I got a spider bite, a Charley horse, and my period while I was teaching last week. I kept noticing that I was happy in spite of dramatically uncomfortable physical circumstances.

I sniffed a septum piercing retainer into my nose and swallowed it. I’m not searching for it.

I taught 11 of the last 15 days and I’m teaching or facilitating 16 of the next 20. My “days off” keep filling up with calls and yesterday I found myself being rude to someone who didn’t deserve it until I finally just said “I’m too tired to really do this.” This is the level of honesty I need.

I visited my friends Alana and Malkia, who are loving each other fiercely under the weight of metastatic cancer. There was so much laughter that I lost track of precious time. Past a certain age, we are always both living and dying. Knowing or not knowing how, we deteriorate and become vulnerable and need others to hold on and let go. These beloveds are teaching me how I want to live-die, in love, in laughter.

I taught a bunch of somatics over this past month and it has me feeling so much hope about what happens when we can actually feel what’s real. It reminds me that most of us have been taught that our feelings are too much. The muffling and repression of feelings is an industry, and our work is to reclaim the full range of senses, of trusted intuition, of bodyscape memory. Our liberation as a species is tied up with the reclamation of what we can actually feel and do, both in our own miraculous bodies, and with and for each other.

I’m grateful for all the people supporting me as I feel and work and work and feel.

I blew out my right knee and have been lurching around the house, mad at myself for overriding limitations I can now feel.

There’s a voice inside me saying “give up dairy and gluten for a week and see if it helps”. But there’s a voice under that that just rage growls at the first voice while holding Jeni’s Salted Peanut Butter ice cream in one hand and pre-made tzatziki in the other. Yes, my trauma eating patterns are like those of a pregnant woman, but without the 9 month time boundary.

It’s all happening. The climate crisis is now and also moving closer, and it’s devastating to have these decision makers creating dystopic conditions that all of us will suffer in the near future.

I write things to lift my own eyes to the horizon. I’m pleased with this piece I wrote for Vice on making a better tomorrow.

I’m also pleased with how the podcast is going, we have had big talks about burnout and state violence, launched our first apocalypse skills episode, and have a very juicy inspiring conversation with electoral geniuses Jessica Byrd and Kayla Reed coming up next week.

I’ve decided Myrtle Snow is my style icon for my 40s. And I’m going to learn to make cheese rolls like they make at Arizmendi bakery this decade. I have trips to Thailand, Ireland and Belgrade planned for the next year, I keep learning how to balance nesting and migration.

I think that’s all the random bits to share. Shout out to any of you who make it all the way to the end of this rush. I’m truly in the river now, it’s moving fast, but I haven’t forgotten this poorly designed place where some of y’all just come for the words.