Day 252 • The 6th of March, 2023

🌄 Day 252/365

Today is such a weird day for me every year, and for the last 22 years, ever since my grandfather, my protector and best friend in the family, died, shortly after midnight, just a few hours after I’d last seen him in the hospital. It wasn’t unexpected, he’d been sick with emphysema for several years, but it was devastating to me, in several ways. Not only did I lose my best friend, his death made room for my uncle, who is not a nice person, to officially kick me out of the family (he was never pleased with my existence, something I could sense when I was 3 freaking years old. Can you even imagine? Lol. The older I get, the more baffling —and disturbing— this seems.) My grandmother’s birthday was the following day, the 7th, making the experience even more intense and painful to deal with. We ran out to buy her a gift while all of us were freshly grieving. 10 years later that same week, my childhood dog died, whom my grandpa had bought for me, making the entire week now subconscious torture, in a way I’m still sorting through.

Today my mom’s port gets put in for chemo, which will begin in a couple of weeks. I can’t say I’m not nervous. I know she’s trying to protect me from the harder details, but at least much of the news is good. Even my doctors here in Maui tell me the prognosis seems good. It’s treatable. It was caught early enough to deal with. Science is fantastic now. It hasn’t spread. It should be all very straightforward.

But man, this week. I’m not sure where I should be. In Maui? In Orange County? In my apartment making art? At the beach meditating? It’s supposed to rain today, so I suppose the universe is pushing me toward art. Art therapy it is, then!

I saw this amazing heart-cloud the moment I stepped outside, lit from below by the rising sun, still holding onto darkness from above. Thank you, Universe, for seeing me.

This sunrise was captured in Kihei, Maui at 6:41am on the 6th of March, 2023.

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