Tonight my friend Allie sent me an essay about doing nothing. Not sitting on your phone and doing nothing— actively, intentionally doing nothing. Like Meditation? No. Meditation is very much something, and it’s something I’m not good at. I understand that meditation is a practice but I never liked practicing my cello either, because I don’t like to practice things I’m not good at. So I decided to try this whole doing nothing thing. I went into the den and laid down under the big window. I live alongside a hill and if you lay down on the floor you see the tops of the trees. Only the trees, nothing manufactured or altered by humans. Plus, the trees sit atop that hill I just mentioned so the Spruce and Birch seem exceptionally tall. I set my timer for 20 minutes, draped myself in a weighted blanket, and stared at the tops of the trees as the sun was setting. and instead of judging my self for thinking too much I opened the gates. Like a sheep herder who opens the gate for hungry sheep to graze a new field, the thoughts flooded in. But after a bit, they settled, and my cat Olive came up to me and sniffed my ear. in in out in in out. (please make that sound yourself, but imagine it’s coming from a little nose). This tiny investigation was enough in itself to let me know that i need to be doing a hell of a lot less more often. I thought about Kailyn, who was coming over in a short time. I thought where I was, exactly 8 years ago to the day, when I got the call that my mom had ended her life. I thought about the unknown trajectory that I was sent on, leading me here. I thought about the Mushroom Swiss burger I had today, that was really quite bad for a restaurant that has “burger” in their name. I watched a cloud, so faint, slide behind the wall of trees. It was moving so slowly that if I had been moving at all myself, I wouldn’t have noticed its path. I thought about my thoughts. and this journal entry. would I remember everything I through of? who cares, I thought, just let it go. I checked my timer, 7 minutes left. I felt bored and aimless, two things that I generally treat with distraction (TV, phone) or engagement (Art, reading). But this was something else. this was neither of those two, it was simply nothing, and I felt okay.
crossing over
I was biking around the neighborhood and I cut into an alley, leading me behind a church. Propped against the wall was a piece of plywood. A skate spot. I immediately thought of you. Of us. Skating on Overbrook until late into the the heavy summer nights. The neighbors probably hated us. There was the one summer before we turned 16 when we built a box out of a pallet, an L-shaped piece of metal, and a couple trips to Home Depot. We’d drag that thing out into the road and Danny would come skate with us, the only one that could land a tre (or a consistent kick flip for that manner). On rainy days we’d rip skate videos off limewire- like Baker 3, Get Gnarly, or Almost Round Three. You’d be so excited to show me someone’s part and I’d try to identify the songs by digging through credits or searching the lyrics. Some days we’d hang on the tramponline until our legs ached. There was the summer before when we went down to the Outerbanks and surfed knee high waves because that’s all there was. We goofed around in the pool, still giddy in our boyish innocence, not understanding what would come next. There was night we were skating in the parking lot of the 7/11 up the hill, and the owner chased us down the street, all the way home where we hid for hours. There was one night we watched Hills Have Eyes in your basement and you invited some girls over and one of your friends and one of the girls went to the other side of the basement. I sat uncomfortably on the futon, avoiding the scary movie and scanning your wall of Grateful Dead cassette tapes, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Then you got caught smoking weed and I felt lthat our paths were splitting. Your mom sent you away to a wilderness rehab camp out west and even back then I knew that the weed wasn’t really the problem. We were adolescent, and both fatherless, trying to find our path into manhood, to selfhood. Boys of that age are so curious, so uniquely delicate, finding the line between our childhood and our adultness. What would take us into the next step? Was it ritual, guidance, drinking, weed, girls, achievement, responsibility? We skated less, shared less Wednesday dinners together. One night I was busy doing homework and you got jumped by 9 guys just down the street. Girlfriends, drivers permits, and Cs on report cards. I never knew how much those years shaped me until now. Looking back at the skate films we’d make, the songs we would share with each other. When life is changing so much, there are seeds that plant themselves in our lives, offering a rooted foundation to understand one’s self. In those few years, my love for filmmaking was birthed. The inventiveness spawned from a lack of resource. We had nearly nothing, which in ways meant we had it all. A digital camera, eventually a cheap MiniDV handicam with a fisheye. The sounds of the wheels on the pavement drowned out the voice in my head that made me question if I was good enough. Our teacher was the hill down Overbrook that eventually flattened out, returning you to a safe speed. The wobbles kicked in, but we trusted that gravity would bring us back to safety. But then, another hill, and a busy road, and more risk ahead. We haven’t spoken in nearly 15 years, but I think we were meant to meet, to form a brotherhood in those times. I hope you remember those trying times, slipping our childhoods, one hill at a time.
