This Is a Run-on Sentence
seven days of thoughts, recommendations, and questions we may or may not have answers for.
We are getting ready for our post-legislative session/Hey, I’ve missed you/beginning-of-summer/thank-goddess-for-all-those-airline-miles-visiting-your-brother-in-the(laugh-sob)nursing-home-since-the-accident-for-almost-a-year trip on Sunday. I’ll be away for two weeks and returning home to have Little with me for the summer since he’s still too young (by 3+ years) to attend the summer camp where Moonie will be with her best buds.
What I’m trying to say is thank you. For your soft and your steady and for being here when I am not always here and for ebbing with my flowing. There’s been a lot of changes around here— I think they’re good, really. If you hate them that’s fair, but I don’t see things returning to the way they were because I’m not that person anymore. I still get small when I feel as though I’m not always living up to my original word but that’s the thing about them, isn’t it? My Word rarely changes but the words here will and do. They have to. I’m looking forward to bringing you deeper into the intention and Knowing of being in the kitchen and how you approach food//preparing it while drifting further away from precision recipes. I’m bringing you along for more experimental and lyrical writing- my strong suit and my edge which will leave both of us satiated. Stay tuned for the stories//recipes of my micro-bakery, Butter Moon Bake Co, coming in late June for paid subscribers.
If my writing marks you, share it. If you hate it, share it. Both help. Two things can be true.
I love you.
How many skylines do you recognize? I don’t recommend getting a little stoned and typing what will the earth be like in 75 years into a search engine. You want it because it’s familiar but set that down. What does it mean to pray and what do you pray to? Remember swimming back to the shore and how horrifying underneath the dock was? Set out tiny dishes of water with the tiniest sprinkle of sugar for the giant jumping spider that lives in the nasturtium near the window. Spill the water meant for the nasturtium when you don’t immediately realize said jumping spider is right there. Apologize to her for hollering. Find yourself randomly laughing for two days about the phrase in the family way. Lust after a slice of tomato off the vine with a sprinkle of salt— 4 weeks out. You are as old as water. Dont trip on the hose that you left in the middle of the walkway and when you do, you have nobody to be irritated at but yourself. Make tiny cakes. What are you afraid of? Pull some of the weeds but leave some behind, too. Decide that was a terrible idea because bindweed is a bitch but I do have to admit that it’s rather beautiful the way it vines. I think I’ll let it grow. Remember three-way calls? Think about what you would try if money wasn’t a factor. Who made you believe in love? Don’t try to comprehend a billion dollars but when you do (try to) comprehend, let yourself wilt. Learn how to say a simple word in 3 different languages today. Remember recording songs from the radio onto a cassette tape? Cry in public. Tell people you love them but, like, really love them. Don’t kill bugs but mosquitos don’t count if they land on you. Make a sauce. Don’t be embarrassed if the seatbelt-bar-whatever-the-fuck-it-is of the Sea Dragon at the amusement park won’t latch because your thighs are too big. Who taught you to trust? Sob over the news and then put your feet on the dirt and don’t watch it again for awhile. Look through a photo album and if you don’t have one cry about it and ask a friend to look at their’s. Be in water. Cry about how fucking stupid the commodification of water is. Get a little stoned and type orcas eating the livers of great white sharks into the search engine. Download Duck Duck Go as your new browser. Stop using AI, for real. Go to your friend’s house and lay on their couch for an entire day doing nothing and talking about everything. Let (your) kids be weirdos. Roast some strawberries (low heat and slowly for best results). Get a few mismatched salad plates from the thrift for levity. Read something by a transfemme this week. Thank a caretaker. Be naked for another reason besides showering or bathing. Bake a kumquat upside down cake (no, really) bonus points if one of your most beloved people packs kumquats for you in a compostable bag at three pm after two cocktails in LA during spring from their kumquat tree before you get in the car and head for the airport. Have sex with someone you trust even if it’s just yourself and if you don’t trust yourself you could take this opportunity to just be naked for a bit. Grow something, anything. Scrub your body. Watch a Susan Sarandon film. Cry because you lost your wallet. Cry harder when your husband gets you to see that this time everything will not come crashing down just because you lost your wallet. Find your wallet exactly seven days later in the place your spouse, your eldest, and yourself looked. Listen to Can I Talk My Shit? by Vagabond. Make a passion fruit curd to stir into Greek yogurt or eat by the spoonful. I don’t care what people say, vegan curds are still delicious. Listen to someone talk about something you know nothing about. Have your sex thwarted by the sounds of waterfall-like barfing coming from the hallway. Fuck-off an entire day with your barfy kid. Find poems to pass along. Press a flower. Go for a walk around the block as soon as you wake up. Clean the baseboards. Be curious about the pull true-crime still has on you. Decide you’ll still partake, for now, but take more and longer breaks in between because jfc what is wrong with people. What are you really trying to say (write)? Say that. Was I a good enough mom today? Call your aunt who sent a message to the family thread via FB messenger that read I have breast cancer. Write a letter. Make dirty martini pasta but leave out the cream like I did if it’s too hot for all that. You are here. Read All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews. How are you? Watch Forever on Netflix. Grieve the parts of you that love live music but cannot be in live music surrounding very often. Who wants to host a tiny concert in my backyard? I’ll provide chairs. Leave the windows open. Someone asked me if I felt Survivor’s Guilt— someone that was a political prisoner for a long number of years. I told him yes, I do. Talk about holding that fact while not falling into that fact. Do the kids know how much I love being their mom? Discuss code-switching within the realm of the Haves and the Have Nots. Go to your friend’s kids school plays and sporting events. Look at a photo of your longtime childcare provider turned friend’s brand new baby and weep. Think about full circles. Watch the tables of healing turn a bit within the dynamics of your closest relationships. Be level with them— don’t come at it from above. Remember how they held you first/then/will again. Who was your great great grandmother? Do you really want to help with that thing or are you wanting something in return? What summer reading should I provide for the kids? Listen to Finding Fred wherever you listen to podcasts. Light a candle and give it your worry/intention/blessing/prayer/love. Make a giant bean salad to eat off for several days. This week I did chickpeas, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, Castelvetrano olives, cucumbers, dill, parsley and a very lemony//garlicky vinaigrette. Eat it by itself or with crackers or in a wrap with hummus. Take a bath and if you can’t take a bath, soak your feet in a giant popcorn bowl or pot. What do you want to eat? Do I expose the kids to enough of the arts? I’ve never been to the symphony. Whose starvation matters most? Quit burning white sage and use incense to cleanse your space instead. Make an indoor plant spray with 2 cups of water, 1 tsp isopropyl alcohol, 2 Tbsp neem oil, 1 Tbsp castille soap (I use peppermint) and shake it all up in a spray bottle to use once or twice a week to keep them shiny and pest-free. The hair near my occipital bone on the left side is patchy in length from making haphazard cuts for offerings. How much can you give before giving it all away? That doesn’t apply here but still, think about it.
One day someone took it all in, whatever it was. The mountains, the minerals, the ocean, the forests, people’s bodies against their will, and said let’s sell it and if that’s not depressing I don’t know what is. Resist that though, okay? Make a trade with a friend or comrade or tattoo artist. Do a favor without asking for, or expecting, something in return.
Stay soft.
Biggest love,
AR
I don't know if anyone outside your head has actually complained about your new direction, but if they do, tell 'em I said you're the MFK Fisher of our present day apocalypse. Thank you for bringing what you've got-- it's a tonic.