i am a cowboy and a rainy day.
this is how i live.
[original 35 mm]
so….quick update.
i love my job (farming, weekend beekeeping).
i love my home (cabin on the river).
i love going to bed when it’s dark (9 pm) and getting up when it’s light (6:15 am).
i love the people (brett, blair, katie, joe, caroline, dee, todd) i work with.
i love having my dog back (makes it less lonely in the evenings).
so….yeah.
LEONARD COHEN
DAVID BOWIE
BEIRUT
bob dylan
on a wet friday evening she lay dozing in bed when she heard what she thought might be one of the neighbor’s cows on her porch. she started up and opened the door, brushing curls from her face.
“hey” he said, and the damp air snapped with tension.
“hey.” she was horrified and relieved to see him. a breeze flickered up and stirred the trees to release their captive droplets. she let go of the door, unsure whether to invite him in and sank down to quiet her dog. the cuffs of his pants were tucked into rain boots and darkened with water. he knelt beside her and gently rubbed missy’s face. she growled gently and quieted.
his hands were clean and the gently curled fingers hung loosely from the wrist that rested on his knee. she was horrible for thinking it but she wanted to let him in, sit him on her bed and forget everything else.
“ugh,” she sighed and covered her face with her hands.
“what’s that for?” his eyes were golden concern and his brows knit together. it was as if he couldn’t guess.
she inhaled slowly. “-because of what i want to do but can’t.”
he sighed and his eyes closed and after a brief eternity he took her hands and held them. frustration and longing raged up and she began to cry. why had he even come to see her? he pulled her head against his shoulder and laid his chin in her neck. “you’re so warm.”
“i’m a horrible person, james,” she cried softly. “the things i want - i’m bad.”
“no. we want things that aren’t good for us but that doesn’t make us bad.”
“but to wish someone didn’t exist, just so we could be together…”
“i’ve wished that too.”
she cried a little harder. “i love you.”
“i love you too.” he held her, kneeling in her open doorway with the soft light from the lantern leaking onto the deck and the air resting on them thickly like a damp woolen blanket.
it was over too quickly.
he left her, kneeling, half-naked on the floor, with her face in her hands again and her heart broken for the thousandth time. what a horrible world it was and what a desperate person she must seem.
it was hard - harder than she’d ever thought to go on and pretend their relationship had never existed. harder still to maintain self-confidence in the face of the un-knowing others - kathryn, still up in arms against her (wrong husband, gabby thought bitterly), benjamin with his peacemaking, michael with his fresh and boyish innocence, cathy with her cold and intimidating manner one moment then warm and gracious the next.
at the worst moments during the day, she wanted to fling herself in the river and drown, carried out into the ocean somewhere far away. life was good, but the goodness was pocked with disease, like flies on a cake.
alone again. best become accustomed.
life is good right now.
despite that God gives me desires and skills for things and holds them back.
i shall wait but it shall be a busy wait.
explored part of the river…trees line the bank; they stand in groups, scattered, or elbowed over the water like a seat. roots tangle and divide. some of them gnaw away the bank and stand in loops.
looking forward to august, when i can leave work in the fields and leap into the water to the hum of bees and good people.
ate spicy, buttery honey straight from the comb today. kissed sand-dusted baby faces. hopped fences. drowned in sunshine. shoveled compost. cut salad greens. laughed long and loud. planted squash. got my truck back.
no place i’d rather be right now….
first full week of farming ended with 8 straight hours-worth of handweeding. carrots, turnips, beets…
my little cabin is beautiful. the deck addition looks very welcoming and only needs a rocking chair or three. i can see the little river and nearly the entire farm from the edge of it, green and velvety and peaceful.
a bit lonely sometimes too.
it’s good work. satisfying in a physical and spiritual and psychological sense but certainly not monetary. money has never driven me to do anything but farming alone is not paying bills and there’s not really anything more i can avoid paying for.
time to burn the candle at both ends. i have an interview of sorts for another restaurant job tomorrow, evenings and weekends.
in situations like this, it’s refreshing to have friends who want to hang out badly enough to help with gasoline.
perhaps pictures soon…
how do you tell someone that you’d rather not be a replacement for their long-distance fiance?
i’m so sick of the fucking relationship games. it’s become some sort of stupid ritual you must perform, a table dance to get what you want and then drop it like a toy at the first sign of hardship and boredom.
i just need someone to come home to at the end of a long day. to cook supper with. keep warm at night when the temperature drops in my lonely, candlelit cabin. to laugh and cry with. just to know they’re THERE for me and me to be there for.
someone who thinks and does and solves problems to the best of their ability.
first full day at the farm…so sunburned and filthy i glow.
honest labor is amazing.
my priorities need to be changed. if they don’t, i feel as if i can’t fully become the adult i need to be.
things have happened and chances have come in just the last few weeks, and so much more yet to arrive.
i’m moving for the fourth time in 6 months. i’ve made a complete diet change after linking depression and other physical ailments with suspected celiac’s disease.
my once closest companion has severed contact and made his disinterest clear.
farm-worthy vehicle - bought.
housing - established.
i’m already apprehensive about the coming months and today was no assist (i must have unknowingly ingested gluten…my stomach feels like it’s eating itself and i am irritable and down). concerns and stress about bills, stamina, and capability. an emptiness about what to do come october - after the lifestyle, the family, the interests, invested in riverstone for 6 months.
there’s only so much planning ahead.
tomorrow should be kinder, less alienating.
i was molested last night.
in a safe place.
among friends.
by a married man.
my faith in humanity plummets daily. i just want to smoke a TON and sleep for a week.
oh the irony….
who knew that almost a week after sitting down and recounting what a fantastic relationship i thought i had it would essentially slip through the drainage flu and appear to be rushing away under my feet? the person i thought invested as much time and thought into it as myself would nearly call it off?
we don’t talk anymore; we sit awkwardly in silence while i try to blow it off and act dumb and he bounces his knee in protest.
[it was, after all, YOUR heart on the line]
don’t compromise, don’t suck up, and whatever you do, don’t become the sort of person you think they want. it never works. you are yourself…don’t change that for anything.
because people are beautiful for who they are when their identity isn’t wrapped up in who they have or what they do. it is in themselves.
[weep for yourself, little lion man]
and now it’s relational purgatory - a waiting period during which trust has fallen away and communication is down.
never again.
time heals things but does it make anyone realize the hurt they’ve inflicted on others or do they harden themselves because of the countless times they’ve been hurt, and carry on oblivious?
[where am i now? baby, where do i sleep?]
i’m fortunate to have goals. family. friends. a rich and full life worth living and merely not enduring. i’m a psychotic, endearing, depressed individual who needs mental help; i suffer myself to make other people happy when all they want is themselves.
[feels so good but i’m old; 2000 years of chasing taking its toll]
irony. don’t care for it much.
early am: drive to the winery and fish purse from my boy’s front seat; leave a love note on the gear shift.
mid am: coffee and donuts in the window seat with sister, and cigarettes after.
noon: paul simon, sunshine. (i must get myself to africa)
early afternoon: rain; drive to the farm; discuss seedlings and local vendors with brett.
mid afternoon: round up 5 wet and muddy children; grocery shop.
dusk: smoke, music and conversation with my boy. leave him with donut for tomorrow.
now: smoke; surrounded by gentle waves of sound. garden homework.
