Hiking day.
Apr. 30th, 2025 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serafaeryFeeling a bit blah. It's such a gorgeous day and I am planning to go hike Dog and I'm so excited to go, but I'm also sad Tyler is not around to join me and it will be warm so I'm a little nervous about overheating. But I can just go slow, and bring water. I got a new water bottle as my old one wandered away last summer at some point.
Yesterday silks was really fun. There was all kinds of craziness - ladder balancing, tall unicycles, short unicycles, juggling, Dutch and Angela doing their crazy perch and spin tricks, adding new stuff, they are famous now for their very unique and insane skill set. Circus is cray. It was so fun. Raven and I were just kind of in awe and very distracted while working on our aerial a little bit, which seemed embarrassingly tame in comparison, but, nice circus ambiance I suppose lol.
Yesterday's counseling was sort of sad. My therapist is very tuned into emotional expression, moreso than words, and he noted that despite all of my hopeful descriptions of what's going on in my life (I was really excited about my fairy hair class going so well and that I've got more teaching lined up and am feeling very reassured about this new stream of income and also it's Beltane season and the weather is beautiful and we've been outdoors so much which is so enjoyable), he noted that my expression was a bit flat. He can tell I am still depressed. I am still not eating great, I am sleeping extra and eating extra, I am not grooming or taking my supplements, I am not feeling at all sexy. He's right, yes.
It's just so hard to function well when everything hurts. My new fun symptom is crepitus in my neck that is so loud it startles me, 3-4 times a day, if I happen to turn my head just wrong to like say, look at my cat. :(
I am still working through "the depression book" and it's still comforting but not really helpful. He has a whole chapter about meaningfulness in human life and it just fell flat for me. He's exactly like me, I should be thrilled. He uses magic to make his own meaning and place in the world. Some people use other things. Religion or some amorphous other "purpose" - we use magic. As legit as anything else, when it comes to human experience. But it does nothing to ease my sense that there's not actually really any point to anything, other than what we decide is the point. Which rings hollow. I don't want imposed outside meaning, but I want something greater than myself, and magic is such a personal, internal experience. I mean, yes of course we can share it and that's what we do, it's inspiring and fun, I know for a fact, I have been told explicitly and I know there are many many more people who have never told me that my influence has transformed their lives (I'm referencing all the people who sparkle for a living or at least part-time to boost their income and enjoyment and quality of life and tell me so, who have learned from me and/or been inspired by me), that counts. But it still doesn't feel like enough to get me through the day? Maybe that's just the depression talking. Josh and Avalanche get me through the day. Tyler and Cynthia get me through the day. Wildflowers and mushrooms get me through the day. Oceans and mountains get me through the day. Coffee and biscuits get me through the day. Sparkles are work. Joyous, delightful work, but still work. I do that to facilitate communion with wildflowers and mushrooms.
...
Need to box up and order. I was going to do calendaring this morning but it makes me feel nauseated to even think about. Maybe just one quick check and then I'll pivot to making Josh the pizza I promised him and packing up the order and packing up for the hike.
I also need to do inventory, that's actually more urgent. I should do that and save the calendaring for tomorrow, maybe.
Tonight is Hexxennaucht, tomorrow is Beltane, Josh is flying away and I will have the weekend to tend to myself and clean the apartment, it'll be nice. I have no work booked but that is okay. Tyler and I are leaving for Green Ridge on Monday and I'm stoked. Can't wait can't wait. I get to go again later in May for my birthday. So excited.
I did wash my face and brush my teeth last night. That is something. I'd love to make myself shower this morning or tonight if I can.
The depression book has this moment where the author talks about seeing a bluebird for the first time. The way he describes it is so sweet. I also felt astonished the first time I saw one. The shade of blue they are doesn't look real. It's so shockingly beautiful on such a diminutive scale, it's hard to describe. I like his reaction:
...the bird that as Naturalist and writer John Burrows put it, "carries the sky on its back and the earth on its breast," had always been a ghost in the past. Another story of my mom's childhood, as magical and absent as the grandmother I would never meet.
