Monday morning. 7:30am. 8ºC. We’re (reluctantly – it’s cold) walking Rigby.
Past the property with the five barking dogs. Past the other property with the curious horse that often comes to the fence line to greet us. Past the border collie whose bark sounds more like a scream.
After 15 minutes, we turn around and walk back the way we came. Back to our delightful, warm house, to a hot coffee and breakfast… to start our week.
I really don’t want to be the kind of person that expresses themselves best when inebriated, but (of course there’s a but): at almost 1am, on the first day of June, after pre-dinner cocktails on an empty stomach followed by 4 hours of saying yes to everything recommended by our sommelier, I sat on the train home – very drunk – and downloaded the Instagram app. Minutes later, I posted a series of photos accompanied by a rambling caption, part of which felt like one of the truest things I’ve written or shared in a really long time:
For the longest time I wanted to pretend to be cool and relaxed and nonplussed about life and the world and I’m just… not? I’m scared and I’m happy and I’m grateful and I’m anxious and I’m horrified and I’m hopeful and I’m just… I’m everything! and I think that’s an appropriate reaction to the world and to my place in it.
I’m not a cool or relaxed-about-life person, and I want to stop holding those attributes on a pedestal. I care about things. I feel things. I’m sensitive and easily hurt, but I’m also quick to experience joy and easily excited. I’m more regulated than I’ve ever been in my life (and that’s always going to be a work in progress), but I’ve given up on pretending that I don’t feel things strongly.
Being alive is kinda crazy, the world is beautiful and terrifying, and it’s all going to be over sooner than we think. I’m not going to try and hide my “toddler’s first time at Disneyland” energy anymore.
I still think about the Pacific Northwest a lot. I miss it in my bones. It’s a strange feeling to miss a place this much yet have no regrets about leaving it. I’m getting better at holding both feelings at once.
In our new area, there are a lot of white-winged choughs. At first glance, they look like crows, but with a splash of white in their wings. Unlike crows, they’re not very good at flying. They spend a lot of time on the ground foraging in groups, like a brood of chickens, but way cooler.
I call them goth chickens. I love them.
