i had a pretty good sesh. the sky is overcast and the air is full of the smoke of grilled animals. i went to the point and it was too cool but when i got to pebble beach it felt warm enough so i jumped in. in the water i was wondering how important memory is. my therapist doesn't remember all i tell her even with cryptic notes as aids. it gets more cryptic sometimes when we forget. in the same regard it seems like connection is key and memory is only important insofar as connection is fostered and enhanced. what's real is a good question. it's really open ended. birds are certainly real. and they're messengers. that hummingbird on my pillow in the shack on gabriola island—certainly a message, vibrant and alive after death, the window glass woozy with time and the humming in the plum trees. i'm still nurturing that one and i still don't know what it means in it's stark specificity. it's like a poem—it means what it is. so that's the importance of memory, the feeling of it that remains, memory a portal to memory, like a thin place you carry on within, is what it is. and i found a hawk feather by the garden when i came home. and the swamp was smiling with white butterflies. or moths. anyway it's funny that we feel compelled to ask what's real.