Envy.

That skydive, that preternatural flight, was absolutely extraordinary. I needed to see this particular part of our planet from just that height. Needed to see Nurse sharks patrolling from 1200 feet. To run my toes through the top of a rainbow. To pass through cumulus clouds with my own fast-moving skin. I needed to fly through rain into sun. Needed to feel a planet impacting my feet, so gently so gently. Needed, just for a few moments, not to be jealous of the birds...though I envy them for much more than their effortless flight now. Now I know the soft, open whistling that composes so much of their auditory lives. I cannot help but want to hear it, too.

जुम्प. A Good Day to Die.

A couple of weeks ago, I told my Otter that I wanted to get off the island, off the Keys. Gettin kinda feverish with my lust for space, for breathing room.

So today, I got up, had Cafe Sua Da and a fresh-made bagel, and then, under the aegis of the literally-minded Otter, tossed myself out of an airplane, two miles up in the air, with some guy I'd just met strapped to my back.

...As you can see, I was terribly indifferent to the whole endeavour...

Honestly, it was one of the sweetest, most exquisitely beautiful things I've ever experienced. I totally expected a titanic adrenaline rush, expected to be giddy, shaking and stuttering when I hit the ground, but instead I was happy, calm, fulfilled. Grateful, more for the experience than for my continued life. There's nothing like participating in something 'common sense' dictates is a Really Bad Idea to make your blood flow a little more smoothly, to remind you to breathe.

...It's so...

Y'know, it's so calming. It really soothes me to put my body and my sanity in Harm's way; it soothes me to teeter at the edge of an airplane door, over 10,000 feet up, and know that today is not my day to die...and if I'm wrong, if it is, so be it.

It's a beautiful day for an Exit.

I'm still not really sure how to function in the Day-to-Day, in the mundane; but if you wanna throw me out of an airplane, drive 85 mph down West Virginia mountain roads at dusk, or dunk me in the Atlantic with a spear gun I don't know how to use, wearing a 20-year-old pair of fins...well, then! Baby, it's on!

I did go spearfishing a few days ago. I managed to get all the job-baking done in about 4 hours, then ran home to meet Otter and team up with a hardcore, shark-hunter friend of ours for an afternoon's shenanigans in the big Blue. I was more anxious learning how to use a spear gun in the high-rollin ocean water, with an inebriated Otter and a Captain on a killing spree, than I was falling out of that Cessna today. Fer damn sure. I was prepared to hit the ground and die instantly if anything went wrong in the air; I was not prepared to suffer, or watch anyone else suffer, the injuries I imagined a misfired spear gun could inflict on human flesh.

Unfortunately for my documentary madness, I forgot both an underwater camera and my super-cool, super-retro, early 60s turquoise-colored bathing cap with white plastic flowers. Pity. 'Cause with my beautiful bathing cap and a spear gun? I'd look like the love-child of Aquaman and Esther Williams. I'd look like the love-child who, early on, fell in with a gang of surly chefs and rebellious literati, who chain smokes and has a fondness for both saporous sinsemilla and herbaceous elixirs from South of the border.

Photos for my imaginary posterity.

Funny...

I thought that after plummeting through the troposphere, I'd be spilling over with verbiage, with my effulgent circumlocution, what Otter calls my "high-wire vernacular." Ain't the case, apparently. I can feel the spill coming, can feel myself full and needing an overflow, but I keep stopping short, keep getting distracted. I'm a goddamned butterfly today instead of a Luna moth; I am driven by distraction instead of burning passion. My heart is too calm.

...Huh.

And here I thought peace was something I needed more of.

म्म्म्म. The Kitchen of Inebriation

Mmmm...
This is how we do it in the undulating kitchen:

Simmer Chayote (a.k.a. Merliton) with Jalapenos.
The Peppers' texture is mellowed by squash, the squash's subtlety set afire by the chilies.
Drain 'em, chop 'em up with Avocado, Cilantro, Chipotles. It's just enough smoky red to accentuate the layers of soft, creamy greens; the herb and pepper's vivid viridian to the squash and stone fruit's berylline subtlety. Sultry, creamy, sinfully sensuous textures playing footsie with cheek-reddening heat.

