200

This is officially my double century post on this blag. Who knew I could actually do this that many times without getting bored and moving on to something else?


I have returned from the woods. I wish I had not. I want to be back by the lake in the mountains, surrounded by people who have known me since I was born and people whom I've known since they were born.

I want to make 70 grilled cheese sandwiches again. I want to wake up when the tent gets too hot in the sun and go to sleep only when no more games of spades can usefully be played. I want to hear old white straight people who could easily not care thoughtfully discuss the lot of immigrants, workers, and even, shockingly, teh gays, and what they can do to change things for the better. I want to teach teenaged boys to knit and let children climb me as if I were a very small tree. I want to absent-mindedly hum along to some old mining song while playing poker for amazingly low stakes. I want to watch another wine bottle melt in the fire pit.

I want to be out of the world, off in my other time where every year lasts ten days and folks I haven't seen for fifty or a hundred weeks still know more about me, sometimes embarrassingly more, than the people I see every day. The real world has too much in it, and not enough time for a three-year-old's smile or a trio of gray-haired ladies singing cheerfully about aging.

Folks who couldn't make it this year, you were missed. JP, JK, BK, PR-M, RR-M, DR-M, JM, NC-S, AC-S, SS, DC, MB, DB, and all the rest.

In the real world, there are thousands of people and millions of dollars dedicated to fighting against the civil rights of all sorts of disenfranchised people. In the real world, there are fathers who care too much about gender norms to show that they love their children. In the real world, I have to prove myself, sell myself, ensure that I make my mark. In the real world, my mom is sick and pretending everything's okay.

I need to be back in the place that stops time. Can I go back now please?