On June 2nd I did acid with Jo. We went to sleep the day before feeling unresolved because we got into a tiff that lasted into the morning of June 2nd. He woke up at 5 am and went to clear his head with a walk. He found a near perfect snake skin in the process. I woke up at 7 am and went for a walk to clear my head too. I spoke to Tabitha on the phone at one point during my meandering back. She told me about how she’s been having suicidal ideations. She reassured me that I shouldn’t worry–she wasn’t more depressed than usual. She talked about a return to the womb upon her death. Tabitha made me feel easy about Jo. Sometimes all it takes is a friend speaking about their libidinal desires for the mothership in order to suspend my tunnel vision.
Jo and I came to some sort of point in the morning where we agreed to take acid. It did take some time and a little strife that was back and forth to get there. We drank the water with melted sugar cubes out of idiotically small glassware. We tried to get into the boat house to get kayaks. The idea was to get to the island across the way, a rather wild looking dot of sand that housed a lot of birds.
We managed to get the kayaks after sleuthing about how to open the locks. I was already feeling tripped out by then. I struggled to get into the water. It dawned on me during my struggle that I had only kayaked in still water, calm buggy mangrove waters that usually open up to a shallow bay. I kept struggling and getting stuck. My arms got tired. After fumbling I decided to quit and I let myself come back to shore. I kept telling myself it was meant to be. “I’m an earth girl through and through”. When I got off the kayak I felt high as hell. I felt vibrations of the sand and could almost hear them too. The shrubs came together in unison with myself, it felt like Steve Reich’s Drumming. I tried walking backwards but I could still hear it. I ran to the house to wash my body with warm water. I changed into a linen dress. Upon my return to the beach, I headed towards the manicured patch of grass. I felt as a light as a feather. Jo looked like a funny little man with his grandfather’s hat and a yellow life vest that he didn't take off for a while. Kind of like a happy, good boy which he is on most days. The dogs were with us now. I was getting acorn bits on my feet, I was walking on the earth with pink socks on.
We walked in the mud flats and collected shells and looked at dead crabs. We only witnessed a single live crab. There was child-like admiration between us and the sand, rocks, mud. We spent a while there. We came back home and had tea which prompted Jo to get nauseous. At one point I’m staring at my legs, the tattoos I own. They resemble scars. I start seeing my skin as old and I see it change rapidly before my eyes, as if I’m watching myself age in fast forward. I think of Tabitha and her desire for a return to the womb. I remember that the womb is one of the only places in our lives where all of our desires are met, it is only the mother and the embryo in a permanent state of love and care. We need nothing else. After the womb we need the satisfaction of external objects, for example we need the milk as babies and the only way we communicate that need is through crying. Being means being pressured to love yourself to compensate for the lack of external objects. Freud often cites the womb as the place of primary narcissism.
I think that the womb represents a place where there is no lack, all fundamental desires are met. Tabitha expressed the desire to return to this idea upon death. She wanted to be the one to choose her own womb.
I thought of my own mortality. It didn’t make me sad but I did cry. I looked at my skin and thought: Where is my womb, who will cradle me, will I ever experience all my needs being met?
We joked and lingered for a bit on the couch.
We went back to retrieve the kayaks. I saw a duck waddling around making his way to the water. Merlin (dog) ran towards him and snapped his neck. He didn’t immediately kill him. He played with him. Jo and I realized he wasn’t fully dead and probably in pain. He crushed the duck repeatedly with a log. It’s hard for things to do, all beings put up a fight to remain alive. This is just what animals do.
At that point we were coming down from acid. The symbolism wasn’t lost on us. Merlin had apparently killed a prized chicken while Jo was coming down from acid before.
We ate oysters. Toast. Wine. June 2nd felt really good, setting intentions before our trip turned out to be vital. I felt feral, I felt like I was in my body and present on land, I felt slugs and thankfully not a tick in sight. I was trying hard to meditate on the objects I was touching. The reality of the world didn’t escape me, I felt its pull. I felt very good about Jo and our dynamic. The murky water between us had dissipated and it was now clear. As trite as this may come off, good things take work and time.
We ate popcorn and finished the Jane Campion movie from the other night. This is just what animals do.
