Journaled, 7/23/2024

A journal entry from 7/23/24 after a big storm.

“After weeks of movement and hugging boys and wading in streams and skinny dipping with your coworkers and spilling spiked root beer and taking about a thousand photos and playing guitar late at night til your fingers ache and you’ve written all you can about that boy you met online. After you miss your parents and you realize you haven’t called them in weeks and they’re getting older and your dad is sixty five now and he gets the senior discount and it makes you sad. After you go have dinner with your sister but you leave early cuz she has work in the morning and the dogs got mud on the couch again and she says love you and shoos you out the door. After you think about what you’re gonna do next year and after you find out you actually do love your job and you’re not sad about that brown haired boy who never said I love you a year ago and who can’t look you in the eye now.

When was the last time you just sat back and experienced it?

I’m just being dramatic. It was today in that big pool in Ditch Creek that was 0.7 meters deep and on Saturday at Roseberry barefoot just smiling at the crowd and putting glitter on that nice woman’s face and hugging River and Camas and Emily and Margo? goodbye. And every time I’ve touched water or swam in it lately. And when we caught Chinook salmon today, and their little bug eyes and forked tails told us that they’re really special and to take good care of them because there’s not that many that do so good these days. And how there used to be moose and salmon everywhere forty years ago but not anymore.

This life moves quickly. My coworkers are sitting on a log in the distance. Probably talking shit and drinking. That’s okay.

The rain made everything smell very, very good.”