Fresh Corn still on the cob, whole Tomatillos, quartered Red Onions and navel Oranges, whole Jalapenos and cloves of Garlic, Coriander and Cumin seeds, a little Thyme: toss in olive oil and roast together.
Fresh, sweet Costa Rican Pineapple, cut 3/4" thick on the latitudes: smear it with Date Sugar, Molasses, Olive oil, Cayenne, roast it 'til it softens a little, 'til it browns a bit, 'til all those earthy flavors really lock tongues with the sunshine, 'til Soil brings Sun closer to the ground without compromising either's intensity.
After all that roasting, everything falls beneath Knife: cobs kerneled, vegetables and pineapple chopped, caramelly oranges squeezed over all. A handful of chopped fresh Cilantro. Good sea salt. Smoked Paprika.

Lasciviously rub cold muscle, Rib Eye, with Spice, --Spice!-- complex and hand-mixed; a great part of the mix's heat supplied by homegrown, home-dried, home-ground chili peppers from a friend in New Smyrna;
This Spice is so spicy, it sends me into convulsions of sneezes when Red, Red Meat hits hot Cast Iron.
Sear it. Bloody rare. Cut on diagonal, 1/4" thin or so.

Tortillas (masa o harina), warm and soft, homemade if I'm not too muddled to deal with all that kneading and rolling.
Perfectly ripe, raw Avocado.
Two really stoned and inebriated cooks, terribly in love and surprisingly self-satisfied.

Tuck in.
Let the grinning begin!
Let Fingers and Teeth commence their voracious degustation!

मोवे ओवर! Interdependence Day

On this our Interdependence Day, I would like to call out those who believe we are truly independent and ask them...from what, exactly, do you believe we are independent? And is this really an ultimate goal? One that we even understand? And what's so wrong with interdependency, especially when contrasted with codependency? And why do we so resent anyone else fighting for the desperate independence of which we, ourselves, are so proud? Why do these series of rhetorical questions always come back to the same goddamned one: Who the fuck are we to think we have the right to tell absolutely anyone, anywhere, what to do or how to think? How out-of-control is that ego?

Bluh. It's not even 6a.m. and I'm already clambering up on the first available soapbox--not really making much sense about it, but definitely making a mess and a ruckus. Most days I just wake up growling, y'know? Not mad at anything, not in an ill mood, just...ready to sink my teeth into some kinda meat and shake the life out of it.

However, it's kinda difficult to pontificate wildly about the ills of the Earth when I am otherwise so deliciously happy. When all possibility lies prostrate and smiling mischievously before me. As I sit in the burgeoning dawn and try to put down Some Great Meaning before I head off to my meaningless job, I am aware of my Otter, on my vision's periphery, sleeping soundly, sweetly, on the couch, ensconced in pillows and fuzzy blankets and beauty, O! in beauty... My anger melts in the face of this Love. It's funny how immediately my Life To This Point has begun to make sense (even if my ramblings this morning do not). I dunno. Maybe this shit happens to everyone. It's a first for me. The first time I've watched so many movies pass my eyes and make sense,
make sense!
Like,

Oh, That's why I went through that terrible, awful, heartwrending, mindnumbing bullshit; so I'd be really ready for this really amazing, fulfilling part now. Okay, I guess that education doesn't suck as hard as I thought it did. Fair's fair, in a really fucked up kinda way.

Everything, everything has clearly led me to exactly where I am at this moment. The lessons I've learned, from rolling in the various piles of shit the Universe has left out for me, are duplicitous and deep and often seem ridiculously, unnecessarily dramatic. However...

