It's been pretty quiet up here in the Weird Dez. That is an observation, not a complaint. The dogs are growing more and more comfortable with us and each other and the stability that is beginning to make sense in their bones. The donkeys are enjoying laying near each other in the early summer sun as if they actually found the other's presence acceptable. The nights are still cool enough to open up the windows and replace the stale air-conditioned air with the layered subtle scent of the Mojave at rest. Some of the local businesses are counting down to their summer sabbaticals, closing up until Autumn to rest and recharge in greener, cooler climes or at least dream of them when it's too humid for the swamp cooler to help.

I've always said that the summer is the tax we pay to live up here the rest of the year. I grit my teeth and soldier through, trying to get outdoor chores done early or late (preferably late) in the day. Dear husband loves the heat, his achy body relaxes into the warm embrace that only a blast-furnace dry desert hug can provide. Margeaux the Chihuahua agrees with him, she is a true Aztec Warrior Princess who loves basking in the fierce sun. I am not a big fan of summer. I come alive in the autumn and winter's crisp chill that needs a decent jacket, and lots of movement to warm up my bones. The Heelers don't care what the temperature is as long as someone throws the ball. More than one ball, more than once.

Things here are good. It feels slightly worrisome to say that, with the wildfires in someone else's backyard and the political tensions fracturing families and communities. Just outside my immediate environment where there is love, shelter and enough to eat, the static of unrest keeps a pulsing background rhythm that intrudes like the neighbor on the next block's rude-ass bass. I have strong feelings on the current political situations, like many people I know and love on both sides of the divide. I struggle with loving people who have views that appear to me as hateful and willfully ignorant. People who I think of as intelligent that make me want to scream "HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING? HOW CAN YOU BE SO STUPID"? I am a natural-born grudge holder and nose-cutter-off-er who has a pretty high opinion of my supposedly superior intellect. It has also been said to me (more than once) "How can someone so smart be so stupid?" I'm an autistic Taurus who wants everything to be measured out in black and white, good and bad, right or wrong. I know I have some lines I will not allow to be crossed. BUT...

One of the benefits of getting older is the expanded view that the perspective of time grants. The weighing of love, connection and my lived experience against dogma, opinion and the unknowability of another human's experience. Learning to accept that we are ALL subtle, contrary creatures that contain multitudes. Granting myself the humility (and grace) to admit that I don't know everything, I'm not privy to all the details, that other people feel just as entitled to their beliefs as I do, this has been a work in progress for quite a while. My darling sister Vivian has been a good teacher in this regard. More known as the family "hand grenade" than my "family weirdo" rep, she's been quicker to go to war in the past than I, but also quicker to forgive. She has mellowed into a more balanced version of her firebrand past, which has me playing catch-up. Thanks Sis! (Really)!

My take-away from this intellectual and emotional slog is to remember I am a better human when I step down off my high horse and do my best to separate the concept of the ideal from the actual living, breathing human, and grant them (and myself) the grace to be imperfect.

Namaste bitches.