These are not in order. Sorry.

We're going to light it up, Peanut. 

I nod, too terrified to speak. 

Just trust me, like you know you do. Have faith that it'll be fine. I'll keep you safe. 

I nod again. 

Say something, Bridget. Please.

I think this would be a beautiful show at Christmas. With the snow falling outside. 

It sure would. Maybe we should come back and do our own. 

But that's fantasy-talk as pies float through the sky because we can't do this on our own. The backers are shadowy men from other countries with point men here. This operation is huge with almost one hundred performers and another two hundred behind the scenes. We have contracts that don't benefit or protect us, codes of conduct and people who sew our costumes, and I don't have to anymore which got difficult as Lochlan kept growing, and kept getting bigger and stronger and I didn't grow at all. 

Les nuits ne changeras pas

Les soirs quand tes plus la
Même si ca fait mal
Sois mon animals
Sentiments brutal
Les nuits ne changeras pas

And it would have been better at Christmas. In summer people are hot, bored and impatient. At Christmas they are warm, emotional, generous and ready to suspend belief for things that defy reality so tenuously. They're looking for magic, and they'll pay whatever the cost.

***

You remember that? 

Of course. It's the last time you said we'd light it up. Exactly that same way. 

And we are. 

We are. I nod. Hell yes, we are. This summer we'll mark five whole years married to each other and it seems sort of a small, ridiculous number when you factor in our history, that I haven't gone a moment without thinking about him since I met him at eight years old. 

We should be on year thirty at least but no one said trips don't have rocky sections, where you're not having a good time or maybe you even find a better destination and sometimes you get lost and you end up doubling back and you get back on the right road and continue on your way. 

We don't celebrate the number, in any case. We kind of tried but it seems disheartening and disingenuous to be all Happy Third! Or whatever. Like an excuse when this is nothing like that. Nothing about our love has been normal or average or predictable. Not a goddamn thing and I love him even more for that. He never tried to make up for Cole, or one-up Jacob, or assert dominance over Ben, or even shut out Caleb, who watches us now from the fringe, just inside the darkness of the night. 

Hell, yes, you are, Caleb agrees with us without even catching that huge mental paragraph of history that spans over forty years at this point, a history he can't buy, no matter how much money he has and so we did things differently and it works, goddamn it and we're not apologizing anymore. Lochlan has no jealousy left. He burnt it all up, spent it wildly, let it die down and smoke out. 

He trusts me here and so we have a guest for Christmas because my heart has these defects now from being put back together in a hurry, huge holes that are empty spaces and there's one that can't stand it when anyone is alone.Which isn't exactly true but some people being alone upset me more than others, the Devil more than anyone.

Light it up, Neamhchiontach. 

I nod, speechless again. That's the plan.

If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?
If I'm alive and well, will you be there holding my hand? 

I finally found a comfortable spot and he ruined it within minutes, waking up, shoving me underneath his weight, crushing my mouth against his with a kiss in the dark followed by his hand wrapping around the back of my head to keep me there, his other hand sliding down around my body to bring me up close. That kiss was it and then he was inside me, every thrust so fierce I would let out an uncomfortable cry. Jesus Christ. This is too hard, too deep, too fast. I try to give him a safe word but I don't want to wake up the others, sleeping soundly all around me. The cries wake them up anyway and they move in to block, to comfort and to join. The wolf pack. Different in the dark as they devour their prey. Content to leave whatever's left and hunt again, night after night while the sheep has a thousand lives, her flesh matted with sweat, with the cloying residue of one love gone right and one missed altogether. This one, the one with the medium blue eyes never does let up, save to move his hand from the back of my head to around my throat, and I miss the chance to breathe but I never had it. He squeezes his fingers tighter, he pounds me harder still and my cries vanish into the night as he peaks into an explosion, mercifully letting go as soon as it's over. I don't want to be a bystander, I want to be a participant but he leaves and the spot is cold suddenly. 

It's shame that drives him away. It's me that will bring him back. I'm not concerned. I couldn't leave him to sleep alone, apart from us and this is what it cost.

