’d like a buddy—before you’ve crossed this invisible, mostly meaningless meridian. If there was a pull-off it was snow-covered. Just a humble sign reaching out of a gorgeous forest to lend you a fact that would be useless if not for being so utterly delightful.

If ever electricity appeared in midair it was when their eyes met mine for the first time. The recollection remains a bodily experience–still now i feel the shock. In the years since, one can follow the conduction: letters mailed, dirty pictures, poetic missives. How impudent then to crash into each other again in the desert: claro que there was a fire. A shower of sparks, embers singeing ignored as we basked in our own heat. Feral animals. i’m not sure we escaped unharmed, but i know the coals still burn. Neither of us feels like getting out of this alive. Perhaps a less violent explosion when next we meet. Perhaps more frequent meetings.

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She confronts new beings with her belly up. Non-threatening, excitable. My response is a toe-tap dance of delight. We sniff each other’s butts, nip at ears. Tentative, eager. Watching stars in the dark, i can catch her shimmering. These distant days we whisper to each other of old difficulties, new miracles. We find words for the sweet and sacred. Someday soon, we will roll in the surf. Juntos. Our soft fur soaked, frosted by pebbled sand. Our yelping laughter engulfed by the ocean.

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He found a seat among the roots of the tree closest to the fire, directly opposite me. i recognized this by straightening myself to face him. He caught my eye and arched his brows in invitation. The party had long since died and the fire was going, too, before i realized i’d been captivated. A week later i listened to the shorebirds as he told me he’d be leaving town, probably soon. Coyly i suggested that there was something i wanted to do with him first. i barely finished saying it as he leaned in, beaming, to put his lips against mine for a happy first time. Of so many delicious, happy times. When he does leave he kisses my forehead; my gluttonous heart intact.

i pause my idiotic tv show to grab my now-warm meal from the front seat. i’m getting so good at this. i charge all my stuff in my battery-operated car while my dinner cooks in an electric pot called “Little Dipper®️”. i am sure this is not the intended use of the little pot, but i like to think i saved it from an eternity on the thrift store shelf after a few nights of cheese and chocolate. Instead, stews and soups, often with fresh veggies. So i reach to grab my erstwhile fondue pot from the dashboard, then scoot myself til i can safely rest it on my table. The table and i are both on my bed. i’m getting so good at this.

Upon completing my adorable table setting, i notice the birds. Again with the chirping! The singing! i realize it’s dusk as i peer into the trees. The creek nearby seems louder and i remember the thunder earlier in the day. i prepared for it but stayed dry. The creek is telling me somebody got rain, for sure. i was watching TV while this news was being broadcast. Whoops. i consider admonishing myself, then realize i’ve spent the better part of the past twelve hours listening to and watching this landscape. i used to say i’d look forward to doing that kind of thing in retirement. Anymore though it’s most of my life.

Holy forking shirtballs we interrupt this blah blah for a real adventure, per the universe. i heard a little noise and paused my writing, alert for the next sound. Out of the corner of my eye though i saw movement. It was down on the ground near my doormat and soft boots. Then i realized it was actually my boot that was moving! It was toe-tapping on the mat as something very small tugged at the outer heel tag. i leaned over the rear bumper: “Hey! Who’s doin that?” It took me like two more minutes to finally reach for my boots, shining my headlamp under the car first. i then used the light to do a full check on them inside and out. They were altogether unharmed but for a frayed heel tag. In the one that had been under siege i found two perfectly oblong, minute turds.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Hood, more than 4,000 feet above sea level, it’s 60 degrees Fahrenheit well before this spring midday. It is a world of deep, dirty snow, and pine. Signs say the lake is a two mile walk.

There is another human on the road. We greet each other, wander differently. i like to be alone and far behind, if i can be. i stop to watch some birds in a budding, green meadow before the other hiker doubles back. “You’re turning around?” i asked her.

