New Year, Same Us

January 7th 2024
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It's the new year and I'm ready to start a new term. I spent new
year's eve at the coast here in oregon. It was a lovely time, walking
for miles and miles and miles on the cold beach as the ocean kept us
company. We walked ten-ish miles a day every day we were there.

I love the ocean. I venerate the ocean. The ocean is like a god. No,
maybe don't say "like". I think the ocean is a god, or rather it has
all the characteristics of what we would call "god": it creates and
destroys, it is a vast substrate of life, it breathes and moves by its
own rhythms. Do I think it is "alive"?  No, not in the sense of being
conscious. But it is vital. It is dynamic. I've long believed that if
anything is worthy of being called "god" it probably is too big and
too vast to be a thing with thought and will. So, yes, the oceans and
forests and planets themselves are gods in the only way that matters,
I think.

But, yes, it was wonderful being there for a few days. I've been able
to do a lot of writing, hand-writing to be specific. I want to get
back to posting essays in gemspace but I feel nervous about it. I
guess there's a lot of things I did in 2020/2021 that feel hard to get
back to after everything that happened. Like even things I enjoyed
doing and putting time into have this taint. Writing music and poetry
is still one of them. It's been hard to do either of those since late
2021.

But maybe this year I can take back a lot of these things that have
felt lost to me

If you're reading this I hope you've had a good start to your new year