I’ve always been obsessed with homes. I spend my free time scrolling Zillow. The Man does it too. We started doing it together, almost immediately. It’s crack for Capricorns. He builds homes. I’ll design; run the numbers. We could be a real estate powerhouse together, and it’s so juicy. It’s a total dream. I just hope we’re not shooting up…

The divine fool

Home means a lot to me. I grew up in Northern Virginia. I wouldn’t say my childhood was particularly good, but it was what I needed (and what I chose in this lifetime). I love my parents, and I know they did their best, but, boy, were parts of it rough. Anyone who knows me intimately knows this. But we were also always a funny calamity of a family. Life’s been like that for me: a tragedy and a comedy at the same time. The Divine Fool.

An archetype that holds paradox, brings truth through absurdity, and dances on the edge of joy and sorrow. I have so many stories that could fit this. I remember one time, Vicki, my sister, called the cops on me because I was smoking weed in the house with my friends. We left. I assume the cops came by. As I write this, I’m starting to think we’ve always been Christians. Like, where did this moral do-gooder come from? My parents baptised us as Lutheran—it’s a typically German sect of Christianity. There was one Lutheran church in the town where we grew up. I went a few times. I never liked sitting through a sermon or having someone preach to me (I love preaching myself, though). I’ve lived most of my life as a fairly amoral atheist. So, coming back to my childhood through newfound spirituality really changes a lot of these stories.

When my dad became a woman

The probably greatest Divine Fool moment of all is having my father transition to a woman. It’s a very long story and will probably come up over and over again in my writing. It is the keynote event of my life. It happened when I was 16. My dad’s lived as a woman for the last 13 years, not exactly half my lifetime, but getting close. It was one of the hardest things we went through. I don’t wish it on anyone or any family. I trust my father is living as happily as she knows how.

For years, it was a deep well of confusion, sadness, and depression. I started using drugs to cope. I didn’t talk to my dad for six years. In that time, I got arrested three times, in school suspensions left and right, dated a heroin addict who I would hide in the tool shed at the back of the house, and somehow found my way to college (where I got my shit together). It’s one of the most absurd things that I think can happen in this period in the world, and it would happen to me (I chose it). I am the archetype of the Divine Fool. When the emperor has no pants, I will be the first to laugh. I have to remember that I actually get to find the joke inside the wound, to speak the unspeakable with a grin—which is truly to tell the truth no one else can talk about. The job of the Divine Fool is to see reality and carry it where others can’t. I am still finding the truth in what happened, but it has been the greatest source of my awakening, my spiritual path, and of this lifetime. More on this later.

Exploring making

I spent some time by a creek yesterday. Drawing from nature is HARD for me. I move into stylized rendering quickly because there is just so much going on. I find it hard to focus, and I can’t choose the right medium. I love photography, and I feel inadequate trying to copy the beauty of nature. You can’t make it better than God did.

It’s taking me more time than I would like to get going on a new series (The Man has also been a major but very welcome distraction). I’m surprised at how much I’m still juggling too (even without a job). Just the demands of daily life get in the way of flow. I came back into town today to see a house—I’d like to be able to move straight into a home I own after I’m done with the RV. It’ll take as much time as it needs. It’s making me put more structure and clarity into what I'm creating and be relentless about the sacred time it requires for birth.

Cyanotypes

Surprisingly, I also find drawing quite boring (even though I’m good at it). I got my cyanotype chemicals ready, so I can start sun prints of plants and whatever else when I get back. Cyanotyping is one of the most beautiful processes to me. It creates this stunning indigo, Prussian Blue, color, imprinted by the objects of exposure. It’s a photochemical process invented in 1842 by Sir John Herschel and is a non-silver, non-gelatin photographic process (which is important because it doesn’t require a typical mechanical dark room process—it’s experimental and handmade, and I love that). It involves the chemical reaction of iron salts to light, resulting in a blue image on a white background. It was initially used for scientific illustration and later for reproducing architectural plans. Cyanotypes are simple and affordable. You need good sun to do it too, so I’ll wait until these clouds move.

It’s rainy again today, and I wore shorts. I woke up to bug bites on my knees, and there are way more mosquitoes in Colorado than there were when I first got here. Last night, some kids came and camped right next to us, literally partied all night (they loved bass music) and then left at like, I swear, 6 AM. Camping on the weekends feels like a cultural event. By Wednesday, we’ll have quiet again, but I’ll be gone by then.

Happy Sunday,

Valerie