She explains that she has been losing the trail. Hiking in snowdrifts isn’t easy. i realize i can help. This may be a first for me; i have forest eyes now. And sick boots. My frustrated new friend is determined—it’s her last day in town and she struck out at Mount Rainier yesterday when all the trails were closed. Wildfire prevention and snow have set me back recently as well. i’m stoked to find the path and lead us onward toward the lake. Every now and then my friend’s sneakers break through until she’s knee deep. “When does this even thaw?” i wonder as i stop us, sweating, to take off all but my bottommost layers of clothing. i lace my boots up, not for the first time with sincere gratitude at owning them.

A golden retriever runs up out of nowhere as if delighted to be greeting old friends. He romps around politely, refraining from jumping except for his familiar doggy tap dance. His owners are nowhere in sight behind us, but we hear them call. He hesitates, then offers his goodbyes.

Priscilla and i keep walking, much in silence now we’ve found the way. i show her the blazes, suddenly easy to spot. The lake peeps between the trees, sapphire deep and glazed with sunlight that seems to radiate directly from the giant watercolor background of Mount Hood. Even the pines are gleaming. Later Priscilla and i will find cute, fat salamander swimming in this glorious mountain lake called Trillium. We’ll identify a pair of Goldeneye ducks. We confer and discover they’re the uncommon Goldeneye. Another delight.

Priscilla has to get back to Portland and i am left to walk the lake. There is a path at the water’s edge that i’m interested in. Along the way i pass different kinds of campgrounds, and a rock-hewn amphitheater. It all looks well-loved, and busy. But not now, in the hot but snowy in-between time. There are skiing signs as well, places i as a walker should yield. All the while the lake is there. Occasionally through the trees i can still spy Mount Hood. i’m halfway around the water, thoroughly enjoying myself, when i find a huge portion of the trail flooded and closed. i really do not love doubling back. i make a lame attempt at possibly fording the wet, but wiser energies prevail.

Recently, in a forest not far away, i was out with a pal and thereby able to roam and romp at will. i am not trusting of my own skills enough to enable myself that particular freedom in the wilderness. Being with another person—especially this very experienced one—always makes it easier. i spent that time delightedly climbing and tiptoeing, jumping up to say hello to every new plant. Have you ever spent a full minute walking the length of one dead tree trunk? It had been well over a decade since i’d been reminded of the game Chutes and Ladders. We played a lot in those snowless, warm spring woods.

Now at a crossroads, this wilder fire well-stoked within me receives a fresh draught of air as i realize i know exactly where the first road is. i could walk directly toward it and not have to retrace any steps around Trillium Lake. Of course the area i needed to finagle was the most unkempt along the entirety of the water. Tentatively stoked, i started forward, my boots finding wells in the snow a bit too easily at first.

This isn’t the walking on top of snow on a road, path, or even boardwalk like i’d been doing. It’s also not the woodsy romp of my other recent experience. i am forging through sharp, clingy spring snow and mud in a woods full of debris. i take the clearest paths, but i’m the biggest animal to come through here in a while. Undaunted despite the unending scramble, i look toward the ridge up ahead where i know my original trail will be.

It’s a stream. Okay, but i remember hearing water from that road. Priscilla heard it too and optimistically thought that marshy floodplain was Trillium. i’d said something about it being a lame-ass lake. It wasn’t long after this critique that we spied the real beauty. Bolstered now by this recollection, i move through the woods using every technique i know to avoid sinking or slipping, on mud, ice, snow, or wood.

While we were sitting lakeside watching salamander and ducks, Priscilla had checked our hike. We’d already done five miles by then, tiptoeing and sliding on the snow. We talked about whether sand or snow is easier; she definitively chose sand. Whenever there was solid ground i made sure Priscilla was on it. This is all to say that i’ve been on this new, truly off-road leg of the adventure for a bit now and my old, exercised legs are not loving it. The first parts would have been plenty of hike. Of course, of course this is when i get hurt. It’s over before i knew i was doomed, which is how it usually goes when i get banged up instead of broken. i don’t make any noise, oddly, besides a clenched-jaw groan and a sucking of air as my hands go to my right knee and shin. i’m wearing only my under layer of pants; they’re softer than i’d like to be hiking in, i’m only just realizing. i expect them to be wrecked. It’s a confusing relief to see they aren’t torn at all. i’ll be bruised and swollen, but not bloody. Gotta walk it off.

