hold the phone

04/01/2025

you do know we can hear you when you refer to us as 'the humans', right?

yes. i think separation between an individual and the species it belongs to is important. you're name,

dear reader,

just happens to be 'the humans'.

so you are still feeling separate? outside of the procession?

i've realized and accepted that it's (whatever your 'it' it) is never going to be constant. what i know and have come to love now is the fact that i will always get in and out of the procession. i will always march alongside you, to only step away, and back again.

when do you think you're going to come back out? it's been months.

i know.

the echinacea and i are both rejoining now.

please listen. lemme explain.

from the top of July to September of 2024, i was traveling- looking to find where i wanted to relocate to after getting a divorce. traveling by train. tromping around in cities. staying in hostels. sleeping in dormitories ranging from 6-12 bunk beds. i rarely shit alone for six months*. it was an incredible experience, i'm sure i'll tell you more about.

*because the four months after deciding to stay in chicago, from September 2024 until January 1, 2025- one month was spent in two different hostels (two weeks at each), one month living with/living as a craig's list weirdo, and another two months living with/living as two craig's list weirdos.

and it's been an incredible experience.

a kind of crash course back out into the living.

and i've learned so much

and i've become so much

but it was a lot.

it's been a lot since my ex-husband hurriedly dropped me off at a bus in Rochester, ny

to today

sitting collectedly in a quiet library in Chicago, il.

i'm still averaging eight miles of walking a day.

i've been averaging eight miles a day pretty much consistently since august 2024

and here in chicago i smile at ever person i pass and wave at every driver i should communicate with.

give em kinda like an imaginary squeeze of the arm in passing.

to every

single

person

within an averaged eight miles

within the third largest city in america.

every day.

and it's a lot

but i/we must

since moving into this apartment and living alone again for the first time since 2018, the wave I've been waiting for, wondering over the location of, has come. and then it went. and i worked my tail off to keep toolboxearth going and working enough to save in order to take months off. i'm so proud of how i knew to take that time. to make that space. so proud of the courage it takes to give yourself permission to take a real break. i knew there was one more wave, despite it just all seeming like that slice when a wave ends and the sand sits until enough water collects to recede. it really seemed as though maybe it had all just collected and dispersed in knowing- in the knowns i knew.

but that's not what happened.

the water keeps collecting and cresting

and i know now

the less i search for consistency

the more i trust

this

collecting

and

cresting

the more the pieces fit

so i'm taking my time to greet the humans again. patiently observing if you'll pull me in. weaving with what's left if you don't.

and i hope you do.

i hope you consider welcoming this visual therapy into your own.

like as the water of a wave ends

lays still for a moment

and collects

then moves

againandagainandagain

it may be behind a curtain

it may be in someone's yard looking at their plants

it may be triggering

but constants create a stationary point to display distance and growth.

i keep wondering if i keep picking the same trajectory, or the people around me do. one of us is acting as the constant, and the Other the chaos within the empty room labelled growth, the distance between. the area of the room labelled growth like an empty trellis yearning for clamatis in spring.

and maybe being able to be a constant, without emotion, is the best thing we can do for each Other.

to stand stoically so anOther can see clearly

to stand outside the static noise of Self

so anOther can see clearly

as the Other

to stand as a mirror

for anOther