"More caffeine, so I can use my device faster." And other moments along the way.

I used a map to drive around Southern Oregon for 8 days.

The big creased and soft along the fold-seems paper kind. My music was tunneled, country or rock and roll. I smiled alot, the whole time, whether sun and big grey clouds or blue skies or Januaryrain.

I'd get a big meal a day, eat off the leftovers, crackers, water and fruit.

And coffee.

I drank coffee with my favorite people for hours in the morning. I tripped live and large along with them through the ensuing big caffeinated conversations. Paul, Beth, Gretchen, Jill.

I made unwitting offering to the Breitenbush, she took offering from me, sitting under the diamondbacked sky tucked around Paul and I on the rickety wood bridge in the cold, black silhouette of Devils Peak measuring our breathing and blocking out the ahead of us view of the stars. The river took bittersweet chocolate from me it fell right out of my pocket and between the boards in to the hard rushing waters of the river below, and the next day on a long hike she gave back her bittersweet gifts. She hushed us to her side, she sat us down. Then unwitting again I cried in Paul's arms, I let the past go, I dunked my head in baptism in the South fork of her before she joined the North and ran hard and high down past the spiral pools and cabins of the resident side.

I wandered in the all green forest, I sung songs of thanks and then stumbled on the fairee vortex as gold and rainbos spiraled out and around us past the veil of my common eyes.

I walked in the rain. I walked in the rain and slept deep half dreams tucked in the woods under down covers and the breath of good friend.

I ran out of gas for the first time. I came off I-5 on to the exit ramp giving a blogofriend a lift to a stop midway to Portland. I came down off my otherworldmountainhigh to the soaked fumes of petro permanent on my hands.

I soaked in Beth's bath and luxuriated with her on her couch in our comfies, doing nothing but old 90's movies on Netflix on demand while the rain made songs and laughter and loong long stories on her roof sliding down.

I kissed endangered white wolves, I got kissed and shmooped by them. I listened to them howl. I melted in my heart a little to watch the wise woman most true to me in her element, dancing and happy in the almost wild with the wolves she so loves.

I looked at pictures of Gretchen from the 70's and 80's, listened to so many stories of youth and mess-ups, of passion and memories and friends, of family and lessons passed. I went to Mill Street where I used to always go, smelled the lowtide mudflats left behind while the Alsea River retreated out to the sea. I had breakfast with Mandy and Gretchen and Jeanette on the corner in Waldport of 101 and high green trees.

I packed my camelback with poetry I found in used bookstores along the road, I packed it with journals and my camera and fruit and went out on the 804 in Yachats and laid my body across hot rocks and drenched myself in sun. I listened to the ocean and laid in green grass, tucked flowers again and again in my hair. I wrote poems with rocks on rocks at the base of the sea, let the spirit of forlorn travellers and muscle gatherers and merwoman fierce goddesses speak through me.

I followed the Oregon Coast Trail with Beth through the trees, along the cliffs. I stood in tree pose with her the other tree, I screamed and laughed with her at the startled bike rider and the peculiar cries of Crow. I birthed myself naked and clean in the Cummins Creek deep in the forest at the bottom of my old secret trail while she sister soul she is was sacred witnesser for me.

I listened to music and let Nye Beach run its rivulets of weird passion love at Mundo all through me and warmed at the love between Beth and her husband Ben.

I drove to Florence because the ache was so strong.

I stopped passed the Oregon House to listen to the crashing and the wind and let my heart beat. I stopped at Heceta Head. I stopped at the top of a dune in Florence, I fell in love with the again present sun.

I giggled at the way the yellow turned white shine dipped again and again beneath the surface of the ocean in hydroreflectionrainbowshine tripping and spinning on itself in mindless perfect glee. I fell in love with me again, again, again, in Florence on my last solo date. Eating seafood enchiladas with dungeness, a new book, and sheer crazy deliriousness of melty chocolate cake.

I laughed my ass of with Jill Brewer Bard. I laughed my face off with Jill Brewer Bard and Gretchen. I laughed with those ladies till our faces were red and lined and scrunched like fists our stomachs contorted our eyes wet and mouths dry. I laughed and part of it at least was so I would not cry.

