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

Michigan Dreams

I'm sitting on a rock out at the point. I've got my knees drawn up to my shoulders with my arms around them and my elbows pointing out, one towards the lake and one towards the shore. I sit for longer than it takes to let my mind clear a little, and slowly the sky gets brighter. The clouds' bellies turn yellow, then pink, then red, but then a new layer of clouds settles in, delaying sunrise just a little. I hear a noise to my left.
There you are, hopping down the rocks like a mountain goat. On each footfall one of your black boots makes a clap on the stone. Then you're beside me. Our eyes meet, yours framed by the brightening sky behind. From what I can see your eyes are a little wet, a little tired, longish black lashes around a tile mosaic of white, green, brown, yellow, black.
I do not yet know you, but I have high hopes for our future.
"This seat taken?"
How absurd. Like you've read my mind, you ask the one question that I'd imagined someone would ask if they were to meet me right here, right now.
"Was saving it for you."
You sit down. There then stretches out a long silence, almost as if you have to catch up to me in the meditation of this place. I dare not utter a word. You don't wait longer than it takes for your mind to clear just a little, but you wait long enough. Then the sun emerges from behind the first layer of clouds.
During this interim I am calmer, much calmer, than I think possible. I am the pressure on my joints, I am the rock, the lake, I am you, but I am not me. When I find my hand suddenly curved around your far shoulder, I don't consider what I've done, because lakes don't consider. You fit your arm and hand on my left leg and knee.
If a certain cinematic feeling persists I don't notice, and if my heart beats a little faster I don't notice. And that's how we are when you first kiss me, there having been not more than a few words between us. Will the lake ever see you again? Most likely, but only time will tell, and the winter draws nearer.