2023-03-04 - 7:30 a.m.

I did not bring my car in.
I did not go drum.
I was just exausted by Friday night after a few days of working.

Maybe only a couple days of working? YEAH Truth be told
Really only a few hours a couple days for two different clients.

It is exhausting doing a careful read and analysis and not wanting to miss a thing that could present risk and any surprise down the road.

My job is kinda like playing chess.

I am not a good chess player truth be told!! HA So that is perhaps an awful analogy.

Chess requires excellent visualization skills. Seeing the Queen's Gambit helped me realize WHY I am not a good chess player.

I have trouble with visualization of things. I am not the visual artist.

I am the weaver of words
the enjoyer of aesthetic that someone else puts together.

I think of a friend who said same of herself but then when I went to her house it looked like it could have been a Better Homes and Gardens model home. I mean her home made me want to WRITE a lovely article about it! HA HA

My bestie would tell me to describe it .

I think she would descibe in great details the colors, how upon driving up you see a cottage with popping of blue on porch trim and a yard just bursting with blooms in bright pinks yellows and blues. She would have the words for every shade of each

She is the real writer

Who can find the words
YET can't spell

and sometimes with apasia finds the wrong word or it takes a while.

My best friend has been diagnosed with dementia.

This is not a surprise to me. I understand and know the symptoms and saw the symptoms
Her apashia
Her ministrokes and her PTSD and deep deep trauma and her bipolar are all very clear.

And I wish I could capture her words as she poeticlly shares them

But it is exausting. I can't type as quickly as she speaks in her quick and yes pressured speech bubbling over in anxiety at times but at other times in sheer exhuberant joy and appreachiation of the beauty she sees and shares

as she sits upon waking to take in the sunrise from the window on the California coast
and describes what she sees
first from a distance
the ocean and sky
then the shore and the pier, including fine details- upon last descroption a fire hose
a poetic rendering of how she took in the simple fire hose off a pier with birds flying overhead
then the parking lot , including finally the upclose desciption of what she saw just in her window
treasures gathered and held onto as they senimentally reminded her of those that she loves

A kite with Superman she was fixing and looking forward to fly in honor of a boy she helped raise
in someone else's home

that sat in the car
behind where her bedroll of comforters and blankets created a safe place for her to sleep
when the windows were covered at night.

I have documents capturing her words ( Some not all as some flew by too quickly and are like art created only for the moment of the witness)

Her life is theater at its finest
Performance full of heart
and tragedy

such depth and such emotive movements
that I think the impact is so strong
that it creates a visceral reaction

both a pulling in
attraction
and then repulsion
wanting to not feel so deeply

so rejection
to the point of not trusting it is real

This is just the more dramatic playing out of what so many experience at smaller moments of their lives,
in less profoundly clear ways

The friends/lovers who seek intimacy then pull back beause it is terrifying when one gets to close to seeing who they really are.
Its like her intensity creates greater risk in minds of many
as her energy is so strong
YET
as one friend who said when met her

She has powerful healing energy

That same energy that can heal can also be destructive.

The sad thing is I think she can't heal herself and her own self needs nurturing and it is hard for her to find a safe place to land to trust and accept it.
Her own fleeing
her own rejection is what is the biggest challenge

She is happiest and at her best when caretaker of others

YET they never fully trust her
and I think it is not because she is not trusworthy

BUT because she does not trust.

It is hard to trust someone who is so guarded
who is so broken

who is so independent and solitary and free and will never be contrained and relies on movement and flow of energy

She is like water that flows into lives and keeps moving

constant force
It can sooth or be destructive if too much.

So I listen as she speaks and capture her words and have told her I would love to help her tell her story as I can type and spell and navigate some things of this world just a bit better than she.

But yet she is the poet
the artist
the creative force that does spin such beauty

She also loves to paint and I remember one of my favorite things was that her home when she had her own space was such a beautful one
a curator of art
just georgous things

Which she let go of
gave away
stored some but at some point accepted non attachment as the only practical means for her to navigate this world

I know her truth is she was trying to let go
of this world
because the pain started to get consistent
intense

I am glad she has not chosen to check out

Yet at the same time don't fear her choices

I am at peace with her being who she is and choosing her life on her terms

I think of The Glass Castle
and how in the end the mother of that writer did help her mom find home and a place for her work in this world

I have this fantasy that my friend is not really destitute
that there was some secret life ( though I am sure it is not true)
Some means of her having squirrled away
means for a quiet retirement on an island with a home and her version of paradise

It would be a good story
no more or less interesting than her reality

But it would offer a place to sleep other than WalMart parking lots across the country when traveling
and coastal side streets in towns where the car might not be noticed and will be safe for a night
which is within a walk to the beach

to watch the sunrise.

