My second backpack trip to Isle Royale I chose a trail that is named the hardest trail in Michigan. The Minong Trail. It is the back side as I call it of the island. It is the side that faces Canada. It looks like you can touch Canada from the bluffs. It was hard. They were right. Hardest? I haven’t done them all to be able to compare? Easiest for me of any trail I had done since I had failed miserably at my previous trip to learn who I am again.

My goal was to walk the entire length of the island, just on the backside. I would still have to wiggle around back to the spine of the island to get to Rock Harbor. My end goal is to have walked all the footpaths on this island. And to see as many of the orchids as possible. And a moose meandering aimlessly and not wildly running me off trails. To see a wolf or at least wolf scat. To start exploring the smaller islands via da boat. Take my dads canoe there. Hundreds of islands to find. To portage and see some of the inland islands on the island.

I don’t even know what my end goal is. To live? Not be afraid to live? I’m not afraid to die. It’s living that is hard. Not ready to die just not afraid. I live each day and minute sometimes like it is likely my last. Because it could be. I kind of resolve to this. Give in to it. Accept that I may just think this way. I may be someone who is afraid to live. But doesn’t want to die. But it also makes each day really lively to me. Each moment is alive just in case it’s soon. Living in the moment for me is being afraid it’s the last.

Anyway. Now that that’s sorted out.

I had done what I called the hard part of this hard trail. I know this doesn’t always mean the rest is easier it just means it is not as hard. I came in to my spot to stop. Todd Harbor. I had sort of wanted to stay on the Lakeside. Just to see the sun come up from the view as opposed to in the woods. Just to wake up to a different view. Or same view from a different angle. Like moving your bed. It’s still seeing your room just from a different angle. New perspective. I usually, usually meaning the last and only time I came, prefer to camp and stop inland somewhere. A little more secluded. In my mind I want to be secluded. But I could barely move. I could barely walk 10 more feet let alone ten more miles just to be secluded when I was as secluded as one could be on a secluded island in the middle of Lake Superior. But I wanted new perspective. To move da bed.

Todd Harbor would likely mean people. People harboring in after fishing all day on the northern side. As soon as I walked up I saw a cabin with stuff. Lots. They looked to be there for days. I saw a generator. I saw coolers, not just coolers but Yeti ones. Which are ridiculous heavy. My heart rate increase. I kept walking. I found a spot and unloaded my back. Not far from the cabin. I just couldn’t get myself to keep going. I like to walk through camp the last spot so when I wake early I’m not walking through camp early. I’m right at the edge. I struggled to walk down to the water. Boots off, and walking on the warm large smooth stones that litter this lake. They feel like foot massages to me. The water is freaking cold. It always is. I always think it will feel refreshing. But it just feels cold and wet. I find a pile of more stuff on the shore. Water bottles and gas cans. I needed water. Or I feared I did. I had plenty likely but I am a water hoarder. There looked to be plenty. I took two. Went back laid down fell asleep.

I was woke to chaos. I had dreamt widely I was being suffocated by someone. Lights were blaring in my tent and I couldn’t breath. I finally untangled myself from my mummy sleeping bag cords that somehow I had gotten around my neck and saw that there were lights shining through the woods. And so many people. At least 4. This is so many too me. 1 can be, when I’m expecting 0. They were sloshing and crashing and yelling. I was scared they would notice water bottles missing. Then murder me. This is always my first thought. Eminent death. I have to talk myself up from this. To a lesser case scenario.

They walked to and from and to and from that boat. I hear saws and power and music. Then finally nothing. I get up in the middle of the night or it was actually like 8 at night, to pee. I walk down to the shore again to see this boat. I do see this boat. It’s floating aimlessly slightly away from shore with no boaters. It looks expensive. Who buys a boat and lets it boat alone? It’s not anchored or tied to any thing. It’s just all alone about 20 feet away.

I have to tell them. Yet I don’t want to know anything about them. Or to have them know I am here. I walk up slowly and so nervous. I don’t really want to get involved but I don’t really want them stuck in the island with me. I want them to go back out on the water with da boat. I also don’t know what would happen. Would the coast guard come? The park service? Would they bring helicopters? Da boat would just keep going until it got somewhere I guess.

I was so scared they would know I was a woman alone in the woods who stole their water and now have to tell them their boat is out for a late night boat trip. ”um, your boats getting away.” I scared them to death, they did not know I was sleeping like 59 feet away. There were fish bones and plates and things everywhere. They didn’t seem so scary. They were messy. And careless. Unlikely to plot a midnight murder and notice twowater bottles gone.

They run. He runs more likely. Da boat. Da boat. It was just kind of swaying aimlessly a little off shore. Luckily across the bay was a group this boat man was with and they were still up. After an hour of boat rescue and more yelling and lights and sloshing they finally settle again. I never do. I lay awake. Until morning. I sort of wanted to go back and make sure they secured da boat to something securer than nothing. Did he just pull it up last time? I’m not a big boat owner, it also wasn’t that big . Don’t you drop an anchor or something? Or tie a rope around something? I will need to know these things to bring da canoe. I already know these things. I’m sure he does too? Things happen.

As I’m packing up and eating oatmeal the man from the night before comes to my camp. He looks exhausted. He walks up and says. ”sorry bout da boat.” Then offers me a giant bag of fried fish and water. I say ”no problem.” Then he starts talking. And doesn’t stop. In his northern Minnesotaian way. Da boat over and over. I can hear it still today. He tells me all about da boat. It was new. First time on a big trip. He had a new hat that said the name and a keychain. He was a new boater. He brought his sons here. His brother. I couldn’t stop him. I was starting to panic he would offer to load me up in da boat and take me to the other end. He looked concerned I was walking. I looked concerned he was boating.

I tell him I’m good. I do this all the time. Meaning one other time. He says, be careful out there, you never know whats out there. He had that right. his fish was delicious. I admired his story. It was messy and chaotic. It reminded me of my first trip. The things I learned from the things I learned. The mistakes I made to not make again. I think about them still today. I imagine them boating the world. Learning and boating with da boat. Da boat the that likes to boat alone.

What’s really bothering you? She says. Let’s get to the core of it. Says my therapist.

It’s never what I think it is. The first thought I have is always what is bothering me like an itchy patch of skin. Surface annoyance. Minor details. Little things. Sometimes it actually is just itchy skin.

Except for me I scratch at any patch of skin with any tiny annoyance. I don’t like to be minorly annoyed. I can handle a really big major core annoyance. My core is made of them. That’s why my core is so strong. But my skin is as thin, as skin.

This morning it’s taxes. It’s always and forever going to be taxes unless I move to somewhere with no taxes. Even then I would probably question why some do and some don’t tax. I’m always minorly annoyed by taxes. Taxes cause itchy skin.

