These Days - August
These Days is a series of love letters exploring days gone by in words, sounds, and the in-between. If you feel something, share something.
These days I seem to think about how all the changes came about my ways.
These days I am writing. I want to write to you away from the decisions of computers. You, who reads slowly with curiosity. I love that you’re here and I love the spaces we are creating. I want to tell you about my favorite songs and poems and things. I want to hear about yours in return. Can we do that? I invite you to score your reading of this piece with Green Arrow. That’s how it was written anyway.
These days I am moving. A few weeks ago I moved from my Capitol Hill home of 5 years to a live/work space in downtown Seattle. The spaces in-between my living and working are fusing. I smell saltwater from the window now. The cat is finding new corners. The plants are getting used to them. There are boxes nearly to the ceiling and I can’t find the toilet scrubber. The ceilings are high and the floor is concrete. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to do a cartwheel or tackle your largest project.
These days I am traveling. A few weeks ago I went to Colorado to see Big Thief and Lucinda Williams at Red Rocks just days after moving. I do not recommend traveling soon-after a move, but I do recommend seeing your favorite band at Red Rocks, even in the pouring rain and roaring thunder. We drank half-a-margarita’s and had a little dance, referencing a line from an unreleased beloved Big Thief song. Let’s fine dine the demons and give peace a chance!
These days I am bursting with adoration for rivers and Gray (my love, pictured above) and wild blueberries and huckleberries and gay cowboys and clean air and wet skin and august’s pleasures in Washington state. We jumped post-move into crystal clear waters under a waterfall near the Pacific Crest Trail and came alive again.
These days I am listening to live music as often as possible. My work takes me to magical places like Timber Fest in Carnation and Thing Fest in Port Townsend. Both lovely music festivals run by people who care deeply. Thing Fest takes place on an old Fort, with bunkers and all. How beautiful to take a place of war and turn it into a place of art. A few years ago I did an artist residency in Fort Worden where I took field recordings and turned myself into a radio transmitting messages through sounds and poems. I recorded many of the sounds in a offset of the 2 million gallon cistern deemed the Cistern Chapel. It was released last year on cassette tape on and on Bandcamp with on Hello America Stereo Cassette. While visiting the fort again I found myself revisiting my own work with reverence, which doesn’t happen often. I heard the same sounds sampled on the final recording and found myself pulled to listen. For the first time, it felt solely good and uncomplicated to listen and love.
These days I am experiencing the bounty. We don’t have a garden, so the sea is ours. My love and I go crabbing most Sundays on a pier in Seattle. We meet all sorts of folks, old and young, who love crab. The other day we caught our limit in just two hours. Then we spent two more hours boiling, cracking, and cooking crab cakes, following a Tom Douglas recipe from the ‘Seattle Cooks’ book. Nothing tastes better than something you worked for.
These days I am reading ‘How Far the Light Reaches’ By Sabrina Imbler. This book was gifted to me by a favorite person’s favorite person. I love when love flickers this way. Imbler weaves the stories of 10 different sea creatures into their personal narrative as a queer, mixed-race science and conservation journalist. My jaw has hit the floor more times that I can count. I am reading it slowly as to put it down for time in awe.
These days I am making music. I am dreaming of a band. I think we are starting one. We think it’s called False Hemlock. Tonight I am playing a John Denver Tribute at a lovely store called Filson in Ballard. I have been thinking about John’s influence on popular folk and it’s possibilities. I have been thinking about how artists write about nature and what I have to say. I hope I find the words. Maybe they’ll find you too.
Until the next one.