So, in a way this is my little ode to jw, lovely Chique a la mobilizer, who hatched a postcard project that is thankfully daily, keeps me looking forward to something routine and yet unexpected, making days regular-in-a-good-way and the mailbox not a just a hatchery for bills. Basically, the project is: one a day postcards on a list of eleven, some folks I don't know and some I do, the postcards somehow related to whatever creative work we may be doing or thinking about. Ah, pyramid scheme re-employed. It truly has me plotting and happy, and I've extended it to include 2x a day, the second being a friend not obliged to reply, which for me makes the tandem even more intriguing.

So, here's that which has been my daily pleasure to receive:

Postcard 1, Day 1:



Postcard 2, Day 1:



Postcard 3, Day 2:



Heavens to Betsy (who the hell is Betsy?), ain't it perfect?

*

And in the meantime, my sister is leaving tomorrow. So we took a day out to tube down the Nooksack River, beginning in Acme and pulling out at the Van Zandt bridge. This time around it was me, my sis, brolaw, niece (the corgy), their buddy T, cr, ee and his brother te, all of whom of course were major participants on a day to celebrate being and floating.

We bumped into logjams, made class rapids out of minor flows. Pulled out to pee in the near distance or nearness, then to eat chips plus warm salami sandwiches. We drank far, far irreparably too many a beer, pulling up to the attached cooler raft to refloat, speaking by passing with the chilluns on the sandbanks. I brought my snorkel and used it to good ado to rescue ee's sunglasses, thrilling through the minor snarls. My brolaw and I put behind us an incredibly-stupid scuffufle that occurred over Xmas (both admitting our 50% stupidity, and me admitting %100 sheepishly for sure that nothing is worth bickering about when it comes to friendship).

We avoided talking about irksome things, made sure to touch on those that are ridiculous. I spent a half hour or more attached upside-down to a drowned log midstream, with my legs wrapped around, my torso free-thinking and my mind mellowed with the stream carrying past pebbles both moving and not, plus minnows and my sister a few feet upstream, drifting similar but not the same, and me thinking how much I will miss her, not in any indepth conversations we have, which are rare, but those silent moments midstream, holding on, drifting, beating each other with flailing limbs, then laughing, noticing. The sis is the only one I know who notices as intensely as I do, and I've been pretending I won't notice her departure as much as four years promises I will.

But the stream.








So, it was a wonderful day, all the way through, corgy sulking and all. Brolaw hatching plots for my pregnancy as well, letting him off the inlaws-pressing-for-procreation hook (I recently made the mistake of telling him of my plans to have a kid within the next three years, partner or no. So he's been busily embarrassing me by bringing it up in the company of men I adore and would potentially think about discussing such things with [baby daddy things, and all that, which are tender and dependent, not really about who I would choose but about who really wants such a particular fatherdom], and man, it's fucking horrifying). But besides that, or with that, and plus all the trees and small clouds fluctuating, it was a perfect day. Sad a bit at times because it carried that goodbye. But more drunk and summery than sad.

And ufta, but part of the time, I was thinking about how my friend, in a conversation I finally copped to - called her up for, so's to talk about how I'm somewhat freaked out or upset by recent weird interactions - said that she was afraid to tell me of her happinesses for fear that I would get upset, would put my past on top of things [the happiness of those I love meaning loss for me] and get sad. She said she wished she could share her joy with me without me getting upset, and at first I felt like a monster but then I thought about it...

Often the pairing of a friend, under certain (most) circumstances, means that s/he will be less close, further further and nested very far away. I felt upset to realize that's how I feel most of the time these days; it's not always true, but at least 75% of the time with women, that's how it is: them having a lover means not just that they need you less frequently, but also that they want your intimate attention less and overall. Like friendship's a temporary fill-in, but not for me.

So I thought about this, and how to accept the reality of how I feel, the jealousy in multiple forms, the fear, the preparation for more solitude, the feeling of lack, the lack of words - in light of my close friend's admission that this inner-preparation of mine made it more difficult for her to be close to me. Fuck.


This was the fledgling that flew into the side of my house today. I picked him up (him because of his bright yellow) and held him in my warm palm, us holding at first panic and then sleepiness at the warmth and aching head. I put the little half-feathering creature in the finch bird-feeder, let him sit, took pictures, checked in on him, then noticed he was gone not even in the bushes below. The brolaw thought maybe the crows ripped his innocent head off, and cr thought maybe the cat ate him. Possibly it was one of those two things, but as for my thoughts: certainly he flew away, making a messy flight out of it, but still making it somewhere.

p.s. For all those who wonder what mark you make, little Mitzen is outside fighting and yowling with neighbor cats, and the stupid dog, Jax, is off his food, mourning and miserable. Lambert doesn't bark at cars anymore. All of them are unhappy and confused without Taz.

Labels: postcard project