We're Being Casual Today

welcome to the inner workings of my mind

This isn’t much of a thought, but a glance into a three-way mirror refracting back infinite angles of the same figure.

I’ve been softening into the fuzzy feelings that inevitably come with this time of year. Last year I remember trying very hard to not do much. I ended up overdoing it, feeling exhausted and a little bit unmoored as we cascaded into 2022. 

It’s a big job, taking stock and letting go and planting seeds and and and

What’s the real mood? It’s hard to say, when the inevitable void of change takes up so much space these days.

Could it be when darkness overcomes the light, we can look with objectivity? We can’t find the edges, the contrast, only sometimes we feel out a bit of texture.

Last night I went to see the sun slip through a certain wooden sculpture. The blinding pinpoint of orange light pierces through a perfectly placed oval, right before total immersion in the sea. 

Leaving us in darkness, or next to. 

People gathered around for the famous sunset, milling with and without purpose, hoping to glance the illuminated sliver. 

A man with giant bluetooth headphones took a call while watching the ocean swallow the sun. He was talking camera equipment with a not-so-familiar-friend. The man boasted about his Westside oriented existence, backtracking to say the Eastside isn’t so bad. In fact he’ll even go to the valley when called for. 

A woman passed in front of him, she had climbed the barrier to get closer to the cliff’s edge. It’s easy to jump the barrier and I’ve done it many times, just to not feel fenced in. I watched as a fine dust fell from her hand, again and again into the wild plants. At first I thought she was leaving food for the rabbits, but as I took a big breath of ocean air through my mouth I realized she was scattering ashes, well timed with the onset of the winter season. The taste stayed in my mouth until much later in the evening, when I had chicken tacos with a spicy salsa that wiped my palette clean. 

My mother took a photo of me taking a photo of the mysterious Catalina Islands shrouded in hazy sunset hues. 

A distinct feeling grew around my heart this morning as I sat listening to the nothingness. Suddenly it went from a void to an opening for light to cascade in. It took me time, to reach that suddenness. I leaned in to the sensation a little more than usual, I thought why not see. 

I have a lot of worry, just for nothing. I always have, it’s almost comical. A kid who spent her evenings rearranging the shelves around my sleeping mother’s bedside. Just in case there was an earthquake and everything toppled. 

Every night I’d get out of bed to check the locks. I still do, but before I climb under the covers.

My dog has been trained to lick my tears. 
The joy she gets reminds me of the comedy of this whole thing. 

I used to cry a lot in super markets, finding safe space in the vitamin aisle. I went to that grocery store a lot and I wonder if any of the employees saw me and thought, here we go again. It wasn’t purposefully for attention, I just felt more at home next to the echinacea and protein powders than I did my own kitchen. 

Now I have a home that I love more each day, so I can cry here without anyone having to bear witness. 

I trimmed my hair over the bathroom sink today, I took the trash bins out just before the trucks came barreling down my street. I made matcha and went for a run. Then I made coffee with almond egg nog. I’ve become obsessed with finding a coffee table and I think I may have finally found one. At last I can be free of the search.

My boyfriend is in Chicago for Christmas, waiting for the polar vortex. He sends me hearts and I send him photos and he sends me a video of a falcon outside his window, staring right into the iPhone lens. 

I don’t like to make too many resolutions or hard boiled ideas during this time of year. When I did that I’d feel foolish and anyway my year pans out in a way I could never have predicted. So all I envision now is the certain moods I’d like to immerse in. Floating in a pool, feeling my way through an old city, sensing the earth with the soles of my feet. Making more in the long form, long term, long lasting dimensions.

My dog is on my lap and my legs are starting to fall asleep, so I must sign off and rearrange my position. 

xx
James

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