the reflector
Their eyes fixate on me
Well on their way,
Vulnerable, tender, insecure
Staring deeply, trying to fix themselves.
What do they see in me?
I ask myself as a woman pulls on her earrings
But I am sitting at a high top
At a busy intersection
Inside a döner kebab shop
behind reflective glass.
They see nothing past themselves
I realize as I wipe hummus off my lip.
Lost on purpose
Getting lost on purpose. Can one actually do this? Maybe the List of paradoxes Wiki page presents a similar phenomenon, named after some famous explorer that refused to use a compass. I could look through all the many paradoxes to find one that fits this scenario, but then I’d be reading through Wiki pages instead of writing these thoughts (The Paradox Research Paradox?).
Anyways, I’ve been doing just this. I’m in the midst of a nearly 2 week travel period, much of which I am doing alone, in mostly places I have never visited. Last week I arrived in Montreal and decided that a long, exploratory walk was needed. With airplane mode on and my camera strapped over my shoulder, I got to the corner of where I was staying and studied my surroundings, dropping a mental pin of my location.
For the next few hours I wandered. I turned down alleys. I walked into a museum. I immediately walked out of the museum. I hugged a tree. I ate a kebab at Turkish restaurant in which I didn’t look up the reviews (it was good!). I wove threw parks, up wooden stairs that led me through forested hills. I had the cashier help me count my coins. I asked a guy that looked very cool if I could take his portrait.
Traveling alone always comes with a tinge of melancholy. Nobody to share the moments with, no one to point at things with, to help you make decisions. It will be up to me whether or not I bring the memories I experienced on that walk with me moving forward, as spoken stories, photographs, or simply in my mind. It’s a big responsibility.
But at some point I realized that I was okay with letting things float past me. That worrying about how I packaged a story to deliver later was taking me away from the moment. Suddenly, I wasn’t lonely at all. A yarrow blossom stuck its white umbel out through a fence in the park and Kira was with me. A piece of paper lay on the sidewalk that said “Abby” and she was with me. A sticker of Frida Kahlo clung to a light post and my sister was with me. The trees, the people, although strangers, the two plums I picked up from the corner market were all there with me, patient, and needless of a narrative.
I started listening more too, getting a glimpse of the lives of the people around me. I could sit down and try to write creative dialogue for hours and it wouldn’t come close to what reality has to offer. At my gate at the airport a daughter was apologizing to her mom for doing cocaine and ruining a whole day of their trip, bedridden with a migraine. “I want to stop, but I can’t tell you that I will, because I’ll just let you down when I do it again.” Today, a woman hastily turned the corner and walked passed me with what looked to be a hickey on her neck. “No!” she yelled into her phone, “I literally burned myself with a hair curler.” A few days ago, I watched a woman berate her husband in front of their young kids and his mom as he tried to help her navigate. “You piece of shit, why don’t you fuck off… 30?! I’m 31 you fucking asshole.” (Well she was sure acting like a 30 year old!). That night, I sat alone in the center of a restaurant, six inches from the table next to me, and learned so much about a daughter, mom, and stepdad just from the way they bickered about the logistics of the following day. I get used to how I communicate with the people in my life, and listening to others is like stepping into a Museum of Human Behavior.
