Fog, Breadcrumbs, etc

Good morning, my darling. 8:59 am. This Sunday, March 16th, the fog has swallowed our new little upstate New York hamlet. It presses against the windows, curls around the trees. I step downstairs into the hush of it, and, for a moment, everything feels like a little miracle.

(I had forgotten about weather, living in LA!)

José and I got married about twenty minutes from this house. May 5, 2019. I remember praying and praying it wouldn’t rain that day, because we had picked the venue for its famous tulips.

(Whatever I prayed to listened, with a sense of humor of course)
(The morning of May 5, 2019 there was no rain, but instead a fog thick enough to make our guests question their GPS)
(It rolled in waves, swallowing the hills, thick as memory, history itself)
(We had to shift all the plans)
(But, when I wasn’t feeling tense and terrified over the whole thing, it did make for some pretty cinematic photos)

Later, like this morning when I look at those photos, I think about how they caught something truer than I realized at the time. How beauty and complexity can live in the same frame. How even the best days are edged with mist.

(That thought returns to me now, sharp as a jolt)
(In the Altadena fire support Facebook groups they call grief moments “the jolt”)
(I have one such jolt when my Dad sends me a photo of my childhood Yamaha piano, years ago, before it was bagged and hauled off for asbestos disposal in Altadena)

And I have another this morning when I think of my address book.

(Japanese)
(Otagiri, antique)
(Y’all know how much your girl loves mail)
(I even wrote about that address book at some point)

As I type this, I go back and check that little post. July 7, 2024. I was deep in a rare kidney disease relapse that day.

(Taali Talk is helpful for that)
(Little Hansel and Gretl bread crumbs I drop every week)
(A trail of past selves, proof that I have, in fact, been feral but productive on the internet for nearly five (!) years.)

My kidneys weren’t working that day. Less than a year ago. The bread crumb trail puts this whole thing in perspective, pulling me back. Not just to the illness, but to the ways I tried to move through it.

That day, July 7, 2024, I was thinking about the places that held me. The way, in Holland, we walked when things got bad. The way, in Pasa/Altadena, I turned to the mountains. Until my body couldn’t anymore.

And I was thinking on spiritual teachers. A quote from my dearest one, Paulina, who sees difficult moments as such.

At some point in this whole thing someone comments on José’s Instagram. It feels so kind, so true, helps me through that day.

(Which, somehow, was only two weeks ago?!) (what?!) (is?!) (time?!)

I have indeed leaned on spirituality, on you, on something greater than myself through this. There is simply no way I could have done it alone. Whether that something greater is a higher power, a deep sense of trust, or, most clearly, the collective all of us, I have been carried, over and over again.

(Thank you again)
(I’ll never be able to say enough thank yous)

I wake up this morning to the fog, open up a new journal for morning pages. My beloved LAMY fountain pens were miraculously deemed non-porous. Cleanable, salvageable, able to come with us.

(So many of them!)
(Someday I’ll show you a photo)
(I went a little [a lot] ham last year)
(José and my perfect step daughter Anais told me that I’d have a problem if I got more than 10)
(I’m closer to 30)

I crack open a mint green LAMY Safari, green matching ink from Shorthand in Highland Park. Write a little prayer to my Higher Power as the fog kisses the trees outside. I ask for help feeling this grief. Not organizing it, not managing it, not sharpening it into something useful. Just feeling it.

I ask for the ability to cry, rather than cling to the shape of things, rather than lash out at my poor angel husband over where the new knives (that are not my familiar knives, but are still good new knives) go. I ask for guidance as we move into this next chapter. For softness, for surrender, for the grace to let the sadness in without trying to sort it into drawers.

And I say, as always, thank you.

(Again)
(I’ll never be able to say enough thank yous)

To you, to whatever we might trust, believe in. To the seen and unseen hands that hold us up. To the fog, to the memory, to whatever keeps us moving forward. But to you, especially, I say a special thank you. For your notes, your kindness, the way you remind me that we are never alone.

Even on the foggiest days, we find our way.

(Now, if I can just figure out where these damn knives go!)

More next week.
t

PS: We’ve been together for nearly (!!) five years, and that’s how I know that one of you gorgeous generous bobis has likely gone to look for an Otagiri replacement. And so I am here to tell you in advance that in this very productive hour I have (1) written this taalitalk (2) found one already! And purchased it on eBay!

PPS: I love you.