Hi hi! 

Still alive, still in Kirkland visiting my sister's family. I have lots of stories and maybe tomorrow I will try to tell more here. But also maybe not, on verra. Growing up, my da's family were all tight knit lived nearby (except the half of the year Aunt Linda was always in Thailand) and I saw them at least once a week but most of the time I saw many of them more like 3-6 days out of the week until like middle school while my mum's family (except my great-great-aunt Rene and my step-aunt Cathy C and my step-cousin Jake and my grandparents before they retired to Hawaii and then became part of the scattered all over the globe) have always been scattered all over the world so I'm lucky if I see them once every year, realistically it was more like once in every 2-5 years I would see them. And so both my sister and I grew up with the idea that when you have loved ones who live far from you or who wander far away, the times you DO have together you make the focus of all your time and energy because it's all you may have for a long while. Being ADHD probably helps because hyper focus and time blindness. But also it's learned from having both types of family nearby and globally scattered family and learning to love deeply and intensely and connect/reconnect no matter how much distance/time has been between you since you last crossed paths. So really while I'm here, I'm just super immersed in their lives and focused on being present to share the moments make the memories with all five of them (and their cat) while I can because it will be a long stretch before I can next see them.  And that's what you should always expect of me any time I have a chance to share time/space in person with people I love dearly but who I spend much of my life without seeing in person. Honestly, I don't think I've really been on social media much at all while here, though I have been texting with people.... So I may write here to catch up tomorrow while my sister and brother-in-law are working from home and the kids are last full day at school (Fri is a half day) but also I may not. On verra.

But anyway.

Closing in on the end of this visit since Sunday night is my drop off at SeaTac and then the red-eye back home via Minne. My sister has already begun the, "so when are you coming next? Are you coming for Christmas again? Huh huh huh?" game and even started thinking/planning setting up for Christmas tree, lol. And, it IS much brighter in the heart to celebrate Christmas with littles running about -- because decorations and gifts are fine and all as an adult but there's something about getting to make the magic and watch the joy in a child as they open gifts that is just the best and most magical!! Kirkland rather lacks snow for my midwinter tastes, but it compensates me in the presence of my 3 niblings and getting to watch them unwrap and open everything. (Also it's fun that I actually really enjoy wrapping gifts, always have, and my sister only enjoys it when it's a shape puzzle or trying to use minimal paper wrap something in scraps by breaking the conventions of wrapping. So whenever I visit around holidays she likes to bring out the goodies and let me see them and then have me wrap them. This visit I wrapped Elliot's birthday gifts she opened last week and Monroe's gifts that are already here for her birthday in August.) 

Also, my sister is sick and my nephew Jack has a touch of it (the joint pain) and Elliot we think may have as well at the start of my visit but being 2 she lacked words to express what was wrong. It seems like it's most likely parvo given 1) toddler in the home 2) their house cleaner didn't come the week before my visit due to her arthritis being bad enough for over a week she couldn't handle stairs and 3) my sister's symptoms are pretty much just intense joint aching like arthritis and a rash on her lower legs/feet. She asked me tonight why she always seems to get her sickest then I come visit even though she gets sick other times but never as badly. And I told her, "Honestly? It's probably the same reason people often get sick when they finally get a break in their schedule or take vacation. When I'm here, you have an extra set of adult hands to help with the kids and chores like the dishes, so your body feels it's okay to be as sick as it needs." She nodded, "because when you're here it's safe to be sick." I nodded, "pretty much. It sucks, but I guess maybe it's a compliment to me somehow." But like, her joints aching are REALLY bad like rheumatoid arthritis bad and while yesterday was worse on her today wasn't great.... So I'm glad that I'm here to help make things easier on her and Jon and to give a hand with entertaining the kiddos while she is hurting so badly.