...well, sometimes you do what you've gotta do to get through to someone, y'know? Especially someone as goat headed as I am. Ain't no way in hell I'd've been able to accept, and I mean really gratefully openheartedly accept, the Love I am being given now were it not for some murderous bullshit knocking me off my Pedestal of Untouchability and showing me that vulnerability doesn't always mean defeat. Sometimes it means we get to refuel and fight even longer, become even stronger, pair our righteous anger with heartfelt compassion. That's a pretty powerful lesson that I maybe only could learn by powerfully violent means. I never in a million years would've accepted the gifts I have been given had I not been metaphysically tied down and forced to accept them at some point.
And lord knows I tried to struggle, tried to wriggle out from under it, tried to deny, deny, deny, until finally I collapsed and had to admit,
had to admit
I couldn't stand in the face anymore.
Had to admit Mama was right,
had to admit the wisdom of my own wisdom,
had to admit that we deserve to be loved as much as we deserve to be punished.
Had to admit I deserve...
...I deserve...

I deserve the Struggle, deserve the Fight, deserve the Pain because I can feel the PainFightStruggle a thousand miles, a thousand years away. I deserve my Cassandra-sight because I will not, I cannot ignore it. I deserve my heartsickening Empathy and merciful Anger because my voice and will cradle and strengthen them. I deserve punishment for humanity's ills because I hold the root of these ills within me...

...And I've known this shit since I was a little kid, yo. Kind of a fucked up thing for a 9-year-old to understand on a fundamental level.

Thing I didn't get, am just beginning to get, was the whole Love part of the equation. Like, I figured I was this one-woman emotional balancing act, the Scales of Justice made fat and bone; all evil in the world could enter through me and be somehow purified into love, love that would then leave my flesh to find those who needed it most.
And, y'know, sometimes it worked. Sometimes I really nailed it and was able to give some beautiful succor to those who really needed it.
Sometimes I was able to save people.
But the Love...

Oh, the Love.

Man, I had no idea I needed Love like other people needed it. That I maybe needed it more than most other people needed it 'cause I was draining it outta myself so quickly, so often.

I was empty.
Empty and desperately tossing down whatever I thought might take up space in the reservoir. Empty and without hope of there being another living human who could possibly comprehend all the girls in my head, all the pounding ache in my heart (and most of it not even mine!), all the rage in my muscles, and understand that these are Love.
These are how Love escapes my skin, this is how Love looks when it is under- or malnourished.
This is the burning in my eyes, the vitriolic admission of Need that my lips will never allow to escape,
not ever,
not never.

And then this Otter,
this Otter walks up outta the river, outta the Ocean, outta the water that surrounds my solitary island, and it looks me dead in the eye and sees those fuckin girls hidin out and gettin lazy and jaded, and they see the Otter and feel kinda like lookin at god and feelin ashamed of being naked and damned if they know why, and they kinda sheepish stand up slow and increasingly brazen, defiant; and the Otter grins at my all-girl firing squad and tells me it thinks it'd be just grand if I(we)'d come swimming this afternoon, and it's not like we could say no, y'know? In fact, one of the more mischievous girls said,

"I would absolutely love that"

before I could shut her mouth,
before I could remind her, remind her that we don't need,
we don't,
don't need...
don't need any mythic creatures because there aren't any on this continent, not any more, not besides me,
and I don't really remember the old Magic, how to turn the Earth inside out, 'cause I got tired of having to justify and explain it,
so I just kinda quit and
kinda forgot and
and just ended up with all these voices who weren't allowed to speak, who grew swollen throats and milky eyes and bitter, icy hearts.

Tell you what...a talking Otter who laughs and swims webs of bubbles around my body, who can not only see all the girls behind the screen door, but also entice them out to play, an Otter who accepts, without question, that Mama found me under a mushroom at the foot of the tallest tree in the forest (glowing blue, glowing blue),
an Otter who can
See.
Me.
...That's something I shouldn't walk away from.
Can't walk away from.
Not after all this, after all this leading up to...
This.

This is my Interdependence Day.
I thank the Water for this Otter, for these lessons indelibly written in my heart.
I thank the Sky for showing me my weakness and reinforcing my strength.
I thank Tragedy and Disaster for laying me low so that I could be raised up.
I thank the Otter for needing me as much as I need it, and for reminding me of things I had long forgotten.
I am grateful.
And holy.
And going back to bed.

Like I Didn't See It Coming...

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
hell (6x)
fuck (4x)
shit (3x)
fucking (2x)
piss (1x)

...HELL yeah! I'm the Profanity Princess!