If I squint my eyes, I can still see the light glimmering through the pine trees in the middle of the forest on an island I know well. It shines on the old bright neon green paint of a huge frog figurine planted in an ancient crawfoot bathtub, sitting there in the ferns for no other reason than for it to be exactly what it is.

I can still hear her ducks quacking, I can still smell them, too. I can see all of us kneeling around them in their incubator in the living room before they were even born, mesmerized by them. We are screaming and singing “I’m coming out” by Diana Ross to them as they start to emerge as little ducklings from their tiny homes.

Daryl the Van slumbers in a parking spot just up the hill, shells and plants and other trinkets delicately dressing his dashboard. His owner’s laugh echoes out through the quiet, dense woods.

Leggs, the abandoned dumpster sculpture of Seattle sits against a tree along the trail with multiple strings of different colored candle blood dripping down it, graduated into and honored as a shrine of silliness, reminding us of all of the ridiculous things we get up to in our free time.

Yummy spring rolls sit on the counter in the cabin kitchen, filled with calendula, fennel, and other ingredients curled tightly together, ready to dip in a scrumptious peanut sauce.

Up in the cabin loft, friends climb a ladder so a woman can give them tarot readings as they all cuddle in a crawl space that behaves as a bedroom you can’t stand up in.

The wood shed just behind the cabin, dressed up as a cottage, is filled with art supplies, blue dyes, and many different colored handkerchiefs.

In the large sunny roundhouse many are dancing, twirling, standing at the piano harmonizing to the phrase “Is Love Alive” in that one song by Regina Spektor as others cook a big meal in the community kitchen.

Flurp, the big thrift fish pillow sits on the back of the couch and judges all of them as they do.

On the back roundhouse deck a white cat stretches, looking out over the community garden, two yurts, and a chicken run.

Two girls giggle and dance in the bus turned shack still barely standing as they film a dramatic music video, and one of them climbs up the nearby rope swing.

In the meadow, friends are gathered around the fire, sharing stories about where they’ve been. There is a lip sync competition happening and everyone is cheering the performer on.

In the very back of the property, grandmother tree is holding the grief of the collective, and naked women’s butts… in her murky mud and endless wisdom.

In a small little yurt tucked away in secret, there is a circular structure full of red and goddess memorabilia. A woman is inside of it crying.

There is a short gray-haired artist sitting next to a half-painted canvas in a mint green trailer. She converses with a curious woman into the night about grief and healing over tea.

Life was good there.

Life was safe there.

Love was alive there.

But then, as all things do,

it died there too.