A Crow Will Smile

At your funeral.

Le petit mort.

Or.

Perhaps it is.

The death of self.

It, the crow–

Audacious trickster.

Sits on my open chest.

Eating my heart.

Dismembering it.

Pulling it out with its strong beak.

I can feel it, severing the connections.

The blood pulses and pools.

The crow, grabs it out and flies off.

Carrying my heart across the fields.

Over the desert.

To you.

Will you eat it?

Will it be a fricassee?

Will the fire of blood sate you?

But no.

The crow.

He is a messenger, a courier, a carrier of things.

All the things.

The bright and beautiful.

Magic and mysterious.

They catch his eye.

And he carries them back and forth.

A shuttler of bounty.

A lover who is masked with darkness and the slick oily flutter.

Of his wings.

He settles upon you, my heart in his ebony beak.

A daisy springs from it.

There.

See.

It flowers for you.

You in turn, hand the crow your heart.

Plucked from beneath the cage of your chest.

The crow hops down onto your raised arm and tucks the heart.

My heart.

Into the cavity there.

The blood and sinews collapse upon it and take it into your body.

I am within you.

The crow chortles in its throat.

A satisfied sound.

Then it grasps your heart in the lance of its bill.

And.

Flies back to me.

My chest bared, eyes wide open, laying flat on my back.

Tears spilling down my face.

Knowing that I have given you everything.

Not expecting.

Not once.

To have your heart placed inside my chest.

To have my blood pumping through its chambers.

And yet.

This.

This is exactly what happens.

The dark wings flutter.

The open mouth exhales.

The heart falls from the crows beak.

A rose sprouting from it.

And drops into my open chest.

I sigh.

Such.

Unexpected ecstasy.

Lacing my fingers over the wound which seals itself.

Heals itself.

I arise.

Flowering for you.

You now in me.

As I am.

Within you.

Love betwixt.

Apart.

Yet.

Always.

Together.

I Did It!

I yelped with glee as I floated up.

It was the first time I did it on my own without being spotted.

Without really even thinking about it.

I just did it.

I did a full wheel in yoga class today.

I was so excited I yelled out loud, “I did it!”

Then slightly muffled, “sorry.”

Then.

I laughed, “not sorry!  I did it!”

I was super happy.

I was also really grateful to have my favorite instructor for class.

He’s the best and he’s going to school out-of-state, but back and forth frequently enough that he’s still teaching a class here and there at the studio.

When I saw him on the schedule for today I immediately signed up.

It did not matter that it was not an optimum time for me, I did not give a fuck, I wanted to go to his class, see him, give him a hug and have a good session.

Man.

Was it a good session.

His partner was there too, beautiful people, gorgeous, the two of them, one, a yoga instructor the other a Pilates instructor.

Stunning.

But sweet, and so approachable and kind.

I have always felt that it didn’t matter that I was old or not quite as flexible as the lissome 22 years old flocking to the studio, my instructor always gave me great feedback and also humored my profanity.

Like earlier, when I mumbled under my breath, “aw fuck,” as we also did one of my hated posed, broken toe pose, hate it, hurts so bad, but my feet generally do feel better after doing it.

The first time I did the pose, about a year ago, I could hold it for brief seconds and I cried out in pain.

I can probably do the pose now for about a minute, it’s still painful but it doesn’t make me burst into tears when I do it.

The wheel pose though, alluded me for a good year and a half.

I remember doing it when I was a kid, no problem.

It’s mostly just having a flexible back, but it’s also strong core and breathing and maybe, I think now, also a mental thing.

So too is crow pose, which I fell out of trying today and yes, swore under my breath.

I swear a lot in general.

Not in front of my charges at work.

Not in front of my clients in session.

But in general.

Yeah.

I’m a bit profane.

I fell over trying to do Crow pose, lost my balance doing half-moon, on one side, but managed to do it on the right side, my left shoulder has been consistently tight and sore for months now, like an obscene amount of time, since last November, sometimes I think it’s getting better, then it will get stressed again, so my left side tends to be a little off-balance.

Anyway.

When my teacher asked at the beginning of class what the class wanted to work on I piped up, “heart opener” and someone else said, “twists” and for the first time ever, no one said “core.”

