Diary 57

04.21.26

It’s April so the air has taken a new shape and smell—fuller, heavier without being oppressive—and it carries the sweet fecund scents I associate with spring: damp earth, algae blooms, pollen. I’ve had stargazer lilies and tulips around the house this month; the lilies are beautiful and fragrant enough to fill a room, but I especially love the myriad ways that tulips will bend toward light, both artificial and natural. In one instance, I filled a vase with a fresh bouquet and left two tulips laying out on the table beside it. In the evening, the stems were still laid flat, but the heads of the tulips stood upright, positioned at a 90-degree angle, lurching towards a light fixture hanging over the kitchen table. It seems miraculous but they’re phototropic and heliotropic—meaning they bend and grow towards light—so are always shifting in freaky, curious ways throughout the day.

04.24.26

Celebrated my birthday, my best friend’s birthday, and my partner’s birthday last week, which has me sick in bed now. I rarely go down this hard, but I truly believe my immune system just had it after a week of drinking and feasting, in addition to the usual stress of work and school. Now I’m exhausted. On the upside, it feels like I’m always searching for pockets of time to write nowadays, and being sick has made one available.

JT and I went to The Huntington for my birthday— a library, art museum and botanical gardens on 200 acres, of which the gardens occupy 130 acres. Most of our time was spent outdoors, moseying through the 16 botanical gardens in a quiet state of awe. It felt as though we were walking between worlds, between countries and landscapes, in which my sense of time and distance had collapsed. Each plant species and variety was labeled and dated. The Rose Garden read like poetry: Winchester Cathedral (1988), Fleur Cowles (1972), Moondance (2007), Dusky Maiden (1947), Celestial Night (2018). I walked slowly, reading and pulling the fragrant wind into my lungs. From here, we entered the Japanese Garden, which was all water, stone and moss. The smell of roses faded into the delicate scent of jasmine, and the metallic scent of koi ponds. We both began whispering as if it was inappropriate to talk, as if we had entered a sacred space, although others around us hadn’t lowered their volume. Further in, we encountered a karesansui (raked-gravel dry garden) and a collection of bonsai trees, where it began storming lightly, gentle thunder and rain that made me feel utterly at peace. It was a really lovely day. Finished it with dinner at Checker Hall, which was rich and a little hedonistic.

For JT’s birthday, we headed out to the desert, stopping for an apple dumpling and some ice cream at his favorite pie shop along the way. There were a bunch of PCT hikers sitting outside of the shop with their packs next to them, their bodies worn and muscled. I’ve always wanted to hike that trail, especially after reading “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. Something about the idea of hiking yourself clean, the physical and emotional strain implied, appeals to me. We talked to a guy from Portland who had another 130 days ahead of him. He was feeling homesick, but had met a lot of cool people along the trail to help him keep forward momentum. He made me start to think more seriously about hiking the PCT.

Afterwards, we drove to the Salton Sea and grabbed food and a beer at “the lowest dive bar in the western hemisphere,” The Ski Inn. It’s the kind of bar you’d envision from a Larry Brown novel: jukebox, pool table, dollar bills taped all over the ceiling and walls with people’s signatures written on them, a bartender with huge boobs, a young chef with a tattoo of a skull wearing a Native American headdress making burgers in the back. There was an old man wearing a cowboy hat who looked like he spent every afternoon in that same seat. JT talked to the bartender about a mutual friend while I picked at his fries.

We then explored Bombay Beach, which presents as a ghost town, but is actually very much inhabited. I don’t think I’d noticed this on our last trip. The homes look like they’re abandoned from an urban perspective—shattered windows, graffiti, weeds growing through porches—but occasionally I’d notice signs of life on a clothes line, or in charred wood from a bonfire, or a fresh layer of paint. I think the people there are just comfortable living on the fringes, and like their privacy.

Finished the day at Jacumba Hot Springs for dinner. On our way home, we stopped on a dark desert road, turned off the car and stuck our heads out the sunroof to look at the night sky. I was feeling a little buzzed, and allowed a mild euphoria to wash over me as I looked up at the tapestry of stars I often can’t see. Silence except for the sound of insects and wind. I leaned into JT and smiled in the dark. Everything in that moment was perfect; everything good in the world felt close to my chest. We don’t often get to feel okay in our bodies or in our place in this life, but when it happens, those moments are really precious.