It’s not the taxes so much as the communication of this stimulus payment they claim to be sending out. Or just the entire process in general. I do my own taxes and prefer a paper check sent to me. Per my taxing story it was deemed undeliverable by a confused brand new mailman. Whom I’ve learned isn’t one anymore. It is sitting in the IRS laying on someone’s desk with a big stamp saying she moved. Except I didn’t and my address isn’t wrong enough to make it seem that way. No one moves from apartment 1G to capital letter iG its was an accident that looks so correct that it’s not even the reason for the check being sent back. I looked too hard for a reason. Since this desk is vacant of an employee who might get a deadly virus from one of the other tax people it sits. And is waiting for me.

Is this the reason my stimulus didn’t come? My check my stimulus says I am eligible and it will be entered into the said account that I entered on the day they allowed people who are afraid of direct deposit to enter direct deposit information to receive a stimulus quicker. I did it on the first day the portal opened. What I think happened is the portal was overwhelmed with people using it and had too many glitches from being a portal so new that my info is in new portal world with glitches. It says I am eligible and that I did the update successfully. I was shocked and immediately suspicious of the success. That’s not how things work for me. It’s only successful on the surface. Under it all is lots of unsuccessfulness. I wasn’t worried about getting this stimulus quicker, I was worried about who was delivering it. I am still afraid of direct deposit. Probably even more so now.

I don’t need it, I want it. I want to stimulate. I am paying bills and doing ok. Just ok. But I like just ok. Anything more makes me nervous. I am just owed it per the government for the pain and suffering we all are going through. I had to keep growing plants so I kept working. I was safe and employed and figured it all out. But now I want to stimulate the economy. Do my part. Buy something I don’t need from somewhere that was closed locally who is struggling for real. I like a little struggle, it’s just more comfortable to me. The minute I’m not is when I am surprised with a check I forgot to balance or a single letter for a number for proper mailing. I have to be on point always. Like a good on point hunting dog. Aware and ready. That’s doesn’t sound like struggling once I say it. Write it. It sounds certain more than struggling. I am used to struggling. It’s evolving into more certainty, less struggle.

The stimulus portal is super sensitive. You can’t make a single error more than 3 times. And they don’t give you many clues about how to énter things. It locks you out saying it doesn’t match what they have on file. I did it one night after a glass of wine and forgot to put my entire address. Just skipped the entire line. Three time. I was punished by waiting. I don’t wait well. I checked again too soon correctly and it still didn’t work/ this doesn’t make sense to me. How do they know who I was trying to look for the first three times? Is it detecting my device or my attempts? Does each address have someone decide various ways someone might look to check to make it match as a way to keep others from checking?

I can’t over think this if I tried. It’s such an annoying problem I don’t even care if I get a check anymore. Surprise me. Work it all out or make me have to remember to enter something on my taxes next year to receive it. How hard can it be to do this for millions of people? It’s hard because they are doing it from home in pajamas with red wine and Netflix in the background. I need the tax people back on point in their offices looking for everything. So I can stimulate the economy. I should tweet the pres. No. I should not. People tweet from the potty. And while driving. And while not watching sunsets.

Once to mess with the portal, I entered my address without my apartment letters and numbers at all, just the street and numbers in front and received the same answer of eligibility and identification. They know who I am without those letters and numbers so why is my check sitting there. Maybe they will sort it all neatly for me? Someone will put all the clues together and find my check and figure it out that it goes to me in the same account as the stimulus. It could be a grand mystery in the office. Except no one is in the office. No one knows who the two are individually. Can’t blame them I barely know who I am myself.

My core problem under the itchy skin:

I know who I am not. I am not selfish. I was made to feel this way for thinking of myself instead of someone else. That me first was selfish. I need so little from someone that it seems I need so little from someone. Is it a damaged part of me? I’m finding this answer to be no and yes. It could seem that way but I refuse to let anyone tell me that my lack of engagement with others is damaging. Have you seen the damage others have done to some? To me? No. I don’t talk about it. It’s too damaging. Should I? Yes. To others. No.

I am not a loner or even an introvert or extrovert by nature. In fact I am a delicate balance of both with the right energy, locations, and situations. It’s situational. Like knowing what kind of wine you would like. It depends on too many things to be answered with out thought. It’s a mood. It’s timing. It’s environmental. Am I in Paris or Greece? What kind of wine should someone drink in each place? Am I having chicken or beef? Or just desert? It’s too many things. I am often too many things. Too many things for someone else. I’m both too much and not enough. It’s both yes and no.

I have to be told I am needed. I do one of two things. Suffocate or isolate. I don’t know a medium ground yet. I may never be able to get to this. I find confusion and paranoia in people asking me questions, yet drill others like an amateur detective or a toddler. I don’t like to answer questions. Unless it’s with a question. It turns the whole thing off of me. Back to them.

Yes, I am damaged. Was? It just doesn’t change my worth. Knowing this is me not damaged. I know I have suffered physical, emotional and mental abuse, neglect, isolation, loss so great that it will always be the core annoyance. The major annoyance. Once the skin is scratched until it bleeds it’s what lies under the surface. But I am not damaged goods. I’ve been through hell caused by someone I once thought would walk through any hell presented with me. I am guarded by my thin itchy skin with minor annoyances to cover that I have major ones. I just have itchy skin.

Side minor annoyance. I can never get my blue blinking cursor to go where I want it to to make a correction. It wants to always go to somewhere my finger seems to have touched. My fingers aren’t that fat. I don’t use a pointer pen looking thing. Stylus. It’s called a stylus. It’s just annoying. I just got a new phone so it’s not the broken screen. I thought it was. I have the same glass protector. Maybe it’s that? Maybe it’s just me. I’m just a little annoyed today.

I have so much on my mind this morning I can’t sort them all. My dream, my relationship to a higher power, my broken blind, my cats paws, cheap wine, online dating, Tylenol, my red eyes, my mother…the IRS website….can they be sorted? Do they need to be?

When I’m this unsorted trying to tends to lead me to not being able to. My problem was started with a glass of cheap wine. I don’t even really like wine but a glass or a little is relaxing. Just enough before I feel myself getting hyper focused is comforting. I don’t lose control, actually I do but for me losing control is gaining it. My mind is chaotic. Unchaos causes confusion. Hyper focus. I can’t read. I can’t watch and make sense of shows, I can’t do math, I can’t log into the IRS website I can’t fix my blinds my cats like to play in, I can’t hear my mom text me when my daughter is being dropped off. One single thing will get in my mind and that’s the one single thing in my mind. I need more things in my mind than one to function. What I don’t need stuck in my mind is my relationship with a higher power at 1:00 a.m.

