A Long and Early Winter

Hello, friends!

You may have wondered where we have been the last nine months, and why we haven’t been posting any new articles. Or maybe you haven’t been. Either way, you are about to find out.

Before we really get going, you should know that this article is filled with death and despair. Truly. Too many different types to list all the different trigger warnings. If you aren’t in the mood for some serious sad stuff, just jump to our next article. 

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On June 7, 2019, Real Hedonism was officially incorporated as a nonprofit in the state of Washington. Our official designation is just what you might expect: CHURCH. This is huge. Our little website and pamphlet, half joke-taken-too-far half place-to-let-the-creative-juices-flow started taking its first steps toward becoming the dominant global religious narrative.

Lol.

But seriously, Real Hedonism is a real non-profit and a real church.

Our next plan was to go spread the good news at a festival called Expansion which our friends were putting on. We did, and it was great.

Our next plan was to start making more money so that we could put more into Real Hedonism. On the great big mind map of our dreams, we called it getting our “patron jobs”. Rayla has been pretty successful in her graphic design and I got a job working for a new rock climbing gym, which I love so much.

Our next plan was to start having a weekly event. We were calling the events “Pleasure Revivals” and they were going to more or less be Hedonist worship services. But before you get too excited about the details of that plan, let me drop the awful.

Our beloved baby Jake (the dog) was diagnosed with bone cancer in mid-July, and his front left leg was amputated by the end of the month. The first two weeks after the surgery were hellish. Lots of pain, lots of screaming. Emergency means a whole new thing for us these days. A much more specific feeling.

In that space, the only things we could do to feel much better, were small, primarily sensory things: laying down, eating a peach, sharing a hug. 

After those two weeks, daily life felt magical. We were not constantly inundated by the overwhelming pain of our beloved, and so all of the extra things—time to read a book, absentmindedly petting the dog—made us feel wonderfully lucky.

We spent all of the time we had with him. And as the months went on, things were looking better. Every month opened up possibilities we thought had been completely taken from us. Jake could run real fuckin fast again, and jump and bark and—wow was that boy resilient. Our dreams for Real Hedonism had hit a hard (emergency) brake, but our dreams for our family were starting to be righted.

And then one of our other sweet fur kids, the wonderful Ginger, started to get sick. She slowly stopped eating and when we took her to the vet, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They never did. They didn't warn us that we should expect her to go so soon, but within a week we watched her go from 3 mile walks to dying.

She died at home suddenly, quicker than we could have gotten her to a vet. We buried her in the back yard at four am on Halloween morning. 

I wish I could give you a happy ending here.

On the 24th of December, we ate at my dad’s house. It was the normal sort of family get-together except for the fact that my step-mom was, after a year of battling metastatic lung cancer, sitting on death’s door. She had not come downstairs for days, saving her energy for that night. We carried her down the stairs and back up again in a wheelchair. And that dinner was splendid. 

I feel a little bit like I should include more here. Give a little more depth to our relationship before getting on with the story, but I don’t really have the energy. Know this: in all of these months, the only thing I wrote was a deathbed letter to her.

On the 30th of December, she died.

I’d love to say that was the end of it.

A friend of Rayla’s died midway through January. (This is not the time or place to get into that.)

The list keeps growing.

So if you were wondering where we have been the last nine months, now you know. In the midst of that, we constantly thought about Real Hedonism. We have philosophized so much, read and digested so much in these past months. And through all of it, we decided we had to do something. 

Full moon picnics. That’s what we landed on. That was our grand plan for how to save the world: gather the Hedonists and their friends, eat some food, dream of paradise. The first one was supposed to be tonight. Alas, death has a way of continuing to show up. 

Jake has been coughing recently, a potential sign that his osteosarcoma hitched a ride in his lungs when we took the leg. This is quite common, which is why we know what to look out for. It is possible that it will turn out to be nothing more than a little mystery cough. We may have many more months with our baby. We also may not. So for the time being, we will continue to spend the majority of our time walking and snuggling him. Full moon picnics will have to wait.

All that said, death has been dropping lessons on us left and right, and writing about it feels good. So get ready for more articles, a website revamp, and for the foreseeable future, who knows what else.

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If you’re looking for a pick-me-up, our next article is short and about life ;)

Love Cameron (and Rayla)