6 years, 2190 days, 52,560 hours

6 years, 2190 days, 52,560 hours.
That’s the amount of time that has passed since March 28th, 2018, sometime in the mid-afternoon.

As many of you now know I was highly suicidal then. That afternoon my life changed.
I found a “therapist” via a google search that proposed something different Contextual-Conceptual Therapy (suicidetherapy.com). And I reached out for help.

I can never quite put it in words, because words don’t always convey what we experience fully.
If I try to use words, it is like this. The last 2190 days have been wonderous, beautiful, sad, joyful, rapturous, centered, grounded, scary, full of gratitude and calm. read more

One Year of Solitude

So its been about a year since I moved to the island. A year of quiet, solitude, observing nature, introspection, and change.

No sirens
No constant drone of the city
No solicitors

Owls
Bats
Birds
The smell of the earth and the forest

I have spent quite sometime looking at the nature of myself, loneliness, and solitude.

It isn’t always easy, in fact its sometimes outright terrifying.

Being alone by choice has been illuminating, it has shown me who I am, my wants and desires, my fears and joys. When there is no one around to converse with, you end up conversing with yourself a lot. When there is no one around to blame you realize that everything is you. Sometimes I try and blame the dog, but then I remember that its just me. read more

I Don’t Have Time for This

Yesterday someone posed a question to me.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

After hearing this I laughed and thought, completely, utterly and yet not at all.

First off what is time?
According to Merriam-Webster

Time – noun
1 The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues.
2 A nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future. read more

Love and Loss

It’s been a hard few weeks. Being open about this is hard, it exposes a lot about me. Six weeks ago, I stepped away from a relationship I had been in for the past 4 years. Failure, fear of being alone, the what if’s, did I end it too soon, was I not strong enough? Failure: I gave up, I couldn’t try to make it work any longer. Fear of being alone: This is a paradox, I enjoy being alone, but in that joy is fear. The “what if’s”: What if I could change, what if she could change? What if I just tried harder? Did I end it too soon?: I have never given up on me, why should I give up on us. Strength: Was I not strong enough to keep going? My greatest fears. Being alone, being unloved, being misunderstood. For the first month I didn’t let myself feel anything about the relationship. I know I make poor decisions when I’m emotionally elevated and so I chose to compartmentalize my feelings for a while. Now I am letting myself feel things about what transpired. It’s not easy and a lot of those fears spring up and make me question things. That’s OK, I believe that in examining these fears I come to know and understand them and grow through them. Dealing with love and loss is never easy, but we do grow through it and come to understand ourselves and others better through that process. Wherever you are out there, I love you and I know you will find happiness.

So far

Where to start?
I guess I could start at the beginning and tell you all about the traumas and PTSD, my failings and grievances.
I think ill start by telling you where I am now.

I live in the forest on Orcas Island, in the middle of a nature preserve. I am surrounded by the eagle, the deer, the owl.
I’ve been here for 9 months now and each day I awake to a new wonder, the unfolding and ever changing splendor of nature.
Recently I adopted a 12 year old shepherd/husky mix, she spends the days napping and chasing birds or the occasional raccoon.
Over these 9 months I have witnessed the land go from Fall to Winter to Spring. Seeing the forest slowly go from a vibrant green to a sullen grey as winter arrived only to emerge now in a vibrant explosion of verdant green. This makes me think of how life is somewhat the same. We go from times of joy and happiness, to times of pain and suffering and if we can just sit be with ourselves in the times of pain and suffering and listen to life, we can yet again come back to times of joy and happiness. Its in the darkness that we begin to understand the dichotomy of existence, that we find the light. read more

So, I Adopted a Wolf

I recently made the decision to adopt a senior dog. I thought about it a lot for the past few months. I was thinking of initially getting a puppy, but then I realized that is a long-term commitment. That brought up all kinds of things for me.

“Kurt, you struggle with sharing the same space with other people for the long term.”
“Kurt, you haven’t had any relationship last more than 3-5 yrs in the past many years.”
” What if you get fed up and tired of the puppy a few years in?”
“You already surrendered one dog many years ago because you didn’t make time for her.” read more

The Run

For the last 4 years, I have run the “Ancient Lakes Trail Run”
I have done the 10K 3 times now and the 25K once. I ended up really liking the 10K as a test of where I am at each year with my fitness and health.
I don’t have the desire to run the other distances for various reasons, like the time needed for training and the fact that I have the predisposition to overdo it. If you know me, you know what I mean.

Here are my times for the 10K’s

2021 – 1:10:31
2022 – 1:09:26
2023 – 1:03:09 read more

Solitude

I have started noticing the nearly imperceptible shifts of the seasons, the comings and goings of time upon the land. Each day brings a new change to this place, the Canary grass is just a bit taller, and the deer frequent the pond now to eat and drink. The return of my winged friends each morning as the sun crests the hill. The frogs have started singing late into the evening as I drift off to sleep.

When I lived elsewhere, I barely noticed the changes. The business of city life created a veil over my senses that blinded me to the subtle shifts of the earth, of how the cycles of life unfold all around us. read more

NightSong

It’s been about 6 months since moving out to the Island.
I guess I should describe where I live now.
The land I am on is just over 5 acres. It is forested with alder, and fir trees mostly.
Towards the back of the property is a wetland and pond that I believe are there year-round.

Beneath the trees lies a carpet of ferns and moss covering the forest floor. Out towards the pond, there is what is called “canary grass”, it’s a green wide-bladed grass that gets about 4 feet tall. Most of the land has never been cleared, there are downed trees, nurse logs, branches, and more sticks than you could ever pick up.
Half of the land is in a preservation trust, which means that I cannot build on it. At first, this caused me concern. Then I did some research and discovered that all the land I can see from my cabin has also been placed in the preservation trust. No one can build on it, ever. This means that I basically live in a preserve, a nature sanctuary and I will never see another house from my cabin. read more

Well, well, well……..

Every day out here at the Edge of the World, I learn or figure out something new.

It’s been cold here for a few days, like single digits cold with a decent wind chill. I noticed yesterday morning that the water pressure seemed low. OMG, frozen pipes!!!. I didn’t think that was the issue, but it was there in the recesses of my mind. Hot water works, cold water works, no leaking pipes I can see. I can hear the well pump turn on every so often, so that’s good. The well still works.

The well is 150 feet from the cabin, but when the well pump kicks on 450 feet underground, I can hear it because it vibrates the pipes just slightly under the house in the crawlspace. It helps me to know it’s still working. This morning the temperature dipped again. My water pressure dropped a bit more. read more