Also, it’s true, cheap wine is stronger. It may not say that but it’s like it’s made poorly or made better for some. It hurts more. It gives a headache like a hammer pounding. I woke with one in the middle of the night when I panicked from a dream that my cats paws came off. That they were just laying in my bed. I was so certain of this I jumped out of bed. Launching this cat into the dresser. Once I settled again she laid back forgivingly right next to my face and places her one paw out on my face. Like she always does.

Then, I lay there thinking of my dad. He used to say that if you want to make the universe laugh, tell it your plans. The last thing I need to do is question a higher power in the middle of the night with a head pounding. A piece of tuna sandwich stuck in my tooth I can’t have fixed because it’s really not an emergency. No dental work during pandemics. My eyes are itchy from pollen counts. One is already weird from a blood vessel popping when I pulled something too heavy alone to avoid asking for help pulling something too heavy. I always have a broken blood vessel in my eye. Anything from pooping to running to just trying to open cheap wine can make my blood vessel pop. My eyes look like coronavirus eyes. I scare others. Just not me.

I have children’s Tylenol. That’s it. For a headache. I have to chew them. I just never have pain medications because I just avoid and or deal with pain. Until I get a headache. It’s not like I’m a migraine sufferer, I sought out to relax and save money. I rarely buy cheap wine. But, everyone under the sun and moon is buying expensive ones. Probably because most know the cheap wine thing after buying cheap wine too many times during the stay at home orders… I prefer really expensive chardonay. It takes me weeks to months to get through. I couldn’t get it at my store and I won’t go to any other stores right now. I’ve been in and out of one this whole time and will not change until this ends. It has few people. It has more space. It has cocoa wheats, just no expensive wine right now.

Then I start thinking of my dads words. He sometimes said universe and sometimes said God. One and the same to him. Not one and the same to me. I don’t not believe in God. I have a lot of questions first. I could be getting closer. I believe things are out of my control. Most things. I believe I have very little say in an outcome, occasionally. I believe I’m very tiny in comparison to the universe. Until I feel bigger than the universe. I believe I am in it and it is in me. Until I think about it. The big something else out there.

My dad had his faith, his spirituality, religion and his beliefs so neatly balanced. He found a way to make science and the universe and God and even the story of Jesus and add the dinosaurs neatly into a package of himself. All inside himself that worked. He didn’t talk about it. He didn’t preach as they say. He was a cantor in his church choir which was catholic which he changed over to to be the same religion, not faith, as my mom. His wife. He would sing with gusto because he loves to sing with gusto and hear himself bounce off the church walls and stained glass windows. He never pushed us girls into a religion or belief. He showed us you can have several and still believe. In that something bigger out there. Until I think about it.

I have questions. For God. A good interview would clear things up. My dad says talk to Him then. So I do. I am not always getting answers back. I’m talking to myself and talking back to myself. He is everywhere even inside me my dad says. I ask how that could possibly be when I can’t see it. Dad says it’s a feeling. You don’t see feelings you feel them. You don’t hear them. But I can’t feel it. Sometimes when I do it is painful not comforting. The questions. They are painful. They lack answers. How do I feel it to know it’s there?like a touch? You can’t. You have to believe. In what?

That something way bigger than anything. It makes some things just, easier. If it’s unthought of and just believed. The more you do it the more you will feel it. Like a touch. Only it won’t be a touch. Let go of the questions. How?

I felt it once. Maybe even more than that. I was sitting at a stoplight one morning and it dawned on me that I felt close to the universe on my last backpack trip. I had wondered off in a miserable torrentiel downpour to get to the top of a small mountain that faced east to watch the sunset the next morning. I made a plan. It was super specific. It went nothing at all like I planned. Like all my plans. I’m not even sure why I make them. It rained so much I surrendered to the fact I wouldn’t see the sunrise. I slept hard from walking too fast to get to the top too early. I woke wet but warm from the morning dew. It stopped raining. I just gave up and let go of my plan. After about an hour I was ready to pack up and the air just lifted. Just right before my eyes I turn and the air moved away. The heavy damp air vanished and I see the sun peaking. It was a clouds parting and sun coming through moment. Clarity. Everything and nothing made no sense. I had zero questions. I felt sorted out. I cried. I dropped my tent poles. It was the most beautiful moment I can remember. I’m crying now thinking of it.

Sitting at that stoplight it dawned on me that I just felt close to something. It was me. It was the universe and it was really both. It was the most ridiculous thought at a stoplight. But that’s what they are there for. To make you stop. Stop and sort. I was honked at to go. I wanted to not go. To sit and sort. To stop. Get sorted out.

I have my phone back. My new shiny, full, and not broken phone. Not just the phone but everything came back with it. I was able to get all the things out of the clouds into the box. Actually my mom did it. She is relentless with technology. She spent the day figuring this out. So I didn’t have to. I worked. Without a phone. My favorite days are when I forget my phone or lose it, but find it, or can’t access anything on it from being in places that don’t have access to anything. I seek them out. Places that claim no service. Sign me up.

But I worked. I’m in an essential business that my business for some reason wasn’t deemed this but then was a little bit later. It made no sense. My business owner never deemed us not. We are essential he says. I stayed growing plants through this all. If I quit growing so does everyone else. My growing is vital to everyone so they can grow. The day our state officially decided we are essential everyone came out of the wood work. We knew it would happen. We prepared by accepting plants ordered to be there for when people wanted the plants. Our space was full of plants no matter if it was ever going to be full of people again. But we chose hope. It’s why I work this industry. You can always find hope in growth. Simple botanical growth.

I think of the first plant on the planet. Not our first people. That’s how I think. I think of the first bugs. The layers of the earth. The water that has been cutting and shaping our rocks for millions of years. I imagine the single plant who started it all. Was it an apple tree? I don’t know. Was it grass? Has grass seed always been around? It wouldn’t have been mowed for thousands of years? Man made grass? Not grass made man? Did our universe just come with a ground cover of lush forest or was it once barren and rocky? Like the pictures you see? Are they real? How can they be? If I keep imagining this I will peel it apart in layers that are never peeled apart and explained. Just imagined.

I have never seen my business so full of business. All the people out coming and going to make up for the lack of coming and going. I’m guessing gas emissions went way up yesterday. And markets. And gas will go back up. Traffic will be traffic again. Crashes will go up. Speeding tickets.. everything back up.