Besides, his place is immediately taken by the favourite. The one with the striking colouring, telltale freckles and the most tender heart, after mine. The one who makes a huge effort to make it fun, make it good, make me come before he gets going and then again right as he does too. His arms are a safe haven, a gift and I unclench my whole body, suddenly racked by a bliss I can't describe as he moves surely over me. His cheek rests against my temple, his kisses taste sweet, we have a practised, subliminal response to each other, our bodies fitting perfectly. Nothing hurts but nothing is too light, everything so hot and intense we simulate daylight there, for a moment, blink and you've missed it. When he finds his own bliss within me he makes that sound I love more than anything, that sound of pure euphoria and contentment, the signal that everything is okay and he remains, he won't leave, settling in against me, pulling me in tight against his chest, putting his hands up around my head again, this time in protection instead of lust. Within the hierarchy of the wolves it isn't the largest that it is the leader, it is the one I love most.

He said I could be a little soaked sheep in wolf's clothing and he's not all that wrong.

 I've been enjoying the heat, truth be told. Usually I am too hot, blankets thrown off, one single layer under a coat because if there's two I will die, far away from the fire, honestly moving after ten minutes of snuggling because I can no longer breathe, bare feet in January sort of deal and now since I actually got cold I've been changing my tune and wearing wool and I did indeed advocate for that bathtub by the woodstove but due to privacy concerns it was quickly vetoed. 

But we could put up a curtain? I mean ma and pa never minded-

Ma and Pa Ingalls did not live in a commune. 

That's it. I'm writing the early years. Little Commune on The Prairie. Ma and Pa in their wild years before they had Mary. 

Perfect. 

Oh, just you wait. 

Ben offered to draw me a bath upstairs in my big bathtub. That's where I swim. He can have the lukewarm pools. I need the scalding water or ice cold, no in between. Ocean Bath Ocean Bath Bath Ocean. I only have two modes and the switch can't get stuck in the middle. It's just not possible. 

We're about to go dark, I think, for a few days. Not lights (GOD I HOPE NOT) but connectivity. We take life offline for big holidays and reconnect with each other instead. Wrap up the year and oh what a year it was. The rounds of presents and sitting by the tree and the big fireplace talking long into the night, taking long walks around the neighborhood and sleeping criminally late (GOD I HOPE SO) is about to begin. 

Also my bath. It's about to begin. So bye. Merry Christmas!

Wild Pacific Solstice.

 The power was out for an extended period from yesterday afternoon to sometime in the wee hours of the morning which means I woke up to four thousand blazing lights and a hundred beeps and boops from all of the technology kicking back up and we're still getting things back online. We're still cutting down trees and finding broken things in the garden. This was a quick and dirty doozy of a storm and I saw it coming and got dinner on the table as fast as I could and just as we were finishing up the power went out and after a few minutes we had all of the auxiliary power things back on. Not enough things. Ever. I worry about the furnace, water heater, freezers, fridge. This is mostly  for lights and wifi and charging. We deployed the lantern cupboard. We dug out the chessboard and Jenga and the boys eviscerated the brand new box of Quality Street chocolates with Henry coming on board to enjoy. I figured out the one flavour no one could place and then THEN we found the chocolate legend so we knew what was what. 

It was hazelnut, for the record. 

I'm currently not allowed outside to see if there is any more property damage. I'm a little worried about my studio as sometimes the heat isn't reliable in there and if my paints freeze I'm not sure if they'll still be good to use when they thaw. Also the trees on that side are plentiful. Lochlan said my grotto in front is basically caved in. Everything is coated in a thick layer of ice over heavy snow that I hope goes away soon. 

My phone is back at one hundred percent. I've had coffee and a pear and a hot shower and my period kicked in at last which means I can do everything the boys do but I do it while bleeding. That's the joke and there I was in my boots and parka hauling trees along with them last evening. I may have to go suck on an anchor or take a vitamin though because now I am down for the count.

I didn't sleep. All I could think of was Revolution. The show that came on when we lived in the prairies where the power went out and just never came back on and it's a frightening thought how much I like easy lights, easy heat and endless hot water. 

(I can boil water on the woodstove yes but it takes a long time and eight feet away from the stove it's like you're standing outside. But yes, I will go get a bathtub and put it right in the kitchen just in case. Just for next time.)

I was out on the patio steps checking cameras and window glass and seeing if the gazebo made it through when I realized too late how fucking slippery it was with a straight path down to solid concrete and so I came back in. I can finish later. Everything seems intact. But I got cold and now all I can think about is being warm. I put on my beaded fur-trimmed mukluks (also from the Prairies, Metis specifically) and a big sweater and my merino leggings and I'll nurse a second cup of coffee while the sun works hard to boot up too. 

