I Don't Quite Understand

I don’t quite understand how it’s been almost six months since I’ve written to you.

I think about you often.

How I have wished almost every day I had something to say. I’m not sure I do today, but I must because something has brought me here to this keyboard again. I paused paid subscriptions for a while because I wasn’t giving you anything to pay for. I’m going to turn them on today as a Christmas present to myself and to you because (and this isn’t a New Year’s resolution, I wouldn’t stoop so low), I hope to start writing you again.

I’m depressed this winter.

My financial unease seeps through my veins like a wicked molasses.

Obviously, it’s not about the money, but money is so good at holding all of these hopes and fears. Money and the way it crudely and meticulously builds the scaffolding of The Spectacle, which is The Spectacle itself, the machinery too, the blueprints, and the scaffolding, all at the same time.

It’s about the money when the anxiety can’t find another home: the kids, the wife, the other guy at the stop sign, the weather, the news, the fact that my favorite steak from Sprouts turns out to be made with meat glue! 🤮

Meat glue is real. Only Google it if you want to go vegetarian.

Tomorrow is the day Jesus came. My son has a cough that keeps getting worse. My house has a mold bloom we can’t seem to track down. We have so much to be grateful for. Sometimes, my putrid state of mind begs for someone to get in a car crash or get cancer. Something to, even for a moment, put it all into perspective. Knock on a million pieces of wood that I should say anything so stupid.

I don’t know how else to “winter.” Shave less. Work out less. Walk on the beach any chance we can. Otherwise, stay inside. Putz around. Watch movies. Read Sci-Fi. Stretch. Watch The Grinch again (Tyler, the Creator’s version, not the Jim Carrey one that scares the kids). We’ve been drinking hot cocoa. I opened a bottle of wine and took a sip at dinner, it was a non-event. It will probably stay in the fridge for a few weeks till I toss it out.

Marley and I went to Esalen. It was everything you’ve heard, the good and the bad. The landing back into life has been hard, but I guess it was hard to begin with that’s why we planned the trip in the first place. Soaking in cliffside baths nude with beautiful strangers, no kids tugging at me and throwing Hot Wheels cars at my face. We got sick there, forced to winter even deeper. Forced to accept that there is no buying my way out of this. No retreating from life. Vacation is cute; paying to be healed is not.

I hope it culminates soon because it’s been unrelenting.

Is the crescendo Trump’s inauguration?

Is that the car crash and the cancer all rolled into one?

What is in store for me? What’s in store for us? And while we’re waiting, how do we have agency in our lives while also not trying to control outcomes that are so obviously out of our control? Our role is to set things in motion, not micromanage how the marbles roll and the coins spin. Get your head in the game by getting your hands out of the game.

Ugh, it’s all so grim and trite. Even if I were to write to you about how the world is love and how each of us has an infinite capacity to love and be loved. Even that would feel off right now.

The only thing that doesn’t feel off is my son’s laughter. That feels like something safe; something I could safely pursue and never regret pursuing.

I’m writing this all because maybe The Scrooge isn’t cutting it for you this year. Maybe you need a real-life sad sack in your inbox sad sacking you the morning of the most wonderful time of the year, the most annoying day of the year to be sad on.

I’ve wanted to cry since yesterday morning.

I went to the beach to walk and meditate. Instead, I just fell asleep on the sand with no blanket, blustering wind, and exposed to the elements, awoken only by gusts of sandy wind pummelling my face and two small dogs that were trying to decide if they should piss on me.

Oh, to be those dogs for only a moment and see myself there on the beach. That’d be the perspective I need to cheer up. To hear the birds and the ocean through their weird oily little ears. To see what they see from their beady little cow eyes. To smell what they smell: the snacks that had once been in my bag, my friend’s cat on my pants, the man BBQing down the beach. Maybe they can smell my obscure ailments and syndromes but not have the words to express anything near to a diagnosis. Instead, armed with this deep knowledge of their surroundings, they’re only able to let out an annoying yap and some dribbles of piss. Ah, yes. Perspective. I achieved it. I found it. I wrote myself here. Here I am in my human body, only able to let out some annoying yaps and dribble some piss. You’re here with me too, and I love that for us.

This is what Bukowski meant when he said love is a dog from hell. This is what he meant when he said love is like trying to carry a trash can over a rushing river of piss. Oh, lord, referencing Bukowski in my Christmas post, whatever is ailing me must be quite serious.

Of course, it’s not as serious as it feels, right? That’s kind of always the case with feelings. This winter has just been particularly grueling, right? Do you feel similarly?

Merry Christmas ya filthy animals,

Josh