My day started with my first trip back to Starbucks. I don’t love their coffee. I drink my first cup when I write early in the morning made with grounds I roast in a popcorn maker myself then grind myself. If I had it my way I would also travel to gather my own beans to roast. So why the Starbucks? I love steamed milk. With whipped cream. It’s calming. Or it makes me think of calming warm baby bottles full of milk. I don’t have a steamer and not sure I ever want to steam my own milk. I also am not a baby who needs a bottle of warm milk. I picture over boiled milk in my efforts to make anything that needs me to boil milk. Boiling milk for me means a new pan. But my grandma used to make me warm milk with a little sugar and cinnamon toast in the oven. Then we would sit at a tiny child’s table because I was one, and the toast would be cut up on little porcelain tea set with Peter the rabbit on it. It was just so simple. That’s why I go to Starbucks. To recall this memory. Simpler life. Someone else to boil my milk.

When I got to Starbucks I squealed with delight to have the chance to get in the line. All the lines were always 16-30 cars long. I can’t wait like that. I have to grow plants. The barista was so excited for me back. Once I got to the window she told me the lady in front had paid for my drinks. Mine and my girls steamed milks. This has never happened to me. I have done it hundreds of times. Because I like to imagine it keeps going, forever. Pay it forward never stops in my mind. That not one person will not do it. There is good in everyone. Nice thought, right? It’s simple and I hope true.

I cried. Harder than I cried when my dad died. But specifically because my dad has died. She gives me a minute, I say nothing. The boy with my drinks behind the barista cries. I pay for the mans drink behind me, hoping he wasn’t a single man in a minivan about to deliver coffees to teachers everywhere. Which you really can’t except now with a mask you can? I don’t even know.

Our garden center had a record day. In 40 years we haven’t had a day like we did. I couldn’t keep plants in the greenhouses. I would put them down on benches and off they went to grow somewhere else. Once we decided to just leave them on plant racks from nurseries that deliver some to us and let people just take them off them. Our customers became our helpers. We couldn’t keep up. We ran out of carts, and parking spaces, we ran out of staples. We ran out of energy. We ran out of running. Never ran out of hope.

Our lines were all the way through the 10000 square foot greenhouse and out the doors. To keep distance. We have the space it’s just unusual to see the space so full of everyone giving people space. People were kind, compassionate to others, following rules they didn’t want to follow but free from their homes where they have been running major insurance companies and various other business in their jammies for weeks with kids bouncing off the walls zooming with teachers and eating all the food in the house.

I was told several times that so many were so sorry for my loss. All several times I wasn’t sure what my loss was. My dad? They mean losing him. It is a loss, yes. Is it my loss? Yes. They don’t know that I’m relieved. That most days I’m relieved he isn’t hurting so much anymore. That’s not something you say. You don’t tell total strangers that his last breath was the most at peace you have ever felt. Because he was at peace. It isn’t about me and it’s still not. I’m still learning what to say. Thank you is what you say. I’ve just never had such a big loss that it is actually so big I question if it is a loss at all. I’m a very confused griever.

I cried once when a man told me he drank coffee with him. That he was one of his coffee buddies. He went on to say how much my dad loved us and talked about me and my trips and my work and my sisters and my mother and his grand babies. He talked about these things? To other people? It’s hard to imagine because he usually talks about anything but these things. He usually talks about physics or music or a book or show or something he is building. But not his people, to people. His coffee guys were his people. He told me someone set up a fund in my dads name for this coffee drinking group to drink coffee, forever. Pay it forward. Forever. He invited me to drink coffee with them. Which I had multiple times over the years. I’m standing in my greenhouse full of people crying like a baby waiting for a bottle of steamed warm milk. And I didn’t care.

And I’m exhausted. I’m not 25 anymore. My legs have reminded me. More like my joints. I’ve been doing this since I was 16, over half my life. In between I’ve carried 6 children. I’m not as young as my mind says. My dad was this way. He looked one age, acted another and thought he was younger than both but was as wise as someone who was older than them all. He told me once he was still trying to decide who and what he wanted to be when he grew up. Like he was a 3rd grader uncertain what he would be. Or a college freshman who changes his major every year. My dad never quit growing up. Still hasn’t, because I’m still here and I’m part of him still trying to decide what and who I want to be when I grow up.

I thought I would hike today. Some of our parks are open. Why they all aren’t I don’t know. Seems to me that opening all of things would have helped disperse the people who haven’t been able to go anywhere for weeks. They opened a few that are now crowded. A person every 6 feet. Is that as ok as smaller clumps of people in more locations. There were too many people even though they were following the rules. You have to navigate people on a trail not just the trail. It’s too hard for me now. I am good for now.

It was rare that I have had so many chances to see our woods in early spring that it’s enough. I’m back to the business of gardening. I love my rainy, snowy, windy, miserable weather to hike in. It’s when I can normally go and prefer it after all these years. I buy gear and boots to be in bad weather, sometimes it stops and I get a little sunshine but you still have wet earth. A beautiful spring day is the business of gardening to me. I don’t like to waste beautiful days wasting beautiful days that are beautiful enough for people to want to garden. A beautiful day for me is a slow steady rain to walk in. The slow steady rain waters for me and so many. So the next sunny dry day is gardening business.

It was a bit dreamy to see early spring. It took me back to when I was little with my dad. It was like I was given the chance to have my woods to grieve in a time I would so rarely be able to. Where my dad showed me to be when life is hard, which is always. When death isn’t as hard and life is. It’s not him being dead that is hard, it’s that he isn’t alive.I can’t explain it. I can’t explain it it’s too hard. But for one month he was with me in those early spring woods as if he was with me 35 years ago in those early spring woods. And he will be with me in all the woods forever.

I was being told not to be out, but a few forest preserves stayed open and almost no one went to them and knew of them. They are now some of my favorite places. I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere but all of my anywhere is outside. It’s my everywhere. Where does someone stay when their staying place is the place you aren’t allowed?

I’ve been pushing garden through it. Because I need people to garden through it for me. I can’t. I don’t have a garden. I am not a gardener. I want everyone else to be. I should be able to be one but am not that certain of myself yet. My dad had a garden. My dad was a gardener. I am struggling to get myself to do it. I’m not him. I’m me. It’s growing full of weeds I once removed and I’m frustrated he is dead and didn’t weed his garden. I don’t have a tiller. I don’t know if I have a garden in me just the plants to make one. I miss my dads garden.

I took 18 minutes to log in to anything this morning. My phone is gone and I have a new one which means I have nothing from my old phone because I do not know how to get my everything onto this phone. I know like 3 phone numbers In my memory. My old home phone from when I grew up and my aunts. And work. Plus remnants of everyone’s. I’ve mixed and matched numbers to try and get them to be the ones I want but they are always someone new. I don’t have any of my apps. Which was my bank, this one and the ones they give you and won’t let you delete to see the full screen picture on your thousand dollar glass box.

