Rocks, Change, etc

I take this photo in Hawaii, where dear angel friends house us for a week during the peak of fire chaos.

A stretch of lava rock along the Hawaiian coast. A perfect, weathered sign. Six months later it looks almost fake, like a stock image for “peace.” But I took it, on a vintage 70s Canon AE1. I know, because I remember the exact moment.

(I remember thinking how delightful it was, a sign pointing directly at rocks, letting us know they were … rocks)
(As if we’d wandered all the way to the Pacific and needed confirmation: “Yep, those are rocks, alright”)
(The same way people pointed at our situation and called it “resilience”
(As if naming it made it manageable, palatable)

In any event, laughing is a must in these moments, and it still delights me to this day.

When I take the photo, it’s not delight or laughter, necessarily. It’s just instinct. I’ve escaped a once in a lifetime fire with my husband, my Yamaha synth and my hard drive. The entire contents of what I grabbed fit on one queen size Hawaiian guest bed.

We get through. (You know it all by now.) We move to the east coast.

Wildly, our first show after all this insanity is the Library of fucking Congress, because God has a sense of humor. I walk through the halls before the show in confused awe. Snap one film photo of the ceiling.

In the end, José donates the leather jacket you saw in the Hawaiian guest room photo (queen size bed, left) to their collection for future inclusion in a potential show.

(Absurd, I know)
(The kind of sentence that sounds like an ending, a neat bow)

But life doesn’t actually work like that. We play the show. We sign merch. We smile. And then we load everything we own into a rental car, to a massive empty new rented house, an open/woefully underinsured renters insurance claim, and no idea what’s next.

No blue print, no plan, no sign pointing to where the rocks are. Just space. Just quiet. Just time.

(Time is wild)
(When you don’t have enough of it you crave more)
(When you have too much you crave less)

And it always leaves you grasping, if you’re not ready to surrender. In this liminal space I grasp, often, for the person I “was,” the one who felt clearer, moved with certainty, the one who built things without flinching.

(I miss her)
(A character in a story I half-remember)
(But I also suspect she’s not gone, just drastically changed and hard to find at the moment)

When I’m in such a moment, I try and grasp for something physical/supportive, as well. Perhaps a phone to call a friend, or a pint of Jane’s Ice Cream (a perfection new Upstate NY discovery). And when neither are available, I lean on something a therapist told me years ago that still echoes.

“Anything you’ve had before, you can have again.”

I say this to myself like a mantra. If I’ve had it before emotionally, I can have it again. I am not a relic, not a finished piece. I am a living, breathing human being.

(In a finished piece, when you delete something it’s gone forever)
(But I can tap back)
(Into memories, abilities, feelings, ways of being)
(I can access things I thought were gone, recover parts of myself I thought were deleted)

Mercifully, every time I remind myself of this I get clearer on where I’m headed and why I’m here. I also find myself needing to acknowledge the aching, real possibility that all this destruction may have been the universe’s wild, brutal way of getting me unstuck.

(Before we move on, though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t appropriately shit all over the phrase “everything happens for a reason”)
(Indulge me, thanks)
(Queen Janette Beckman once sent me a card at the onset of my 2023 hospitalization that remains my favorite I’ve received. It said, “Please let me be the first to punch the next person who tells you everything happens for a reason”)

Delightful, sensational. It reminds me, too, of my darling / brilliant friend Danya, who, in her own moment of intense trauma, would just say, “Everything happens.”

I agree with them, having been through five years that rival being trapped in an escape room with a nemesis, my therapist, my inner child, and a raccoon live-streaming the whole thing on TikTok.

Everything happens.

There is no fucking reason my whole neighborhood burned down. There is no reason why I landed for 7 days in the hospital with a $300,000 bill and 300+ hours (still ongoing!) of legal battles with my health insurance.

But there are still things I believe in: Pattern, memory, the quiet stubborn evidence of what's been possible before. I still took that photo of “rocks.” I still had eyes for something beautiful, even when I didn't know it.

That’s what I want to remember now, in this odd pause between collapse and whatever comes next. That the ability to notice is a muscle. That rebuilding doesn’t start with grand plans. It starts with small recognitions: a line in a song, a text from a friend at exactly the right moment, a delightfully brilliant raccoon in the new forest home who bests you at every attempt to protect your garbage bins.

(This isn’t a comeback story)
(But it is a middle chapter)

I still don’t know where the rocks are. Maybe there isn’t a sign this time. But I do know how to see and enjoy beauty when it shows up (I’m grateful that never seems to be lost).

And in the middle, I’m starting to believe the greatest therapist ever to walk the earth: Anything I’ve had before, I can have again.

I rebuild slowly and consider it all at once. What I want again. What I want to say. And, notably, what I'm ready to release.

(Including some changes to this space)
(Most notably [!!!!] that I think i’ll be letting go of the name “Taali”soon)
(There are a lot of reasons the name Taali hasn’t been feeling right lately, and I’ll be writing about all of them to you in the future)
(I hope you’ll be able to walk with me as we move into it)

That's the work for now, figuring out what stays and what goes. Looking around and staying present through it. Sitting at this keyboard, typing to you (almost) every Sunday no matter what.

(No map, no “rocks” sign)
(Just us here together)
(I am so. so. so. grateful for you)

More next week.
t