long underwear in july

strawberries! (sometimes a bit moldy)
the raspberries are ready
and cherries
and sudden abundance of things that grow on trees--
next place i live i'm planting trees first thing for sure,
windowbox or rolling hills.

often clarity's hard to come by for me here--
i think i might be sad a lot,
but also i really like this work and the pace of my days,
beans and rice,
going to bed my body exhausted,
getting up and doing it again.
recently we put up 2 acres of nets
so the birds couldn't eat the blueberries;
now we are getting ducks
so THOSE birds will eat the mummyberries, the fallen diseased ones--
inside birds outside birds baby birds dead birds mobs of hungry birds...

for breakfast i am eating often eggs & mustard greens
or oatmeal & yogurt
there's a wealth of dumpstered field roast in the fridge
and politics of sharing the kitchen are confusing to me--
a different texture of communal living,
but i guess it is true that
people who come out to live on a farm want some quietness, private space,
become a little more okay with silence and aloneness
at least silence is easy to come by around here.

and sometimes the sun is glorious!
and there is fresh bread! or pizzas on friday!
i am always excited to eat lunch!
local politics are kind of super interesting!
our dog left and returned!
the hard cider flows and flows!
and when z and i clean the cabin and burn a bit of cedar, it's homey.
and in my head all day i know i'm walking some lines of sanity and also worlds and also dreams.

but so it goes.
i have been writing a lot of letters recently. i'm happy to write you one too if you remind me of your address, you reader of this blog (i have been a faithful reader but posting, not so much...)

happy summer, to those with fur and without, long underwear or no...

oh also this is cool!
"notes concerning recent actions of the police" regarding the recent murder of kenneth harding, a faredodger on the BART in SF, who was shot by the popos...if you scroll down to the anarcha-fem flier that was handed out that's kinda cool too.

things are not always as they seem

baaaah! [chirp chirrrup] [cluclucluCLLAAA] [phhhhhhhhhhh] [druh druhh druh] [flapflapflap] [breathe--in. breathe--out]
i find myself (over and over though some parts run faster than others crawl)
on a ranch out in fiddletown--
some things same old,
semi-retired corporate giant
turtlenecks and all food names in french or italian and
every story is a one-upper and he knows the best about everything
starts farm on some land with his womanfriend
then she leaves
and he invites wwoofers in to let the goats in and out to graze
to count the sheep
to feed the dogs
to wonder what the garden used to look like
to imagine artists standing on each others' shoulders to make these huge graffiti murals
at times beautiful and at times absurd among blood-vessel-manzanita trees and live oaks.

same old
community of a kind over cardune gratin and oxtail stew
some kind-of-friends over for dinner and
he's hopped up on vicodin
[he pulls me in to dance (/cuddle)]
and asks why such a beautiful girl is trying so hard not to look like a girl
and why i'm hiding my boobs
and why i cut all my hair
when i'm such a beautiful girl,
[he squeezes my knee]
halfway through dinner
he just wants to know, just one question,
do i like cock?
susan drops her fork and
shannon pours her vicodinified lover another glass of wine
trying to restore the thin veil that was pulled away from her lover's mind
and steve apologizes afterward
and swears he'll never have him over again
and i'm bored already

same old
wine-tasting in amador county and
maggie (the other wwoofer, who's a little depressed)
puts on makeup and i my suspenders and we put on our british accents
hailing all the way from sedgewick hop from red wine to red wine
all brewed in our honor
and i say in the car "you know, i find all these people quite boring"
and we're both tipsy with names of thick-skinned grapes floating in our ears

same old
i wake in the middle of the night, pry open my eyes to see if it's light
go back to sleep
start a fire in the morning that gets rained out by noon
surprise steve by trying the oxtail stew
an ox i never met raised and killed by steve's doctor who lives right up the road

same old, i start to think of moving
living on the land i start to think in seasons, years, generations, centuries,
the time it takes a tree to grow, an inch of topsoil to lie down in the forest,
my mind thinking in moments, tiny dramas, eurekas
my travelling body feeling in two- and three-day stints (it's been three here and i'm starting to itch for another life), months at the most

even after so little time here (in the scheme of a tree)
i'm leaning elsewhere, towards laughter and love and spirited vision, a new book of poetry, communities that celebrate and cook together, nourishing our foundations and not just living day-to-day,
wondering too what path i'm on, what the story is of where i'm going with bits of grass and mushroom slime on the back of my hands and a bag of zines and tinctures
when i'll meet up with my kindred (which are to be found in every tree but also today feel rather far away)--

bug-eyes, holes in the ground, peeing on lawns

yesterday i fed the bunnies alfalfa pellets and hugged ruben from behind as he stirred mikey-the-goat-meat chili for lunch,

today i woke up in a mummybag on a white carpet of a floor of a house in columbia city in seattle in a different world.

i have not been posting much recently, though i've been reading avidly and thinking about it,

guess because relationships in my world were moving and shifting,

reading about the diggers in california in the 60s, the san francisco mime troupe and the free family setting up explosive cultural-overhaul communes left and right,

and what do i think? in any moment? and what am i doing, what are we doing?

i am full of vivid images...a winter picnic at the edge of the plateau we lived on, andrew communing with a twisting oak that leaned out over the edge. sarah and i dancing with finger puppets performing a drama of interspecial romance in high british accents as walt watched and smiled and occasionally muttered puns. the front stoop of my trailer. hands twisting in the dark, our last slumber party at windward, and where is the line between sensual and sexual. the feeling of the kitchen at night after everyone had gone to bed and i sat alone with a notebook.

driving into seattle was something

at first the lights were exciting

then i realized i couldn't look at things fast enough,

too much too fast,

so i closed my eyes and played seven with ethan.