I wanted to make sure I kept writing daily in this format. Through all of this I’m writing through it so I can see my self through it and the see that I made it through it. Through it to the other side of fear. More fear. But, I had to login to get through it this morning. I had to remember my password for my email which is not accessible on the new device to retrieve the link to be retrieved and put into this place. I almost just hand wrote. I even started but it turned into a letter to my librarian whom I miss but don’t know. I just needed to write through it.

What is even worse is this was my mother’s phone. Just like my old one only in all of its pieces. It’s a more whole phone. She got an upgrade. She loves upgrades. Until she is all the way upgraded all of her things are on here but it is my number. Just nothing of mine. Not even my face works to make it work.

I’m overwhelmed with the amount of notifications she receives. She is bothered by things about every 2-11 minutes. Conversations, polish pottery updates, threads about dogs, lightning strikes nearby, news happening here and also all over the world, security breeches, death tolls, lost cats, more polish pottery bids, and finally, updates. It’s exhausting. I wonder if she doesn’t know how to not be notified. Or if she just wants to be. Why does she want to know so many things about so many other things? Maybe this is how she gets through things by being notified.

I have access to her Facebook page. I warned her. She didn’t care. She said just be nice. I posted a picture of the sunset with my dads church in the background as I was leaving work to her page. It was so not like me. I shared. I drove up that bridge looked over and saw the church, a tear formed in my eye. The sun all of a sudden made the sky glow like a fire burning through the clouds. The sunset got right through it. I had to pull over and see it. I pulled into a construction zone and just stopped. It took my breath away. I went around the corner to see it from the other bridge then back to the same bridge to see it again. I kept circling until it set. I chased the sunset. Then I got a picture for myself realizing it is not myselfs phone. So I shared it for my mom. From me to her. To help her through this.

Then I perused through her Non news feed. Just to see what it was like. It was like perusing through a non news feed. I was quickly bored and a little irritated I clicked on one to read what people said about something with masks and free speech….One lady said, “I bet they won’t think this is no big deal when there grandmother is breathing her last breaths on a vent alone in the hospital!” She even attached an angry face! What!?!? Is what I was thinking. Who in their right mind would wish this kind of thing for someone to imagine? Did it happen to her personally? And she hopes we all have to feel her pain? We all die alone. You don’t get to take people and things or stuffed animals with you. It’s your last breath all on your own. It’s the most afraid and brave anyone can be. Imagine that? It has nothing to do with anyone sitting with you ever. If or when this happens to my grandmother she will be ok. I will be ok. She has her faith and it leaks out onto me so I feel she will be ok. Like my dad is/was. I felt this lady’s pain. All the way through my sleep. She is angry. It said so. With the angry face.

I quickly Facebook stalked a business rival to see that they are still afraid and then I left everyone alone. I didn’t want to know anything about anyone. It was a fantastic test. I still do not need a Facebook account.

I am still afraid of people who are afraid of people, including themselves. It’s been weeks. I currently don’t have this virus and could have at some point but it’s so unlikely because of the amount of people who don’t have it around me. Which is everyone. If I had it I would think I would have been sharing it with the mailman, my grocer, Walgreens lady, my kids, my mother. Some people I don’t know who also get gas. I just don’t feel like a deadly person. I also don’t feel selfish. What I do feel is nervous of the people who think this of me who don’t know me. They think I’m selfish, unafraid and want to think of painful horrible ways my grandmother could die.

I am afraid of this virus. I wish a garden center full of people all covered in cute masks made me feel safe but a garden center full of people in cute masks is the most terrifying thing I can think of. That’s the image the posting lady should make me see. The one I have to see. The one I have to be part of. The one I’m living in. It’s terrifying enough. It’s gardening. It’s outdoors. It’s open space. It’s terrifying that I have people terrified of this. I don’t need help imagining terrifying things. I have to keep them at bay myself.

I wore my mask when I was in others space. Which wasn’t often. I am comfortable enough with the fact I don’t think I harbor dangerous viruses right now that I can wait a second to walk an area to water to keep distance. So I can breath. Then I panic breath through my mask until I nearly hyperventilate in my mind to be certain that others feel safe from me. It’s a small price to pay right now. I’m less whiny in my mind about it but clearly still a little whiny about it. I can breath through it. It’s harder but not impossible. I am in the end responsible for myself even with the rules laid out.

This virus is going to divide us even more. I see it in the people who work with me and now the people who don’t. The customer interactions have changed. Our business chose a path and is following it. Some did not. But so many have found us. It feels like a this side of fear and that side of fear. There is no no fear. We are all afraid of this and everything or something. It’s your through it that varies. The other side of fear is still fear. It’s how you get from this side to that one. Which is still afraid. Too many sides is what this is making. It’s very scary to get through.

It’s May, finally. May Day. We should be celebrating spring, or fertility, or the union of feminine and masculine….dancing around a May pole with ribbons and decorated brightly with flowers, and eating cake. There is always cake.

I haven’t done the maypole dance since grade school. It was the most confusing form of physical education to me. Sometimes we did it when it wasn’t May. It was weird. I think of my pe teacher at the time and the weird maypole dance only makes a tiny bit of sense as relates to her. Not enough to really maybe make it make sense. We just did odd things to get exercise like try and weave ribbons around a pole to music. Also the parachute thing was weird. We lifted it up and would run under and try to make it to the other side while others tried to pull the parachute down and trap you. All strange memorable yet forgettable moments in time.

April took both a year to get through and also seemed like a blink. The daily grind of no daily grind wasn’t memorable enough to make the long drawn out month feel as long and drawn out as it felt. It wasn’t memorable. It’s forgettable. Except my dad died. In April. That’s was both memorable and forgettable. Depending on the day.

He is still dead in May. But at least it’s finally May. I never wish for a time frame gone. Maybe not never but rarely. I don’t want to rush a moment to get to the next, I can’t usually anyway. I’m too worried I won’t get to the next. This is my season. Spring isn’t my favorite season but it’s my busiest. I can’t pick a favorite season. I also don’t believe there are just the four. I have early, mid and late seasons of each season. I love that mine change. That I don’t have predictable weather patterns. I would get bored. Spring is now. But for me its almost mid. I am in the early to mid spring in May.

I am having severe angst over my mask. I know I should wear one. I also know I won’t be forced to. I also know I did one day in the store and peed a little from the rush of feeling suffocated. I also know there will be critics. There will be critics for me attempting to and for me not being able to. I will touch it all the time. I am a face toucher and a hair toucher. I can’t control it. I know most of what I am struggling with is in my head. Or on it? But my head isn’t always controlled by my head. My thoughts do this.