And then, one average afternoon, I saw a bluebird. That spring had been a muddy slog, the hiking trails my therapy. My ongoing unease about taking medications, all of it was slippery and boggy and squelched beneath my boots, threatening to snatch them from my feet. Winter was the sharp crystalline clarity of pain finally acknowledged. Spring was the thaw when everything was exposed and tender and full of the awkward clumsy power of new growth and sudden expectation. My walks in nature had become part of my basic self-care, like brushing my teeth, which is to say, I managed them most days.
One day in April, I drove five minutes north from home to Delaware State Park, a 1700 acre recreation area with a lovely lake and campground. The place was new to me, another discovery that seemed obvious once I knew it was there. I parked and walked down a muddy slope to look at the lake. I saw a kingfisher perched on a tilted, barkless corpse of a pine leaning out over the water. I knew the name, but I didn't know they were in Ohio. I was excited, but I also, once again, felt like a child, like an absolute novice. I was feeling the friction of a practiced ego bumping up against the awe and humility of encountering the unknown. The kingfisher ruffled her feathers and departed to the far side of the lake, apparently unhappy with her fishing spot, or her new spectator. I shook my head at the enormity of my own ignorance, and turned from the water.
There, perched on a spindly tulip poplar sapling, was an eastern bluebird.
It was ridiculous.
It was like an escapee from a Disney movie.
A fairy, glimmering in broad daylight.
It was just a bird, sitting there, looking like it was right where it was supposed to be.
It was right where it was supposed to be.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and took dozens of terrible photos, trying to document the event like a Bigfoot sighting. Like a two-headed buck had emerged from the woods muttering prophesy.
The bluebird twittered and flew to some honeysuckle, joining three more of its kind. I stared. Was this important news? A discovery? I wanted to call my mother.
-Jarod Anderson, Something In The Woods Loves You.
(He goes on to describe learning that eastern bluebirds were relatively commonplace in this area, feeling a wave of guilt and stupidity and self-rebuke for thinking they were rare, and then digging further and discovering that 10-20 years ago, they were extremely rare, but that a big push of grassroots conservation efforts had greatly restored their numbers.)
Yesterday silks was really fun. There was all kinds of craziness - ladder balancing, tall unicycles, short unicycles, juggling, Dutch and Angela doing their crazy perch and spin tricks, adding new stuff, they are famous now for their very unique and insane skill set. Circus is cray. It was so fun. Raven and I were just kind of in awe and very distracted while working on our aerial a little bit, which seemed embarrassingly tame in comparison, but, nice circus ambiance I suppose lol.
Yesterday's counseling was sort of sad. My therapist is very tuned into emotional expression, moreso than words, and he noted that despite all of my hopeful descriptions of what's going on in my life (I was really excited about my fairy hair class going so well and that I've got more teaching lined up and am feeling very reassured about this new stream of income and also it's Beltane season and the weather is beautiful and we've been outdoors so much which is so enjoyable), he noted that my expression was a bit flat. He can tell I am still depressed. I am still not eating great, I am sleeping extra and eating extra, I am not grooming or taking my supplements, I am not feeling at all sexy. He's right, yes.
It's just so hard to function well when everything hurts. My new fun symptom is crepitus in my neck that is so loud it startles me, 3-4 times a day, if I happen to turn my head just wrong to like say, look at my cat. :(
I am still working through "the depression book" and it's still comforting but not really helpful. He has a whole chapter about meaningfulness in human life and it just fell flat for me. He's exactly like me, I should be thrilled. He uses magic to make his own meaning and place in the world. Some people use other things. Religion or some amorphous other "purpose" - we use magic. As legit as anything else, when it comes to human experience. But it does nothing to ease my sense that there's not actually really any point to anything, other than what we decide is the point. Which rings hollow. I don't want imposed outside meaning, but I want something greater than myself, and magic is such a personal, internal experience. I mean, yes of course we can share it and that's what we do, it's inspiring and fun, I know for a fact, I have been told explicitly and I know there are many many more people who have never told me that my influence has transformed their lives (I'm referencing all the people who sparkle for a living or at least part-time to boost their income and enjoyment and quality of life and tell me so, who have learned from me and/or been inspired by me), that counts. But it still doesn't feel like enough to get me through the day? Maybe that's just the depression talking. Josh and Avalanche get me through the day. Tyler and Cynthia get me through the day. Wildflowers and mushrooms get me through the day. Oceans and mountains get me through the day. Coffee and biscuits get me through the day. Sparkles are work. Joyous, delightful work, but still work. I do that to facilitate communion with wildflowers and mushrooms.
