Good evening Travellers,

I thought I’d do something different on this Sunday eve. Not so much with all the splendid little things of my past week, but more a curious train of thoughts that has been running through my head over the past ten days that I just want to leave in this space for your contemplation…

I love the word amalgam. Don’t you? Have you ever considered how many amazing fantastic words are largely ignored in everyday conversation? Truly, most of us pick our words like that favorite pair of jeans you wear at least 5 times before you launder them while ignoring all of you other jeans. Know what I mean? I think we should all endeavor to learn a new word every day. I believe there might be more enchanting words than there are days in a human life, don’t you?

This morning I taught my outdoor yoga class in 42 degrees. IT WAS EXHILARATING!! And the sky was so clear, so blue. The air was crisp and unmoving. So still. The summer cicada choir has been silenced. I often feel cold weather has a greater sense of peace. It’s like the world is finding clarity, while Spring and Summer feel like a riot. Everything flourishing at once in everyway: weather, sounds, floral and animal. Spring is the explosion, summer it’s full revelation, Fall is the slow dance into slumber and winter is the quietude that brings us back. I use to imagine winter was death, but I believe it’s something entirely different now.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The secret to working out/yoga in the cold is a hoodie. You need a good hoodie, hood up, tie it up and you are good to go. Most of your body heat escapes through the crown of your head, so get a hoodie. Also, hoodies are happy clothes. Hoodies feel like warm hugs. I could live in hoodies. Just my opinion.

Also, remember to wiggle your fingers AND toes continually. Just good life advice there. A good toe wiggle helps your remember where you are at all times.

Last week on the 12th, it was the one year mark from Dave’s suicide. Somewhere in the past two months, something finally shifted in me and I have found a sense of something inside that I don’t have name for yet. Maybe it’s acceptance. I have fully come to understand that I couldn’t have saved him. We are not here to save each other, Read that again, because it’s true. In fact, in life guarding they will warn you that a drowning person can you take you down with them. And I think that’s true of life as well. You have to put on your oxygen mask first as the plane is going down in order to help anyone else.

I took vacation time. If you knew me in the real world, you could fully grasp the magnitude of what that means. (I’m laughing as I type that…) I’m not good at breaking away from my regularly scheduled life. I blame my childhood. Those of us who were raised in chaos tend to create something in our adulthood that resembles a schedule, but can easily double duty as a cage. So I broke out for 6 days. 6 glorious days where I stopped making my bed, stopped cleaning up every single animal hair every morning, stayed up late, went out late, went on 4 dates with 4 different guys, went out of town, had a few drinks, ate new foods. It was bliss. Uncontrolled bliss. (And I smile as I type that..) So if you are reading this in your comfort cage, do let yourself out some time, won’t you?

That got me thinking about life. I think life is really about a series of experiences versus destinations. I think collecting great moments in tastes, sounds, sights, deeply inhaling all the outdoor air, kissing boys, dancing in parking lots, having virtual sexual encounters, talking till 4am with a good friend, buying new hoodies. Meeting new people, you should always meet new people. In the real world. Talking while looking into someone else’s eyes is everything. It’s a sort of ordinary euphoria. Right there, ORDINARY EUPHORIA. Seek that…

We learn who we are in relationships with others. We find ourselves in how we relate to others. I think when we leave this world, what we will all miss the most are the ones we loved.

So in my week of abandon, I met a guy. I really like this one, but there seems to be a hiccup or a speed bump or a sudden off ramp. I’m not sure which yet, but here is what I know. We had the best first date of my life. Like I walked right into it and it was easy. So genuinely easy. Zero hesitation. Do you know how hard it is to find someone you genuinely like in the single world? WORST ODDS EVER. And he kissed me on that date, like I’ve been waiting to be kissed in forever. BUT and I won’t delve into details, just it’s this: He said he was broken. And I don’t know what to do with that, here’s why…

This morning I was making the bed and I started crying. Dave and I met around this time of year, many years ago. I just felt sad. Momentarily. I’ve learned if you just cry when you feel like crying, it goes so much easier. Emotions only take us hostage when we are unwilling to listen to them. I will miss him forever. I will love him forever. He will forever have committed suicide. And I will forever not know why or if there was anything that would have changed that horrible event. Forever. This is what my life looks like in it’s acceptance. I hadn’t cried in two months and it left as easy as it slid in.

And when I meet someone who has anxiety or depression, there is this little fear in me. And it says in a tiny whisper, will they do that too? Because almost every guy I’ve met has anxiety or depression. The real pandemic of our world is mental health issues. And the other pandemic is making THAT pandemic even worse. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, we need to figure something out people. There are too many good men, I can count five off the top of my head, who I know are under the weight of something. And I don’t know what to do. Because again, we can’t save each other.

What I also know is that most people can’t be bothered lately. Have you noticed how many people seem to no longer care about life? Our current global circumstances feel heavier to some of us than others. And here is where it gets sticky for me, I feel buoyant still. I’m not crazy about the pandemic, but it will pass. Everything that has a beginning has an end, and all of our lives are still raging on. I can tell you to make it matter still, make your life count, even in the little ways, but instead lemme just show you. I’m working on how to do that, because there is sweetness here still. I can’t save anyone, but damn, if I could somehow just lift your eyes up that would be worth it. In case no one has told you lately, THIS LIFE IS STILL WORTH IT. No matter how it looks. You gotta make this life worth the dying for it someday.

I’ve come to believe our lives and more than that, our hearts are like puzzles. A puzzle of unlimited pieces with an ever changing image. Because we are always changing whether by our own design or just idling along. Every person we care for be it friend, family, or lover, we give them a piece of ourselves and they give us one in return and voila, we subtly shift. When we lose someone, maybe it’s never that something is getting left behind or lost, it’s just change. The truth is we will say goodbye one way or another to every person we say hello to. There will be no exceptions, but I do believe that we somehow stay with each other. Through break ups, divorce, death, those pieces are an energy we share. I don’t think anyone gets their piece back. Being able to reconcile that is huge.

Lastly, I wish someone told me as a child how hard this life would be, don’t you? In truth, there is no way for us to explain to another human how pain feels, or when it will leave or when happiness will arrive again. But my Grandma Max always said it will work out in the end. She also said to always make things right. She’s never been wrong yet.