28

28 Times a Woman in Memories, a compilation of what has made me, me. 

1. Black bears beneath the window of our mobile home, cougars chasing country girls on slow bikes, gulping puppies.
2. Being entirely turned off by German chocolate cake, like gross, egg yolk & evaporated milk & coconut muck flakes & pecans & formaldehyde cherries gross; thinking, My mother must not know me.
3. Seward, Anchorage, Soldotna, Alaska to see family, to fish, to be my father's, Robert Thor Olsen Jr's, only daughter, sucking down shirley temples in dark bars as father felt the roots & missed his own father.
4. Playing pogs and trolls on bus benches, whispery -hushes on seeing the privates & private lives of those stripped; missing the bus in the heat of youth and crying as if, as if it was sacrilege.
5. Watching a coyote eat Buffy, the mixed-breed I let sleep on my quilt, crusted over in urine accumulated in an untrained country way. And the ducks gone, one by one. And the long-haired white rabbit named Elvis pissing on my brother's eyes, and all the pets mother brought home from the vet where she worked, the parrots, crows, ducks, chickens, dogs, the 20+ cats, kittens found in cereal boxes & at gas stations, rabbits, turtles - all the limp bodied-hard skull corpses we had to bury, so often.
6. Baking our first pumpkin pie, hoards of the gourd protruding, unskinned, with my brother; our golden lab, Nuclear (Nuke) nosing it off the counter, devouring, and shortly thereafter dying of cancer.
7. Circle Yes or No notes penned on notebook paper; Zap on the tops of our hands; giving elementary boyfriends toy cars as tokens of prepubescent ownership. And then, wondering why-doesn't-he-like-me?-I-gave-him-a-Hot-Wheels?
8. Cutting my hair to mirror father's - a mullet, and fiercely brushing the bangs of my mullet aside as I balled hard, both emotionally and awkwardly on the B&G basketball team.
9. Finding out what it meant to love a friend, as I lay with flu on the bed, as she put my face together in makeup for youth's graduation, and feeling for the first time like a girl who could transcend the father-mullet dayz. Hearing the rumor the first ex made, about the tailgates of pickups & learning what it meant to hate a friend, as she crossed the lips of the line.
10. The sweetest, blue-eyed, slight, San Diego naval boy whom I would spend thousands to drive and ferry-ride to see across the water, to lay on thick, round rocks with the stink of salt-rich water lapping, and in so, realizing that there are so many different kinds of love.
11. Driving away from my father for college in Portland on the smallest of athletic scholarships, finding all the lesbians and all the pastor's children and all of us in the same struggle; leaving as a point I had to make, leaving with a moral on my mind.
12. Finding "home" again in my birthplace, on bricks, cross country camps at fort casey, running hard, falling hard, in love, kissing mid-run raptor ridge, working 15-hr shifts, never asleep, but in pain with bags of frozen beans burning red against my mouth, and, obtaining a BA all at once.
13. Travelling through Europe, over bed-sized pizzas, ant swarms, boozy slushies on white sand, bicycle-rides on the lido with baguettes, boxed wine, and watermelon in the front basket. Riding ferries and photographing hands. Eating gnocci from a hollowed crab, over white wine in an alleyway. The empty seat beside me on the 10-hr flight back reserved for a what if.
14. Working as an editor for Writebloody Publishing, editing manuscripts and poetry competitions for next to nothing and feeling, like, it's where I am my most natural and in a form, proficient.
15. Living in a big house with a bomb shelter with 6 women + the extraneous couplings, frying hot dogs in the wee morning, painting the bathroom walls like new jersey snookie.
16. Coaching for a stint at WWU, but really, just holding a stopwatch and being awkward, but fully invested.
17. Obtaining Brooks ID as a "coach," and feeling for the first time, like there were doors I should knock upon. And now, understanding that even if you always progress, it won't mean everything to those you want it to mean something to. Learning, Politics. And being entirely ok with not selling myself or running myself to death to obtain an evolving standard.
18. Packing up everything & moving to Boulder, CO, where after a few months of acclimation, and many months of listless job searching, I found another "home," full. Finding people I've missed every single minute I've been away. Finding Laurey & her sons & her Grey Barn Farm, the fields, barn cats, mud rooms, antiques, elegance, Mark & Tonja, a couple I could learn from, cinnamon rolls & coffee on post-holiday mornings, all the incredible food: baked brie, warm decompressed fruit dips, flax crackers, Titos, Easter, Peeps-sushi, thrifting through Longmont with the suburban for large purchases, or in the gray beetle with straw hats and little room. Staring at fatherly llamas and doting sheep. Seeing the glint of coyote eyes in the dark beneath the moon. The pond, leaping from the loader into the brown-green water. And, the last time I saw her, over dinner with my family, yelling at me to what? What was it I was supposed to confess? Something good and real. That I'd be ok? Kissing me on the cheek as I drove away, us both wet, whispering something important in my ear.