I have so much Im frustrated with today. It is mostly masks and taxes. So not so much just maybe two things. Three of I count my mailman. Which I do. I can’t call the taxes place. I want to go there. They aren’t open apparently yet the stimulus checks people receive are coming from them. I am not a people who has even received a stimulus check. It is likely because they aren’t sure who I am from all the errors I have made on my taxes. Proving annually who I say I am after entering a single number wrong because of who I am. I don’t care about the stimulus check but it’s a form of angst attached to the IRS. The tax people. The people who do taxes and make things so taxing for us who can’t tax right.

How can they send me a letter saying my address is wrong and I receive that but not the refund check sent to the same address deemed undeliverable by my mail man? Did he really doubt it was the correct address? It had a capital I instead of a 1. See how similar they look? In fact a capital I is Roman for a number 1. Roman numeral 1. Maybe I am part Roman and that’s how I write it? I’ve been here for three years and he choses this piece of mail containing thousands of my dollars undeliverable. I want his job. He delivers me bills and crap but not my federal tax return?

I can try to think of it as a savings account. If I try. My try and imagination are getting trying. Taxing. It’s becoming taxing just to imagine my taxes are being saved by not being delivered properly after I for the first time properly prepared them except for a Roman numeral 1 as my apartment number/letter.

Then I changed it. I sent them an amended return. Since I can’t call like the instructions say to do to give them my proper address. They think I’ve moved from apartment 1G to apartment IG? I’m going to confuse the tax place with all the papers and apologies for my lack of taxing skills. I amended it to say a number 1 then explained it. They likely won’t see the error and will just keep my check thinking I am someone else trying to get my check. They will then make me prove, again, I’m me and not someone else. I’m also taxed out from telling people who I am. Keep my taxes. Pay some tax bills with it or something. Maybe it will go in a fund to help clean up parks? Or a fund for corrupt business leaders? Or like a savings account for the tax place? I don’t even know what happens to money not claimed by people who claim it? It’s millions. Donate it to something. Or send it again. I don’t even know why I pay them? Just to get them back through forms with too many lines and words to make sense. I can’t imagine anymore what and where it went. It’s May now. Finally May.

My problem lies with my mailman. I see him. He is new. Not new new but mid season new. Not as seasoned as the guy who usually meanders in to deliver mail. Is the new guy angry at the mail system? Did he have a bad day that day? A divorce official. Delivered news of cancer? A dog died? He was crying and couldn’t read my address? He needs glasses and can’t afford them on his postal income? He actually dropped my check and didn’t notice and found it in the space in the seat that things go? Like fries? It’s all greasy and dirty and crumpled. Then he tells his boss and his boss is embarrassed and then decides to cover it up by saying it was undeliverable. It can go back and she can get a new cleaner check. Was it a cover up?

Maybe it is a grander scheme of a plan to get more mail money? They plan to undeliver mail randomly yet planned to show that there is a need for more funding in postal world. “I’m sorry that was undeliverable because we don’t have enough people to actually sort and deliver mail.” So they just send it back. Undeliverable. Who knows what goes on in postal world? Or taxing world? Or my mailman’s world? Or anyone’s? These are the most ridiculous taxing things I’ve ever thought. Today. May Day.

I’ve contemplated asking him. Just stopping down stairs and standing with my arms crossed at my box waiting. Tapping my foot impatiently. Then when he approaches I can just watch for a minute. Are there rules? Can I stand and watch my mailman for proper delivery then ask if he got it all. Then ask why he didn’t one day. Then over step mail boundaries even more. If there is an even more after this.

I have to let it go. I can’t let May be quite so taxing by thinking so much about taxes. I spent April thinking of my dad dead which is taxing enough for a month. I don’t want to drag May out into a forgettable memorable year like April was. The month my dad died. I want May to be a let it go month. I won’t be able to contact the tax place. I won’t be going there. I don’t even know where there is but it’s probably a state like Nebraska. I’m not going to Nebraska. It will resolve itself once I can resolve it. I will likely wait on the phone for the month of June to resolve the taxing taxes. But it’s not June it’s May. May Day. My day, not taxing day. Masking day.

Just sitting with myself.

It’s the hardest thing to do. I wasn’t quite sitting the whole time but more like still laying but sitting with myself. Just thinking of things. Nothing specific needs worked out I think. The chaos is streaming not so chaotically. I’m streaming live. Not in a stream but streaming. My sitting with myself is streaming.

I finally get up not because I don’t want to or because I even did, I was just kind of ok where I was streaming. Getting up was going to be moving to a different place. Coming out of the stream. What will happen when I stand? Can I still sit/stream/stand with myself while I emerge to the day? Usually this is when I start to not. Once I’m up everything becomes a live chaotic not free flowing stream. It becomes dammed. I start to pool and leak over.

But it didn’t happen. I watched the water go down the drain. Which still isn’t a stream. Everything I was thinking went with it. Will it clog my drain? Would a plumber come and remove the elbow and say “here is your problem right here, it looks like rocks?” I would say “that’s weird” Then he would leave and never have been there as I would have taken the drain apart myself to gather my lost rocks.

I contemplated opening a tweet account, or a twitter account. Tweeter? Just to see what would happen. I know what would happen. I would tweet it all. But I have nothing to tweet. Or I have everything to tweet? I am not a Twitter. Or tweeter. Twaut? The language alone causes me chaos. I’m ok with my tweets to myself. Not afraid to share them but just comfortable enough to keep them to myself. Is that fear? I don’t require a bird following. I don’t fly in flocks. I stream in streams.

I tried to watch a stream streaming live. Just to hear it. It frustrated me that I was on this side of the device when I wanted to be the one on the other side of device worried about dropping my device in the stream streaming. I turned my live stream off and listened to my own stream for awhile.

Nothing thinking made any sense. It just needed thought to make some sense. All the things tumbling around in my stream just need tumbled. Tumbled until they are smooth and sit quietly at the bottom to let the water flow over them. Or small enough they get deposited in large bodies of water. Then sink slowly to the bottom. Or plucked out occasionally and skipped across the water to reach the other side. Or knocked down to break the damn dam, to be able to stream live. What?

Maybe we could have clear masks? They can make so many things clear. Glass, plastic, Saran Wrap. Actually that’s not many things. How do I know if someone is smiling or not? With their eyes? I am not an eye looker. It is a solid connection. I will know in a second if they are happy or sad. I will know too much of their happy and sad. A good clear mask would solve this for me. Except we would look like we had plastic over our faces. And I would panic of all the people suffocating. Including myself when I feel this even with a cloth I can breath through but not see through of my own. And they would steam up and show all the dirty things. I also don’t want them clear. I want none of them. Unless I’m undergoing a procedure. Not while I’m streaming.