I drove the curvey Alsea Highway with Jill and we laughed again this time trying hard not to laugh so as to ward off the stomach curvy travel wurvy feeling of wanting to puke. I assured her how fabulous 30 is, I behaved with her as fabulous women ought to.

I fell in love, I fell in love, I ached and fell in love with her daughter Laurel and talked forever, like I did before, with her amazing husband John.

I took the train. I felt strong and raw with the holy train pain of goodbye.

And then, I rediscovered Seattle.

I remembered how easy it is to blend right in with family and stood back a minute to sweat how fucking cool cousin Kate really is. I laughed, and have not stopped, with her man Micah. I am touched and continue to be at how soft he is with her, how much his walking love and adoration is shown in the little things he does. I walked the high hills with them to look out on the sound and the city from upper Queen Anne's.

I walked forever on my own.

I met Larry at his favorite Turkish spot at Pike, met Katie and ate Piroshky's then shopped and stopped and talked and talked and had happy hour at Mia's at Cyclops on 1st and Wall in Belltown.

I experienced music, I experienced music on nonstop roll at Micah's techsavy hands. I experienced music at the Seatttle Music Project, I experienced music live and in the streets. I loved how friends love other friends on first meeting, I sung with Kate as she celebrated and surprised us all with celebration for Larry who turned 33. I smiled and couldnt stop at our Friday night dinner party with Annie and Larry and gin rummy and dancing and grilling and then, late night heart sobs and truth and hugs.

I caffeinated I caffeinated I caffeinated and all the important caffeinated talks. I am, I was, I continue to be floored at how magnificent Kate is, at how funny and smart and alive Micah, at how good us three flow together. Knowing that chossing something to do for the day happens way funner when you then just fold it in to how you're being. I love and love and love and miss already my amazing cousin and friend.

I celebrated Solstice in Freemont naked bike riders and festivals and music and carny light from inside dancing in the street DIY all over the place and food that drips down your arms and wildness and permission, cuz even tho it doesnt feel it, summer is here.

And I anticipate what's next now, after Ballard today and Larry taking me to SeaTac tomorrow. I love and have, in hitting fully and completely the Karmic Reset Button, wiped clean and found even deeper acceptance and love of myself. I look forward to floating in Mama Atlantic and smiling and not doing but wholly being in the East Coast OC sun.

Happy SUmmer.

Kate, to Micah:

-God, I can't believe it's June 20th it feels like November.

-I'm sorry I'm sorry I bring you all the way over here and it's fall. Altho fall is told to be your favorite season I guess it's not fun without a summer first...

(really, it's hella crazy good fun)

~~
What we are listening to, compliment of Garrison this morning:
Jessica Lea Mayfield

Picture journal of Pac NorthWest. The only thing better...

...than tall trees

...is tall trees AND the sea!!

I forgot about how much synchronicity prevails over on this side...

Bring the sun they kept telling me, and so the rain stopped for the first time in weeks, the clouds parted and the sky and sea were blue the hour that I got to the coast...

it lasted for most the afternoon, than back to the signature grey...I pocketed an agate or two that were already gathered for me

O blessed, blessed loud crashing sea...

Your thunder's reawakened in me.

But the best gift was Gretchen's presence in my soul

Lincoln Beach and the myth that quick alive again in me

ahhhh Poetry and tall tall trees

and the healing waters, and mountain breath ahhhhh.

and cleanse, good sweats, and release

how good it feels to sleep in the clean outdoor breeze. to hear and know it's the mama speaking straight and pure to me.

and dear friends. dear friends speak language that is spirit,

and peace

At night we climbed in to the mountains up a path, we followed Paul. It was clear enough to see the stars, and at the cabin there was already a fire. His friends showed up slow at first then suddenly charmed and then everyone was smiling and bright and there, and then the drums and rattlers came out, and the songs started one by one.

I glowed and sung, and sung and we sung, and the songs and the drums were so, so sweet. I put songs that were prayers in to the pine and mountain and river air.

And I am full again of spirit and of peace. I smiled a lot and sat long times in the steam.
There is nothing like sisters, water fairies! Life is vibrant because of the medicine of good friends.

Tall trees and synchronicity and synchronicity and synchronicity is synchronicity. O whole pure healing and soaks and lying in the grass. I met my favorite blogger, we talked an hour she works with Paul. I didn't know she was here, but these are miracles and they are every breathing moment of life. Of course they are, why shouldn't they be?

