nailed

and being the last to leave this time, after sacrificing leaving to the great fire at samhain.

that has meant: sticking around to see what happens, fighting my desire to leave prematurely, to make casual exits and smoke a cigarette on the way home, admitting when things feel really good, maybe trading rhizomes or roots or budding fungal networks for beloved light burdens and roadsnaxxx.

right here right now

soon headed to the bay

trading newfound comfort challenge falling-into for pilgrimages in the name of family

to return and to be returned to

and the integration of all selves isn't always comfortable

but i'm convinced there's something important in it.

yesterday i found a cabin in the woods and tried to get in through the chicken coop.

i have admitted that the moon is important.

i have told the sun that i miss it when it's not around.

i have come to remember cold fingers and cold toes and the pleasure of layers.

i am ready for something.

maybe that's all,

the mirrors in my life are shrouded for the moment

i trust that i am doing okay.

i repeat: our community is strong and resilient.

i repeat my prayer for strength and clarity.

i repeat: you are loved and needed

cause what i put out keeps on coming back

so i will collect my things, pull them out of boxes and cracks in the sidewalks

and put a shim in my heart to keep it cracked open

cause that's how the light gets in

"something somewhere!" he cried out in his sleep

oh gee it's rainy in oakland

wet feet wet hems of pant legs dirty underwear gold candles

going through a matchbook to try and light a cigarette,

walking through a puddle to remember that my rainboots have opened their soles to rain

looking for a warm hole (bucket? pot of soup?) to dive into and curl up till

the rain stops,

thought i'd evaded winter but oh hello.

but when i think of it that way it's not so bad,

this time, this quiet, once i'm curled up to read-zine-reflect-ponder-talk to friends old and new-play bananagrams by candlelight

not what oakland's been so far

(does a home, a nest in some woods or a tree, ever promise to be warm and dry and stable all the time? are all and any things cold and wet "miserable?")

the cold air through the last few boarded-up windows and the dripping in the front hall

are boring

though

and other souls wandering through attracted like moths to our candles and

recent-found patched-up walls and stability,

quiet dreams of the wood-burning stove (not just a game we're playing, though that too)

bernard maybe leaving with their pile of zines and shame about their teeth and beautiful face in the morning, katrina maybe too to go be present in the northeast with some mending hearts and sighs of dying,

and more kids coming in

a reminder for me about how things change, slow and fast and always,

to see this house grow up in weeks like the bao did over years

like trees over decades

like rye grass roots in minutes (3 miles of root hairs a day! i read).

i am trying to keep myself happy for me and also for others

i find recently that being around loud people makes me quiet, stressful people very chill, perhaps being around sad people makes me rejoice in the small pleasures of oatmeal all the more:

raisins vila almonds cinnamon nutmeg real maple syrup flaxseed out the wazoo

i will sigh and return to pat califia, who has at this moment to say:

"at times like these, i remember the spanner case because it renews my faith in being out of the closet and fighting back. the american gay press ignored spanner, scared off by the thunderclap of spanking and the rattling of chains. but it should serve as a powerful inspiration and model for any group of people who would like to live in a sexually sane society.

it all started in 1987..."

(didn't we all)

& just gets better and better

it's always sunny in the east bay

yuppie coffeedrinkers laugh
and down the street "the cutest kids in the bay" go to the church of religious science to walk the labyrinth and munch raw vegan maple cookies
and three blocks away is the hot mess haus--a hot mess of punk-hippy-homesteader-crafty-zinester-plantloving-injeramaking-radical-searching souls...
seems like everything here is either a few blocks or a few minutes away (nonprofit bike co-ops free paint free produce free people infoshops bookstores fancy haus sugarplum mansion pink purple blue haus the jam factory strong roots garden healthy hearts garden sliding scale farmstands phat beets farmers market in a school parking lot grove schafter park's basketball court)
and rosalyn stopped by with her shopping cart this morning and gave kevin a plant and some bagels. ron came by last night and asked for another veggie dog cause it blew his mind. and ahmed gave us a free beer for a plateful of bbq food!
not much more exactly except an abundance of small beautiful details--what a world (! / ?! / ???) i have fallen into here, of possibilities for living creatively, loudly, quietly. and maybe life is easier in the sun, and maybe that's okay? and still this morning it was hard to get out of bed, hard to get out of the haus--not for any good reasons except black mold on the back of my neck and the toilet's exploding and all those other small pleasures.
ah well...it's always sunny in the east bay.