Beltane (1 May 2018)

Beltane (May Day) is an ancient Celtic festival; one associated with fire, sex, fertility, and renewal. It is the day the Maiden goddess comes together with the Green Man - they fall in love and consummate their union to become the May Queen and May King. The Wheel of the Year turns, and so we move from the tenderness and tentativeness of Spring into the fullness and vitality of Summer. 

Hawthorn, or May flowers. Hawthorn, birch, and rowan are the trees sacred to Beltane. Hawthorn is the tree of sexuality and fertility, while birch represents love and fertility. Rowan is the tree of healing and protection. 

The Beltane Fire Festival, in Scotland. 

May Day was the traditional time for handfasting ceremonies, where couples would come together and declare a betrothal period of a year-and-a-day. After the time was up, they could choose to part without any stigma or community ill-will. 

I'm near my year-and-a-day mark here in Boston (May 23). There have been many times this past wheel-turn where I would have broken the union if I could. Boston, for all its historic charms, is as uncomfortable as an ill-fitting wool sweater. I'm not happy here. This is not my home. I think that as long as I live here, I'll still feel temporary. 

But I want to feel temporary here. I want my bones to know that I feel their ache: the way they separate, pulling West; the way they burn cold at the touch of the Atlantic, like a heathen at a baptism. The ache means we haven't settled. And that's settled two ways: we haven't dug in, found permanence, and we won't acquiesce to a place that doesn't feel right. 

The violets here are different than the ones out west, but I still love them. 

I have been hibernating here, or something close to it. I enjoyed the brief Boston summer last year, and the gentle if short autumn. But I haven't been happy often. I know I'm depressed, but it's not a sadness. More than anything it's a grayness, a total lack of motivation, and the gnawing of anxiety. I feel paralyzed by doing anything that adds at all to my schedule, not wanting to go out with the friends I have here or make plans with friends from afar. I let my work with The Vaude Villains wither, relying too heavily on Crystal to carry us. I let my work with Ouija Broads dwindle to the bare minimum, again relying on my creative partner Liz to hold our weight. 

Carry. Carrying. To carry. 

In the Greek Persephone Myth, Persephone is carried to the Underworld against her will by Hades. Hades falls in love with Persephone, the wild springtime goddess and daughter of Demeter. He abducts her, taking her to the afterlife to be his wife. Persephone's mother, the now righteously distraught harvest goddess, refuses to let the Earth's plants grow in her anger. It's only when Earth's people begin to starve and beg Zeus for help that he commands Hades to return Persephone to her mother and the world above. But Hades tricks Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds before Hermes rescues her. Since she has tasted the food of the Underworld, she is now tied to it, and must return for some months each year. Winter is Demeter's mourning of her stolen daughter, and Spring is a joyous celebration of her return to Earth. 

Magnolia tree blooming at Granary Burying Ground, with Franklin's obelisk in the back. 

The past season, the grayness has carried me. I eat too much and gain a lot of weight. I shop online a lot, but don't spend too much money - usually just putting items in an online shopping cart and leaving them there for a few hours is enough dopamine for me. I make two international friends and we become pen-pals. But it takes me longer and longer to respond to each, and now I find myself embarrassed at how late my response is that I put off writing back to them even longer. 

Cherry blossoms just down the block from my apartment. 

I've gotten such wonderful letters and care packages from Washington from so many friends. The guilt that I'm not reciprocating enough is consuming though, taking little bites of my joy each day. I forget important things many of my friends tell me, and end up having them repeat their conversations to me each time we connect. I hurt the feelings of a dear friend in Seattle when I say now's not a good time to visit. What I want to say is that I'm too depressed, too sad and easily overwhelmed to be a good host. But that doesn't get translated well and it just comes across as a callous dismissal of her and her offer. I commit to art exchanges with some Washington artists, but then scramble to come up with ideas that are "good enough" for my part of the bargain, and put them off, too. They pile up, reproaching me from the desk, the coffee table, the chair. I am 5 months late on making my parents' 40th anniversary gift. I am 6 months late writing about my wonderful trip to Ireland. I used to clear out my email inbox daily: now, my inbox has at least 30 unread messages that I feel too much guilt over neglecting to confront. 

