Feel Good
12 posts
March, Week 4
I had started mentally writing this post in my head while running out on the trails this morning, and I got so lost down some meandering thought spiral that all of a sudden I bit it, HARD.
March, Week 3
I feel like I've finally been coming up for air after the past six years (honestly probably longer) and am realizing how crispy fried I actually am. I know that I thrive in the go-go-go and constant movement (and I do, I really do) and I struggle to embrace the calm (and I do, I really do), but at some point it takes its toll.
March, Week 2
I've sat down to write this numerous times this week and just... haven't had time. It's finally 4pm on Sunday afternoon and I have been attempting to just sit for the past hour, and alas what has felt like every two minutes someone - human or canine - has required some piece of my attention. It's been a long week.
March, The Start
I blinked and it was March, and daylight savings is fast-approaching, the weather is waffling between the tail of winter and false spring, and I spotted a lone daffodil sprouting while running the other morning. It was just December - what even is time, and life is a blur.
Remembering ReRe
'You probably don't know this reference, but we're like Thelma and Louise right now,' she said, as she slapped her driving hat on her head and we cruised off down Knoll Road, top down in her black BMW convertible, probably off for a big day on the town (ie going to Monkees, some charity shops and lunch at Sweet Basil). I was in college, down in North Carolina for a few days in between summer jobs and school starting back up, enjoying some quality time with my mom's parents without any of the other 40-some members of our family around. I was with her years before when she bought that BMW, up in New Jersey for another little solo mini-break, and I'll never forget her picking up the phone to listen in on my grandfather talking to the car salesmen and negotiating the price and coordinating the pick up, and her excited, sly smile as she looked at me and mouthed 'I got the car!!!'.
North Carolina Catch-Up
We moved to North Carolina a little over a year ago, on what could almost be considered a whim. We'd left Tahoe four years before at the start of Covid when Charlie was about six months old to head to Phoenix, with the hope of being closer to family and more in 'civilization' after a rough few years of back and forth between doctor appointments and hospitals and kid drop-offs, unprepared for the raging heat of the desert. Despite having family there and a 'safe' little Covid bubble, it was isolating – two under two was a challenge, we were sick with a revolving door of illness after illness, and we were truly not ready for 60-some consecutive days of 110+ temperatures and what that meant with small children. Alas, we found a routine, we made some good friends, we spent a lot of time with Chip and Gigi and Steve and Chris, and we survived… but it never felt 'right'.
Maybe Baby
And then there was Charlie.
Goodbye, Beags
I knew, inevitably, that at some point in the short years following when I got Otis, there would be an end. It's part of what happens with dogs, or all pets, or all living things. With parents, you see only a portion of their lives, in a complex view where they start as heroes or figureheads in almost a mystical way, before turning into real live humans living their own lives; with children, you raise them and launch them into independence, and you hope you never have to see both their birth and death. With dogs though, they live this concise cycle of puppy to adult to senior, and you're there as they go through every stage at warped speed, with their health and happiness and quality of life totally dependent on you.
Life, Unexpected
Warning, before you start - this is probably more graphic and honest than what I usually write, and more than what you might want to read.
It Was All Unknown to Me Then - 2017
It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn't have to know. That is was enough to trust that what I'd done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was... ...It was my life - like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.
Ties That Will Never Sever
I had my first day of ski training today. After the initial few minutes of introductions and splitting into groups, I ended up sharing the small gondola up to mid-mountain with another instructor trainee and another skier. We were chatting, and the other guy in blue and I started going through the quick 'who are you' thing.
It Was All Unknown to Me Then - 2016
It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn't have to know. That is was enough to trust that what I'd done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was... ...It was my life - like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.