Everyone can tell me I've gone soft and that I wouldn't last an hour after the apocalypse but when I rough it everyone tells me to enjoy some luxury and relax. Make up your damn minds.

But that was it. The shortest day is now over, along with the longest night, and now we get to tick the minutes back toward those ten pm sunsets again. I can't wait.

Glass houses.

The temperature is starting to drop and we've had to empty the pool anyway since it's still open. Luckily we did it  a while back after the work got pushed to the new year for the glass room because of some serious communication issues between um...me and everyone else but they came around quickly and so we'll resume sometime toward the end of January with getting the pool a room of it's own. My not-snowglobe will be rustic and natural and probably in full force by dinnertime, at this rate, as it's supposed to snow a ton and it's been raining forever so it'll be an avalanche Christmas and messy and awful and we've locked the gate and no one's going out for a few days and so perfect storm indeed. 

Don't worry. Ben has been making full use of Batman's pool in the interim, until ours is ready again. Batman has an actual indoor pool but it's a very small lap pool so Ben swims back and forth and does his water workout and someone sits in one of the big chairs nearby and keeps him company. The pool is a small rectangle in a room surrounded by huge plants and windows that slide all the way open in the nice weather, much like my kitchen windows to the patio side. It's not really big enough for more than one person though and Batman doesn't care for it all that much but boy am I happy to have a backup pool right now so I didn't have to back down. 

The ceiling wasn't tall enough on the enclosure for the other pool and I hated it so much. I hated the glass too. The whole thing was ugly and terrible and I had a vision of a Victorian greenhouse and they had a vision of a utilitarian....pool enclosure. I pointed out that for resale value and to always make something extra special if one has the chance we should make this spectacular and now we need more permits and had to order special materials and it adds a lot of time and waiting (and money) and I had to bring Emmett back in to run interference with the company because they don't like me. I tried to be nice and sweet but I wasn't going to 'wait and let it grow on me' when it was so ugly. 

(They again assumed, as all the workmen do, that I was someone's temporary girlfriend and tried to talk over and under me, which pissed me off even more but I really want the job done and so I asked if we could all just start on a fresh page but they remain bitchy and moody.

Oh, geez, guys, you have not SEEN bitchy and moody.)

In the meantime It's Christmas and there's Batman and you know how this goes. I tried to blow him off a bit and it didn't work at all. He is very happy to have all this company and the very deep very small pool is finally getting more use than ever before.

These even colder skies.

This morning I woke up with my favourite Christmas song in my head, which isn't actually Where Are You, Christmas? to everyone's surprise. It's In Like a Lion (Always Winter) which I love to sing and Lochlan says it's like going back in time and he doesn't really want to hear it but singing is better than silence and frankly I need all the help I can get. The third favourite is I Celebrate the Day but it's a little bit crushingly Jesus, even for me. Then Walking in the Air. I could go on but no one cares.

And the rumours are false. I'm not a great singer, especially without the in-ear monitors because I can't hear myself. Maybe good if I push for compliments but only with Ben's endless coaching over the past twenty years can I even get the courage at all to feel as though anyone would want to hear it. 

I'm not going to go up under the viaduct and belt out anything from Titanic, though I desperately, absolutely want to, with all my heart. 

Instead I am the secret-starlet, content in my postage-stamp fame on a zoom screen or in someone's memories from twenty-five years removed, hazy and sped-up ever so slightly, a moment captured with a series of photographs using a flip flash on a drugstore camera, half buried in the sand and forgotten at the end of a twentieth century summer.

***

People want me to say things. I don't know what you want me to say? We've hunkered down quite nicely. I have a cold but truly it's been a runny nose and a dry-air slight cough for almost two weeks now and it's one-hundred-percent dependant on the humidity in the house, going away completely when it's good or I've had a long hot shower. When it gets super-dry it's worse. I need to drink more tea, find a way to sleep without being taken down at three hundred yards, a moving target with a sight on my back for their tranquilizing, killer dreams. I need to learn how to relax. Maybe that's why I love singing so much. It's a time, like when I treasure-hunt on the beach, where I stop thinking at all and just focus on the task at hand. 

I hope everyone enjoyed the service today. Fourth candle, bitches. I'm afraid to look.

Two minutes of terror (like seven minutes in heaven without the closet).

