Swamp Bog of Sadness, aka (this is when my computer crashed)

A medical diagnosis and some clarity

I’ve been having a lot of feelings lately. Yesterday I walked out the cotton hammock under the Filbert tree. Filbert trees are hazelnut trees, which is something I hadn’t known until the woman whose cat I was caring for told me. I went out to the hammock and gingerly crawled butt-first into it, then lay back and stared up into the green, green leaves which were almost neon against the blue, blue sky. You know those days when the sky is so blue, like it’s translucent and infinite and makes you feel as small as the starry sky does? Blue like that. So blue it’s not a color, but a kind of being.

I didn’t bring my phone with me outside, on purpose. The past couple weeks, while house-sitting alone on Bainbridge Island, I’ve been attached to my phone. This often happens when I’m on deadline, which I am. I turn my book in Monday.

Alone under the tree I stared at the leaves and blue and my eyes lost or gained focus, I’m sot sure which one. I inhaled the dry grass and the musk-scent of the shee…