Archive | Cat Lady Matters
As I dictate this into my iPhone, I’m lying on my kitchen floor staring at the tin ceiling. I am on day 3 of not having a computer as my MacBook is being repaired, and it is shocking to realize how little I can access of myself without fingers flying over a keyboard. Suffice it to say Gracie Rosmansion is very clean and a certain permakitten is very entertained. The happiest part of this is that the doves have re-nested on my fire escape, with new eggs to be hatched. This has been an animal summer and for that–but not only that–I am super grateful.Dog Days of Summer
I have so many things I could write about my time up here in the woods–the mysteries that have worked themselves out with a cheerful efficiency, the quiet tribe I have formed with Grace and the two dogs living here. I have been walking a lot, matching the rhythms of Daisy, the white terrier mix who is outgoing and hypervigilant in a way that feels ruefully familiar. As I walk, ideas about my work arrive as well as the heavy feelings I usually keep at bay: fear of the future, grief, some sour anger. Daisy’s pacing is good for me—the emotions show up and depart with more cheerful efficiency.
Memories show up too—mostly painful ones—as if here in this out-of-time-space where the silence is punctuated by crickets and wind and many birds’ opinions, here I can piece together my past without the usual danger of being destroyed by it. I wake from a voluptuous nap in a hammock, an open book still dangling from my hand, and it is as if I just now told my lover that he would not be coming to Maine rather than five years ago this month. Continue Reading →
New Sea Rising
Yesterday was all about the moon.
I woke at 3:40 am, which is when my highest self tugs me out of slumber when it has no other way of making contact. Lately, I’ve been waking at that time a lot. Seismic changes are afoot and because I keep my head down during the day, my guides have no other time to download information. No longer night, not yet day: 3:40 is soul time.
When I woke, I was awash in menstrual blood. It wasn’t an enormous surprise—my period was three days late—but nonetheless I felt a cold shock. Waking on fresh white sheets pooled with your blood will do that to you, I don’t care how many years you’ve been getting your period.
I should say at this point that menstruation is on the shortlist of topics that I—and most people—never discuss on page. Also on that list: shitting habits (which is too bad; the Crapicorn in me absolutely adores discussing shit) and the quality of sex with your partner. (People disclose quantity but never quality, which is a land from which you cannot return.) But it is a new moon, and mentioning the unmentionable is necessary in order to achieve my month’s goals. Continue Reading →