Tomorrow Kira will join me in this new place that I have spent a few days in already. Things will be different. I’ll want to take her to spots I’ve already been to, so she can also indulge in the experience that I had. We’ll take photos of each other, share meals together, point out cool shops and architectural details. We’ll split entrees and pass iced matcha back and forth as we walk the town. She’ll chase after me as I spontaneously jaywalk across the street, and maybe we’ll use our phones to navigate to our next destination. We’ll create our own little world, one that she’ll help me carry with us. But traveling alone in a new place has reminded me that everything I experience is carried with me, even with no photograph, evidence, story, or memory. That the many happenings, no matter how seemingly trivial or inconsequential are, in total, what makes up my life.
at home
Old friends, colliding of worlds, lemon pasta, new life, conversations under a sound machine, growing into the expansion, sore cheeks, muggy summer nights with a storm breathing down your neck, walks around the block as the humidity releases its grip, stopping to smell the flower blossoms, nourishing your people, falling asleep in a space so filled with love, long days and nights traveled, choosing each other again and again, freshly grated parmesan and the smell of parsley, the hospitable comfort of a futon when it’s in the home of your friends, eating Bambas and strawberries at the kitchen counter, stepping into the lives we couldn’t have ever imagined for ourselves, and the knowing that any amount of time spent together is a gift to hold for a lifetime.
contextmessages IX
Mt. Auburn
Teachers Everywhere by Kira Casey
and a little guitar by me
For everbody
nowhere to go
The waves are like a campfire, turning off the part of the mind that has to go somewhere, providing infinity in one space.
Photo by Kira Casey
contextmessages pt. VIII
the last supper
A gnat just landed in my ravioli. What a way to go.
Little Sister Apothecary
In 2021 Kira enrolled in school to study the Wise Woman Tradition, following a calling to deepen her relationship with the plant world. She held an intuitive feeling that many of our modern problems could be linked to seeing the natural world as other or separate. Also, that our aches, problems, and dis-ease are often viewed as things to be fixed. Instead of patching over our pains, Kira has been exploring what it would mean it focus on nourishment and flooding our body with all the goodness that it so craves. What if we stopped viewing our pain as brokenness and started seeing it as a helpful message of imbalance? …And so began Little Sister Apothecary.
I know a question Kira get’s a lot from people is “What does that medicine do?” or “What does it address?” And the answer is not simple. Yes, these plants contain herbal actions that target certain symptoms (of which I’ve experienced first hand), but what I’ve found is that it’s the relationship with the plants that acts as the vehicle for healing.
I’m not an expert on this stuff, but here’s what I have experienced: Taking time out my busy life to start my day with a cup of oat straw infusion (which I did daily for a year), meditating over a cup of infused schissandra berries, or slowly sipping a spicy adaptagenic elixir has put me right back where I need to be—in the moment and in my body. I’ve also noticed my anxiety dip, my hurt murmurs subside, and my energy increase.
Little Sister Apothecary was born out of the mission to help people connect back to themselves and their communities. I’ve seen it help our friends and family. It’s really powerful. The medicine is infused with intention and care, all done in ceremony. To all of our loved ones who have come to our home and shared a cup of tea or a home-cooked meal from Kira, you know her gift. I’m so grateful she now gets to share it even with more people.
www.littlesisterapothecary.com
overwhelmed by the giving
Last night I had a spoonful of local whipped honey and I couldn’t believe how incredibly lucky we are to live at the same time as honey bees and to taste their life’s work. The light, airy ambrosial flavors danced from the tip of my tongue, all the way to the core of my body and I wanted to cry of gratitude. Kira reminded me the other day that a bee makes less than a gram of honey in their lifetime. That’s a drop of honey. And there I was spooning it into my mouth in my kitchen and passing the jar around with Kira and Rebeca. Occasionally I can’t help but trip out over how strange this all is. I’ll get overwhelmed by the beauty and interconnectedness. Simple foods remind me that I’m home and I reminisce on the hands, wings, antennae, seasons, and cycles that delivered the spoonful of honey to me. To remember all of those steps is to bring them back to life. I think of the quote I read a few years ago, “You are eating a little bit of sunlight every time you eat food.”