Poetry at the intersection of home and elsewhere

a looksie at some pieces from my manuscript

Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a cozy homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. Here, you’ll marvel the mundane and wish for your wild, while reveling in rest.

You’ll learn about how to support your habitual travel adventures alongside your happy home base (even the one inside your own head). Cool kids subscribe. I appreciate you!

the coming and going

The self-belaboring tug-of-war between wanting to be at home and wanting to be literally anywhere else is constant. I experience this both in the world and in my own head.

At night, you’ll find me switching between fervently searching Zillow for homes in other states, to researching the best way to design my extra bedroom. The garden out front is blooming, and I find myself worried that I’ll miss the irises’ climax while I’m atop some mountain.

But in my head, I want to be the best cyclist I can be, as my job. I also want to publish a poetry book (hence, the manuscript). I want to live in a cabin in the woods, but like in woods that are still a short drive to a Trader Joe’s. And, I want to keep the home base I have in Kansas because it’s close to family.

I want to have my homemade cake and eat it too, on a picnic in Italy.

These pieces speak to that savory strain.

Why do I romanticize

road trips with bell bottoms

and side mirrors hanging

by an earnest thread? Almost

Famous soundtrack

a stargazer’s lullaby, wound

from a cassette tape. Hook

a thumb out in the desert,

with a grin so wide, sand

a varnish for teeth, a slow prelude

like an hourglass. Each grain a prayer

these wild miles end only when

your boots glitter with the grime of almost

satisfied.

These Earth bits are going to save me

Agate. Amethyst. Azurite.

Scroll down the alphabet of geodes and quartz.

Carnelian. Fluorite. Garnet.

Morning light lies upon the untidy tide

of best-of-intention crystals casting

see-through amber and barely-there

cerulean upon the wall. A collection of stones

purchased in Arizona or California, their true origins

marketed on scraps of paper. Picked up, cradled, prayed

over for a bit of extra joy, stamina, belief.

Tumbling. Flowing. Hoping.

Hematite. Jade. Onyx. Opal.

I hope this email never finds you

Let grass grow, invade

waning keyboards. Waves crest

columns of waterlogged spreadsheets.

Dandelions swim through half

drunk coffee cups. Volcanoes ten thousand

miles away bristle. Fault lines meet

when a meeting is added to the Calendar

pockmarked by beehives.

I hope this email finds you well.

Far and gone. Never

to return except coated by moss.

And algae and mushrooms.

Smelling of forestry and nature things.

The grime of almost satisfied

“The grime of almost satisfied” is the finishing line of one of the pieces included here, because that’s the clunky, vintage car that keeps moving me on to the next and the next and the next of what this life has to offer.

It’s as if being satisfied isn’t the goal.

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If you’re new here…

Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. It’s a travel blog / poetry newsletter / attempt to understand my inner world a bit better each day.

Subscribers can expect weekly-ish newsletters from me (and my forever undying gratitude!)

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