A Bunny's Birthday

Dear Allison,

Today is a happy hoppy day, because it is the birthday of a very special, one-of-a-kind bunny.

The Bunny in question - one of my favourite photos of you

I'm sad I can't be with you today, but I wanted to make you something a bit special. In my own words of course, but with some extra little effects from Claude! I'm not quite as good as you at programming, but honestly the last few weeks that we spent on it made it fun again for me. Plus I actually understand how to use a flake.nix file now and uv makes sense to me. This makes me want to learn more, which is probably making me better at programming - so thank you for that. For this site, I am just being boring and it is in html, like the old days before I was even on the internet.

I miss you very much when I'm away on beamtime, and think about you often. I wish we were side by side like this every night when I'm gone, and I'm so so happy and grateful that most nights we are side by side, and I get to wake up to something a bit like this:

Which to me feels like waking up in the best possible version of life, every single morning.

I think we would have fun on a beamtime together. Usually we spend half of the time running around like crazy trying to solve problems. The other half, we sit in the hutch, watching scans run and talking about life. I told you about some of the conversations I have had over the last few days, but definitely not all of them - we have discussed politics, fruits, food, cooking, life plans, the meaning of everything...

If you were here, we probably would have made little programming projects the entire time, with breaks for solving beam problems. Maybe we would have made a better script for processing the data; they use a really annoying software here to save scans. Mostly we would have hung out like we do at home - making things and chatting about everything under the sun.

Hanging out at home together

Maybe we should have a beam week sometime. Where we just take a week off from life, and sit at home, and do all the things that we have been putting off. I think one of the unique things about beamtime is you are confined to a room, and you have to work 12-16 hours a day. It's not my favourite way of being, but I stop needing any spice in my routine when I'm here. I just am. I couldn't do this forever, but it's an interesting temporary state. One I would like to experience with you.

Anyway... so as you probably know, we like to say this thing that goes something like: Love you! All the ways and all the stars.

When we say all the ways, I know this means all the ways of travel. And we have been on adventures on small trains...

On a small train!
On a big train!
On a plane!
On a boat!
On another boat!
On a third boat!
On a cart!
On foot in the city!
On foot in the woods!
On a gondola!
On a Brompton!

In addition to the ways of transport, this means to me that we can be together in our minds in all the ways too - working on PeriodicMap side by side, or making up silly songs together. And together in the hard ways of life - health, family, politics, being far from home. I have so many photos of all the ways we have been together, and so many memories that photos cannot capture. Every time I see you again after a long day, it feels like coming home to a person who I can be with in all the ways that I am, all my emotions, and all my logic, and everything at once.

So I can't express it other than saying I love you all the stars, which seems cliché. Maybe it only seems this way because of how universal the stars are to humans; we all see them, and we are all small in relation to how many there are. Nothing on this planet can measure up to the stars except for love.

I love you like every star that we will ever see together. Every time I look at a star I will think of you and want to hold you. This started at the eclipse, when I felt for the first time how unlikely it was that we found each other. Just two tiny specks of dust flying around in the universe, who happened to exist and bump into each other at just the right moment to get the chance to spend ways, moments, years together. To look at the stars together, many times, and find our place among them together.

Some stars and some rocks that we saw together once.

I want to just remind you a little of all the ways I love you, on your birthday, to make you happy - because you make me so happy. You make my life full, satisfying, fun, silly, and full of yummy food, and softness.

You're cute when you work, so focused
You're the best kisser
The most fun to camp with
You have a great eye for gear
You're generous and soft with your love
You're a goofball (especially around statues with boobs)
You're so fun to work with (and dance with!)

I hope this little note is enough to tide you over for the next day until I give you the biggest hug ever and we are back to living our amazing life together.

Happy 27th birthday my love. I wish for you that this year will be one of many friends and laughter, of adventures near and far, of HopNet maturing, and of quiet moments together at home making it all happen.

All the ways and all the stars,

Helen