6/1/26 - 6/7/26: The coldness helped.
6/1/26
Soft is one of my favorite words. It's such a simple yet abundant word.
I also love a three or more syllable word with a simple meaning. It's not unhealthy, it's insalubrious. Instead of being sleepy I'm experiencing somnolence. Instead of the curly willow branches in my hand-painted vase looking quite beautiful in all their curly elegance, they're pulchritudinous.
6/2/26
My mom is halfway through her radiation. She says her mouth tastes burnt. She was extrapolating on her eccentric oral biome and it sounds like such a profoundly discomforting ordeal. The nausea is just right there always, obnoxiously sensitive and ready to strike. But not today. Today we stopped to get a big tub of vanilla ice cream after radiation. The coldness helped. I scooped massive mounds of the snow-colored dairy treat into two black-and-white bowls I made, and we chowed down joyously as the sun was softly coming in through the big windows.
These radiation days feel slow with her. We’ve been laughing a lot. She’s exhausted and loopy and she’s said she feels like she’s floaty and not really here at times, and yet her sense of humor remains deeply intact. It feels so good to laugh with her.
I used a mallet on some big ice cubes today to make crushed ice.
There’s a part of me that thinks not drinking coffee will solve all my internal struggles but I think it’s only adding to them. It makes me feel like a ghost, barely here on Earth, dragging their feet like a heavy feather. The idea of meditation in lieu of caffeine sounds ideal in theory but it's not for me. Less coffee and at least some amount of meditation is more realistic for me. Honestly I think swimming is more meditative to me than actual meditation. A lot of things are more meditative to me than actual meditation.
6/4/26
I accidentally put a big container of yogurt in the freezer.
6/5/26
Pockets of time have different unexplainable feelings. This one is throwing me. The brain radiation is intense and she needs someone with her constantly. There’s a few more days of it and the effects are felt afterward for weeks. This pocket of time is very scary.
My thoughts still naturally go to him. My brain still thinks about him. I get sad I can't see him anymore. And sometimes I don’t think about any of the complications, just solely of the hand holding. Just how instantly comforted I felt by his hand intertwined with mine. Just how instantly comforted I felt in his presence. Holding his hand felt like the only thing that really calmed me down when I was feeling so scared, anxiety just throbbing at the surface of my body like a hot volcano.
6/5/26
I had a few sips of an iced latte today and finally felt normal again. Not drinking any coffee was dragging me down more than I needed to be dragged down during my mom’s arduous ten days of brain radiation.
The experience of being her caretaker has been about love and an eternal attention to detail I never thought I had in me. It’s the ability to juggle massive amounts of responsibility while showing patience and soft love always. It’s made my compassion muscle profoundly buff.
The hellish landscape of two and half years of cancer chaos has been so massively grueling. It's taught me a lot more about what love means. I just want to always show up fully for the people I love, and without hesitation.
6/6/26
Someone told me once that "coffee is enthusiasm in a cup." It is the most perfectly delicious summary.
The two best things I’ve cooked up recently are a vegetable soup with roasted red cabbage, and a perfect hummus. It was my first time making hummus and I am obnoxiously proud at how exquisitely tasty it turned out.
I haven’t been able to go into the clay studio very much but I’ve still been working with clay. I’ve been getting through a bag of dark, recycled clay. I have two hand-built cups and a bowl made from it so far. I have a ton of pieces to dip glaze and I need to find a good moment to go in and do it.
6/7/26
Eating saltines at 3:21 a.m. is the perfect thing to do sometimes.
It’s a beautiful event when you finish a sleeve of crackers.
I realized today that I associate opera with breakfast foods. Pavarotti equals pancakes and syrup. This is probably because there was a plethora of opera being played on the radio during breakfast time when I was a kid.
I found a window of time to go to the clay studio tonight. I glazed seventeen pieces.
My headphones died pretty quickly, and I was alone in the studio. After dipping each piece I gently buffed out all the glaze irregularities with my pinky finger. I was saying out loud the whole time "okay, we are softening, we are softening, we are softening." And then, when I was finally able to put the last piece on the To Be Glaze Fired shelf, I said, "And now...we are softened!"
FYI: Someone in a picture giving what appears to be two peace signs could also just be in the middle of doing some lame air quotes. You never know.
The body needs breaks from terror. The fear may fill me up completely nowadays, but I also have to be able to drive a car and get groceries and drink water and ponder a future where the worst does not happen. I exist in the mundane while the terror bubbles beneath the surface. It's there ever-present but I also need to plan. I need to care for another human so intricately with the utmost attention. The mundane lets me breath a little amidst the hellish realm of despair (a.k.a. sorrowful dread). The mundane is my friend.
The b-mix slip I took home with me tonight kind of looks like the hummus I made.