Which always annoys me, core work, but it’s needed to be strong in the poses and I get it, but it’s also in every fucking pose, you have to use your core, it seems idiotic to also request more core work on top of the core work, but that’s just my opinion.

I suppose if I was younger and into wearing midriff flashing clothes I’d be hollering for core too.

But what I like to work on is heart openers.

I can access emotions when I do yoga.

Not always.

But.

When I have a good instructor, and my teacher today is the best I have had, I can.

It can unlock emotions in my body, the practice and I felt it was a good idea to have my heart open wide today.

As though I could have closed it down.

My heart is wide open.

Nonetheless I was not expecting to do Wheel, I was expecting Camel pose or something of that ilk.

So when he said we were going to first do a bridge pose I knew we’d be doing Full Wheel.

And there was something in me today, a push to go further and I made up my mind that instead of staying in the half bridge I’d go for the full wheel.

I lay on my back, squared my shoulders, made sure my hands were turned around up by my shoulders, my knees where hips width apart and I breathed in and pushed up with my hands.

And suddenly.

Out of no where.

I was floating.

“I did it!”  I said with much excitement.

I was over the moon, I was floating.

And yes, my heart opened.

Even further than it had before and I could feel it.

My breath expanded in my chest, it felt as though I had breathed in and floated up like a balloon, effortless and easy.

It was amazing.

Then.

I came down, rolled out my wrists, rested for a moment.

And.

Yup.

I did it again.

The second time was harder, my arms didn’t want to quite hold me, but I breathed into it again and mustered it up.

A second time.

When I finished I was sweating and joyful and teary.

I lay with my hand on my belly and my other hand on my heart with in a supine butterfly pose with my legs.

I felt joyous and light.

Then we did corpse pose.

And all of it.

My heart, my body, my mind, floated up.

Images and ideas sprung from me and drifted by.

I had love images impressed upon the backs of my eyelids.

I drifted into those images and sent that love out to the world.

I composed poetry.

I felt tears slide down my face.

It was just amazing.

I can’t quite express it without sounding like a complete idiot.

But I was amazed by what came to me.

And I’ll get to do a little more yoga this week too.

The family I nanny for doesn’t come back from vacation until Thursday, I’ll have my first day back with them Friday, so I’ll get in a couple of extra yoga classes.

Not tomorrow.

I have supervision in the morning and a client at night.

But Tuesday for sure.

I want to see if I can replicate the full wheel again.

It’s nice to see progress in my practice and even though it’s always a challenge to get myself to go, my brain resists, not my body, I do tend to go and when I do.

Such surprise.

So much gratitude.

Yoga.

Who the fuck knew?

Little Glass Heart

Sitting in the window seat.

Sun slanting across my body.

I lift my face to catch.

The warming.

Holding your heart in my hand.

This gift you have given me.

Little glass heart.

Ground down sand.

Heated and changed.

Charged.

A tiny crucible.

Prescient you.

Seeing it there.

Little glass heart.

Laying amongst the trinkets and baubles.

Not knowing.

Yet knowing.

You wanted.

That.

Little glass heart.

To give.

Away.

To whom?

You knew not.

Yet you knew.

Revery this.

Denoting your own sweetness, your own–

Tender heart.

Carrying it with you.

Nestled in a box.

Inside a box.

Waiting.

To be opened.

Said present.

A gift.

A gracing.

Displayed now on my chest.

Just there.

Below my dream.

Grounding me.

Settling me.

I touch it.

My.

Little glass heart.

My touchstone.

My dreaming.

So.

Smooth.

Polished.

Satin soft.

A sweeting kiss swaying with the rise and fall.

Of.

My breath.

A reflection.

A shimmering.

A memento.

Of.

Love.

All these things.

And.

More.

My amazement.

At.

This.

Coup de foudre.

Hiding in plain sight.

Holding.

On so.

So.

Tight.

To.

My.

Little.

Glass.

Heart.

Holding Out

But not being stupid about it.

I have been looking for a ride share to Burning Man.

Everyone I know is going early, either in really early like they’re there now, or pretty much leaving prior to the start of the event since they will be helping build the city.

I love that I know so many folks who are such integral parts to the event.

I feel pretty lucky to know them.

