I lay dazzled.

Our Compound Christmas Party was the night before last.  Tequila was involved and Secret Santa Survival Kits, so the gift-giving in the hot seat went on for three rowdy hours.  All the presents were wrapped in newspapers or boxes and bags from the recycling pile. Thrift store and hand made gifts stilled the room.  My face hurt and eye wrinkles got deeper from this smile that wouldn't leave me, the smile matched the curve in my gut from laughing so hard.  When I finally came to bed the bonfire pit still flamed, there were orange coals enough to cook bushels of oysters, and the white round moon made the fog moving in from the valley look like a fish bowl above us.  You could see the beams in the bows of the trees.

I lay in bed for 45 minutes unable to sleep. Listening to my friends laughing and singing outside, or snoring and breathing in their beds.  I lay dazzled.  By my life.  It's a long, long time since I can remember being sleeplessly stoked as that.

On Thursday I went out with this guy from up here, we've talked on and off the past couple months, it was good to see him one last time.  On our way out of the bar I grabbed him.  Hang on, I said, looking up at the sky and the tree line from the bottom of the valley.  I told him, I want to remember this, it may be the last time I ever walk out of a bar in Southern Humboldt.  He grinned that dancy grin he has and gave me my moment.  Then he laughed and walked to his truck, his back to me to take a piss.  No it's not, he said.  You'll be back...you're a Humboldt girl, now.

There really was nothing else to say.