“No, it’s not that. […] It’s that it’s easier to do this when you’re here. And that makes me feel stupid. Have I been sitting on my tail all this time? Doing nothing because I was pretending I couldn’t? Am I so pathetic that I couldn’t muster the energy to do this without…without a chaperone?”
                -Travis Baldree, Bookshops and Bonedust, p. 73

                A few days ago, my friend (and found family) Fin and I went for a walk, pattering our feet to a nearby park and around beneath the branches. Then we came back as a storm blew in, and pulled up dandelions from a garden bed till big spring drops plopped over us. A week or two ago Fin and I learned about the fuse box in my new house, and turned off electricity so we could repair a light switch and an outlet. Both of those were tasks I’ve been meaning to do for weeks (or months). I was a little worried about doing them with Fin. “I don’t want to put this on you,” I Said, or something like that. Fin, wonderful human that they are, smiled and said, “It’s fun! And we’re learning stuff!”
                As Travis Baldree’s character is learning on page 73, I think it’s easier to do stuff when you’re here. But I’m moving to a place where that doesn’t make me feel stupid. Usually when I say “work” these days, I mean something somewhat ugly, tied up in capitalism and social structures that destroy too much. But work can also be what we do toward the world we want to share. Doing that kind of work with someone makes the effort—and the world we’re moving toward, whatever world that is; the well-lit room with a working light switch where we’ll sit and eat orange slices—feel closer. Taste sweeter. Stay shared.