Last week I finally woke up in my own bed after three weeks of performing in a solo traveling circus – driving down the 1 for a birthday road trip, Mendocino skinny dipping in daylight, crawling through sunrise Pacific sandy caves, chasing mom and dad’s faint 90’s Sausalito footsteps, pillars of golden gate pink fog, frosted-tip-based assumptions of surfboards in the back of my sunset orange car, hot waves, hot chicken and hot views in Santa Barbara, watermelon lollipops at table-side raves, tattooing loved ones on another loved one’s couch in LA and tattooing loved ones on other loved one’s couches in New York, connecting with old friends in new ways over oil diluted purples, gracious offerings of collard greens from strangers, helmets that really do save our lives, robbing the local university of geranium flowers while dad keeps the engine on, and of course, learning new things (using old techniques). Lucky for it all.

I came home to lemon zestings all over my tiled coffee table. My first thought was that it must have been from my subletter, zesting every morning to lighten up my grout-work. But I had no subletter this time around. Ambiguous pollen, my new roommate. I ordered an air purifier the next day.

I’ve noticed that it’s early in the morning when I can see ahead the clearest… maybe 6:45 AM? But I often let that clearness simmer into brown. Steamed milk spilt between the crack where stove meets counter because my elbow often gets the best of me. I’ve tried to be precious, preserve, be patient. Mold and dust coat failed vinegar attempts and sit alongside the first break of Mount Hood sun behind my kitchen sink. I’ve accepted the sort of person I am – replacing even attempting balancing acts with purifiers, pills, and the color green (and in some cases, botox). Adding can often be easier than subtracting.

I wouldn’t change it though. It’s early in the morning when my mind also sees indigo spirals, wine stained cotton and the negative space of the wooden necks in the room. It’s often when my right hand starts to tremble and shake. Some days I act on it, others I run down the hill for hours. By dinner time the top half and bottom half of my body wave to each other across the street like reminiscent friends.