how I found her this morning, doing botanical drawings, coffee made

what a diff one day can finally make

yesterday, she didn't make it onto the trail without the first digestive tract failure. we pulled over at wolf creek overlook and I scrambled up it (the unofficial trail) then came back down by the terraced steps. I'd brought crackers and water, shoulda brought dicyclomine prolly but eh if you gotta barf&shit, I find it's best just to get that done. so I left her to get that done. 

we went on to the C-loop she remembers has cloud berries, which should be extinct. but should-be-extinct is the new Alive. 

found the huge brambleberry patch, and it occured to me "shit, bears" 👀 - not ripe yet

she was in charge of orienteering, this is her trail, and she has a map. 

she hasn't brought her glasses from home, so she can't read the map, which I have to point out is upside down more than a few times. all good by me, I am trying to exhaust us, so the more lost the better. rev the system up, vroom vroom, clear the pipes, fresh C02

all that effort absorbs all her words, mostly. so if anyone is chatting, it's me. and I talk just like I do here, to her. the shit that's in my head. 

since new mate tops her list, I behead that most. you gotta be able to bring something, and I see little evidence that anyone has anything much to give. there's just no surplus. desperocity has made everyone bitter and wary and wounded and addicted to what hurts them and hollowed out - that's diseased - wear a mask / don't spread it is just common sense. 

what I want - morgan wallen this is just the truth, aligning want with what's possible. I can sing every word. a day or two is aspirational. an hour or two, ie the time it takes to watch one film more like (maybe)

I am walking fucking forward away from the Swamped by All This. in the ways I know how already and any new ways (to think) that I can think of. I dunno where that goes. if you don't wanna find out, THEN DON'T TAKE MY CLASS. 

that becomes the refrain of the day. if you don't want to go there, then don't take my class. 

it grounds every subject. health - why am I by far the healthiest person in our extended network? she, all of them, everybody, 10-15 years younger. you are lit er ally dying, why? 

if you're forty and sitting in front of me asking, "Why am I dying?" Game. On. There's a particular sound when resistance finally yields. Ribs gotta crack. Then "Let's begin" becomes possible.

I was with a younger guy once who said I'd "married a nursing home", as if of course I'd need taken care of, and I remember both I and Butterknife busted out laughing, then had to shut up cz he didn't think it was funny. and turned out, he was right, in the sense of it's not funny. 

she got quieter and quieter as we walked and walked. I had to leave a concert for her, had to listen to nonsense repeatedly about hating intersections (I hated every intersection as we drove, to stress how fucking insane that is), I've walked through several iterations of bonkers relationship court shit, which never seems to get through to anybody ever ...

"I wouldn't want to date me," she says, quietly. "I didn't realize that at all." 

it's not just her. obviously. no. everybody is not their best selves. and if you start from there and don't even know/acknowledge it, where do you end up? I dunno where I am going, it'll be hard and it will end in my death sometime. but I don't have to throw my legs round doom ALSO. that is a choice. having a disease is not a choice. letting it be your only friend is a choice. 

if you don't want to walk up to and over and back from and up to that scary line, then don't take my class. cz that is what needs to happen. go to that line, bc you WILL so just do it, then come back (learn/teach how to's).

"If you became a meth head and street prostitute for a number of years, not that you would but anyone could right? [yes.] I would follow you down every dark alley and haul you out again and again. I would never forget who you are under that," she told me when we got back get here. I believe her.

and that is why I bitched her out in a Strykerville's tavern. cz this isn't her. and she can't go back. none of us can. we gotta push through it to the other side somehow. anywhichwayhow. 

(figure it the fuck out, genius.)

1 at a certain point, about ANY addiction, including (most dangerously imo) a thought/belief/argument in your head on a loop, you must choose to be willing to look at it really

2 (this is very hard) you can't go down someone's dark alleys if you are only going to wind up a meth head hooker too (apply this rule metaphorically and/or literally) 

It is SO hard to let someone go down a path of darkness from which they might not come back alive, it feels as she puts it "like letting your arm get chopped off". do your very best not to let go of someone who is doing that, who is trying to figure out which way is out of it. 

leave the porch light on.

don't change your number.

do everything you can. 

but nothing you cannot.

she left her kids once. I did it twice. a year each. to save our lives so we could be ourselves for them again. I am not perfect, not even close, but I stand by my motherhood record. sometimes, you just have to cut the brakes. 

"and then you have to figure it out, you have to find your joy, or it's been for nothing"

yes

"and we did"

yes, we did. so we know how. if anything, we should be, like, teachers or some shit

"or don't take this class 🤣 - I think I get it 🤣 ok - you keep bitching me out when I'm being shitty ok?"

deal! and same. I'm not right a lot. I am only allergic to Wrong and sneeze words at it like wtaf

 

🤣🤣 ok ok deal deal

took a min (3 hrs) but she found her grove

I am good at this kinda living bc I love it. cooking with what has ripened