Get it right.

That's "ritual", assholes, not "routine".

This is a man-made pond, but it's grown out so naturally that the grass blends right back into the mounds of river rock and from there back into the golden folds of hills.

A big fish eye stares at me calmly as I trace my fingers along trout belly. He's removed the hook while I'm doing this. Without coaxing, the trout flips gracefully upright and glides back into the depths of the pond, a pleasant how-do-you-do, a handshake.

Hands on my hips, skin tawny under a noonday baking sun, a squint over the ripples left behind.

"I swear to god, that fish wanted you to pet him," he tells me in the quiet awe that follows.

This sinks in for a moment, as gently as dew to earth, and then to the business of laying the line out again.

Emotional Weather

heavy combed air

and all I am is
cat-stretched lidded-eyed
slab under cloud-sweat slather

The madness of being able to love your life it's that good.

sound for sleeping

so many heartbeats, too many to count

all thumping and thudding away on this earth

To want/to learn list

• Ukulele, and playing it
• cubby hole-type shelving for yarn
• ye olde card catalog to hold supplies
• more juggling
• home soon
• garden: vegetables, fruits, herbs
• jewelery making

Once I know exactly our living situation, it is time to start planning my studio space. Oh boy.

When the world ends

I don't remember where we were heading, except that it was out. The sky was overcast with thick clouds of smoke, an apathetic grey intermingled with factory colored plumes. The sun long hid. Bomb residue.

It's funny, looking back, at how we were going the speed limit. We thought we had time. We thought they were bombing at a distance, and plowed along through the drab landscape.

And that's when the sky suddenly lit up—bright as day, a warning flash, an all encompassing spark that heralded the oncoming nuclear bomb. It hadn't hit yet, and we suddenly slammed on the gas.

But how do you outrun a nuclear bomb heading in your direction?

Every stage flashed before me—but very abbreviated and altered stages of grief, not stages of my life. A brief denial, hoping that we could still somehow evade the oncoming warp. Complete terror at what may happen as the bomb exploded somewhere in the distance in another blinding flash. And then acceptance. Well, shit, if I'm going to die, what can I do and why freak out about it? ...And if I survive, even mutated, well, that's what's going to happen.

Of course, that's when I woke up.

I can't tell if I've been getting restful sleep in all of this. But if I can process the fear out of something like this, even if in my sleep, then maybe it's not such a bad thing, after all.

It's just especially disturbing because I can't recall any dreams I've ever had that hinted at global demise, as opposed to my own. And for some reason, death is rarely the root of my worries in these instances even if I'm dying.