19. Bartender and sous-chef to a pig roasting, bleached-blonde, fire-fighting, English chef. Learning how to break the infrastructure of a chicken correctly, lining their plump bodies flat on industrial trays, creating, serving, pouring for those madly in love beneath all the trees on all the fields made for wedding's in Colorado. Sipping Tecate's with the chef as the pig skin sizzled in its box, the embers glowing and sifting.
20. The red wagon organic farm stand beneath a circus tent, in Boulder, selling beautiful gourds and fall squashes, pumpkins, hay, CSA, vegetables, corn with worms squirming between the soft stranded fir, fruit from the western slope of Colorado, especially the peaches - $4-5 dollar's a peach, and the Big Jims, the Hatch's, the poblanos, and dynamites, all raw or roasted. Learning how to roast the chiles - igniting the spark with big, clumsy, blackened mitts, the flame at the right spurt, the right amount of chiles in the cage to allow room to tumble, to burn the peel but not cook the meat, rotating, rotating, sweating, cranking, watching them blister and brown, the peel separating, knowing when, to, stop. Many a customer watching in excitement or judgment, the judgment of not good enough, roast-me-a-new-batchers, and bagging, marking them by name with a sharpie. And all of this, mostly, illegally.
21. Assistant coaching the varsity girls' basketball team at Alexander Dawson School in Longmont, CO alongside one of my most valued souls - Jess. Driving the short bus with Avett Brothers on cd. Jumping a curb here and there, but not killing any prairie dogs. Loving being one of the girls, thrown into practice, being coached by her myself, not in love with being in control or teaching, but of learning, and of spending as much time as humanly possible with the coolest D1 point guard Davidson in NC has ever seen.
22. Being a part of Jess & Erin's growth as a couple, a partnership, celebrating the Leo and Aquarius-ness of all of us; hiking, walking their two old-soul pups who have survived car crashes and being left behind, tied to trees. Witness to the sperm donation, the creation of a wholly-intentional family. The birth. The hospital room. Jude on the hip - hers, hers, mine, ours, at practices and games.
23. Fighting the cues that I had depression and anxiety for years, until, finally, I understood what low meant. Falling from grace. Loss. Division. Moving back home to my mother who would slowly and with remarkable efficacy, help me come back, out of the dark.
24. Taking a solid half year to recuperate, take care of my health, process, find a therapist who was more a friend or father than anything, embark on antidepressants, plan bachelorette parties, celebrate unions, and understand that whatever I did moving forward, I would not be the same, feel the same, or love the same again.
25. Ran 3 marathons in one year, each better than the last - finding that running myself into the ground was a lot more enjoyable that loving something into the ground; cherished the black toes, blisters, sinewy muscles, bloated, malnourished & booze-filled stomach; everything felt earned & reciprocated enough. Met Amber and penetrated the depths of strength, camaraderie, perve-filled humor with a woman who mirrored my goals and who challenged & co-developed them.
26. Helped start the Bellingham Distance Project as an opportunity for local women who want to cultivate their ability without having to commute to bigger projects, and finding great power in the understanding that Bellingham hosts and attracts insanely talented athletes. Growing this little team into something to be proud of; learning a lot of lessons and dynamics and weird small-community angst along the way, but moreso, connecting with amazing people like Rad Bones, Rolfer, acupuncturists, gyms, sports med docs, getting bloodwork done, keeping up on iron, hosting our first ever race, the K2K alongside Kulshan Brewery - all of which supports Bellingham & encourages Bellingham to support us. True, sincere & lacking-bullshit marketing.
27. Employed as film librarian at the hospital I was born at, which sounds like total country-girl-who-grew-up-in-a-trailer-on-Harmony-Rd.; it's not the thing I imagined, rather, a thing that helps me realize bigger dreams, allows for adventure, travel, consistency, a schedule to get created with, and I've never felt more appreciated in a workplace. Analyzing images, reports, working on tumor boards, creating newsletters for the department, and just how boss man walked in to say my latest newsletter was on point, such as much that he forwarded it onto the marketing director and board, saying, "You made me look good." I love making people look good.
28. Growing up. Finding balance. Finding a partner in life who is not a risk, but would risk everything just to show me that commitment is real, as we make plans and celebrate lyfe, and say Yes more often than No. Anything goes. Is where I've found myself, here.