...
Need to box up and order. I was going to do calendaring this morning but it makes me feel nauseated to even think about. Maybe just one quick check and then I'll pivot to making Josh the pizza I promised him and packing up the order and packing up for the hike.
I also need to do inventory, that's actually more urgent. I should do that and save the calendaring for tomorrow, maybe.
Tonight is Hexxennaucht, tomorrow is Beltane, Josh is flying away and I will have the weekend to tend to myself and clean the apartment, it'll be nice. I have no work booked but that is okay. Tyler and I are leaving for Green Ridge on Monday and I'm stoked. Can't wait can't wait. I get to go again later in May for my birthday. So excited.
I did wash my face and brush my teeth last night. That is something. I'd love to make myself shower this morning or tonight if I can.
The depression book has this moment where the author talks about seeing a bluebird for the first time. The way he describes it is so sweet. I also felt astonished the first time I saw one. The shade of blue they are doesn't look real. It's so shockingly beautiful on such a diminutive scale, it's hard to describe. I like his reaction:
...the bird that as Naturalist and writer John Burrows put it, "carries the sky on its back and the earth on its breast," had always been a ghost in the past. Another story of my mom's childhood, as magical and absent as the grandmother I would never meet.
And then, one average afternoon, I saw a bluebird. That spring had been a muddy slog, the hiking trails my therapy. My ongoing unease about taking medications, all of it was slippery and boggy and squelched beneath my boots, threatening to snatch them from my feet. Winter was the sharp crystalline clarity of pain finally acknowledged. Spring was the thaw when everything was exposed and tender and full of the awkward clumsy power of new growth and sudden expectation. My walks in nature had become part of my basic self-care, like brushing my teeth, which is to say, I managed them most days.
One day in April, I drove five minutes north from home to Delaware State Park, a 1700 acre recreation area with a lovely lake and campground. The place was new to me, another discovery that seemed obvious once I knew it was there. I parked and walked down a muddy slope to look at the lake. I saw a kingfisher perched on a tilted, barkless corpse of a pine leaning out over the water. I knew the name, but I didn't know they were in Ohio. I was excited, but I also, once again, felt like a child, like an absolute novice. I was feeling the friction of a practiced ego bumping up against the awe and humility of encountering the unknown. The kingfisher ruffled her feathers and departed to the far side of the lake, apparently unhappy with her fishing spot, or her new spectator. I shook my head at the enormity of my own ignorance, and turned from the water.
There, perched on a spindly tulip poplar sapling, was an eastern bluebird.
It was ridiculous.
It was like an escapee from a Disney movie.
A fairy, glimmering in broad daylight.
It was just a bird, sitting there, looking like it was right where it was supposed to be.
It was right where it was supposed to be.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and took dozens of terrible photos, trying to document the event like a Bigfoot sighting. Like a two-headed buck had emerged from the woods muttering prophesy.
The bluebird twittered and flew to some honeysuckle, joining three more of its kind. I stared. Was this important news? A discovery? I wanted to call my mother.
-Jarod Anderson, Something In The Woods Loves You.
(He goes on to describe learning that eastern bluebirds were relatively commonplace in this area, feeling a wave of guilt and stupidity and self-rebuke for thinking they were rare, and then digging further and discovering that 10-20 years ago, they were extremely rare, but that a big push of grassroots conservation efforts had greatly restored their numbers.)
