I Am a Tumbleweed

a tumbleweed with many homes

The secret is that I have wanted to sort of disappear for a while. Online, at least. A. changed my social media passwords, I paused the Substack subscriptions, blah blah blah. That’s actually all I really needed to do to be gone. Delete Instagram, Substack, and poof. So I have been gone in ways; And in more important ways, I have been present to life and its changes.

This morning, just a short while ago, I woke up at 5:30am on my 26th birthday to A.’s squirming and muttering. Above us, on the steep slanted roof, rain came down lightly, like in a trance. A. went out to the balcony to take in the chairs which had been used for a small dinner gathering on Sunday. I got cozy in the blue chair which overlooks our swamp-like front yard, overgrown with grass which, when the wind blows, looks like a Miyazaki film. There are batches of clouds rolling in. They remind me of my mother; she always points to the clouds, says to see her in them when she’s dead. The rain is passing from island to island and soon, so it looks, it will move on.

We are plotting the day, me and A.. We hope to take our bikes up and round to the ferry landing, say hello to Bobbie at the village store, get free coffee, and ride the ferry to the next island, the flat land. If we’re feeling lucky, we might take a moped out to Lime Kiln Point and watch the whales. For now, the birds are here and everything smells green. The grass is still, for now.

This past weekend the island celebrated pride. Kids from my second grade class showed up with rainbow flags, the massage therapists of the island set up booths and offered their work for free to the other queers, the librarian showed up with books to give away. We made art for Palestine and danced with Haley and got tooth gems at the tooth gem booth. At night, we all came out with our sluttiest outfits on. The queers felt good. The boys wrestled in a pool of cake and made out. A. and I danced and screamed and kissed like we were in college again. P. did those things too and then, after a while, stood on the outside of the circle. When I went to find her she said she was watching us all be happy, all these people she loved, all these queers. I love them too, though I have just begun the process of knowing. Right now it feels easy to love. It is in abundance.

The night before the party, I sat next to a co-worker at the island drag show. Dina said to me, We’ll really miss you next year. And I said, I’ll miss you too, you know. And then I told her about this being the first place that I am not ready to leave, don’t feel some urgency to run away from, a place I have found rest in. Oh, she said, you’re a tumbleweed too. And here we are, surrounded by sea and whale, tide and danger . Unable to leave on our own tumbleweed accord.

In another life I would stay here. I tell the islanders that I am coming back because I want to believe in manifestation for the first time, even though I have manifested my whole life. I don’t know what that means for me, but I do know that I am going to grad school in the fall and that means packing everything up again, taking the ferry to the mainland, and driving east for 8 hours. Which, by the grace of god, will drop me off in the high desert mountains of Montana. It couldn’t have been anything else but this. Do you feel that sometimes? This is just how it goes.

I have more to say, but for another time. For now, I am going to go be present. It’s better this way—the sky is shifting and A. is making omelets. I want to be there. I will write again; I will be home again.

love!!!! so much!

jo