Of course I didn't want to leave. But Beth had me go in the labyrinth which thank goodness she did because I was so blissed I had to be prompted in to what to do! It was a long, good and startling, startling true walk which reminded me evermore wherever you go there you are. And that this is ok, is right! Is good and I can trust in me. I can love.

Later, she played music which made me cry.
Good cries tho, good mountains good mountain songs.

On the road home I called mom but cousin Erin answered in spanish hola hola and hello. It confused me at first why does mom's voice sound just like me? I got to talk to Erin and it was so bouyant light and charm. She put mom on and when mom took the phone to dad I heard the voices and could tell she'd stepped on to the back porch at the Pines, aunts and uncles and family friends. About to eat steamed crabs. And dad said your brother just pulled up here let me put him on, and my heart bubbled over to be in touch with all them, my family, 3000 miles away and to know, to so know, I have a home and know who I am, and love, soo so love the place where I am from.

For now, I will love love love the Oregon Coast, all the wet, and the tall sweet trees.

For now, I will revel in the love of this sweet calm peace.

Long Letter to my Readers

Sometimes I want to start this blog the way I used to start my litmag Cantalma. Like I'm writing a letter. Dear Friends...Today it came out instinctively to write Hey Pals... so let's pretend that that's what I'm doing. Writing a letter to my readers, anonymous or otherwise, out there in the middle of the everchanging everthesame wide world of blogoland. Wherein I find comfort, and release.

Hey Pals,

It's something like 4:30 am. I woke up around 3 and couldn't get back to sleep, but didn't put the light on til a half hour ago. For a while I laid there, thinking the noises I was hearing are the giant fucking practically baseball sized roaches that have begun to show themselves at least daily since I started filling my apartment with cardboard boxes and all these magnificent little dark spaces for them to hide. God that ills me out blugghgghghghhgghgh but I am thankful for them because it's making it really easy to so want to leave this place. Then I imagined the bumping around was the ghosts of this old house that the across the hall neighbor Rebecca has seen, and often hears. In the end I turned the lights on to get some water and there were no bugs, and no haunts, at least that I could tell.

It was a long, sweet weekend. Friday was 12 hours long, I went in to my office for my last day and then up to the college for my exit interview which the HR person kept referring to in email as my Termination Interview. Which made me laugh but also mildly nervous to walk up there and turn my paperwork in, but wouldn't you know I came in and sat down and she said I hear you're moving home because your husband got transferred, I'm from Baltimore, too, Dunalk, hon. I explained that it actually is because really I have no friends or family here in Easton or on the midshore or a life really other than my job, and that I was originally from a town called Millersville outside Glen Burnie, that I am the exact oppositte of married and that first I am waiting tables at the beach to make money but before that going out to the PacNW for a month and then going to move home, then we got down to talking Hons. It was like talking to an old girlfriend that I didn't realize I missed even though Sue and me, the HR lady, had never really met before.

Later in the office trying to get my last bits of work turned in I finally gave up and just said I'd turn it in Tuesday when I have to return and give my work computer back. I was too excited and Mary's office on campus has too much of a blowing breeze. Soon it was almost five so Jackie the Executive Director of our whole department, and my immediate boss Elaine, and Mary they all drove me up to Kent Island for dinner on the water. Natasha came, and Carolee, and Jan all the way from Chestertown and some other teachers and of course Jason and Kim and Brenda, too. Then Cindy showed up, and she ended up taking me back to my car, where we sat and talked for two more hours while a nice round thunderstorm came through. Cindy is the woman I used to teach English with, nighttimes twice a week, at the elementary school in the country out near the Delaware line. This was 2006 and on. She also is the one who introduced me to Teena and had me do a catering gig for her back then, and Teena's the one who rented me the room on the Choptank River when I finally summoned the courage to leave Brandon and break his heart and move out and away to a place so isolated that even now that fast year I spent there still is surreal to me like a dream. Cindy and I, really, hadn't talked and really caught up since I very first moved out to Chop. We had lots, lots to catch the other one up on.

