2024-01-20: an open-air pot garden? this far north?
it's been a bad week for sleep. my partner's still sick; she's been sleeping through the night now, but while i've always fallen asleep easily, lately i've been waking up regularly, and i've got these heavy bags under my eyes. last night the same. restless sleep, remembered dreams. the old house, once again. the details almost right: the bathroom door's particular heft; i don't know how i felt it in the dream, but i did. opening it, i see that someone's converted our kitchen to an open-air pot garden. plants reaching up to the roofline, to where the roof would have been.
wouldn't work here, of course; the winters kill all but the hardiest plants. and anyway, why pot? i've avoided it my whole life, uninterested as a teenager (focused on academics, music, and spending every spare moment online), and then watching with despair years later as my brother self-medicated with it, every day, rewiring his adolescent brain, though he would never believe that, would fight you on that. but i saw it, and i know my own personality far too well. i'd like it too much. occasional would turn to daily. i see it in my friends now. the ubiquitous gummies. for pain, to relax, for sleep, for everything. so, i figure, why start.
when i woke up, i thought about july. in july, it'll be nine years at the new house, matching the nine at the old. nine years in a house that no longer exists, that is now, in fact, two long, narrow infill houses, the lot divided, the three beautiful old pines cut down to make way for progress. and isn't that just human nature writ small.
journal