1 year

(originally started a few weeks ago, and finished, today)

Today I led a plant walk in Crawford, Colorado to a small crew of folks curious to get to know what plants can be observed in riparian areas in the montane zone - where fall has been in full swing and plants are in their summer prime.

I felt lifted by the walk, and sharing botanical joy with others, but my heart hangs heavy. I’m moving soon from the spot where I’ve been for a year or so, and I’m reflecting on the year right now as I figure out where to go and why.

Transitions are never easy for me. It brings up a lot, because I’m sensitive to space, and community or lack thereof, energy, spirits, social dynamics. It brings up a lot because I feel like I’ve lost a lot because of transitions, because of asking for what I need and being told it was too much to ask for. For the years of feeling without steady relationships that last on and on. Transition brings up questions: why stay here? why be in ‘this’ community when you’re wanted elsewhere?

This season makes me want to hide, and yet I’m scared. I often feel like I’ve stumbled along, trying to do things with no anchor. I felt I had an anchor for awhile, a muse, and then it, gone. I have this unique ability to connect with so many people, and yet feel like the depth of connection I seek is actually rare. And when I have it, I am in awe. And it feels so fragile. I want to hide because I have to face this part of myself, that I feel somehow is ‘bad’ and at fault in some way, or responsible for my loss when I try to grasp for reasons why when there are no real true reasons that make sense anymore. I am scared to do the things I want without support and community, and we’re all wrapped up in capitalism that takes us away from authentic connection.

I wanted to do a root camp this summer, and hike part of the colorado trail again and ‘bravely do the work on my own’. But I didn’t. Noone cared to make the time to join me. Going alone is too triggering for me. I am afraid of myself being in a place where I had so much trust and love before and being back now, with so much loss of hope. The somatic memory of my plant relations are still so interwoven with loss and false hope of having comrades in my work and visions that would stick with me and not use me for my knowledge and ideas and discard me when they didn’t need me anymore. I didn’t do so many of the things I really want to do, because it hurts me too much to do. Not everyone uses others. Sometimes relationships aren’t equal and it has to be that way. Not all realize what they are doing. We’re all trying to get back. Sharing in the work in togetherness is necessary for the land itself. And yet, I often feel the hopelessness of an isolated island of vision. And yet. I have students to tell me I changed their life. I don’t seek students though, I seek life partners in comrades in the work of land study, planting and deconstructing socio-cultural stories.

I used to love fall and the shift of calm from summer’s height to the rest of winter, but so many falls have been fraught with upheaval from leaving one seasonal work situation to another. The one fall I’ve had in 10 years that hasn’t been that way was an illusion, living in a bell tent with my best friend, under giant cottonwoods, hearing the elk at night, the rustle of the leaves, the creak of the wood stove, to being suddenly asked to leave our peaceful camp with 12 hours notice in 0 degree temps come winter. My beloved cottonwoods. I haven’t felt that kind of peace since. I felt I had arrived at a life of trust, of being able to generate and lean deeply into the kind of love, land relationship and care I always wanted, and this moment was the beginning of the end of losing everything that meant anything to me. And, I’m still not ok, even if people don’t see me balling in public anymore. And it affects my life now, trusting that others won’ do the same to me, again.

It hit me today hard, after some hard conversations with friends this morning, after feeling the grief of wishing I had more girlfriends in my life I could trust and want to do things with me, after thinking about my grandpa’s farm, after all the times I ‘thought it was going to be ok’ and told myself it was, because I was trying to comfort myself, I am really realizing that it won’t be ok. Watching the news this week, not being able to not look at the dead children’s bodies, I think, it actually won’t be ok. It isn’t ok. I must not have hope, and I’ve even been told by whom I love the most that It is not ok that I have hope for love, or connection, for bonds and kinship. My hope is a threat, so I don’t have any hope any more. And yet I want to trust, love and have hope.

It is hard to have hope when I think the most of my worries is where I will live and be safe, and I see people around me obsessing over how much they can get from one another, when on the other side of the world there are people literally trapped in hell itself. It’s hard to have hope when I’ve had community before, lived with friends and comrades, and have to watch those I love who abandoned me, have that without me. When it’s all I want, so bad. It makes me feel ‘ok’ when I can wake up in the morning not as an isolated unit churning away at capitalism and share in the things I love to do with others. Harvesting fruit, growing food, tanning hides, making music, making broth and cider, eating together, talking about what life means to us, getting out on the land camping together. Most of the time I do those things alone. Everyone is just too busy.

It’s hard to have hope when genocide is normalized or justified in any way at all. When war somehow seems necessary. When retaliation with violence is defendable. The macrocosm reflects the microcosm. I have felt such anger before that it overwhelmed me to madness, an anger I did not know existed within me.

Why does telling those that hurt you, how you feel, actually matter? I hardly believe in it anymore, because it often comes with people not willing to see themselves or who want to blame you for their behaviors, or twist a truth. Why even try anymore? Its the mood I’m in right now, and these days, giving up, seems like all I can actually do. And yet, in that giving up, I am not any less devastated, if anything it is more. At some hope that love can prevail over all. It doesn’t. When left alone, the flood of grief comes right now, and all the somatic memories, and loss, and love and what I thought was real and true. When those I love leave, those I connect with go somewhere else, it gets harder and harder for me to part and not be flooded with despair. To feel connected, and then they are gone. It is not easy for me to do anymore. And imagine if all our beloveds died right now? What would we say to one another? What would we wish we had not held back? Or had let happen when we could have acted differently?

In all the movement and travels, I hold on to my connections with my heart fiercely and sometimes it is too hard to bear, the parting. I long for days I lived in community, where I saw my friends daily, where I felt truly loved, where I cooked and ate and laughed and cried with comrades in arms. Sometimes It feels so hard to have truly and authentically these days. It often happened without me even trying. And now I try, and I can’t quite bring myself to it. I don’t somehow, feel included in those spaces fully. No matter how much I have to give to an energy that isn’t just about fending for myself.

So how do we have compassion for one another in our wanting to connect authentically, to love and be loved fully, and yet our body imprints from past traumas can get in our way?

My friend asked me today: What are your true values, can you name them? If you can name them, you will have a gauge for what you’re willing to invite in your life or put up with.

For me its: kindness above all. Honesty. Respect. Follow through. Consistency. Care in action and words. Long term thinking. commitment to self-reflection. Their word means everything. Reciprocity, truly.