In a brief exchange with a dear friend I realize in a midrashim sort of way that I am almost completely back to who I was before Alabama, back to the last year of Grand Rapids where everything was succinct and in place. I am no longer afraid of certain types of exclusions/excavations, the distance is much shorter between A and B, the lines are no longer severed, X means zero but the numbers between X and zero and zero and 1 and 1 and 2 are infinite, non-depreciating, non-decaying. Things in general aren't as exhausting, things are nourishing & mature in ways that need no discernible masks to hide behind, the oracles and totems have all points going up, north, and there are guides/types/signs/examples for anything but. All work is moving, all work is rewarding, even when troubling. It's as if that time in Alabama wasn't even real, as if it never even happened, as if I am infinitely re-reading the narrative to fill-in the gaps with what is missing, analyzing what didn't nourish, re-configuring what I could have done to make things easier (the answer: nothing. I did all I could for the time/place/information/emotions/resources given/available.) One thing is for sure, it feels funny (in all ways) to know a place so intimately and know that I will never, ever return. (Only a handful of really horrifying and terrible scenarios could ever bring me back to Alabama and I hope I do not ever have to face those.)