i plod forward, dogged, wondering if that’s the right word for how stubborn i now feel as i climb the steepest ridge so far, expectantly hoping for the road to appear at the top. i crest breathless and the dependable road is under me again. i giggle and walk on, much more comfortable now back on top of slippery, packed snow. In a hundred feet or so i spy the old lake perimeter path catching back up on solid ground. Of course i forge through some brush to return to it.

Above the lake now i can see a raptor, and hear it. An osprey, i know before i check the book. When i look up again the osprey is gone but there is a bald eagle. i laugh out loud. The eagle finds some trees, then there’s a turkey vulture hovering. “Everyone’s here!” i am a little delirious, but now watered and fed, ready to hike the other two miles back to my car. (It turned out Priscilla and i had chosen the road less traveled. Who’s surprised. We weren’t.) The last part of the adventure feels long, and i’m excited for dinner. Two miles, all uphill. On snow. Surrounded by spring and pine. Slow but steady, i sweat and sing toward home.

i heard a femme voice in the woods near my campsite. On the phone giving directions to where we were while a dog wandered and romped not far away.

Along a creek i’d found a spot where i planned to be for at least two nights. The forest surrounded with well-spaced, tall, skinny, old conifers. They mingled with a kind of foresty scrub brush all around, none growing higher than my own hips. (A botany book is sorely needed in my reference section.) The effect of forest like this is radiant, calm, continuous sound and light. The branches of these trees don’t begin before my head, and are never dense. It is a bright forest; warm, melodic. Smells amazing, too.

The dog came closer, ahead of its human, more tentative. “Hello,” i said to the tall, inquisitive quadruped. “He’s friendly,” offered she just off her phone. Soon Finn came to snuffle at the foot of my bed while his person admired my setup.

“Are you camping nearby?” i asked presently, trying to take the focus off myself.

“Ah no, but I did get jealous when I saw you here. It’s one of our favorite spots.” The hiker then explained that her car battery had died while she and Finn were out. It was clear she’d had no intention of asking me for help, but i have a little digital jump pack that i was thrilled to offer. She practically skipped away with it. We were both excited at the possibility of calling her partner—to whom she’d been giving directions—off from the rescue.

When she came back she was driving her car and had a beer for me. i cheered. “Do you live around here?” she asked.

“Oh yeah i mean i live right here,” i pointed at my car, and kind of chuckled. “i’ve been on the road for a bit now.”

“So does that mean you’re hanging out nearby for a while? Do you have a destination? Maybe just heading back East? Or…” she trailed off, having offered enough possibilities.

i thought about it. “You know, yeah i’ll be around here a bit, and i’ll head back East. i don’t have a destination though. This seems like it for now, just living on the road.”

She called me her hero and admitted that she’d had a shitty day. i was effusively glad to have helped, claro. My new friend CJ then gave me her number and offered any assistance or advice she could, whenever. “Or I’ll just randomly text you like, ‘Where you at?’”

“And i’ll send a picture of whatever i’m seeing!” i rejoined.

The beer was a local IPA and delicious.

warmth. on my lids. eyes still far away. i roll my back toward the light. almost feel your arms. curl up. drift off. warmth.

sleep turns me again. heart on a spit. i kick off some covers. crusty squint and feeble groans. ensconced. exposed. my dreaming eyes take in. light. my sticky mouth no bother now. i reach for a kiss.

i swaddle in the stars. i have been spooning with the sun. a volcanic peak now mountain still reaches for each cloud. five new moons i’ve welcomed from my home along the road. countless bliss.

tonguing my dry lips. ears awake fully to a glory. a roaring river at migration. such noise. what flurry. everyone and no one sounds in a sweet big hurry. and i’m ready.

in your presence. lids lift. sleepy smile. my grin grows. unkempt. unwilled. alight. to take up my whole face. my waking eyes take in. the full force of your blaze.

my love.