And I am also damn lucky to be in my last year of my Masters of Counseling Psychology program, but it does throw a monkey wrench in my getting to the playa.

As it has done every year that I have been in school.

Last year I had to go up early and leave early.

But.

I got to go.

The previous year it was a similar situation, except that I was going to be coming back and rolling straight into school.

I went up with the family I was working for and came back with a playa boyfriend, the first time that every happened, who lasted all of two dates off playa, but hey, we had fun.

I remember looking at him and knowing, shit, I’m going to be “that girl he met at Burning Man.”

He’s never gone back to the event and he found a “real girlfriend” in the real world.

I don’t expect to find the love of my life out at the event, there was a time, and too fucking many of them, when I had this stupid idea that the one was out there.

The one is here.

I don’t need to go traipsing out in the desert to find the one, I am the one.

Fuck.

I remember when I realized that too, and yes, I was out in deep playa having a spiritual moment with the sky.

My favorite color.

The playa at sunset, the deepest midnight blue that fades into indigo violet and then a push of pink right at the edge of it all.

I have taken so many photographs of the playa at sunset, I can never quite do justice to the beauty of the sky with my words, but once in a while I do catch a glimmer of that bliss in the photos I have taken.

So.

Yeah.

This year my first weekend of classes is the 25th, 26th, and 27th.

The event opens at 12a.m. on the 27th.

Which means that everybody who isn’t already there, most of the people I know will already be there, will be queued up to get in as they open the gates Sunday “morning” at 12:01 a.m.

Me.

Nope.

I’ll still be in the city.

I have my last class on Sunday and it ends at noon.

I already have contemplated skipping it and maybe that happens.

But I can’t skip the whole weekend and I certainly can’t skip supervision for my internship that week either.

I can the week following and I will, by that time I will definitely be on playa.

So.

I won’t be able to leave San Francisco until 1p.m. on Sunday.

If I can get a ride.

If I can wrangle that up.

If not I’ll be leaving a little later than 1 p.m.

If I don’t find a ride, and believe you me, I am fucking trying I have been asking around since I found out I had been awarded the low-income ticket, so for months, I will be renting a car.

I have reserved a car at SFO.

I really don’t want to have to rent a car, first I’ll have to leave a gigantic deposit since I don’t have a credit card and then, well, there is the whole deal of driving it to Burning Man.

I’ll have to get it washed and very likely detailed.

I will probably lose all or most of my deposit.

Making it an $800 expenditure instead of a $384 expenditure.

That’s what I got the rental reserved for.

I have been hedging my bets that I would have to rent, and I have been putting aside little bits and pieces of money into my savings account so if I do have to rent the car I will transfer $1500 out of my savings three days before the rental happens, so basically the Thursday night before I start classes.

I have an online savings account, it takes three days to land in my regular bank account.

I will probably also have to move a bit more out than that as I won’t be getting a paycheck for my time off to go to Burning Man.

Which is fine, and that’s why I have a second savings account, also through the same online bank, which is my prudent reserve.

It’s rent and utilities and food for a month.

Eventually, one day I hope to have rent and food and utilities for at least three months, but you know, I start small and work my way there.

Ultimately I want a year’s prudent reserve.

But.

I tend not to go to that heavy into that particular savings account because all my other savings are earmarked for travel.

I would rather have travel than not have travel.

For instance I got paid today, yay, Friday!

And I put $68.24 into my savings.

$60 for travel and $8.24 for prudent reserve.

I know, its a silly system, but it’s my system and it works for me.

That being said, I can afford to eat up a lot of that travel money in savings for the event should I need to.

God.

I don’t want to.

But.

At this point I am pretty damn invested in going.

Plus.

It’s year 11.

Plus.

It’s Shadrach’s ten-year anniversary and I really need to be out there and have my own quiet time with him in the deep playa unload my heart, tell him how things have been, let him know I’ve been practicing being the ball.

It’s nice to be the ball.

And.

Well.

Fuck.

I have a ticket and I want to go.

I want to see friends I only see there, friends from Canada, London, Paris, friends from New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, friends from Toronto and Australia, shit friends from Alameda who you think I would see more often, but I end up almost only seeing out there.

So.

I am going.