Forsythia. Growing up, our neighbor Ava had beautiful, full forsythia bushes and so they always make me think of being 5 years old and home again. 

I reach out to one of my pen-pals, apologize for my lateness of reply and talk to her about feeling depressed. She immediately validates my feelings, and shares that her March was particularly difficult too, that she's just as deep in it as I am, but that we can rise out of it. I tell her that we are two Persephones, maybe struggling to lift ourselves out of the Underworld but making a damn honest effort at it. I think about painting her some pomegranates, and how I would gild the seeds within. 

That's all I can do, really. I mean, I'll continue to take my anti-anxiety medication, monitor my depression, keep pursuing therapy and doing small acts of self-care. But for being wedged in a place where I don't fit? I'll notice the flowers blooming. I'll stop and watch the still-novel red streak of a cardinal moving through the trees. I'll look for the neighborhood rabbits at dusk, and I'll feel the comforting roughness of 300 year-old bricks in the buildings downtown. I'll gild the seeds of Boston in every way I know how, and hope that my loved ones can be gentle with me as I come back to them. 

And I'll remember that I've eaten a whole fucking lifetime of Washington seeds, and that one day soon I will carry them back home. 

A beautifully ornate doorway in Brookline. 

Food-baby-merman detail.

Sink or Swim, thoughts on triathalons and the state of the union

I’m not always great with follow through. I have great intentions, but then they get overwhelmed by all the other things that could and should be done. Right now my best intentions are probably hiding behind a pile of dirty laundry. And a pile of clean laundry I just need to fold. And some important but boring-looking mail I haven’t opened. Buried under a whole heck of a lot of guilt. I want to be a better person, but stuff keeps getting in the way.

Do some laundry. 

One of the only ways for me to get my actions to meet my intentions is to just go, to not think and to not stop. The moment I decide I want to do a good thing I have to start doing that good thing. Like Dory, I have to just keep swimming. Sometimes that means literally keep swimming, like the time I signed up to be the swimmer for a sprint-triathlon team. Cindy, Erin and I signed up as a team to compete in the Wonder Woman Quarter-Tri (Selina and Liz signed up as individuals, maybe because they were more athletic but also probably because they are hella competitive). I can swim just fine. What I had no experience doing was swimming quickly, swimming with 50 other women starting in the same heat, or swimming in deep, open water. It’s okay though, those things don’t matter if you sign up before you think about how terrifying those things are.

Because those things are terrifying, or at least they are to me. Being timed is a lot of pressure on someone who a) isn’t athletic and b) doesn’t want to let down their athletic teammates. Being in a crowd isn’t scary, but being around a bunch of energy gel-fueled women who were basically punching their way through water makes me nervous. And swimming? I love swimming. What I don’t love is water that I can’t see the bottom of. Even in our cold little lakes in Washington, I’m serious in my belief that someone at some time may have released an alligator turtle, alligator gar or straight-up alligator into the water and it grew into a huge, cranky reptile that’s waiting for some idiot in a swim cap to blunder along so it can eat off her legs. Also, touching seaweed with your toes is gross.

Lake monsters are all over the US. 

This baby gonna get ate. 

I practiced swimming the half-mile distance in an indoor pool, only sometimes having to share my lane. Oh, and I stood at the edge of the lake while Liz and Selina practiced swimming in open water. So on race day, it’s safe to say I was not at all prepared to swim a half mile in open, cold, lake water, surrounded by the piranha-like frenzy of a bunch of swimmin’ women.

