Fearless Nothing

Here I sit, on the verge of a couple months' good, hard work. I'll be busy! Busy is good. Harness all that kinetic energy ... But. Right now, while things are normal, I like right now, too.

Basically, I'm trying to get profoundly good at resting, so that when the whirlwind hits, I can be profoundly good at that, too. Make sense? I don't know. It's harder than it should be to find the balance between the doing and the not doing. This weekend I dialed it in, though.

There was skateboarding, there was wandering in the woods, there was hang time in the hammock, there was the stacking of many rocks and the creation of a giant inferno, there was camp wine and camp coffee, there was, in fact, tent camping.

Rest-wise, though, I'm most proud of Sunday afternoon, during which we came home and did nothing. We napped! Also, we basked like cats on the sunny deck, staring up into the void of blue—which, after a few minutes, revealed itself not to be a void at all, but instead a lively expanse of bugs and cottonwood fluff and one lost lone balloon flashing the sunlight back down at us from impossibly high.

I can't get the hang of meditating, but this felt a whole lot like that. I hope to stick this moment in my cap of fine, pure moments and maybe pull it out next month when I'm stressed and really freaking need it.

In Real Life

I encountered a friend out last night whom I rarely see/talk to. He asked me if I'd been skating lately or "just hiking." It was an odd question. It left me wondering. Of course I've been skating! But then I realized that those moments on 4 wheels haven't been making it onto Instagram. Who cares? Reality check: My Insta feed is the only way some people know me.

That's fine—but it's weird. Everyone uses Instagram (and all social medias) for different reasons. Me? I'm on there to see cool pictures and laugh. I don't ever post selfies, can't get behind them, will unfollow friends who post too many of ’em. I want to see your world, what you're doing, what you think! I don't follow certain friends that I adore in real life simply cuz they clog the feed with crap I'm not interested in. Likewise I follow total strangers who post dynamic pics that make me feel something. Long story short, Instagram isn't real life.

Obvious: we're crafting stories about our identities and lives with every picture we put up—and the ones we choose not to. Not so obvious: those stories probably aren't very true. Sure, hopefully everyone's living extraordinary lives full of natural beauty and wonder, full of humor, full of friends and happy things going down. Full of hiking! But you can sense just by looking that that's not totally the case. We're all just normal. Buncha normal people living normal lives!

And hey, normal is cool.

This Time Last Year

This April isn't last April. It's different in ways and better in ways. Last year, I was relentlessly listening to Houndstooth and befriending scruffy strangers. There was lots of sitting on porch stoops, and the nights often ran late. Life, if that's what you call all the moments between waking and sleeping, was tenuous—a little manic, even. There was a fever on the wind, and rain with the sun out. I mean that's just spring in Portland.

I bought a new, old car. I did not “bargain hard.” I’m civilized—I just paid what they asked. It’s possible that I got hosed. The plan was to have it always and forever, drive it into eternity—but now, I hear Volkswagen's gonna buy it back from me. The future is unwritten, see?

I played on an intramural softball team with a bunch of skateboarders. We lost our first game 28 to 2. In the outfield, Daniel kept complaining that he had to pee. Covering second base, Johnny was outrun by a lady in yoga pants. Up to bat, Kristina swung at fucking everything (and missed fucking everything!). I was unable to catch a single ball, even the pop fly that the gods sent straight to me like a beam of light. Hilarious, all of it!

I let some dudes I'd never met from New Jersey stay in my basement. As a rule, I love East Coasters. Salt of the earth, funny, hard boiled. I also love the rite of the traveler—how you can meet new people and feel like you already know them, bond over a couple days or a car ride, be instantly old friends. If you’ve never left your town or your life, if you’ve never stayed on someone’s couch or let them stay on yours, well then that’s one of the best things you’re missing.

4 Things

Retirement ramp: What happened was, I'd been missing my old mini ramp a little bit. I didn't tell anyone, though. Within a week, the universe, along with Colin, Johnny, Niki and Deva, had delivered a lovely used ramp to my residence. Life is, was, and will continue to be a mystery!

Purple cauliflower: New from the farm stand, an immense head of cauliflower in a dignified Easter purple. Blah-white doesn't do this vegetable justice—white things are usually bland, devoid of awesomeness. The new hue (they had orange ones, too! but purple = more fun) made my meal of roast butternut and steamed, deepest-green spinach look not unlike a Matisse painting.

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl: I'm gonna argue here that this movie is a lot more oddball funny (and much less dramatic) than the trailer makes it look. Still, it does make you feel. If you like laughing and also don't mind feeling feelings, watch this movie. Sidetone: I enjoyed all the warm faded greens going on in this film. Nice to look at and such.

Spring, springing: Just the tiniest little bit. We'll take it, though.

What You've Been Up To

Oh hi. What have you been up to? Me? I've been trying to work. But it's damn, damn January and all the companies who hire me are just waking up from a long holiday slumber. As such, there's no real projects cracking yet, and projects are what get me paid (and soothe my pathological inability to relax).

I cannot tell a lie, I've been feeling a little useless lately. It happens every year. The darkness and rain of mid-winter mixed with a sense of treading water. I'm a baby. This is basic boredom. But the work-like tasks I've been giving myself (update your portfolio, prune the rose bushes, repaint the fireplace) haven't been doing the trick to get me jazzed on life. I mean, where is all that effervescent joy we used to know?! Like, back in summer and stuff?

Sorry, that got depressing really quick. It's okay! Life is grand, and I've been taking a lot of pleasure in cooking simple things from scratch using this cool book my mum got me for Christmas. It's all about how to make at home the basics you'd usually buy at the store. Hummus. Milk. Yogurt. Just do it yourself. Dial 'em in how you like them. Way cheaper, better, and healthier, too, without all the additives and such.

Yes, I've been learning a lot. Did you know, for instance, that the very best thing to spread on a piece of toast is not butter, like I'd once thought, but rather a rich, lemony tahini sauce? I just found this out. Wonders never cease.