You caught me not knowing the color of your eyes. Picking up this stone reminded me in the moment that i still didn’t know. That i was shy and nervous both too much to look at you that directly. i didn’t know what you would see if i did. i didn’t know what i’d see.

The shop owner told me it’s a Hawk’s Eye stone, and as i examined it i realized slowly that i couldn’t fathom it all. i’d never be able to memorize the intricate, beautiful details of its visible makeup. i wondered if, given these unknowable qualities, a stone like that could still grow to feel familiar in my hand.

Like this stone, our relationship seems to me smooth, attractive, inscrutable, captivating, brilliant, unfamiliar. i had written only the night before that you were a poem i wanted to read over and over again—not to memorize, but to feel the lyrical beauty, revisit the warmth. i supposed i could start by looking you in the eye.

Perhaps our relationship will continue to be as mysterious to me as the inside of that stunning stone. So very little is known—there’s so much more to be explored. i hope all of it is as delicately detailed and gorgeously hued as the gift itself. Worth a good look.

She says, “Living in a car seems cool.” She’s right, but i am about to break a commitment to her, and i wonder how cool she’ll consider that to be.

Being on the road means knowing when to hit it. There is significance in heeding the call when it’s time to move on. i have learned this while traveling before: it is very easy to overstay one’s welcome, both within and without.

As i settled into my life in Asia forever ago, one of the first lessons i learned is that loved ones leave and that’s okay, because they’re doing what’s good for them. From the veteran expats i learned that to feel an inkling to depart means one should begin planning. They told me the seed of this transition grows whether you pay it attention or not, and it is dangerous to ignore. To linger beyond an expiration date—whether rooted in time or, more likely, one’s emotional boundaries—is to court discomfort the likes of which does no one any good. i got to witness this in people who denied their own homesickness, delayed their departure to satiate others, or stayed longer for work. People who know they should have left already are uncomfortable all the time, and unmanageable even to themselves.

So i will tell her: this is the difficult part of living in my car. Sometimes i have to leave new friends, break commitments, say goodbye. There is no better time to say goodbye than when things are still good. Still, sometimes things go sour outside of yourself instead of within. Sometimes you receive a push to depart, rather than a pull. In every situation, the call of the road is not to be ignored.

If she asks, i might tell her about being left as well as leaving. About the fluidity of the life i’ve been cultivating slowly these many years. Lovers leave me and i let them, just as i leave my lovers. We figure out how to tend our gardens, whether long distance or right in front of us. Many of my platonic and familial loves are rooted in their homes, ready to offer me welcome. Some will not offer it a second time, and that is okay too.

These relationships play out with the complexity of an epic symphony: hearts overlap in care, friendships wax and wane, and i could be the rhythm, moving through as much of it as possible. The conductor is unknown, the rests few. Once in a while a solo bursts through to bring new energy to the score. Other times it’s the entire orchestra.

It is my responsibility to keep the show going. Avoidance or denial of the obvious next steps is simply asking for trouble, within and without. Living in my car is cool as hell! Much better still when i am able to face the music.

i watch the kid go up the slide. Not the stairs to the slide. i watch her go up the steep, flat slide as if it were as natural as stairs. i watch her and i wonder at all of the adult breath wasted on the idea that there’s only one way to go up, or down, a slide.

This has been on my mind a lot: the decision so many adults seem to make that because they are in a position of authority, there is only their singular way of doing a thing. There are a great many ways to do most things, even effectively.

