The upward thrust of death is something I’ve spent more hours thinking about than the average mortal. If you’re looking for proof of the irrationality of the death obsessed – consider my simultaneous belief that I would be dead by the age of 30 and the need for silverware to eat food with, a concern that obsessed me when I was 15 years old and planning to leave home.

I’m not in the habit of making promises I know I can’t keep. I’m not in the habit of counting seeds before storms. I’m not in the habit of counting bets before the race is over. Not in the habit of dying before I’ve had a chance to count my appointments with ghosts.

All my life I’ve been looking for my whole tribe and it’s taken stiff education to recognize them, to be brave enough to hail them, to understand that they’re always going to be different in unfathomable ways but be the same in all the ways that engender love, laughter, deep hell cleansing, and complete love. I’m so lucky to have, at this point in my life, gathered so many bright lights around me, tethered by alliances that can’t be denied or diminished. Peers, older generations, and the permeable beautiful youth that needs old hags like me to light the way to the non-partisan table of appetites and passions.

I keep wondering if I’m going to die before I do the thing I was born to do. This goes expressly against everything I believe which is:

1. We die exactly when we’re meant to die, you can’t die when you’re not meant to die.

2. Whatever it is you need to accomplish on this earth, in this life, is immaterial.

3. The only thing that matters is what you did while you had the chance.

I’ve spent so much time in the last two days cleaning up my office and throwing things out. Culling my junk. Sweeping out the dust and shittiest shit ever to hit the shit shelves. Sullied papers, blank letters, torn bits of self esteem, everything that reminds me of everything else except for the stuff that reminds me of the things I can’t bear to forget.

Been burrowing for too long not to know when I’ve hit the underground ocean, the sea-wall of underwater limitations, the line across which I have to swear and dance and tap and kick because I refuse to be held back yet again, silenced, led, and sold.

Good luck with this flesh.