Rock, Poem, Photo IV

Golden Anniversary

Horizontal afternoon light down at the marina. Dry fennel, seeds falling, leaving spidery stars of tiny stamens. The plant still reaching for the sun that grew and baked and dried it. Scent still in the air, but fainter now: the rain has dampened it down.

Leaving: a note from PW, longer than usual. Family, 50, stars, coffee. A journey that came to an end. Reminders a gift I made long ago, the memory of jumping from limb to limb to limb, from blossom to blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Gaze

On one of the hikes last weekend, as we scrambled to keep the billy-goat kids on firm footing. I looked up and caught this stone. It's looking up at the peak: beautiful, volcanic spires. Somewhere between awestruck and reverent.

Articulation

A joint is the location where two bones make contact. They are constructed to allow movement and provide mechanical support.

I need a return trip to a mile-long stretch of hills out in the central valley, where I took this and the last golden picture. This was taken from the car at 60mph. I'd like to get out, spend a day, wait for different kinds of light. I like what I see.

Something about the firm foundation of this slight dip pleases me too. That purge had an interesting effect: a clearing out that I can feel in my head as well as my body. Both good and hard, grounding and disorienting. Reminds me how difficult it is to start with nothing—like no nutrients. But I'm also pleased that I'm better at it now. Clearer. More patient at moving forward, even if it's slow.

Runes

Recovering, gratefully.

I liked the splits in this silvery wood, up on Mt Shasta, and the exposed half-tunnels of whatever insects burrowed beneath its bark. I've always called wood carved this way 'wormwood', though it's not. Somehow the idea of wormwood—an ingredient in psychoactive absinthe, a poisonous star in the book of Revelation—seemed a fitting post for today.

Purge

Last night, I woke around midnight with a terrible gut ache. It accelerated violently fast, was strange, overwhelming; my gut wringing out anything disposable for hours on end. I'd never felt my body react with such purpose and detached alarm. Around 3am, a nurse on the Kaiser hotline agreed it was probably food poisoning. The rest of the night, as convulsions became less frequent, I sipped Gatorade to ward off dehydration.

Feeling weak, but much better now. My back is aching from the strain of all that wringing, but I have a sense that whatever toxin storm peaked last night is gone. Morbidly fascinated by the process. Being caught in the undertow of your own body, the instinct to struggle, the sense that nature is fighting something out within you; that rescue runs deep in your design.