Play is the primary mode of learning socialization and cultural norms. i have a lot of questions about the unnecessary policing of play. (Of course i have a lot of questions about policing in general but y’know, not now.) i have a lot of questions about how we might treat kids more fairly; how we can offer the safety to foster their most brilliant, truest selves. It’s definitely not by telling them to be themselves and then criticizing.

i have these questions because i was a playful, nonbinary, mixed race, queer child, forced into the tiny box that my elders saw as “girlhood”. This erased almost all of me but my physical body, which i have almost always preferred to clothe from the boys’ section. As i write now, i can casually recall some well-meant but generally awful corrections of the way my foot fell when i walked, my skin, my hair, my emotions, my ideas, and somehow the most painful of all, my laugh. i remember my repeated, maybe violent, protests against being forced to wear shirts instead of going topless although i was years and years away from having breasts. Being taken off the baseball team as a pre-teen and shoved into softball, where the clique was already solidly formed. i remember my protests with pride. i also remember being bullied, disbelieved, and undefended but by my mother until i made new friends in Taiwan around my twenty-second birthday (the reigning champion among birthday celebrations until my thirtieth). In recent years Viv reflected solemnly that yeah, Kiah was pretty angry growing up.

i’m nauseous. i hate that we do this to children, never mind each other. i hate that it happened to me; that i was forced to allow an emotionally abusive aunt with no physical boundaries access to me until i was well into my twenties.

i promise i’m not just whining. i mostly really need to get this down, and out for good. For several years now i have been excavating this pain. For most of my adulthood, actually, but several years with determination. i half-assed the last steps once or twice. It’s done now though, and i am proud to write that there will be many fewer triggers in my future.

i watch the kid swing as high as she can so she can leap. So the fuck what if she hurts herself? i watch her figure it out. i let her make both of us awkward in public. i ask her opinion on most things while we’re together. i text to tell her i’m watching her favorite show. i treat her exactly the same way i do everyone else.

A lot of people i love are parents now. i’ve adopted the moniker Uncle Kiah because it sounds cool and also fuck everyone who wanna tell me what to do. i want the very first thing these kids know about me to be that i am ready to break useless rules. i want them to know this so they will feel free, and safe, with me. Indeed, that’s what i want to give everyone.

As i finished editing this, my brilliant charge was mediating a complaint among two others with whom she has become playmates this past half hour. i showed my trust in her when i caught her eye to mouth the question, “Okay?” She nodded with authority, and a confidence i cannot recall from my own childhood. Childcare is not a job, i recognize now, it’s my life’s work.

i no longer chase or cajole attachment. i dig reciprocal situations. i want us both to feel awake. i like when we laugh together, and when we’re proud of each other. i want to keep standing up for and challenging each other. i want us to meet high expectations. It is this i court in all attachments anymore.

Selfishly, i want access to your life. i want to watch you grow. i want to see you create. i want to continue to be inspired by you. i dig your brain. i appreciate your advice. i especially feel heartened when you trust me with your feelings.

On that note, i could really go for some honest disclosure.

That you are forthcoming now will help me settle into realistic expectations: What is it you’d like to share with me, if anything? Be honest and perhaps be surprised—it could seem to you i can settle for quite little. But you don’t see you like i do.

i do not chase, after this. You can show up, or tell me why you can’t show up. We, or you and i, go from there.

i didn’t mean to see the sunrise, but the dark became less so as i lay thinking, fresh from dreams, cozily ensconced. One by one the stars bowed out, black fading into deep blue to backlight the trees where the birds began stirring. i heard the ocean constant, all through the night invisibly crashing against the solid shore. i thought of a festival drum circle: relentless, gradually enveloping new rhythms, still there in the morning.

The sun peeked and snuck over the mountains, tickling my face, then the ocean. You and i talked of dawn often, yet didn’t see any together. Light creeped across the sky, grey now. i wondered if any kind of together will happen again for us. i felt the warmth of morning sinking into my skin as i continued wondering: do i care, either way? Our most beloved star, introduced by her preceding light, rose to make a grand entrance into my visible sky. A memory is only as valuable as the emotions of its owner. i find in myself no strong feelings, only a detached appreciation of a shared joy passed. Of laughing and learning and your heavenly body. The way you shine. Nearly fully risen then the yellow-white orb triumphantly burst through the trees and lit the whole sky, glittering on the surf.