Sam made a last minute addition to tomorrow's podcast/zoom in that he's opted to insert a hymn by some special guests (snort) and he decided I would sing it and Ben would play his acoustic and...not sing at all which wasn't entirely fair. Instead of Ben doing everything because Ben is a trained professional and I'm a decided stage-frighty hack suddenly. 

We put on our Christmas best, lit a hundred candles in the big booth and strung tiny green lights everywhere. Christian filmed it. We took eleven tries to get through it this morning because Ben assured me we could one-take it, almost clearing it in eight but then Ben decided to burst out laughing at my hand gestures and then for the next two takes we kept cracking up in the same spot. 

We performed Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel. Thank God it's short. And then I was actually ready to sing so we also recorded a lovely and fun version of Baby It's Cold Outside (which we've done many, many times live, if you can even but now it's committed to all eternity) which I don't know what we're going to do with. Perhaps there's an album in the works and in the future everyone will have a faded green record in the stack by the hi-fi that looks dated as fuck. Holiday Classics by The Collective. And when you play it-surprise! It's half doom metal. 

I mean, it could work. 

And now it's seven already and I'm still in my Valentino and stilettos (and false lashes shhhhHHHHH) because I have a theory that I'm louder when I'm tall. Lochlan points out it's actually the opposite and since he started picking on me for zero reason Sam has tagged him to do his own number later today and wants to stream a church variety show now. We're fucking doomed. This is awesome. His congregation is never going to appreciate the sheer amount of talent he has around him, but frankly that's okay.

God, I hope Lochlan picks something Elvis. We're already calling him the Red King, a term I haven't heard for a really long time.

Laundry lists and sleepy men.

 I have to start from scratch. Probably locally. I'll have to call around and he can figure it out if he wants to go around and get his things, for when I went to pull the trigger the shipping was only FedEx and it was $85 Canadian and that's freaking bullshit for what I ordered, which amounted to half a shoebox sizewise and would have cost me $30 to ship with tracking and insurance. And I emailed and they can't do any other shipping methods so oh well. 

It's fine. I don't care if he gets his pen, he has others and he has a whole pack of field notes in the drawer but he likes the Yamamoto ones so much better. Stuff it, I tell him. Use what you have! 

I'll do it myself. Is the cart still there.

No. I emptied it in protest. 

Cale sighs for a long time and then doesn't say anymore and I go back to going through receipts. Silence reigns for the better part of the afternoon and I finally stand up to leave and he startles so hard I am shaken. 

Sorry, was daydreaming, I guess. 

You know what they say about disassociati-

Neamhchiontach, don't. I just haven't slept. 

Ooh, come join my club. We meet every day behind the treehouse. Though you'll have to learn the secret handshake and we have badges to pin on your shirt and-

He pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand. There's a fix for this. Stay tonight. 

What's in it for me? 

He stares at me. It was a joke and he took it as a challenge. Anything, everything. Name it. 

I want things to cost less and get here faster. 

I know you're minding not being able to shop properly. 

It's tactile-

I know, Bridget. And no one can help that right now. So what can we do to help that? 

I have no idea. 

I do. How about a sleeping pill for two and we tuck in at eight and watch shows until we can't keep our eyes open? 

Each other's or our own? 

He was out like a lightbulb at ten and I read long into the night, travelling through brief sleepiness into wakefulness, then homesickness, followed by the inevitable strange contentment. I finally turned the light off in the single-digit morning hours and got about three hours of rest, his arms a vise around my back, breathing so soundly I knew he was really out and not just hoping I would think he was asleep so I would fall asleep too (both he and Lochlan do that independently) and when I woke up again I untangled myself from him and he woke up. 

What time is it? 

Five. 

You going home?

Yes. 

Dammit. 

Sleep. 

Kay. Go straight up. 

I will. 

And I did as promised. Lochlan was still asleep, spooning against Ben, and I ducked into the shower and slept with my face against the wall for another fifteen minutes, dreaming of stationery before getting my morning sea legs and rinsing myself clean. Fresh and blowdried and perfumed, I come out and they are both awake. 

Sleep? 

Yeah, I lie. Caleb's really tired so we watched some dumb crime show and he was out almost instantly. 

Lochlan nods. I do a few twirls on purpose as I put on my underthings, just so he can be sure I am fine. No bites. No scratches. No mental distress. I'm good. Just unsettled, as always. 

Come back for a snooze and we'll get up later?

