•

Living in the middle of dairy country is hard. We see herds of babies separated from their mothers, unsure, huddled together. I sometimes feel like I’m the only person that cares. I know I’m not, but it still hurts.

••

Forgiveness is healing.
Forgiveness is something you do for yourself, not for others.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to let them back into your life.

•••

Lockdown drags on, and it is hard at times, but we are so lucky.

Everyone deserves to have what I have. The fact that many people don’t have what I have is what makes this world so hard to accept sometimes.

••••

The internet gives us access to everything, and sometimes it’s too much. We didn’t evolve to know this much about our world.

I have moments – hiking, working in the garden, staring at the night sky – where I forget about all the things that cause me distress, all the things I wish I could fix. In those moments, I feel different. Alive. Grounded. Human.

It wasn’t that long ago when people went about their lives, knowing very little about the rest of the world. Knowing isn’t inherently bad – without knowing, we can’t change things for the better. But knowing and feeling 24/7 can hurt.

We must take breaks. If we don’t, we’ll be too emotionally exhausted to change things.

•••••

People tell their version of what happened.
I tell my version.
The truth? It’s usually somewhere between the two.

••••••

I find nature documentaries harder and harder to watch. They feel like looming obituaries.

Everyone knows it, but no one is doing anything about it.

•••••••

Two weeks ago, I got to interact with several horses.

Last week, I rode a horse.

Twelve-year-old me is back.

••••••••

Not long ago, we watched an episode of Ted Lasso that had a nightclub scene, and it made me cry. I miss it: bright lights, driving music, dancing with my eyes closed in the company of strangers. Aside from the freedom to socialize and bring people into our home, I miss dancefloors the most. I dance at home while Jesse plays music, and it’s therapeutic, but it’s not the same.

As a species, we’ve been doing something resembling dance parties for aeons. It’s part of us. It’s a big part of me.

•••••••••

Rigby is getting cuddlier with age. He’s following us around the house a lot more. We’ve had to buy a dog bed for each office, the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen… wherever one (or both) of us might be at any given moment.

He’s always been social, but he’s never been that physically affectionate or averse to being alone. That seems to be changing.

••••••••••

Our night-time routine started as a way to get Rigby out to pee before bed. Like many aspects of our life out here, it quickly evolved.

Now, before bed each night, we throw on coats, turn on Rigby’s collar light, and head outside. Occasionally we just stand there while he pees, but most times we do a lap of the property, looking at the vegetable garden, checking on flowers, investigating the fruit trees – all by the light of our headlamps.

On clear nights, it’s hard for me to take my eyes off the sky. I’m memorizing constellations and stars, finding nearby galaxies, and watching how things move and change with every day, month, and season. (When the moon is more than half full on a clear night, it’s so bright that we don’t need torches, and the Milky Way disappears. Our shadows are sharp and clear. It’s like dawn at midnight. Magpies warble as if it’s 7am.)

Jesse pokes around in the yard, getting his hands dirty. He pulls slugs off the vegetables and plants and points out what’s budding, flowering, changing. His connection to this land is deepening every day.

He watches the earth. I watch the sky.

We make a good pair.

•••••••••••

Spring is here, and it’s only beginning. It moves fast, and paints everything with colors we didn’t expect.

I’m planting an aggressive amount of kangaroo paws around the house.