small red tomatoes on a green vine

potent and unruly and everything all at once

Kona the hippo on 35mm film (taken 3-years back)

He sleeps, eyes fluttering and legs kicking. I pet his soft fur, creating little piles as I scratch into his undercoat. Eventually he wakes and being the solitary dog that he is, scoots further away from me. I don’t take it personally, not anymore. Honestly, I’m still reveling in the fact that he let me pet him for as long as he did before kindly asking me to bugger off.

Work has been slow for us this year, nudging us ever-closer to home and our dog and our daily routines (not that we mind). There was this one especially hot and sweaty afternoon where I found myself flat on the living room floor, reflecting on the years prior—years where I was scarcely home a week before making plans to leave again.

I am pulled out of my thought-spiral just as the AC-unit rattles itself to life, letting the cool air dry the sweat on my neck and watching as Kona’s heart flutters rapidly beneath his chest. Everything else aside, this alone is something worth slowing down for.

Last we spoke it was June 30th and I was sitting on the front porch, admiring the freshly potted plants and breathing in the early summer air, still untouched by the heat and smoke and the crackling storms. And now it’s been since the beginning of July that we only ever open the windows in the morning when the light is gentle and soft and my mind still wanders through hazy dreamscapes, limbs heavy as sand.

A lot has happened since the last day of June and sometimes I find myself thinking about all of it all at once and my ears buzz like bees trapped in the quiet of my office. And then when the dark presses up against the windows and I curl into myself, unsure of what to feel when sleep is still so far away, I look at him and run my fingers over his small ears and try to remind myself that somehow life will carry on because it has to. That he’s had the best life and that we’ve had the best life with him and what a thing that is. I continue to think of everything good and begin to cry again, big sloppy tears that I wipe away with the back of my hand until I eventually drift into a restless sleep.

I’m thinking about my therapy session I have in a few hours and how I know I’ll probably start crying again when she asks me how I’m doing because while everything continues on all at once I have, for what may be the first time in my adult life, somehow moved myself from one mood to another without completely losing touch with my sense-of-self.

To sort through it all and go yes, I love the creativity and stamina that comes from this mood, and how much easier it is for me to be social and outward facing with all this serotonin, no longer numb to the world around me. But I also miss how intentional and careful and quiet my other mood felt, anxiety dampened by an ever-present melancholic tune. And can you believe that I actually want to bring some slowness into my days instead of blindly charging forth, squeezing in as much creativity as possible before this mood-season changes? Sifting through what is mine alone to keep and what might be something that would benefit from being shared?

My therapist handed me a box of tissues after I told her I was surprised that I hadn’t cried yet today. About how I cry more when I’m not in a numb, melancholic-mood. About how potently I feel it all right now and the dramatics of my creative ideas that keep trying to convince me that 2-am is the best time to make things happen. About how cautious I am around joy and pleasure, of the promises I’m worried I’ll break in pursuit of them. The anxiety over the grieving I’ve done and the grieving I have yet to do and the way it all tangles in my chest and climbs up and up my throat when I try to speak it out loud.

Before breakfast, I pulled out the sketchbook from inside my desk and began to draw small red tomatoes on a green vine, and last weekend I cleaned out the garage and created a small studio-space where I can go to throw clay at the table and temporarily pause all self-imposed expectations to indulge in my imagination. I’ve also been meeting up with my friend Kourtney on a weekly basis to nerd out on a shared project, and I went ahead with the building of a home for creating, a community-space I’ve been subconsciously dreaming up for what feels like years now, while continuing to be playful with my time spent in the library of personal oddities.

It’s all swirling together, potent and unruly in the way it spills across the tablecloth and onto the thoughts I had just pieced together. Onto the phone call I keep meaning to make and the podcasts I haven’t stopped listening to and the lunch I’m trying to be better about making and the prescriptions I need to pick up today and the friend I’d like to check in on and the family that is coming to visit and the way our dog says ok you two, stop fussing about with all those big emotions it’s time for you to feed me.

Though the frequency at which I share these newsletters is much less these days, it’s what works for now—I hope you enjoy your time here as much as I do.

Talk soon,
Chloe

PS. While a month ago I would have been sure which narrator was hogging the pen today, now I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s true that my outward, buzzy, anxious self began to run the show a few weeks back, but it also seems like she’s taken some advice from my melancholic, quiet self before she decided to use up the rest of her vacation days. I guess it doesn’t really matter, not really, though I do like to understand things, especially the things that leave you up upside down and in a total mess, head spinning.