things that don't suck 7

that i am still here, and i can say i love you.

Aug 12, 2026

things that don’t suck 7

My best friend doing your nails in ICU; it’s a sticker, but it feels like care.

Your honorary niece putting your hair in braids; “The people in ICU did not care for your hair, and I get it they keep you alive, but someone had to help you.” Then the nurse unknotted my hair, and finally, enough was enough: I chopped it. Part convenience, part taking control, part a change amongst the changes.

Getting a wardrobe for 2 weeks delivered to me, in the style I wear; nothing was mine for rehab hospital.

Eating whatever we found on the good side stand of the road: pickles, dried fruit, surprises of drinks, nuts, and slowly driving to Southern California.

The very first sunset we saw over the ocean in Cambria. I’ll always remember that the fog was there but opened up for me as the hopeful sun set.

I remember the first food I had when I got out of the hospital: Mexican food, a smoothie, cookies, breakfast, a range of seafood, a sandiwch. I was so happy to eat food that wasn’t hospital food.

The artwork made by my friends’ children, the flowers that were sent to me at the beginning and then for many months afterward, and the stuffed animals and balloons that were bought for me.

Books chosen for me and brought to me by friends. My favorite books are underlined in sometimes typical and sometimes haphazard ways. I love to read and see how someone thinks, what they want to remember, what stands out. I underline the same idea, or not, and it makes me see differently. It’s like reading a book within a book, and I love it.

Hide and seek, where we hide the objects in the house, in my room, and in the backyard; we could play to the end of time.

Playing ice cream store, where the flavors include marshmallow dream and avocado fluff, and where she has a full conversation doing both parts with the “boss” on the speaker attached to the cash register.

Hair salon, store, camping, or bird watching, or whatever imagination we play.

The first time I floated and swam in the pool, again.

The moments at the pool, the laughing,

little kids learning to swim, the palm trees overhead, the palm trees only move one at a time,

then sometimes all at once.

The walk while listening to the sounds: I want to hear life outside and be able to say hi and stop the out-of-control toddler on a bike or the missing pup.

To actually hear, walk, and be outside, noticing is a gift, and we give it away like it is nothing, every one does this but the moment you remember.

Noticing the smallest thing but feeling immense.

Slowing down even more.

Using phone as a tool, it’s not using me anymore.

The excitement of a reading log almost complete.

Every person who has visited me has taken me to lunch or for a swim or an errand: friends I saw regularly, friends I haven’t seen since college, friends I’ve known since early days of childhood, high school, college, and into adulthood.

A whole book devoted to blue.

The way that birds fly,

noticing birds fly in a way I hadn’t before earlier in the day

watching the birds fly on the horizon,

a bird flying opposite the plane.

somehow, the flight pattern makes sense.

The bird flaps its wings and then glides over and over and over again,

I watch it over the horizon until I can’t see it anymore.

The yellow butterfly I saw the other day is the same color I saw in Mexico City on my last day visit this year.

Andrew Sean Greer. How he sets the scene in the short story right from the beginning; as he opens, he sets the stage, opens the door like bursting through it, every single time:

“The story is set in a crowded attic.”

“That was when I was beautiful. My beauty had a window of about four months, from May to August of my twenty-first year, then disappeared so can talk about it honestly here.

“The field is flattened like a book too long left open. There is the newly painted white crease of the spine; there the muddy, dog-eared corner.”

“Youth is a tender terror. Even the young still tell you so, improvising their lives on parlor pianos, stuttering a boggie-woggie somewhere of ivory they found themselves at.”

Jenny Odell, how she writes of her perception of the sounds on the street. After listening to the symphony and walking down the street with newness and “hearing every sound with a new clarity (the care, the footsteps, the wind, the electric buses)”, even living in the city for 4 years never hearing them. Her want for noticing and curiosity.

The desire for curiosity, so many ideas of writing, my writing, comes from this place.

I am like Jenny; I long for curiosity: “outside of childhood.”

The piece I am writing about orange marmalade, memory, and connection with others.

My nurse gave me a goodbye gift. She said, “You’ll be fine, just take your blood pressure medicine.”

People offer something specific, like a FaceTime or call, a visit, an errand, or lunch. And keep showing up in ways they can.

The furthest tree I can see is not like the others and stands against the I think against the vineyards or some other crop. I wonder what life is like there.

The tree is misbehaving and longer than the manicured trees.

Things that don’t really suck,

that I am still here, and I can say I love you.

things that don’t suck series pieces below for ya.

inspired by Andrea Gibson’s passing and inspiring work Andrea Gibson

i started last summer + we kept going because you all loved these + we all need reminders of things that don’t suck. maybe go write yours down a few of yours today, or tomorrow, or keep a running list like i am doing. chase those glimmers.