I'm almost dressed. Come with me, let's have a picnic. 

It's still pouring, Bridge. 

We can take umbrellas to the gazebo.

What if we had breakfast in bed? 

Okay. 

Seriously?

Who's cooking?

I will. Take off your stuff and crawl in. I'll be back in twenty minutes. 

Loch jumps up, pulling on pajama pants and a green t-shirt. I get a hard kiss on the forehead that almost knocks me over and he is gone, down to find the coffee and the eggs, not nearly as tired as he seemed a minute ago. I think the rain is heavy. I think it weighs us down. 

I tell this to Ben and he nods. I think you're right. 

(I ended up making breakfast and we ate in by the stove Lochlan cut his finger not insignificantly and so Ben nursed him through getting sufficient bandaids and antibiotic ointment while I made the eggs. He's okay though. It doesn't require stitches but I was able to convince him to use one of the butterfly bandages I keep on hand just to keep everything together while it heals.)

(And yet Lochlan's been using the same chewed-on stub of a wooden yellow Dixon pencil I believe since I was fourteen.)

(If anyone has any insight into the weird gene that makes one adore stationery supplies to this extent please remove it from me, I waste a lot of time on it, thank you.)

 I ran downstairs to give the loaves of bread a knead in order to facilitate their second rise and now I'm back upstairs in Caleb's wing trying to knock off an end-of-year stationery order from an online shop that has far too much neat stuff including shimmering ink with glitter and so many beautiful pens and notebooks I've been working on this for days and am no closer to deciding because Caleb, in his infinite, generous wisdom, told me to order whatever I wanted for myself and now I'm paralyzed with too many choices and so this is probably never going to happen. I even tried to narrow it down to just getting what I need but then I think fuck it, I'll get what I want and then they add even more nice things and I keep filling a cart and then unfilling it again. 

Of course I know exactly what I want. I like shimming inks and broad-tipped fountain pens with inlays and retractable medium ballpoints too but not the slimline metal ones. I love copper and brass housings but not translucent plastics. I have mechanical pencils by the dozen so I don't need any of those and already have paperclips on order from another place so I won't get those and I did a notebook inventory so no more paper and my planners arrived even after I balked at the cost of the hobonichis and decided on a couple of good Leuchtturms instead (one yearly planner, one bullet unlabelled) and if I stick it through then I will get a Hobonichi for 2022 (and probably a Midori 1 day 1 page to accompany) and I'm fairly certain my custom planner won't be here until February but it's a For Life kind of purchase so that's okay too. Planner starts on the 28th of December and I will muddle along for the first month or two just fine. 

If only I could figure out what to get because honestly I actually want a whole heaping load of stuff.

Get all of it. Please, Neamhchiontach. Just buy the pens already. He needs ink and wants a new Visconti pen and a couple of Japanese notebooks for his EDC and goddamn, why he waits until he is out of everything to do this, as always but he pointed out he depends on his assistant to think ahead and keep everything well-stocked and read his goddamned mind.

If only, I think to myself. 

Indeed, he says out loud.

Crazy stupid early.

The best part about Wednesdays are that we're all up at such an early hour it promotes a loose kind of insanity and so Ben and Lochlan have adopted their best falsettos and are trading off on Emotion. I swear to God this is my guilty pleasure song, I've written about it before, one of many, hilariously. I wore out the Samantha Sang original when I was seven, literally wearing the song off the vinyl 45 and then got hella confused in my twenties when the Bee Gees released their own cover and I'm never one percent sure I got it right. Of course on that playlist it's followed by a raft of Belinda Carlisle's greatest hits and I make no excuses and I plan to spend Christmas torturing PJ with the help of these two and their high cracking notes and inevitable bursts of laughter. 

I'm a broken record, truth be told but I maintain it's so nice to see Ben laugh. It's nice to see him able to remember songs we pull out of thin air and it's amazing that he has very little lasting damage here. Maybe I can't stress enough how much of the day is taken up with rehabilitation, with an all hands on deck kind of participation only this Collective could pull off. It's like this is why we're here, together. If ever we were looking for reason or purpose or answers maybe it was this and not me, specifically and I'll insist on that for the rest of my life now. 

You know, when I'm not being teased for my ludicrous taste in music as of late. Jesus. I hit all my marks all fall. When something that comes out that is super heavy tugs my listening ears I'll let you know and in the meantime this is the way.