I’m creating things to not be ok. I woke ok and now am stirring up my streaming flowing stream. I do it to myself. I am a stream stirrer now. I was good and lost the good as soon as the streaming picked up. I was streaming live. Now I’m dammed up. All stirred up not streaming.

Short and sweet.

I made the cheesecake. It was the shortest recipe ever. And sweetest.

I’m eating the cheesecake.

I cried through making the cheesecake.

It doesn’t take very long. The list of steps and ingredients were very short and sweet. My dads writing for his sisters recipe barely legible as I pondered if things were tsp. Or tbls. Or a 3 or a 1. Important things? Maybe. Too much lime, since I didn’t have lemon has made it taste a bit like the lime cheesecake I sort of wanted to make but it is a sour cream cheese cake. Too much butter in the crust never seems to be a problem but not enough will make it mealy and crumble.

It didn’t worn me not to over beat the egg. But I figured any added air bubbles from wondering off from the mixer to just wonder off from the mixer would confuse the cheese and egg mixture and make it more like a fluff or maybe burn with all the extra air in it. Dad probably learned this the hard way. Then never wrote it down.

The instructions said nothing about a pan of water boiling. But many of the recipes I had looked up, before deciding to cry over my dads showed boiling pans of water. I asked my mom. She said yes. Do that. He figured that out later, she says.

I sprinkled a little kosher salt on top of the crust. To add my salty tears. Short and sweet and salty.

My dad ate food like it was going out of style. He savored it like it was the last thing he would ever eat. If asked, he would pick cheesecake as the last thing he would ever eat.

My mom told me to talk to him while I made it. I couldn’t. I talked to her. She is the one here. He is gone.

If I really think and imagine I imagine he was talking to me. Telling me to talk to my mom. Ask your mother. He said. I always wanted to ask him. Was he talking to me? In a way. In my actions I suppose. In the lack of instructions on how to make a cheese cake.

It was very short and sweet and sad and I saved it for the last thing to do for the day so I could handle the short and sweet and sad. And savor the flavor while I was so sad.

Who wants to be sad? I did. I spent the day avoiding to be able to clear the things away to be the sad. For me. I wanted my dad to see the cake. I wanted him to have a piece. I wanted it to be his last piece of short and sweet and it’s just my short and sweet. And sad. My dad.

I miss my dad. More today than yesterday. And more than some days and even less than some. I was curious if I could “feel closer” to him by partaking in a little baking which I’m only slightly fond of, but oddly good at somehow. But I’ve avoided it like the plague I’m also avoiding.

I have the spring loaded pan from his pans. I have my aunts recipe he wrote in his handwriting I can’t read. I have cream cheese my mom had when she thought she would make cheesecake. It’s still getting to room temperature on my counter and it might even just go bad. When is that? Do I need to check the temperature like meat? Can I safely assume 6 hours out is good but not bad? Does it sweat more? I can’t eat warm cheese as a rule anyway. It’s too odd. Too unsettling. Too sweaty.

I packed cheese backpacking once and it was wet and sweaty. I ended up melting it in my jet boil with a package of rice which destroyed the use of the jet boil for the next three days. Everything had bits of cheese each day boiled off… in my coffee, my oatmeal, my hot water for tea…never pack cheese again. It’s too hard to clean when cleaning isn’t done unless cooking food to boil the next day. Avoid sweaty cheese.

Now I’m avoiding. I’ve played in my mind what it will be like. It will be a disaster that will be wonderful? If I ever do it.

But I’m avoiding. I went to work for awhile when I don’t work today. I was annoyed I didn’t have to water. I stayed too long trying to find ways to help. I went to the store when I didn’t need anything. Which is a rule. I priced compared and purchased renters insurance to avoid dramatic property loss from microwave fires, I like dried my laundry instead of using the dryer everyone uses. I finished a book. Cleaned my fridge and my moms.

I went back to my moms and watched her move her furniture and rugs to plan to buy new furniture and rugs. “Something cheery.”She says, showing me hues of earth tones and muted soft greens. They don’t sound cheery. They sound eerily eery. They sound like dad only slightly less colorful. Missing the maroons and reds. Who is my mom without my dad? She may not even know herself? I say “what about a bright coral or yellow? That’s cheery.” She says obnoxious. This is also true. We agree to disagree.

I like my obnoxious colors in the woods. I love to blend sometimes but mostly I want to be seen. Not unseen. I don’t want to be shot is my main thing. Somehow mistaken for an animal too hunt, although those stories are strange when I read them. I have been in the woods a lot, not as hunter, but as a human and not once did I see a person walking on two legs look as an animal to hunt. If I tried to put myself into a hunter mindset I panic too much about how you have to be so quiet and have to blend in the woods to stalk animals to eat. I like others to hunt for me. Like cow farmers and butchers.

This reminds me of a date I went on. A first date. Not second or tenth but first. We went hunting. On his land. He layered me with camo and we sat on 4 wheelers and went to sit in a blind to stalk deer. He was currently stalking one. He planted clover fields. He had salt chunks. He knew more about this deer and his habits than I felt comfortable with. I couldn’t talk. I tried and he told me I shouldn’t. I would scare the prospective food. He timed me once to see how long I could go not talking. It was eleven seconds. I was hoping for a little action. Not that kind. But a little hunting. I’m not sure what. I was expecting him to land on the deer from a tree he slept in and wrangle and wrestle the animal until he won. Maybe a good chase through the woods with spears and daggers he made from stones and sticks he carved through the night.

I would cheer from the stands or the blinds or from the cave and we would eat his fresh kill. But I’m not a cave person apparently. There is no struggle and fight. It is all wit. I was bored. We went to dinner and I ate so much from all the sitting and waiting and not talking. He called me a good eater. I felt so proud like a child being told she ate all her green beans, yet disappointed for not getting a proper solid compliment like, you are so beautiful. Just I am a good eater. He would feed me well is what he was thinking. I never saw him again. Well, except once, he is a deputy and I saw him once patrolling. I’m a good driver now so that never happens again. I’m avoiding him so I never have to go hunting again.

If I want to be unseen I will hide not blend in. My mom is trying to blend. Discover who she is with a little of who they were together. She doesn’t want to hide either. Just be seen. Just not in an obnoxious manner. That’s not her? My mom is anything but an avoider. She was the doer.

She went through a lot of window treatments in the few days after he passed. They did need changed but she went from curtains to blinds to bigger blinds to curtains and blinds back to pretty much what was there only new. Us girls just screwing up and undoing and doing the changes she needs to feel a little relief, or settled, or feel nothing.

