loose change

(monday/tuesday/WEDNESDAY piece)

last week i missed my first monday piece!!!!!!!! woof. just as i feared, skipping one monday made it entirely more difficult to commit to the next one, and now it’s 8:34p and i’ve only just started writing. next week will be better!

last week at this time we were cozied up in a tent at a group campsite in death valley. i let myself skip the writing because most of the day was filled by driving and quality time, but it weighed on me! i’ve been so proud of my monday consistency! it’ll come back quickly. the desert felt like a pretty sound excuse to let go of one piece.

we spent the next couple of days in the southeast corner of death valley, on the outskirts of the owlshead mountains. we were asking the ranger for backpacking recommendations and he’d given us a printout with 12 options. sam looked at him and said our priority is isolation, and he directed us to the bottom of the park!

i don’t think i could ever comprehend the vastness of the valley as a kid. the view from our isolated corner made me feel smaller than i’ve ever felt. it’s the opposite kind of small that i feel in new york city, too–it’s a very existential small, and a very relieving small. you look out at this endless landscape and it’s like watching history in real time. sam was especially floored by the impact of water on the environment. we trekked up this big wash behind our campsite and scrambled up a foothill to look out upon the desert; the water was everywhere we looked. it’s wild to be in a place so arid and see all of that water, and all of the life.

there were flowers everywhere, but only if you paid attention. most of them are so tiny, so boldly poking out of the hardened sand, so lively. i was surprised by how much joy i derived from them, how much i wanted them to survive.

and it was so still. there’s a polarity between the stillness of the desert and the effervescence of the ecosystem. you feel like you’re looking at a deadened, quiet landscape but you know that hundreds of natural processes are occurring before your eyes to keep the desert alive.

by the time we were packing our backpacks, i was battling trepidation–i can’t even pack my backpack by myself. am i capable of backpacking? am i going to fuck something up? do i need to bring my watercolor paints or would i rather have a frisbee? my hand isn’t strong enough to do much except hold cans and various sub-five-pound objects. nothing in my mind was rational! sam was very patient but also very firm and logical, and we both knew that there were a bunch of untranslatable thoughts bouncing around my brain, and we moved past it. the second we started our trek a weight was lifted–i can carry my pack!

secretly i was also very curious (read: a little nervy) about how we would coexist in the silence of the desert. not worried because i thought we might not get along, but very wide-eyed at the amount of quality time ahead of us. to no surprise (but to great delight) we had the best of times! on the first night i’d journaled about the after, wondering if we would hike back to our car changed in any way. i don’t know what i meant by changed, but i felt it as we were packing up on the third morning. just this deep sense of security, and this sense of belonging. writing this just now made me think of the resolve of raymond carver’s poem, happiness:

Happiness. It comes on

unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,

any early morning talk about it.

it’s a crazy thing to see your life from the outside and be so thankful.

today is now WEDNESDAY and i’m sitting at satellite before i meet annie. trying so hard to let go of the fact that i missed two mondays in a row, and hoping this is enough redemption!

in terms of belonging: this past weekend i was invited to celebrate easter with the kronen family. john henry was coming into town and tammy had texted me on thursday with the brunch invite, so on sunday morning jh and claire and i prepared the food to bring to lulu’s. the kronens are the closest thing i’ve got to a Big Crazy Family–my own family gatherings were much smaller growing up! but we’ve spent countless holidays and celebrations together and it gets way fucking better every year we age. it’s one of the warmest feelings in the world. there’s always too many cooks in the kitchen, john henry’s complaining about being asked to help set up, tammy’s frenetically doing all of the setting-up and cooking, steven’s trying to watch espn, sammy’s making fun of us all with incredibly timed one-liners, tom’s doing something outside, lulu’s multitasking and checking in, claire and i are exchanging little glances, all of us are always laughing. i love knowing these people so innately.

i drove home feeling so warm. it is so cool to be known.

katie mcgee came back home last night, so naturally her first stop was to meet me for a glass of wine (or two) at little dom’s. we sat at the end of the bar and caught up and reflected and gossiped and laughed and i again got to drive home in awe of the people around me, especially the ones i’ve grown up with. we all move through life on such different paths. katie’s been on my mind a lot as moving away from santa barbara becomes a reality. she’s the closest friend i have here who really got out and stayed out, and she’s built such a life for herself up north. she’s worked hard to create community and to foster happiness in a place entirely foreign. it helps me to know that i can leave home and find home elsewhere, too.

yesterday at school archer finished his work entirely on his own accord–major for him–and so i gave him a sticker. he went to wrap it around his pencil. don’t put it there, i said, it’ll fall off. he paused for half a second and then gave me this very serious but very coy look and said, you don’t know that. with emphasis on the know, like you don’t know that. none of us actually really know anything, he said.

i’m 85% sure he’s gleaned that mantra–none of us really know–from the countless times i’ve tried to change their fixed mindsets in class, but like he said: i don’t know! it did shut me up when he said it, though. i had to laugh. sometimes he says things so out-of-pocket that they elicit my real laugh, the one that comes naturally, and when it happens he looks taken aback. and then, secretly, very pleased with himself.

a little while after that, he elected to make his dad a birthday card. he drew a rainbow with hearts around it and a body of water underneath, with his dad floating in the water and archer jumping in with his lifejacket on, making a huge splash. he wrote it all by himself:

happy birthday dad

i feel very safe when i am with you.

love, from, archer

he drives me crazy, most days. he’s easily distracted and a hypochondriac. some days he won’t finish any work at all, if you aren’t over his shoulder reminding him to. but i think he’s shown more personal growth than any other kid in the class at this point. he’s most often excluded by his peers, but he handles it as best he can. he’s started to walk himself back from ledges of anxiety by himself. we’ve been hanging out a lot during our free time. he’s really funny. we’ve got inside jokes. he gets on my nerves! a lot! and all is forgotten the second i get to see him be proud of himself.

annie’s almost here, so i think i’ll wrap it up. this piece is likely very scattered! i’m not gonna tear it apart! this is the seventeenth fucking monday piece!!!!!!! i’ve been doing this for seventeen weeks. i have no intentions to skip a monday again! it’s been hard to come back from that! next time i’ve got a busy monday i can be more prepared.

last friday jotted this little idea in my notes app in my special inconsequential revelations file:

A lot of the key to happiness seems like just allowing yourself to be happy

i struggle with guilt. i struggle with feeling like i’m not doing enough, or not worthy enough, or not deserving enough. all of these things feel very existential, like they’re coming from outside of me, because that’s the way i posit them. i struggle when things feel too good. i never want to be caught off guard.

but i think so much of these things are invented. maybe i’m addicted to guilt! i wish i were addicted to emailing therapists and convincing one to take me in. therapy as i mentioned it four weeks ago was not as imminent as i had once intended. it’ll be really fucking great when i do get there, though!

and folks i think this is where i leave you! we are back in business! thank you for forgiving my tardiness! thank you for reading my work if you’ve made it to the end today. maybe one day i’ll sit down and write something for the people that’s been edited and parsed and curated but for now we continue just like this, just brain to keyboard and very little review! one day i really will write about politics

for now i am sending all of my love to all of my people in all corners of the world–i think about you all the time!!! and am more thankful by the year xxo we are living in crasy times stay safe and stay kind my friends