From the moment the horn sounded, all I could think was “I’m going to drown.” That’s not hyperbole: I honestly thought dying was a real possibility. The shock of the water was nothing compared to the shock of being accidentally hit and kicked dozens of times as swimmers moved around and over me. I couldn’t see through the bodies and choppy water well enough to swim in a line. I couldn’t breathe, from the water churned up into my face and from the shallow, panicky breaths I was taking. There were rescue boats stationed around our route, and I desperately wanted to dog-paddle over to one and have them lift me out of the melee. The only reason I didn’t was because of my team waiting on me. I had to finish the swim before Cindy could start the bike race and Erin could start the 5k run. My tapping-out would forfeit our whole team, and I didn’t want to have to tell them that I was too scared to do my part of the race.

Is there a swimming equivalent of limping? Because that’s what I did, in a big, terrifying triangle of lake. I took breaks from my jerky, panicky crawl stroke to turn over and do a jerky, panicky backstroke because it was easier to breathe that way, and less scary to look at the sky. It took forever. It took forever and a half.

I think I was the third to last person in my heat to finish. I know there was a much older lady serenely and slowly paddling her way around the lake, and we traded positions a lot. The moment I my feet could touch the bottom of the lake again, I scrambled to stand up and slog my way to the shore. I was exhausted, out of breath, shaky. It sucked. It sucked a lot. But I got to the hand-off area so my team could continue.

That’s how I feel about current events, really. Right now, a lot of things suck. Policies and words have come through that scare me, that make me shake. That leave me gasping for breath, worried I’m going to get sucked under by a black wave. Again, that’s not hyperbole: I’m afraid of the ways in which access to health care, women’s rights, a healthy planet to live on, and so many other things are poised to change. People might drown in it.

I can’t change that scary, on a large scale. I can’t drain the lake free of monsters, I can’t escape the crush of bodies all struggling to stay afloat next to me. I can’t do big things. But I can make little changes. I can donate money and time and thoughts and support. I can love and I can stay vocal and I can find small ways to make others happy. I can follow through when I say I will help, I will campaign, I will make a difference. That help doesn't end with a single phone call or a protest march or a Facebook post. Those help, but they're not the finish line. I can keep swimming. That’s not much, maybe, but it’s what I can do. It’s what I will do.  

Friends worth swimming for. 

Bonus: they're worth climbing for, too. 

Iceland trip, 22 March 2016

We drive to Vik today to stay overnight at a house between a volcano and a horse ranch. David was only able to stay a few days in Iceland, so we are back to six of us traveling together. It's a tight squeeze in our little SUV, and Kate is stuck in the way-way back. Our first stop is Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall in Suðurland (south Iceland). Seljalandsfoss is well-known for being a waterfall you can walk behind. 

 Kate's a good sport back there. 

On the drive to Seljalandsfoss.

Approaching the waterfall. 

Babes at the base of the waterfall. 

The spray from the falls is intense and constant. Our raincoats are a great effort, but everyone is soaked pretty quickly. There are so many visitors, making a line of little ants up to and behind the falls. I get frustrated with how inconsiderate a lot of the other tourists are, stopping on stairs, hitting us with their selfie-sticks, blocking the pathway. I don't spend much time behind the falls because of the damp and the people, but it's beautiful. 

On the way up behind the falls. 

Around the bend. 

Behind the falls. 

The surrounding area is gorgeous as well. There are smaller falls and open fields to the left that we go explore. Kate finds a cave, but the climb is too slick for me to go up and explore it. We find more caves closer to the ground. I shine my flashlight into some of them. I'm not sure what I expect to find, but I'm glad when I don't find anything at all. 

A nearby house.

Kate, Becca, Devon, and lens flare. 

I found a hag stone. According to legend, looking through the hole allows you to see fairy folk.

We go to another, equally beautiful waterfall, Skógafoss. It's one of the largest waterfalls in Iceland, and there's a legend that the first Viking settler in the area, Þrasi Þórólfsson, buried a treasure in a cave behind the falls. Visitors can walk the long path up to an overlook, but there are so many people that we don't go up.  

Skógafoss from afar. 

 We took a "tourist" photo. 

A fish and chips wagon near Skógafoss. They had excellent fries. 