I’m doing the same thing today. Replacing my thoughts with things more entertaining to think. Should I get a bird? A paddle board? Maybe a kayak? What about a few new t-shirts? I just minimized, minimalised? my wardrobe, removed anything I didn’t wear. I now own almost nothing to wear. I don’t know who I am when I wear things. That sounds like I’m void of clothes all the time. I work a job that requires a specific shirt, some pants or shorts and my belt with pruners. I work so much that outside of work I’m just sleeping or backpacking. Why have so many clothes? I was also buying them at second hand stores to see who I was by trying on who others were. It wasn’t helping. I ended up needing to buy hangers. So instead I just gave all my, someone else’s, clothes away. I just need undergarments daily. And what I wear for work. Other than that I kept two pairs of board shorts and three t-shirts. And socks. Holy cow! I had socks from years ago with heels void that I never wore. I did keep all of my dresses. One can never have too many dresses with no where to wear them to. They are too lovely. I play dress up sometimes. I’m contemplating doing this right now. I’m avoiding.

I want to bake this cheesecake to do something I don’t want to do. Feel close to someone who I can’t physically bake a cheesecake with. It’s too hard. It’s such a far stretch of my over active imagination. This entire problem makes me feel close to him in of itself. He avoided things like the plague too. It’s why he baked. It’s why I bake. It’s not therapeutic, or healing or calming. I get tense, irritable, quit measuring and following directions, drop things, don’t clean up after myself, forget it’s baking… but it’s all mine. All those struggles are mine and not the rest of the worlds. I can let go and embrace the mess that I am about embrace and make. I can let go and make it. Make the cake. Bake the cake or forget your baking the cake. Bake the cake and avoid the rest of the messes.

I am a doer. I am half my mom too. I’m a nightmare mix of two of the most opposite people I’ve ever known. I avoid for some time and most the time, then I do. It’s my mom in me. She is still here and that’s who I feel close to today. I miss my dad and his messes and know I can make a good proper mess like he taught me as soon as I do it like my mom taught me.

I have never had a stove that worked. Mostly the timers. None I’ve owned have had timers. This is challenging for me since I don’t keep track of my attention well. It also wouldn’t matter. A buzzer alarming of food done isn’t always a signal for me to know what the buzzer was for. I have always guessed when food is ready by learning when it’s not and when it’s too late for ready.

Growing up my dad always had a stove that was a step too complicated for me. Maybe even for him. It had a timer. And more knobs than I thought one needed. To this day I can’t turn his on. Once I tried and blew a breaker for the kitchen. The stove I have now has no timer and sits wonky. I have tried to level it but the more I level the more un level it gets.

My old house had an amazing kitchen. Mostly the cabinets. They were lovely walnut cabinets in a sunshine yellow kitchen with 1970 almond yellow appliances that when we finally had to replace them took several men to move. You couldn’t scoot them for anything. What about a stove today is lighter weight than say 60 years ago? What gets taken out? Or removed for lack of use? I always wanted to take that almond yellow stove apart and see if in fact it held rocks being heated to bake. It made amazing pizzas once I figured out how long it took to make amazing pizzas.

Before that I had a stove that was brand new. Then broke not even a week into owning it. I never used the oven again. We moved. I cooked on a pizza rotating cooker or the microwave. I can make amazing meals in a microwave.

Before this I had the tiniest stove and oven one could ever imagine next to that kids one that makes brownies with a light bulb. Easy bake. The easy bake. This little stove reminded me of an easy bake. It had to be lit with a match to ignite the oven. It exploded back into your face if you held the gas on to long without igniting right away. I was scared to death of this oven. A pizza didn’t fit in it. Neither did a 9×13 pan. That’s how small it was. My life was tiny pizzas and smaller pans of brownies and scorched eyebrows.

Before that my dad cooked and baked for my life. He could really mess up a kitchen. Music blaring loudly and flour flying everywhere. It seemed to be somewhere he could let go. And out came cake. For me when I let go, give in, I am giving up and expect chaos to ensue. I’m learning I just might get cake. That messes and ease of life can give you cake. Is it perfect?

I can’t do perfect. Who can? My piano teacher told me perfect practice is the only way to become perfect. So? I rarely practiced. It’s unachievable. And unnecessary. I imagine that some music pieces were even written out of imperfection. A missed note or beat to present a different way to make the note or beat. Better? No different. Mozart didn’t write perfect music, just beautiful music. I don’t play it perfectly, I just play it. I read what was written and play. Perfect. Never. I would have had to practice my entire life. And I don’t like to practice for perfection. I’m just a little faultier than that.

I’m exhausted with any attempt I have made to read the news. I do daily right now to see if there are any new rules. Not knowing the rules doesn’t give you no speeding ticket. They project. The models. The people who’s job it is to project with models. Input numbers to bring out more or less. How could they even work? Who are these people? Top world scientists, the greatest minds full of projections and assumptions. Do they feel proud to be right? Do they get a bonus? Are they scorned for numbers being less? That’s a win right? For our top scientists to be wrong.

I am remote learning. In the most remote places I can find to teach right now. I can’t think of all the people who are doing it better than me. The people who wake daily and plug in and connect and whip out perfect little learners before their coffee. I have to have my coffee first. I’m not going for perfect today or any day. It was expected of me for too many years. I almost feel like imperfection is a goal. It’s attainable and once accomplished can feel like accomplishment. I have imperfect kids. I am imperfect. We live and love in an imperfect world while making imperfect decisions to learn to be a little less imperfect but not perfect. It’s all I have got. Imperfect.

Do what works for you. It can’t work for everyone. I have basic communication with the kids teachers to let them know they are still just as imperfect. They write them letters and draw them pictures and we share a few photos of places they go. If I could do more I would. I’m a single and my coffee shop is closed almost all day. I would need more coffee. It’s open only a few hours a day starting this week and the line blocks traffic all the way to my apartment. Maybe I could pack my kids in the car and we could do math while we wait for coffee. I think not.

I’m planning to mess up my kitchen really good today. I want to make cheesecake. I’ve never made cheesecake. My dad always tried. He was always looking for it to come out perfect. His perfect cheese cakes were always cracked, crumbled, once a puddle like substance in the middle that was like a cheese pudding. Gross. They were always delicious. It was his stove. He had too many knobs and buttons to make it tell him what was what. He liked this challenge. He liked the top to be one way and the oven to be another. He liked too many burners with too many things too clean when he forgot he was cooking. The stove was always scorched with various attempts at sauces and mixes and he just didn’t care. He just wanted to make cake. When life is hard, which is always, make a really hard cake. The harder the better. I imagine it showed him no matter the effort and the fancy stove you still get an imperfect perfect cracked cheesecake. And a big mess.

Imperfect-not perfect; faulty or incomplete.