Back pain has burdened my life for years now, until May or June, when I made a bunch of small changes and deleted my facebook account. Permanently deleting facebook, meaning I had to nix each individual person as a "friend," is what I have been attributing the healthy lumbar feeling, though I added things to my life around then. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to go on a walk free of back pain. Take today. I drove to Wortroot Community Land Trust, where some long time back to the land friends of my family live. My intention was to be soiciable, and I enjoyed catching up with Ken, but more than that, I had this delightful time walking the path that runs beside the electric fence past the bees and stopping suddenly at the sound of snorting pigs. Yes I, with memories of wild boars in Costa Rica, I could not help imagining... Thank goodness they were just equally startled porkers, enjoying some time in the mud. The land is so beautiful there. It's one of the most beloved places I have ever trod. Walking in the woods makes me on edge at times, but not as often as many of the folks I know, people who feel comfortable only in the city. The best part of my walk was when the path curved downhill and away from the agricultural land. I have not been in the Wortroot valley for a long time, and though I was walking there to be sociable and see who was at Ken's house, I felt a hearty pull to go into that lovely low land where the creek runs through and the flowers grow wild. It is chicory season in the pasture, I noted, bending back uphill towards the road reluctantly. My back pain is gone, I held the thought in my mind like ice on my tongue in a sweltering time. When I was eighteen I ran up mountains with ease, not thinking one way or the other that someday soon I might gain weight and facebook and sedentary habits.

I talked some with Ken, out of which came a conclusion that I realized when I drove away. I have carried a gauntlet for a long time, I have had anger and resentments about a number of friends and family who love me and care for me and have endured my antagonism and other forms of my depression. I can be a fireball. That is what my therapist told me last time I went to see her. It is true. I can be like bees. I can bite. But I have a lot of regrets and inner turmoils that too often I blame on other people. Whilst I am dropping things, pains, that do me no good, I might as well drop this gauntlet of anger. Indeed I will be depressed again, and angry too. But I can do my best to make peace with the world. I am young and I need to learn to love the people I love. I get angry at people only if I value their opinion, only if I love them, only if they are important to me. I have got mad at just about everyone whom I love. While lashing out (violently) is not my custom, anger itself is not what I want to manifest.

This summer is so productive for me! Life is good. Eat, walk, and don't forget to write!