We travel on to the Skogar Museum. They have an indoor transportation and communication museum, but the part that interests me is the outdoor heritage site. They have recreated turf houses, a church, and other buildings from the turn of the century. The homes are set up as though in use, and you can walk through them and the other buildings. It's not until long after I leave that I realize how, once inside, you can't hear anything going on outside of the building. They feel separate, suspended between places. 

Bex is none-too-sure about her new boyf in the transportation museum. 

 

Some of the buildings on the heritage site. 

 Dishes in the old sheriff's house.

Horse bones near the tiny replica village. 

The wind is so intense that you have to lean into it when we make it to our farmhouse for the night. It's my favorite place we stay the whole trip. It's on a small hill, so you can see the countryside around you very well. To one side of us is the base of the nearby Katla volcano. It hasn't erupted since 1918, and is overdue for an eruption. Opposite is the Atlantic Ocean. Kate and I walk around the main property, but the ponies are all in for the night and the wind drives us back inside. After dinner, we work on a puzzle. We don't make much progress on it before bed. 

Milk bottles in our farmhouse. 

Atlantic Ocean beyond. 

Volcano and glacier in the distance. 

Missing pieces. 

Iceland trip, 21 March 2016

I'm sick, and miserable with it, too. My throat is swollen and sore, I'm coughing, and I'm congested. I'm supposed to travel around the Golden Circle today with the group, but I feel so ill that I email them early and tell them I can't make it and to explore without me. I'm bummed to miss the day trip, I miss my friends, I'm homesick and I don't feel well. I have an epic pity party for myself. I sleep late, not getting up until about 11AM when one of the hostel workers comes in to change linens. She is so sweet, and apologies for disturbing me. I apologize for still being in bed and tell her I'm sick but can definitely get up and get out of her way. She's from a Slavic country, I think, and has a soothing accent. She tells me to stay in bed and that she'll help me. She leaves and comes back with a tea additive that she says "does not taste very hilarious" but will help with the congestion, and some pills that sound like they are basically Tylenol PM. She fusses over me, tells me she's sorry I'm sick and is happy to bring me tea or hot water or go to a pharmacy for me. I'm fragile again, and want to cry at her kindness to me. I thank her sincerely for helping me. The tea additive tastes horrible, but her sweetness makes me feel better anyway. 

I decide I should buck up and not waste the day. I go to the Reykjavik Art Museum. The main level is an installation that I don't much care for. The second level has one of my new favorite exhibits: Back To The Sandbox. Each of the exhibits have some kind of play element: photos of recess around the world, a literal sandbox, old photos of parks, toys, et cetera. My favorite part is Jim Duignan's piece Chicago Swing. He's constructed an actual swing out of a police barricade and steel, and it hangs from the ceiling in front of a large vintage photo of people playing in a park. I'm the only one in the room, so I have the swing all to myself. It's a novel feeling, swinging indoors and in a traditionally kind of stuffy place like an art museum. It's the only time I really think about my thesis while I'm in Iceland. 

Chicago Swing in the installation. 

Swinging.

An orange tree in a sandbox with orange multiples behind. 

Cool modern art flow chart. 

Vintage Valentine collage. 

I do some more walking and window-shopping before it's time to meet the group for dinner. 

A construction worker brought their pup to work with them. Big sweetie. 

These pillows were made out of super long knit tubes that had been folded into knots. They were really squishy and really expensive. 

I found an Iceland Bailey!

I loved these ghost sculptures. They were in a few shops and always made me happy. 

I still feel so sick, but I want to see my friends so I meet them for dinner. We go to Kryddlegin Hjorth, which has these beautiful Moroccan lights. They also have a dozen tarot decks you can bring back to your table. We each draw a card, and I draw Bast from the Goddess Tarot deck. The Bast card means several things, including: spend time alone, give yourself permission to play, ask for your needs to be met, make your own decisions, work with cats. Fitting for my trip so far. 

The lights in Kryddlegin Hjorth. 

Candles. 

Amethysts. 

On a window near my hostel.