This past week feels like a decade.

Just a few minutes ago, I shoveled dirt onto a mole that my roommate's dog had killed. I said no words because I do not know what god moles worship. I felt that returning the poor murdered soul to the earth would be enough. Or at least something.

Yesterday, I slept almost all day. I do not recall doing much at all. Took a hot bath, had some food delivered. Read a page or two. But mostly slept.

Because the day before that ended with me at an urgent care place. My brother's dog—a normally very sweet doberman, who happens to have bad dreams and can sometimes wake up in a very aggressive state—bit my foot the day that I left Colorado. And dobermans have fucking jaws, dude. The alligators of dogs, I call them. The top of my foot is still bruised from the top of his jaw, but he full on punctured the bottom of my foot. And that is a hard place to keep clean. Especially over three days of camping in dusty desert.

So upon my arrival in Tulsa, my foot looked more like a red slightly foot shaped balloon. But it is now luckily doing okay as long as I don't stay on it too long.

But that is nothing, really.
Nothing compared to everything else. It felt transformative somehow.
I feel like Gandalf the White.

Or I feel snapped out of my dissociation or have escaped (however briefly) the fog of my depression.

But things feel good. At least for right now.

There is much to do. To get done. But somehow the question of who I am and what I am supposed to be doing has been solved.
Solved in an unanswerable way.
Like I have no answer at all. But I do have a peace with that.

I heard or read this story while on my trip. I believe it was about Bodhidharma, the semi-legendary monk who created Zen, when asked about the meaning of life he said, he plants flowers that feed butterflies.

I am sure I am bastardizing that story.
But I like the sentiment.

I will write about the experience of this last week soon.
I will likely break it into a few entries, organized perhaps by theme or something.

I just wanted to write this now to say that I am still alive.
And that things are happening.
And I am feeling the fear and suspicion that people in stories feel whenever they find themselves suddenly with everything they want.

12:08 p.m. - 2021-06-18