The clamor of the birds faded gradually as they set off toward breakfast and their flocks. So much shoreline, so little time. i dozed then, and dreamed that Cleo cried nearby. In waking i recognized a crow’s repeated call. As i became fully conscious, remembering that Cleo is no longer of this world (was she ever?) could have been devastating. Somehow i simply, naturally smiled. In her later years that cat would cry all morning for attention and food, beginning around dawn, and i would grumpily ignore her. A week since her passing and a few minutes past dawn, so clearly she cried in my hearing. At this i woke gently, nothing in my heart but warmth for what i can only imagine was Cleo’s goodbye.

i hadn’t planned to be up for dawn but i saw the whole damn thing. And then some. Everything dies, every day the sun rises. How much more can i ask for? To remain in the unknowing is a gift, a practice, and all i can do anymore.

Remember that period after isolation began and you would start waking up in the morning like, “Why?” A lot of people had that time, maybe still do, maybe didn’t. It was strange how the base levels of our Maslow’s Pyramid took weird hits. We seemed to have all somehow become more grounded in reality.

Lots of days i wouldn’t sleep well. i’d get up before dawn and fuss about the cat who’d pooped on the stairs again. She hadn’t gone inside the box consistently in years. Those mornings it was the promise of purpose, in cleaning her messes and feeding her, that helped me move. i’d do all of the chores then hang out a while, taking my nap after the sun was way up.

Cleo is my mom’s old ass black cat with the crooked tail. Every year until recently, Viv would spend some wintertime in Puerto Rico while Cleo visited human friends in their homes. She is a great roommate—i’ve seen her convince even the most allergic to give her lap space. Cleo has lived all over the East Coast since a rough start in her first life at a trailer park. She is always talking; a noisy, sweet kitty. If you leave her alone too long she can get an attitude about it, though that has lessened as she ages. Increasingly too, she’ll yell for seemingly no reason. i try to convince people that Cleo is a singing cat—we don’t discourage her based on quality of sound.

Being kept alive by our animal companions is a rite of passage, probably no more universally shared than in the difficult days of a pandemic. Cleo took good care of me; we’d talk a lot. After a while she showed me a part of her hind leg that had been ailing her. She slowly taught me how to give her the tiniest massages. i was rewarded with big purrs when i got it right.

This was my third or fourth live-in situation with Cleo throughout her life. It was epic, to be certain, but when she joined our family i was still a teenager, in the midst of my first relationship, and managed to get fired from a summer job (in hindsight i would likely now feel some kinda way if i hadn’t been fired at some point, but at the time this was A Thing). Another time she had to move houses with me while i was sitting her in DC—long story. She pooped all over the floor, but my roommates didn’t care. She even helped me put out a fire once. i had inadvertently lit it, and she remained calm as i doused the growing flames.

Cleo is a gem, as most cats seem to eventually become to their families. We can learn from her too: this cat has lived beyond her given nine lives. She survived poison, y’all. Then traveled far and wide, charming everyone she could. Tonight she is sleeping on a blanket on a pillow next to the radiator in my mom’s Maine bedroom. Tomorrow she will leave us. The leg i used to coddle has finally given up, and Cleo’s quality of life is in peril. That little shit would be down to her last toe bean before she left this life, were it up to her. Instead, Viv made a difficult, wise decision.

In every way now i am also in that bedroom. i want to encourage Cleo to simply let go. She won’t, so i’ll be joining on the trip to the veterinarian as well. i will not be leaving their sides. i cry harder where i actually am because of the energy it takes to be there of soul but not body. i sob for the way i crave my mother’s grief to prop against my own. i want to feel Cleo’s breath on my hand and hear her snores in first person. Crying in these moments helps me reconcile the distance.

Thus, at the end of probably her twentieth life, we say goodbye to Cleo: a true confidant, righteous friend, courageous hero, and poopy baby. A survivor and inspiration. Muchas gracias por todo, hermanita. i too will live as many lives as i can.