A fog has descended over the valley, and it’s driving all of us insane. I’ve felt like a daredevil driving to work in the mornings, pointing my car forward and hoping I don’t hit another car, tumble down a ditch, or miss my turn. It’s kept me young.

I had to remind myself how to do this. How to publish something online again. I had been thinking about this space, about what I wanted from it, but I’ve been focused on living, on trying to enjoy each day as it comes, to focus on now, on this breath, because in the end, ‌I will only have one last breath before I leave this world breathless. I want to exhaust my life force completely and leave Death nothing but a bag of bones.

How’s that going? It’s going. There are times, small moments throughout my day, where I catch myself and become aware of the mask I’m wearing, the mask that transforms me into a robot, a machine following a prewritten set of instructions, without thought, without awareness, and I think, what am I doing? I’m playing a part, playacting for some audience I will never see. Why? What for? I don’t know. But I catch myself and I feel this deep and hollow and foreboding hole in my chest, and it scares me, so to feel better, I put on my mask and I let myself forget. I distract myself with all the distractions we’ve created for ourselves, and I tell myself I’ll try again tomorrow.

One day, there will be no more tomorrows, and on that day, I think I will finally feel peace. But until then, I have a life I want to live, feelings I want to feel, people I want to be with, places I want to see, art I want to create. As much as I’ve been writing in my notebooks, the essays I write on this site just feel different. There’s something about them that I can’t quite reproduce in my notebooks, and so I’m here, on this first post of 2024, and I don’t know I want to keep coming back here, writing my words, living my life without my mask. And I think that’s what I’ve been missing, to an extent. A chance where I can just be me, honest and true and fucked up like everyone else.

Or maybe this fog has driven me insane, and I don’t know who I am anymore.

Last weekend, I went to my first rodeo with my friend, and I had a blast. I had no idea what to expect, and I admit, I felt out of place, but my friend made me feel welcome. She walked me through the rules and strategies for each event, and the more I understood, the more I began to appreciate the rodeo and the entire culture and enthusiasm surrounding it. Rodeo’s are a big part of people’s lives where I live, amongst all my friends, and I, in hindsight, feel disappointed that it took me so long to enter this world.

A few things struck me the most. The first was how violent some of these events could be. The second was how young many of the participants were. There was one moment when a boy no older than twelve fell off his horse and hit his head on the ground, knocking him out for a solid ten minutes. There was a hush in the crowd as we watched the EMTs huddle around him and do what they needed to do to help. They strapped him to a gurney and carried him away, but one of the cowboys told the crowd that he heard the boy say he was okay and that brought a relieved crowd to cheer and clap. And the show went on.

One of my favorite events was the barrel race. These were fast and fun and I loved seeing these skilled people ride their horses with such command and grace. I’m hooked.

Earlier this month, I woke up at around 2am and when I couldn’t fall back to sleep, I grabbed my camera and drove around. I pulled off at a place I had driven by a million times before but never stopped to explore. The sun was beginning to rise as I walked the dirt path and listened to the birds and the insects and the quiet, and I snapped a few shots of the sunrise, then I drove to the reservoir and snapped photos of the geese and ducks swimming on the water, and I stood there a moment and watched the sky change colors and the birds fly away from me and I thought, Wow. I loved every moment of this brief excursion, and I was happy.

Earlier this week, I went on a hike early in the morning, and I had my camera in hand as I snapped photos of the trees and the talus and the mountain peaks, and I broke a sweat as the slope steepened and the extra water in my pack began to feel heavy, and I talked to myself as I ascended the mountain and swore there was a squirrel or a sparrow stalking me in the trees as I hiked the trail, and I imagined getting mauled by a bear because I saw bear scat on the trail on my way down from the hike that I swear I didn’t see on my way up and I, of course, didn’t have bear spray on me so I made my peace with the Universe and savored every moment of whatever life I had left, and when I saw my Jeep I felt a tinge of disappointment that I didn’t get to see a bear. I took my boots off and changed into my sneakers, and I sat in the front seat with the AC at full blast and I felt my sweat dry on my face, on my glasses, and my back was throbbing, and yet, I still thought, Wow, I loved every minute of this hike, and I was happy.

Last night, I had dinner with a friend I had known for many years but had never asked out before. We were actually supposed to meet last week but since she couldn’t find a babysitter, she had to postpone by a week, and that was okay. We sat at the bar and I ordered a Cold Smoke and some street tacos while she ordered some multi-ingredient science experiment that I think had pineapple juice and Sprite and a plate of clams that reminded me of the ocean, and we talked about work and baseball and ourselves, and I asked questions and she asked questions and there wasn’t a lull in the conversation, and we smiled and laughed and when our meal was over, we walked outside and marveled at the beautiful Montana sunset and I lamented that I’ve spent all this money on my photography gear and I didn’t have any of it on me at that moment. She laughed, we hugged, and as I drove back home, I thought, Wow. When I got home, I saw that she sent me a message, and I read it and smiled, and after a few back and forth messages, we settled on hanging out again next week. There’s a rodeo, she said. Let’s do it, I said. Thinking of that makes me happy.

This has been a good summer.

It was my birthday earlier this week. I’m closer to 40 now than I am to 30, and I don’t know how to feel about that yet. I usually don’t like celebrating my birthday, mostly because it wasn’t something I celebrated much growing up, but this birthday was different. I felt very loved and very lucky. I have good friends and a great mom. My friends bought me a cup of coffee—a black Americano, naturally—and a delicious and very filling vegan chili pie. My mom bought me a Bookshop gift card.

Books, coffee, and vegan food: that sums me up pretty well.

On Thursday, I donated two units of blood to the Red Cross. It was a Power Red Donation, and it was pretty slick. The guy who did the procedure on me had recently gone to San Diego with his wife for their honeymoon, so we talked about my hometown, the Padres, the Dodgers, and good Mexican food. The older I get the more amazed I am at how small the world feels sometimes.

I wished my mom and a few of my friends a Happy Mother’s Day today. I’m just now realizing that most of my good friends are mom’s, including my own. It makes sense: mom’s are the best.