On Saturday I got up and couldn't get moving. I had to be in Pennsylvania first for a baby shower then a bachelorette party. The radio was danceable though and in moments it was so good and the sky was so blue, and I read this blog a long long while which I hadn't done in a long time. It made me feel good to have this, these archives of me because I, like all people, compelled as I am by my self and also very very deep, need to have a place to catalog and process me.

The drive up 83 especially was good. I listened to Rachel Sage and Ruut, both of whom I met last weekend when Brooks got to open for them. Rachel Sage especially is so deliciously good, and I thought how very much I like to hear the accordian. It makes me feel like a gypsy which probably is just to say it makes me feel more wild and whimsy and mystery like I really am. When I got to York I was proud of myself for knowing my way around even though my GPS got me lost at first, finally I just turned that bitch off and got there on my own instincts in the hot Pennsylvania concrete traffic and sun. I walked in to the basement at Aunt Lori's house almost an hour late and it was a huge commotion of people and when I walked in from the far side of the room I heard cousin Chels yell Wait where's Kelly? Chelsea is pregnant, and psychic like all the women in that family and I saw her in the corner and all the commotion was because she was about to open gifts. And I dont know how to put this part in words--that Chels, who's 19, is bringing our first grandbaby in to this world, or great grandbaby I mean, and my grandparents were both sick last year, but still are so robust. And when we are together, which we do more often now, mom her two sisters my brother and his fiance my grandparents and two cousins, we cry a lot and it is always hot and full in our chest because every breathing moment with them is awareness of life and how much we are blessed. So I walked in and Chels knew in her blood I just got there, and she waited for me to sit at her feet and then the gift opening began. Then a half hour later she goes Wait, where's Sean? and then of course we look up and he, my brother, walks in. We did well, Pap only really cried, which is what makes the rest of us bawl, really hard once and then we all were crying and gasping and laughing and wiping our faces with napkins and the other guests cried and laughed some, too.

Then I left, got out on to the rolling green hills and farmhouse lanes of Rt. 30 to drive to Fairfield right outside Gettysburg. My cousin Sarah on my dad's side, the Mc-clan, is getting married soon so next was to celebrate that. On Route 30 I got reminiscent but before it got overboard this song Lost in Pennsylvania came on and I laughed out loud, like really hardy belly laugh because Rt. 30 and me have history. York to Philly, Philly to York, York to Gettysburg and all that sky and green. I always always have such good reflection on that road and Saturday was no different. I was reflecting on the last time I made that drive and how much has changed since then. The last time it was July and Josh, who is the man that I fell in mad love with some years back and ultimately was the final reason I had courage enough to leave Brandon and follow me towards my own thing, called at the end when I pulled in to my cousin's driveway. I hadn't heard from him in like four months back then because of a hurtful falling out, and the thing about Rt. 30 is that's how I used to get from my grandparents over to his house. We always had that psychic thing too, Josh and I, among other connections, and so I was thinking back a lot on him. Next thing, over the glorious piano Ruut sings Lost in Pennsylvania and I'm like Whaaaaa? Did she just say lost in Pennsylvania because it was the first time hearing that CD. Then at that very moment mom called. Mom is from the PA hills and that was really on my mind, too, backroads and southern Pennsylvania and mom and her country people. She called to ask what I was doing. I told her driving and thinking about you and thinking about Josh and now cracking up becasue this lady is singing about Josh and I same time as me thinking about us. And mom reminded me of a time long ago going to work a bluegrass festival in those very hills and how she used to be in love back then with a well-known Nashville musician. Within moments I was at the very place, 8 miles east of Gettysburg, that the festival she was talking about is held. It was all so timely, and the conversation was good and sweet and I felt whole and clean, and happy to see Sarah the bride-to-be and the other cousins waiting to see me.

Now it is Monday morning, the birds are singing and Crow was just squawking, too. The sky out the window in my meditation room is blue and pink tinged so it's all resonant in that morning purple hue. Yesterday also was a long day and last night I wanted to finish uploading my old pics--late 80's through late 90's--on to my external hard drive so that when I move Wednesday and my couple things go in to storage that huge tupperware with all the old albums can just stay there. But I was tired, went late to Target to get a new swimsuit and that took a long time because for the first time in a long time I felt bad about how I looked which made me uncomfortable, but also grateful, because I almost never ever have to deal with that leftover teenage weirdness anymore. So when I got back home I went right to bed, didn't even keep my eyes open long enough to read my book.

