Honey Coated

We have a Monday chicken check-in this week because Friday was packing up again, Saturday was given to coming up with a new plan, and both Sunday and Monday were moving days again, because everything in Tucson is booked right now, and all my backup plans fell through.

Anyway, I didn’t want to throw away leftover ingredients and provisions from my nine day stay in the canyon, so I organized them all very carefully in my Wandering Galley Kitchen On The Road backpack, a thing I invented.

And somehow a very expensive jar of lavender honey decided to open itself along the drive and thoroughly coat every single item I had packed so thoughtfully.

Have you ever watched a cooking video where they tell you to really rub your spice mixture in well to make sure you get every crevice. This jar of honey was on that kind of mission.

So now I’m on cleanup duty and wondering if this is, hmmm, not exactly a metaphor but kind of an encapsulation for the Month of Do-Overs.

In other words, plans are bullshit, preparation is a joke, choose the path of least resistance, follow ease, react less, let things be done when they’re done, etc.

Weekend Check-in, we made it.

Reviewing the week aka Chicken/Check-in is not only a reassuring ritual and fun to say, but another form of remembering, turning inward with attentiveness.

We can name what was difficult and name what worked, I find naming therapeutic. What am I experiencing and how am I experiencing it? All intel is useful.

Mainly we’re here to take a breath for having made it here. High fives all around and hand-to-heart appreciation.

If I neglect to name something big in the world, could be ADHD, but also I’m on an extended break from news after spiraling hard in December.

Breathing for what was hard, challenging, uncomfortable, not fun…

THING ZERO and THING ONE are still the pandemic and the dissonance, the lack of an agreed upon reality or even a shared context, whether regarding the coronavirus or political reality or anything at all.

The place I was staying had a super bowl party. They invited me to their super bowl party. I am not keyed in to anything, so not only did I not know it was the time of year for the super bowl, it had not even occurred to me that it would still be happening in the middle of a pandemic. Seems like a lot of touching????

Which is honestly just rude. Like, don’t rub it in, football players. Or lavender honey.

Anyway, the point is, I have not socialized in nearly a year, unless you count the walk with my friend when the hornet stung me, and I do not plan to socialize until everyone has been vaccinated, and even then, not entirely sure if I want to. The entire situation was baffling to me. Like wandering into another reality. I don’t like it.

Related: it is challenging for me to conceptualize any kind of after. My trust is low. I’ll be glad to get a vaccine whenever that happens but having any amount of excitement feels like another variation on the Mueller Report, a hope-generating scam. I hope I’m wrong, and it’s just my Eeyore side wanting to protect me from let-down.

In addition to being a covid party hot spot, my temporary home also featured a construction project and a very impressive audio system, with a subwoofer that took its job seriously. Have you ever found yourself in a car next to another car thumping bass with such intensity that you have an out of body experience? If you collect disruptive sensory experiences, that’s one for the books. Anyway, that’s what it was like when they were watching sports or a movie, but I’d already made several requests in the interest of covid safety, and wasn’t up to more negotiating.

I hex them with email filters that don’t work (hat tip to Kathryn for my new favorite hex), and a collection of small misfortunes, minor annoyances which taken together make them wonder if they’ve wronged a sorceress.

Also discovered I’m allergic to mesquite. Really the only thing better than vibrating all the way out of your body due to a buzzsaw and a subwoofer is doing that while an alarming amount of snot is gushing out of your nose.

And V day is a prime example of how external culture is just generally unkind, uninclusive, celebrating the wrong things for the wrong reasons. I make my own plans for Victorious Day, and renew my commitment and devotion to a life of Pleasure & Freedom, enjoying the deliciousness of my life my way, and I try to avoid the world.

So of course my hosts gave me a pink card in a red envelope wishing me a happy [rhymes with Banal-entines] day, and cookies made only from ingredients I can’t consume, and it kind of felt like being given trash. I couldn’t think of a polite way to get out of it, which kind of sums of my entire two weeks of boundary issues, though I did manage to swiftly extricate myself from the place that was haunted, and the one with the yappy little dog.

Something about selfishness, need to explore that, lots of situations where people were just shockingly inconsiderate, and it was not about me, but same situation: having to share information about what I needed which seemed basic and obvious, and resenting having to put in a request for obvious basic needs, and then that information, once shared, not being respected at all. Gonna ponder on that some more.

Breathing for what was good, reassuring, joyful, sweet

• Sleeping well, doing my best to make JLo and the sleep gods proud by going to bed early.
• Do-overs are what I do best. I’m an agile bobcat, I land on my feet, I can self-rescue.
• I walked a labyrinth six times, two of those times backwards. That is, I backwards-walked it, you can only move one way in a labyrinth but I did it facing the other way, in honor of my wise, playful and completely magical uncle Svevo who is a devotee of backwards-walking, and it is his birthday this week, celebratory cake for Svevo.
• The labyrinth gave me quite a bit of insight and several good clues, but my favorite part is that it told me, “You love a challenge. So use that.” It’s true. I do love a challenge. And also I spend a lot of time feeling annoyed about various challenges in my life. How can I use my love of challenges to find more fun in all the upheaval?
• Victorious Day was surprisingly quite lovely despite some personal painful history there. I did Victorious things. My long lost lover gave me the gift of my favorite ginger chai cookie and we had a very distanced (as in: separate parts of the city) cookie date by text, it was simple and loving and very sweet and, this is a weird thing to say about someone I have complicated feelings towards, uncomplicated. The cookie too was delicious and a simple pleasure that went a long way (superpowers of that please), and I was inspired to do other delicious things like nap and enjoy quiet alone time, plus late night solitudinal immersion in a triangular hot tub under the stars.
• The things that are good are very good. I feel appreciative of all the ways I am caring for myself in this time. My practice is holding me. Movement, meditation, sleep rituals, writing rituals, keeping phone off, it’s all supporting me, and I feel excitement again, about a surprisingly wide variety of things.
• I am training hard right now and it feels amazing. Not sure for what, but the what will reveal itself later, like so many things.
• While it is certainly more challenging to stick to my wish of Delicious Food, Beautifully Plated while constantly on the mood (haha that was supposed to be on the move, but why not both), I am making it work.
• Deeply thankful. Reassuring texts from friends, sunshine, the saguaro who wave at me, each new word I learn, feeling the urge to slow down a lot on a quiet road, and then an entire family of javelina crossed right in front of me. Magic. Hopefulness. Basking in appreciation for moments of grace and this experience of being alive.
• Speaking of my grateful thank-you heart, three more people sent me surprise Appreciation Money this week via Barrington’s Discretionary, and I said this last week, and it’s still true, it is so lovely and it is easing my heart around the expense and time involved in moving and not being able to work, and also reminded me that I keep forgetting to share the link. It is always welcome and if I can land in a place, I can share more writing here, that’s my preferred way to fill time; writing and hopeful thoughts.

Play with me in the comments! You know the drill…

I love company! You can always use a made-up name in the comments whether in service of safety or playfulness.

We are all going through what we are going through. So we make this a sanctuary by not care-taking or problem—solving for other people, we can leave each other warmth or hearts of love or pebbles of witnessing. I still have not figured out how to get emoji to work in the comments, sorry!!

How are we holding up? Anything hard and/or good in your week that you want to name here? Sometimes naming helps. I have found for me that taking breaths while I name things helps a lot.

And if that’s not your thing, you can say hi or name something you’d like more of for the coming week.

Love ya,
Havi