Alchemic Verse

The journey to the next Port of Call was comparatively brief, but the lead up so intense that I once again feel held together by thin wire, and I can barely stay standing. I consistently find myself swearing and wishing I could magic my belongings into a bag of holding. Instead, soaked in summer’s stickiness, I made a dozen trips to tetris my car, my dog wailing in anticipation – a combination of excitement and apprehension – of impending change.

Thorny hooks from some ridiculous hell-grass covered my legs in burs during these lifts, from my ankles up to the knees. As I am very short, I am pleased to report my ill-fitting leggings bunched considerably at the calves, and the rippled fabric kept distance between my skin and the hooks of nature’s most needlessly hostile groundcover.

I also sent off the last paperwork for selling the house today, a frantic dance of notaries and shipping labels after an early half day of work. This preceded my flurry of attempting to check out and then check in.

Some miles of asphalt sea later… I feel a level of relief, eager for the mental space that the sold home and finalized divorce will return to me. My mind is always filling with ideas of what I want to learn and create. Tonight, however, I will learn the contours of this incredible, honestly incredible pizza, the meaning of deeply sinking into this emerald green velvet couch, and the cradle of surrendering to the sprawl of bed after that.

The new slip is different, providing more freedom to make noise [dog] and music [me], a fenced yard for my fuzzy companion, and a garage to protect from the threat of August storms. It’s decorated beautifully with art nouveau and art deco, a balance of the ornate and the modern that I would love to have curated myself. As a matter of fact, it features the same rug I bought previously for the house being sold, in a smaller cut. It has everything I need and then some; I am so grateful to be here.

I took a nearly 30-minute shower when I arrived, which was a luxurious delight, feeling reborn after scrubbing away the grime of exertion with fragrant oils and salt. I hope tonight to find something easy to watch, some cozy and warm scenes in which to blanket my weary mind and heart.

I don’t write much about how lonely this journey gets, likely as half or more of the intent behind this blog is to bolster my own resolve. Behind these statements of progress and perseverance, there is the deep struggle, waves of fear and doubt to ride, yearning, lack, and absence. The duality of the experience is a harsh teacher.

I don’t know how to fit into my new life; I only know trying to move authentically, alongside the profound pull I feel to try. My experience knows that bravery means doing, even when afraid or aching. It might look like defiance, folly, selfishness, or even self-destruction from the outside, the effective “yeeting” myself from everything I’ve ever known. Maybe it is defiant, if only in the need to prove that I can do it, that I can practice what I “preach” and promise. That I am worthy of the life I wanted.

The middle millennial in me says posting is important enough to require opening my laptop to check the formatting, tags, images… I don’t think I have the energy tonight, so I hope my treasured readers can forgive any mistakes I miss from my phone. I also hope the coming rains release the pressure in my head, while I release the pressure I have put on myself, if only for an evening, beneath August’s open skies.