I move Wednesday to Ocean Pines. Kelly Johnson, Sean, Bdubb and Brooks are going to help me. Thursday I'm taking Amy out for a pedicure to celebrate Maddie, her third child, due in July. Friday my cousin Timmy graduates college, Friday night we're all going dancing at Red Maple, Saturday's Eryka Badu. Then back to the Pines til Wednesday of the following week, when I fly to Oregon, and will be boundless, yet tall tree mountain coasts hot springs cities and hippies and Pacific ocean bound.

Yaaaaay!!!! When I get home it will be summer time and all that hotass Marilen mug. I'll be a waitress again, a writer for sure, babys will come, weddings will happen, and I will stare and smile a lot at the sea. I will swim. For now, I am sleepy, pals. Thank you for reading and always journeying along with me. Thank you all for the love and support even when you dont comment thankfully the blog counter tells me you still read. I am contented, awed, and eager because I feel certain the best is yet to be....

My wishes and prayers for the same to all of you xoxo.

Love, kel

List. Cant you see the breeze is just a change in pace?

Song playlist of serendipity for a Saturday morning with nothing to do but stretch and feel the beauty of muscles and soft sheets and blue sky out the window and anticipate coffee, ahhh delight delight three tunes on RNR sooo dance-able and yes of course some days you should just fall out of bed, celebrating....

1. Southside of Heaven, Ryan Bingham
2. Strange Overtones, David Byrne and Brian Eno
3. Cripple Creek, The Band

Instructions for reclaiming wild sensibilities if its been more than 24 hours since you've breathed the sun

1. Barefeet
2. Get near something green that has roots and eats sunshine and air
3. Find your back breath: Recognize your feet. Be solid, but open. Recognize your belly breath. Next! Center. Breathe into/from back of neck, into back of shoulders and then to back of back on down. This is where wild-sense lives, dormant. You are part wild animal. You have rhythms that remind you and ache for you to run in the breeze. Breath these parts awake again. Re-connect.
4. Listen. Feel. Open. Breathe.

Poetry

1. Is a way of living which includes or perhaps is reliant on following what turns you on
2. Spanish turns me on
3. Words and stories turn me on
4. People turn me on
5. La mama: Nature and Life turns me on
6. Library has lots of poem books
7. Study introductions, especially if written by other poets
8. Lay in the sun on second hand sheet eating food you made yourself and drinking cream soda
9. Read poem a word at a time. Read spanish translations a breath at a time. Harmonize
10. Harmonize. Harmonize

Pay attention. If not now, when? Why not?

1. Beautiful friend in middle of great heartbreak/heartmending life change over delicious dinner under trees and starlight says forget about living each day as if it were my last. I AM LIVING EACH DAY LIKE MY FIRST
2. These could be just words. They are. They are also more.
3. Are they?
4. If not, why not?

Fear and sadness resign oneself to unconscious greed and acts of selfishness. Jealousy clouds vision. Inverse relationship of not owning self projects outter whirls of powerlessness on to everyone else. Matter is atomic. Everyone changes.

1. Be honest with myself fear and sadness are natural and normal as is jealousy a common defense
2. Be honest with my friends and the people on my path entrusted to help you care for your heart
3. Be still. All things pass, and later come again
4. Life goes on and that's just it: LIFE. It is the most affirming guide there is.

Carl Jung wrote that 35 is middle-aged. Is when one steps in to the afternoon of one's life....

1. I turned 33 one month ago
2. I for the first time in my life can actually say that I know myself, know with confidence at least some certain parts of who I am, and feel confident going forward trusting in the room and grace and space within that I've taken the long years to own and love in to light
3. I see this not as the afternoon. I am barely just now first breathing!! I am just now taking first steps, this is the First Day!

In meditation gentleness ease and non-judgment are encouraged. As is comfort of posture. Prepare for yourself a soft sweet inner place of silence and refuge where I and only I can always go. Be the warrior traveller of your own domain.

