strong as new rope

good morning ~

(click the link / last of the teddy bear sunflowers to listen)

My Big Breakstrong as new rope

today’s track is particularly gnarly and stretched

I read somewhere that one of the best things you can do for your emotional well-being is to write down your various joys - that was the idea with today’s writing but hey, you ought to give it a shot, too

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Quiet intentional time spent in the morning reading books and drinking coffee - extremely good when done alone, somehow even better when done with my partner or with company // the way things grow around our house, the trees, the flowers, the herbs right by the porch, the wild thyme in the yard, the volunteers and the happy accidents and the lovingly cultivated, the early bloomers and the early turners and how everything lies dormant and prostrate in the winter // that deeply reassuring feeling of camaraderie that settles on a room when two or more people land upon the same resolving chord // the bracing, almost electrical shock felt in your skin and lungs when jumping into water that's a little bit colder than comfortable // the fabric-ripping, bubble-of-isolation-popping ruckus of terribly loud things // the many and extremely involved recurring jokes and parody songs that Gracelee and I have cultivated over the years, daily repeated gags that would take at least fifteen minutes to explain to an outsider // the small miracle of actually usable public transit, how a bus or a train can take you on your two feet from one place to another, usually for a reasonable fee, and how you join this beautiful international fraternity of straphangers every time you read a transit map, people all over the world are trying to get where they're going // the hypnotic, centering resonance of a very loud kick drum and how it rubs your tummy on the dance floor // the specific resonances of particular friends and how so many things remind me to text someone I love: portal friend, Shaker friend, rave friend, California friend, New York City friend, Rihanna friend, New York Mets friend, Neil Young friend, a whole group chat dedicated almost entirely to Star Trek memes // that people so often feel comfortable and kind of urgent in sharing the struggles of their lives with me, a kind of uncannily common experience - any kind of person from a stranger to a friend might suddenly open up in a deep and vulnerable way (I must protect whatever quality I possess that makes this so, and nourish it like a newborn flame it wet wood) // things that happen once a year and are particular to specific places like the county fair, or a local destruction derby, or the unbelievable Tugboat Roundup, which is exactly what it sounds like - a bunch of tugboats (and miniature tugboats!) docked at lock 2 of the Erie Canal, offering tours and fireworks and an eyebrow-raisingly named "Parade of Tugs." These are quaint miracles, vernacular, necessary gatherings of people and their energies that give me far more and deper joy than any expectation-heavy, commercialized holiday ever could, I mark the seasons' change among their throngs, I am in the stands, I am on the dock, I aspire (and fail often, yet) to never be too cool to enjoy // sounds where I live: trees in the wind, raptor calls cutting on the breeze, the creek between our house and our neighbors' place rushing insanely after a rain, the riotous nighttime bugs, the whoosh of a car on wet asphalt, the holy hush of snow blanketing, the constant sound of techno coming from my wife's various devices, inevitably left on long after she's left the room, our hoots echoing off the quarry when we sled down to the road, and in the distance the whine of a choo choo // every day of my life I say a prayer of thanks to the folks that made my beautiful piano possible, it makes my singing sound beautiful to me, we fill up the house // the deep and infinite possibilities of unstructured time in a dense urban place, you will never exhaust the options available // walking over bridges, or maybe just bridges generally // being known and vocally cherished by so many that I know and vocally cherish, how I've grown to live unflinchingly in the light of a friend's I Love You // watching those cherished and beloved do or accomplish something unquestionably excellent or inarguably amazing, knowing that they are yours and in your orbit, that your gravities act upon each other, that their light reaches you // moving my body and how it often makes me feel amazing (although resentful of this fact, too, how could it actually be true that exercising equals happy?) // the transportive and escapist basking of a matinee movie at an actual movie theater, dreaming someone else's dream for a while and then walking outside and it still being sunny and beautiful out (how the dark is made velvety by the bright and how the brightness is made brilliant by the depth of the dark) // various delicious things: nasturtium leaves grown up the hill and bathing in lemon juice, summer tomato sandwiches (when they don't give me a stomach ache), perfectly made and beautifully roasted coffee (when it doesn't give me a stomach ache), white rice topped with basically anything when it's still fresh, a handful of chives on a salted fried egg, a date from California, a crisp apple from down the street, the peanutty freshness of a dipped summer roll, the ice cream my friend makes // the unbelievable satisfaction that comes from first getting a freelance gig (relief) and then subsequently doing very well at it, how you can feel you've made an improvement on someone's life just by doing what they've asked of you for a fair price // the fleeting moments when I can truly acknowledge my own beauty, all too rare (and so barely dependent at all on what my physical form actually looks like) // when the connection between myself and another person suddenly feels undeniably sturdy, that a single act or shared interaction can galvanize something provisional, that the mutual care I feel for the people in my life has a tangible heft to it, it is as present and as observable as an upturned stone, the bonds are not everlasting or cosmic but they are bolstered, as my father-in-law would say they're "strong as new rope"

But what about you? How’s that list of things you’re grateful for looking today? Are you taking stock? What’s the best thing you ate this summer?