the world is big! the universe is loving! all people are beautiful!

i am excited to set out soon (wednesday i think?) on my way down south, traversing new worlds and unknown territories, seeing how my life looks when i offer it in stories. i am excited to see my family-friends-community, thread together different worlds we live in. i am excited to walk outside and smoke a cigarette.

so hello and hello and hello...

on boredom and what ensues

the rains are here and
soft animal bodies slow down, idle hands pick up books, and
this weekend i found myself bored to be idle bored to be breathing,
losing passion and excitement for small things--
what does a body used to being busy do with all this time,
when plants are going quiet and becca-goat's milk is drying up
and the animals are thinking of fucking and sleeping quiet
and the food is getting stored away for snowed-in days.
i forgot about this!
i forgot that when things get cold bodies get quiet too,
more thinking and planning and appreciating.
i meditated on boredom for an hour. then i looked at the leaves for a while.
this time of year they are beautiful here...green and red and yellow on the white oaks.
dancing in and out of oakmoss sculptured empires.

today i made fresh ravioli with squash & collard green filling and white sauce and navy bean soup and rice pilaf! we burned a big pile of wood, railroad bits and pieces of stuff and brush--a huge bonfire that went all day and we took turns tending. the first frosts have already come and much in the garden died with it though kale and chard are still goin strong. and the rains came! bringing some cold cold misery and some delight--the ground softening and wriggling a little in its descent toward sleep. no longer having to water baby trees and strawberries and the little ginseng plants that are struggling to make it in this strange unfamiliar climate. i had a slumber party with steve and ethan and we read some lewis carroll...other relationships are flourishing too, conversations with walt about patriarchy (always) and i led/mediated a convo about the gender roles/expectations folks were raised with (became mostly a convo about family structures, but definitely breaking ground-setting stage for future conversations).

i have also been thinking of
autonomy and independence, developing and having
chest surgery, talking to my parents about
clothes in urban/rural places, wearing and having feelings about
desiring and loving, differentiating between and embracing
families, creating chosen
fear, finding and routing out
friendships, nurturing sexual and divided-by-space-or-time and intimate
gender, initiating conversations about
hate and enmity, the value or lack of value of
"natural" "law," what is, if anything
quiet, allowing myself to be
shakers, gardening practices of the
sluthood, everything about
traveling, doing-being-becoming-planning

that is something,
i am feeling glad to be in the world today
glad you are too

Sitting in the shed at the front of the property, looking out over the orchard (figs, bloody peaches, apples) with the eucalyptus trees, hills, and spotless blue sky in the background. It's funny how ingrained in city life most of us are (most of my life was) that such a simple description of where I'm living now can sound all bucolic and charming.

Yesterday my alarm woke me at 5:30. Half of my dome is transparent so I'm always conscious of the light outside, and it was definitely still completely dark. Courageously rolled out from under my down comforter, did a headstand to get the blood rushing, and stumbled out of my dome to check the water tanks down the hill. My dome is the Far Dome, named informatively for being way the fuck out there in the middle of the woods, next to the spring which supplies the property with most of its water. After guessing the water level based on the sound the rock makes as I hit it against the side of the tank, I guessed my way along the steep up-and-down path to the yurt, losing my way in the dark on deceptive racoon or deer paths and sliding back among the fallen leaves to scope out the right way. Twenty minutes later I've made it to the yurt and the sky is more blue than black. Make myself some almond-butter raspberry oatmeal, brush my teeth, and go out to the garden for the morning's instructions. Yesterday was the first harvest (fall equinox, full moon), and so we stood under the greenhouse for hours de-leafing , our fingers numb in the morning cold. Finally the sun comes up and we move to yellow-leafing, sticking our faces into the fragrant plants, trying not to get our fingers too sticky.

After the lunch break we helped clean up the house and collect flowers for the harvest party. We're overwhelmed with an abundance of zuchinni, so I made zuchinni bread and zuchinni baba ghanoush for the party while the boys and Felicia harvested ducks. Various friends of Adrian and Felicia's came up from around mendocino county and nevada city, and we enjoyed good wine and food from the land.

I feel blessed to have found this spot-- my little white dome was already stocked with firewood when I showed up, so I'll be warm all winter. I can farm, breathe in eucalyptus, work with plants, and get paid for it. I successfully chopped my first piece of firewood the other day; and though there were no repeated successes, I'm confident that I'll keep learning. There's a funny mix of folks here: Adrian and Felicia who own the land, have a big house with buffalo skins and tribal carpets at the top of the hill, and are both incredibly knowledgeable about farming; Shane, our sweet carpenter, Dave, a really hard worker who shows his good heart by teasing incessantly (oh, azya, I heard you're gonna be making us all french toast every morning), Tim and Kayla, both quiet and productive, who went to liberal arts-y schools and then turned farmers, and Kate--- silly dancer masseuse and fierce firewood chopper. She showed me the form for girls (or smaller people) to chop wood-- sweep the axe up and around and bend your knees while bringing it down on the log.

I'm trying to figure out a rhythm here where I can have the energy to do yoga, read, and write while also doing heavy physical labor and keeping myself nourished (and walking home at night!) It's also an abrupt shift to be in a different social environment. Last night everyone talked about farming, past experiences, mutual friends--- and of course I'm out of the loop. I got used to feeling so comfortable in social situations in Chicago and at burning man, and now I'm reminded of my shy, introspective self. But parties are rare here. I want to focus on the land, learning about the plants, becoming observant to pests and animal tracks, harvesting wild herbs.

More thoughts on the culture of mendocino county to come. For now

1. Eating local is a passion.

2. Ruffles are in style.

Live and learn.