“It’s to our own detriment sometimes that we can acclimate to anything.”
A friend said this on the phone the other night, and I’m still thinking about it.
It was partly his response to my realizing how quickly I’d acclimated to being around people constantly again while back East, like I was suddenly back in my “former life,” and how from this perspective, spending four years alone in the desert seems very bizarre. Extreme. How did I get by on just phone calls? How did I go months on end without hanging out with anyone in person??
But I was happy, maybe happier than ever. It was peaceful. And while I was there, I was thinking just the opposite: How did I ever survive that lifestyle of being surrounded people constantly?
It’s amazing what we get used to—and how quickly it happens.
Now I go up to Pittsburgh for a few weeks and the isolation hits hard at first. It’s peaceful but also strange, to be alone in my dad’s apartment with all his things, his presence still moving through the rooms and my days.
I’ve been living this divided life—a few weeks up in Pittsburgh, a week or two back in Maryland, and back and forth and back and forth—and each time I leave one life behind, it’s a little bittersweet, and each time I re-enter the “other” life, I am at once struck by its familiarity of “home”: everything is just where it was when I left it—my workspace, where I sleep, the books I was reading when I left, as if I’m just picking up where I left off, the way we start our days after a night away dreaming. You’d think you’d get used to the swapping back and forth, but it affects me each time on some emotional level.
Sometimes, too, I feel as if both locations are subtly competing to be “homebase.” When I’m in Maryland, I think it’s central. This is where my day job is, where most of my life happens. All the “important” stuff stays here. But then I’m in Pittsburgh, alone in my own space, and that seems like the obvious choice. This space is unmoving. It is where I can hang my hat, even if I go on the road and don’t return for six months.
All said, I love living the divided life. It leaves no space for growing restless. As soon as I’m feeling overwhelmed by days packed full of outings and lunch meetups and after-work gatherings, I can exhale up in Pittsburgh and catch up on my inner life. And after a few weeks of that, I’m ready to dive back into the world again.
✦ I had the first of what I’d call a literal “religious experience” that I may or may not write about at some point, but suffice it to say I couldn’t stop crying at church
✦ Something a friend said that rang true for me in the aftermath of my father’s death: “Everyone’s personality traits in our family have become exaggerated since J—’s diagnosis. Including mine.”
✦ A friend went to the Indianapolis zoo to see how the animals would react during the total eclipse. This is her report: “The animals all reacted differently. The birds got real noisy and then got real quiet. The lion roared right before totality. Never heard a lion roar like that. The zebras, kudus and wildebeests all disappeared. The elephants didn't do anything. The rhinos rolled in mud. The weirdest thing of all is rather embarrassing and very surprising—the male baboons got large erections. Kid you not. Crazy!” <<< crazy but not surprising!
✦ Just reiterating how lush springtime is in Maryland, how green. I’ve been blown away by it, how I’d never quite seen it in this way. Foreground green. middle-ground green, background green, every shade and hue of GREEN!
✦ What is it all for? I think as I shuffle multiple notebooks and planners and journals. Enjoyment.
✦ I really want to plant a garden … but nowhere to plant it.
✦ When you realize you’ve started collecting funeral prayer cards the way you once collected baseball cards.
✦ You cannot access faith through your mind.
✦ Cows taking shade under billboards on a farm (along Route 15)
✦ “You have your reality and I have mine” is kind of how I go about my days now…
It’s funny to me that I’ve not sent a Substack newsletter in weeks … because these past six weeks or so, I’ve been writing more than I ever have in my entire life. Mostly notes not for public consumption, things that would only make sense to me and/or that only I would care about (and let’s face it, some of these newsletters teeter on the side of “who cares” anyway). Just a note to say any quietness on my end is the result of going realllll deep into myself lately.
I have had so much clarity recently. Shocking clarity, at times. I’ve also been learning things and moving through things so quickly, I can barely keep up and haven’t had time to process it all.
Things are good.
writing
ebooks + zines
astrology readings
postcards
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