So today I am grateful for my bed in my home and happy to just BE HERE as I awoke to take in the beautiful pink layers of clouds streaking across the baby blue of sky behind the grey brown trees with thinned winter evergreen leaves and just few deciduous rust colored, dried? or early blossoms? peeking out here and there
In winter the view is lovely as it is not the thick foliage but I can see the sky beyond.

I went on a winter hike recently and the vista was remarkable

What struck me most on that hike was seeing a mountain range in the distance
in regocnition

It was a remarkable moment for me
as I went on a drive and did not know where I would end up
but knew I wanted to walk in the woods

It was like the mountains were calling
and I had to respond

I have days
moments like that sometimes

Just the compusion to climb

I took my car, Mx McGoo as so named by my friends and I

and my dog

for a drive, thinking I was going to drive but a few miles to find a hidden gem in my town. There is land owned by the town, near (or including) a water reseviour which I only heard of as there was discussion of whetehr they were going to open it to the public to make it a public park or not.

Apparently it has been the hidden, kind of secret park of adventuarous trespassers for years.

My kind of park....
HA HA

I mean , I am not opposed to finding beautiful land that honestly in a bit of overt adverse possession the public has enjoyed without compliant of owner.

Maybe somoeon could go file suit to claim it IS a park via adverse possesion! That might be a fun use of the law

but not necesssary as the town is already considering it. It might have already BECOME A PARK
but not likely as then I likely could have found it. I did not find it.

I drove to where I THINK it is but did not find an access point. I may have missed it. I am sure it is hidden in plain sight so to speak but one has to KNOW it is there.

So I then pulled out google maps app and looked at the surrounding area. I found a lake on the map
never heard of before

and just decided to try to go there
see if any access point.

I wanted the water
I wanted the resivori I heard is wonderful to hike and visit

Figured this small lake on the map might be nice.

It turned out to be private property. No access - but for the road clearly demarked PRIVATE

CLEARLY not an invitation and space with any welcome to strangers. More like don't drive up this country road unless you are ready to be shot at in self defense kinda country vibe there.....

But I was thoroughly enjoying the drive in the country and then I found a road nearby
with the rather well named

APPALACHIAN TRAIL ROAD

YEAH!! and I took the slow ( oh very slow) winding drive following the road up the mountain, where I hiked up with my dog until we joined this georgous part of the Appalachian Trail.

I did not have energy to continue the hike ( and it was too late in the day) unti found the WVA line. ( That is always fun, and there is definately a feeling of accomplishment just seeing a border crossing into another state on a hiking trail. Another time...)

BUT
even before hitting the Appalacian trail itself, there is the loveliest hike up the rocky mountain trail. It is a beautiful trail with carfully places stones to create steps. Someone created this amazing work of art

I mean itself is a work of art crafted on this mountain side.

Those steps-
the stones places or cut out to make a rough hewn natural looking path

yet the hand, design of minds behind them when you look at it carefully is really clear.

So increidbly done with such mastery. I wonder who made this trail, how long ago.

There is the Potomac Appalacian Trail Club that maintains these trails. Volunteers who lovingly tend to them.

I am grateful for their work.

I climbed up this lovely walk ( after the very slow drive grateful my car made it), and there is a rocky area to walk on- with an amazing view. Large rocks forming cliff over the side of the mountain that offer a georgous space to stop and take in the view. I don't know if anyone cleared trees on the other side to preserve the view or it is it just naturally there, how the growth has developed on that mountain leaving this spacious wind swept area that allows such vista.

I just tried to look up the right words-- perhaps a butte?? I don't know but this flat formation of large rocks which are a cliff and then below there are trees but it is a steep drop- a flat area high above the surrounding mountain side ( yet the mountain is still rising in gengle slopt up- its on the side of this mountain) s
and in winter, with the foliage dead but just trees stalks
there is such a view in the distance.

So this was the remarkable thing to me. It felt so special and miraculous in a way

I looked out, to my left and the horizon was so georgous

and I was looking at the etching of a neighboring mountain range

The clear lines of the range off set by stark clear blue sky and the colors of the late afternoon sun on that bright day ( it was around 3:30 pm on a day the sun set around 5:40)

I had seen that outline of the mountain before

On the tattoo of my young lover
who grew up in that mountain range

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