My aching legs are back home at last. It was great to get away. I also laugh at the fact that I hear "four mile hike" and think of it linearly. Like "four miles walking in a straight line down the street". It is never that. I feel irrationally proud that I finished it and feel grateful for being with a crew of loved ones who know wtf they are doing.
(pause)
Recently, I've been reading again about asexuality and all that can fall under the grey sexuality spectrum. The book I am currently reading (Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen) is enjoyable so far. The author, who is ace-identified, breaks down and defines terms clearly. The bulk of the book's information is based on interviews with over 100 ace-identified individuals. In breaking down desire and types of attraction, desire, and relationship to interest in sex into various pieces, the book offers building blocks of desire so to speak. I've found myself thinking so much about how aspects of desire and attraction are assumed to be universal and/or experienced the same - even when I know that they are not. The book offers language I haven't fully understood before and helps me in thinking about and articulating topics and realities that felt more ambiguous and ineffable before starting to read the book.
(pause)
Lastly: One of the things I love about my job is simply the interactions that I witness. A professor, intending on giving an autistic college student some tips on how to approach fixing a spreadsheet he was working on, was met with this interaction:
Student: I don't understand how to fix this.
Professor (leans in and points to the screen): Do you want to know a secret?
Student: No.
Professor (waits a beat and then tries more direct language): Would you like to know how I have fixed this same problem?
Student: Yes.
[end scene]
Here is to the beauty of attunement to those around you.
Be well; be loved,
k.
**= Sung in Bruce Springsteen's voice
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