While waiting for Jon to finish setting up the new TV in their room, my sister and I were downstairs in the rumpus room and we decided that while I am definitely a chaos muppet (she has a theory that everyone is intrinsically either an order muppet or a chaos muppet; she is an order muppet, Kermit to be precise, and I am a chaos muppet and we both know this about ourselves and each other) we finally identified which one of the muppets my chaos muppetiness is and landed on me being Rowlf but Jon added that when my ADHD is wilding too much I'm like the random pink doot-doo-da-doot-doot muppets in the Mahna Mahna song. (Which incidentally is one of my random happy hyper songs I break into for nothing more than bubbly joie de vivre putting it on in my internal jukebox.) We considered Animal because none of them read but decided I'm really not that wild in my all the time behavior patterns or driven by primal urges and I was just like, "Honestly, of all the main muppet characters, Rowlf was always my favorite muppet and the one I feel the most kinship to." And she was like, "but what's his personality other than playing the piano? I mean, you've always loved piano music, but it's not like your identity." And I was like, "True. Though I do HAVE a piano and while I never learned to play properly I always love playing out my random songs in me." She nodded, "Well that's more than halfway there. And you do break out into songs a lot. But what is Rowlf's personality?" And I was like, "Well, he's kind of a happy go lucky loner doesn't join in the backstage shenanigans but always shows up at the right time he's needed to be there to commiserate help make people feel better. He tells lots of puns. And, let me look him up for you." So then the youtube vidéo playlist I find, I start with a Rowlf and Kermit video in which Rowlf explains how he likes to spend his evenings quiet at home by the fire reading his books and drinking his beers and going on long walks by himself. And my sister is just like, "well that all checks out" and then the next one is Rowlf at a cabin in the woods with a band of raccoons and other woodland critters and my sister goes, "Yep. You've always wanted to run away to live in a cabin in the woods AND you befriend woodland creatures easily would get them to play music with you." And then Jon added the bit about how my happy shiny ADHD side is the random one off  happy bopping pink muppets in Mahna Mahna.

Can I swear that my isness is the reason I'm Rowlf as opposed to it being the way the polar bear and I mirror each other and bleed into each other's energies at all times via the bond? No, I can't swear it. But also, of all the muppets, except when you see me in extroverted ADHD mode, my character is more Rowlf than any other recurring muppet character. (Side note: I learned tonight that originally, Rowlf was almost named Beowolf, which made my literature loving heart so very happy!! On my life of someday pets, I wanna get a giant Irish wolfhound and name him Beowolf, Bae for short. As well as having a mischievous thieving ginger cat named Grace O'Meowly after the real life historical Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley from the Elizabethan era.) In general, both our natures have evolved around and with that bond and everything that is exchanged via it -- so my character wouldn't be what it is without the soul deep influence of him in me and vice versa. Whatever you want to define the bond as being, it is transformatively central to both our identities and our soul growth and all the paths we do and don't take across our lifetimes. 

Thinking of which: not entirely certain why, but yesterday/last night something shifted within me (the astrologically minded would say it was Mercury and Venus moving into Cancer pretty much together during the day) and last night as I closed my eyes to sleep my heart just sort of went, "O but I miss Eric, I miss my polar bear" and my sleepy falling into subconscious reaction to feeling that was to acknowledge it was true and just reach down the bond like a hug and to let him know I love him and miss him. And there was just an initial surprise from him (it's been a little while since I've done that) followed immediately by just this absolute flood of love and sense of being held and cherished rushing down the bond and I slept wrapped up in that flow of love between us all night woke up to it as well. It was there all day and then just now while writing this he started flooding my third eye with his love down the bond again. And it's making me feel like I'm being a stubborn idiot for choosing not to give him the opportunities to reach me of me following him again on insta, even given my reasons for not liking the negativity it was adding into my life and emotions toward him whenever he shared content I couldn't see as "content unavailable right now" because it originated from an account that had me blocked.... So there's a non zero possibility of me listening to that feeling and going to change that tonight or at least going to see if he has anything there I might be missing and wishing would reach me somehow. Is it the best idea? Hell if I know. But tonight, tonight right now my heart says it's the right choice and action. And generally, listening to my heart leads me to experiences that add joy and love in my life -- and at their worst listening to my heart teaches me lessons. Now listening to my head.... Well, let's just say a thick streak of stoicism and an even thicker sense of justice can take you a long way down incredibly painful paths when you listen to good logic built on faulty bad premisses.... So right now, I'm in a place inside where I'm inclined to listen to my heart. And that's what my heart is saying, to at least choose to at bare minimum give him that path to reaching me if it's an opportunity he wants. 

Also. I really should be asleep already. So I'm going to set my alarm(s) for the morning and finish my Yogi Bedtime blend tea then read more Plutarch until my eyes are heavy slowly closing and I keep rereading the same sentences over and over. (I do enjoy the ancient history/myths/biographies -- it's just a very dry(den) translation and the kerning is super tight and the paragraphs are dense so it can make me sleepy reading too much of it at a time) And then lights out and bedtime for yours truly. 

Bonne nuit. And sweet dreams. Until next time (whenever that is.)

P. S. Happy summer solstice!!! Past midnight means officially into solstice territory now! And this year, it's the solstice followed almost immediately by the full moon the next day!