Parallel Worlds are Not Separate From Us.

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I am farm-sitting on Bainbridge Island this week. I had this crazy idea that I would spend a year pet-sitting, but I have an apartment lease (lmk if you want to have my place in Seattle for a week or two!) so those plans are kind of foiled. My car is sitting out front, loaded with the leftovers from my move, and my apartment in Seattle is sitting empty— I haven’t yet spent a night there. Maybe I am drawn to these liminal spaces, the echoes of an entire life spent unsettled, a childhood without a permanent home. Maybe it’s time for me to sleep in my own apartment rather than caring for other people’s homes.

Here I sleep with the windows open and two down comforters to keep me warm. In the very early morning, before the sky is contemplating light, the barred owls in the ravine near the house hunt and sing. I imagine the sounds coming from their throats illuminating the bodies of small things which will soon die and be reborn into soil. The illumination is electric.

Last night there were no owls, and I slept until woken by an unfamiliar sound. I thought it was one of the three cats. Half-asleep I said “kitties!” But the sound continued. My ears, not as attuned as those of an owl or a dog or a cat or many other animals, traced the sound. Not coming from inside. I got out of bed, scared. Alone in a house down a dirt road. The sheep and chickens and cats would surely not defend me. I placed my face near the open window and listened. It sounded as if something monstrous was stomping through the woods. As if something were breaking giant branches off the trees. No animals here do that. They’re quiet when making their way through forests.

I imagined Bigfoot. Here in the Pacific Northwest we always imagine Bigfoot. Having lived in Alaska I’d heard about Bigfoot as an indigenous tale, as a real, psychic being who lived in the forest and tundra. My eyes, so weak and human, only saw the mass of dark leaves and branches outside. I ran downstairs, turned on the porch light, felt exposed, turned it off, ran back upstairs. I pictured myself running to the back room and sliding under the bed if I had to. I held my phone in my hand and imagined the agonizingly slow response time of emergency services if someone tried to get into the house.

I walked over to the window again, in the dark. It gazed out over the length of grass where the chickens and sheep graze in the daytime. I listened. The sound of breaking branches, but different. My eyes adjusted. There was a long shadow near the pearapple trees. A deer? Another long shadow. The shadows emerged in the moonlight and then submerged into other shadows. One doesn’t think of shadows at night, but there are shadows.

Two of the shadows collided and the sound of breaking branches transformed into the sound of locking horns. I could see the horns locking in my mind, like an owl sees its prey. The blunt dome of a skull, the horns like branches growing from the skull, the horns locking together, their connection unique as a fingerprint.

The two figures, bucks, locked their horns and danced in a circle. Another deer or buck watched. Were they playing? In the moonlight? They unlinked and examined the trees, ate pearapples, and then circled each other, crashed into each other again and pressed into each other.

I watched, stunned, grateful. Not anyone trying to hurt me, but this entire other world I rarely got to see. A parallel world alongside my own. These animals, playing or fighting, or both. I watched their shadows with my weak human eyes, wishing for night vision binoculars. I couldn’t see much, but the sound made everything vivid. Their breathing, the impact of bone on bone, their hooves digging into the soft mossy ground. I examined my fear, always my first response. This was a gift, to see this. Like looking at a star-filled sky and remembering my smallness.

When they trotted into the forest I kept the window open, and before I fell back asleep the barred owls began singing, or hunting. Both. Can it be play and predation at the same time? Can I let go of the meaning I need to impose, which comes from my small mind?

This morning after feeding the sheep and chickens I walked over to the pearapple trees. The ground there is soft and covered in dried moss which will soon be damp with rain. I searched and found the torn up spots, where hooves had uprooted patches of moss to reveal the dirt underneath. The moss the ground’s skin, the electricity of the locking horns flowing down through each buck’s body and into the hooves. Everything connected. All of it connected to me, and yet my not knowing how connected I am.

This week I have been working on pitching and dialing in my schedule and trying to keep the yoga studio I manage afloat through the pandemic. Please come to my fundraising class tomorrow at 6pm PST. You’ll get some core work, some breath work, and leave feeling satiated. It’s by donation and all proceeds go to Sangha Yoga in Seattle. Register here.

I’ve also created a monthly container called Creating Ceremony, all about routine, ritual, and finding the rhythm of work and self-tending as an artist, parent, small business owner etc. It’s gonna be amazing and so supportive. Find all the info here. I would truly love to have you. Meeting times with TBD depending on the needs of students.

What I am reading and seeing and watching:

• I am trying to watch less TV. I may be addicted to television. I hate it. But there is a beautiful show I’ve been watching on HBO called Läetitia. There is nothing truly new about it— the narrative is told in a way that is common for crime dramas, starting at one point and moving backwards in time while also moving forwards in the present, so the viewer can put the pieces together, but it’s beautifully acted and its characters are heart-wrenchingly real. Mysterious and enigmatic. I love it.

• I also just finished The Other Two, which is great and funny and fun. Molly Shannon is the gem of this show. I feel like I’ve always underestimated Molly Shannon. Maybe a lot of us have. She disappears into her role as the matriarch of a little family handling the newfound fame of their baby brother. Chase Dreams, the youngest brother, happens to have to older siblings who are kind of fuck-ups with a lot of potential. Over the course of the two seasons we see some of this potential come to fruition and all the characters deepen in really beautiful ways, but it’s also hilarious. There is an entire episode about a butthole on Grindr.

• I’m reading a couple books right now. The first is Fulfillment, all about Amazon. This book isn’t just a diatribe against Amazon but a deep dive into the history of the many American towns and cities being transformed, including Seattle. As someone who grew up in Seattle I thought I knew a lot, but I didn’t. It will probably make you hate Amazon, if you don’t already. Recently I commented on a neighborhood Facebook forum about Amazon and it turns out a lot of people in my neighborhood work for Amazon and will defend it to the death. Who knew?

• Also reading My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. You probably don’t know this, but I studied film in college (quick reminder that I went to college when I was 32 so that wasn’t actually long ago) and adore horror as a genre. I am not necessarily a genre person in general, but horror I have loved since I was little. Did you know that horror films can help people overcome trauma? Maybe that’s why I’ve been watching then since I was way, way too young. So, My Heart is a Chainsaw is supposedly horror and its main character, Jade, is a big horror fan. I’ve just started the book and am going to (unwisely) read it before bed. I love horror but it still scares me. I guess I’d rather be terrified by things I know are fake rather than my actual CPTSD.