Yesterday I went out on a boat with my aunt - which I had been avoiding for Reasons that have yet to be fully examined - and it was fucking incredible. Like. Immediately felt better than I had in the roughly a decade or so since the last time I went out on a boat. Continued to feel my mind, body, and soul healing as the boat ride continued. Finally got to a point, just before the end of the boat ride, where I was like, "I'm having a feeling... It's positive, but I don't know what it is... What could it be???"

And the answer, tentatively, was joy. That feeling was joy. And I can probably have it again, the next time I go out on a boat. So now the reason my dad went to such lengths to maintain access to boats, any kind of boats at all, is crystal clear. Because he's like me, and I'm sure he knows in his bones, like I now know in mine, that there is no replacement for the experience of being on a boat.

My girlfriend was wobbly after the boat ride, but I wasn't. I felt more solidly grounded, more sure of myself and my body and my place in the world than I had in years, maybe ever. Being on a boat feels more natural to me than walking - because it is. I may have been born in a desert, but I was living on a boat by the time I learned to walk, and as a result, I have had my "sea legs" longer than I can remember. The water feels like home, like childhood, except safe in a way those things never were for me. It feels nourishing, nurturing, sustaining.

And today I realized: I got to Michigan long enough before cherry blossom season that I can now relax and enjoy watching it happen, after missing spring in Texas almost entirely because I was too preoccupied with the business of preparing to move. And while cherry blossom season isn't the same as bluebonnet season, it's just as good.

I will probably always miss the creatures I came to know in Texas, but I'm already meeting new ones: chipmunks and woodchucks and titmice (which, despite the name, are not actually mice) and bufflehead and great blue herons, and yesterday I even saw a pile of fluffy goslings. And it's good for me. It's so fucking good for me.

this post was made by the "I Wanna Make A Movie About Innsmouth" gang

Selene: I need to commit my routine to heart--much like the committed hearts of two young men, locked in the steamy throes of--agh, enough!