1. I meditate under a soft blanky, laid out straight chillin like I'm watching tv
2. Often it helps to remind myself to ritualize. So I start with time to center, let what I'm doing sink in. I put a tender smile on my face
3. Time is mutable
4. When found to be scattering up the walls of the monkey mind, begin again
5. There go the thoughts and there I go with them, ahhhh well, begin again
6. Begin again
7. It's ok. Be gentle. Begin again
8. Witness all thoughts and feelings without becoming them, without judging them
9. Ooooops, became them again. Begin again...
10. Metta is the practice of loving kindness
11. End all ritual with practice of loving kindness. Start with self. Then intend outwards towards all of Life

Great Change and Pendulum Swing/ Spiral Upward Of Is/Not Is Spiral Downward of Timeless Great DNA Helix Combo of All Things, upon us now, ever upon us, have grace IS mercy...

1. My last day of work is May 14
2. I will spend the week after that packing up 127 Goldsborough
3. Ladies, I may have lots of clothes to give away
4. Peoples, there may be lots of books up for grabs!
5. Great mama plunge to come then
6. Move stuff in to Maggie's storage place at beach and otherwise in to Ocean Pines
7. May 26 fly to Pac NW for one month
8. Beth, Gretchen. Oregon, aaaahh. Hippie retreat yea. Hotsprings. Tall trees. Ocean. Coast. Trains. Seattle. Larry. Cousin Kate.
9. Waiting tables at Yacht Club in OP
10. Indefinite trust of what is yet to be..................

Last Day on the Beach

In 2004 in October I was living temporarily on my buddy Larry's floor in Seattle. This was after five months living in the mostly undeveloped sections of the National Forests across the US. There was a fierce and bitter election going on, and I felt more at home living in the woods. It's the most patriotic I have ever been: connected as I was to "my" land. After all those days of dirty corduroys boots and bathing with a plastic bin, Seattle was a good time. We went to China town everyday, took long walkabouts that lasted for hours and hours along the Puget Sound and between the red brick alleys and up the long, long steep hills with the yellow leaves falling over the streets. At night we brought back harvest foods for dinner from the market. First time I ever tried honey crisps and homemade apple cobbler was our desert most of the nights I was there.

After about three weeks of that the land was calling us again, so we planned a camping trip in to the Olympic Mountains. It was glorious a blue and green day and clear mountain air when we ferried over the Sound and got on the road to Port Angeles. I was ready. We hiked 21 miles in 2 and a half days I had what felt like the most heavyass pack on my back since it was the gnarliest uphill back country trail I'd ever done. We gained several thousand feet each day on switchbacks but the alpine meadows and icy streams, the ponds and the fresh pine smells made me happier than I'd been the whole trip, all five months. I felt like what I was doing, step by step slowly slowly slowly uphill, was reviewing the whole of my time on the road. Conquering the path before me just by picking up and putting down one foot in front of the other, over and over, again and again. When I finally got to the summit I sat with the most satisfied, satiated exhaustion that I think I have ever felt.

It was glorious. I had done what I came to do, and there was nothing left now other than to carry on with the path ahead. I reveled in it, in that quiet settling peace that encompassed me and everything about me. It was the kind of satisfaction that sinks in without you knowing it and becomes a larger part of who you are.

A week later I was home on the Atlantic Coast to visit my mom. She took me to the beach so I could say hi and take a swim. It was gray, the end of October and only the surfers were out. It was colder than I remembered, but nothing like the feeling of freezing that numbs your toes on the North Pacific Coast. I changed on the beach and jumped in.

The Atlantic raised me. I love her the way I love inner calm. I've always, since I was small, ritualized my first swim of the season--it's the kind of info that my brother and I call one another with just to affirm the specialness--Had my first swim today--you been in yet? Usually I mark the end of the season with tears, just a few, but they always come. That year, right after my hike, and after spending months away from my Mama the Atlantic, and my mama, at home, what I needed was to reconnect, to bathe in something eternal and sure to me as me. What I needed was to take the plunge, to rinse it all off, to remind that at the end of an uphill climb what comes is rest and rejuvenation.

Every fall now I try to take that plunge, and today was the day, and sure as I am sitting here now at the Pines, I believe today was the most glorious beach day that I saw, all summer long. It started out with thick fat fog. Grey-white and the dark line of the ground.

Season's over, I am clean. I am at the summit, looking all around. I am contemplating, getting ready to take the next step but in which direction? From here I can see, all around....