And yes, I don’t want to rent the car but it’s a fall back, a net, if I have to, I will.

I haven’t paid anything for it, it’s reserved under my name, but I have the option to cancel at any time should I find a ride elsewhere.

Know anyone?

SERIOUSLY.

Let me know.

I’ll just be hanging out over here haunting the ride share board.

Ha.

Small Steps

Add up.

I keep telling myself that as I slowly start tracking my hours for my MFT license.

I also reiterated that to myself and an old friend that I had the pleasure of catching up with today over coffee and lunch in Hayes Valley.

We hadn’t seen each other in years and it was like old times.

And yes.

We’ve gotten older.

And older is all I’m going to get.

I don’t mind.

I like myself more and more.

I feel like I am entering my prime, not exiting it.

I have so very much to live for and I am so grateful that I have carved out this life here in San Francisco.

I don’t have to think about how long it will take to get my hours, I will get my hours, it will happen, the time will pass and one day it will be a story that I tell someone else who is beginning the process.

Things take time.

Sometimes things happen quickly, they fall into place, and there is a beauty and grace to it.

I am often reminded of what a very wise woman said to me years ago, “if it’s meant to be you can’t fuck it up and if it’s not meant to be, you can’t manipulate it into happening.”

My career path is like that.

For the longest time I tried this and that and the other to make it as a creative.

A writer.

A poet.

Maybe a screen writer, I certainly had and do have some interesting ideas for movies, but nothing panned out.

Oh.

Sure.

I have this, my blog, and it’s panned out fantastically, I throw my stuff at the screen in front of me, I process my day, I get things out, I figure it out mostly by not figuring it out, but by taking the creative action of just showing the fuck up here consistently.

But.

I have never really made it as a writer.

Not that I’m not a writer.

I’m fucking writing right now.

I’m good.

I’m not great.

But I would hazard that I am better than plenty of folks that do get published.

Perhaps it’s that I don’t understand how to submit, or that I don’t submit the right stuff or that I am not as good as I believe, it’s beyond me is what I’m saying.

One day it may not be.

Today it is and suffice to say.

I don’t give a flying fuck.

I love writing.

I love poetry.

I love expressing myself.

And this is my medium.

I don’t write for an audience.

Oh.

Sure.

Sometimes I may be addressing you, sometimes things sneak in and there’s a message between the lines, I won’t say that there’s not.

But I do really do the writing for myself.

But it’s not a career.

The dividends that have paid off are vast and varied, the people who I have met because of my blog, the things I have done, the experiences I have had, especially when my blog was a little more public, were and have been astounding.

Too many to list here.

However.

Most of the time the pay off has not been cash money.

In some round about ways, though, it has paid off more than handsomely.

I expressed to my friend today that I am often a bit ridiculed, or teased, ridiculed seems a harsher word than the poking fun I get from my cohort, for how fast I can write papers for class.

It really hasn’t been too much to sit down and knock out a big paper in one sitting, in a few hours.

If I have an idea of what I am writing, if I have done my research, taken good notes and done my reading for the class, I can crank it out.

I can do that because I do this, consistently, my rate of typing is fast.

I haven’t timed it in a long time, but it does seem that my thoughts fly from my brain and to my fingers quite quickly.

I will publish, I know that.

I will publish poems.

I will publish essays.

I will publish my memoir, although it needs severe re-writing.

It may not be the book I originally wrote.

But it will have the skeleton of the manuscript, I am sure of that.

My writing goals have not been met, but they will be, I am sure of that.

When isn’t important.

And I will publish psychology papers.

In some odd sort of twist that may be where I find my first publications, I don’t know exactly, but I do think that I will find that as an avenue for my work.

I have had great reviews of my school papers and I think with some tweaking I could probably submit some of those papers to psychology publications.

Who knows.

I just know that it will happen.

And I’m fine with the process being what it is.

I don’t have to manipulate it into happening and I can’t fuck it up.

Unless I stop.

Which right now seems impossible.

I have stories and stories and stories.

All the words.

There are so many.

So beautiful, like birds on a wire, like the scattershot of sunshine sparkling from the froth of waves, like the way love endears itself further into my heart when I am least expecting it.

My friend and I parted ways and I reflected as I got on my scooter and headed over to my job, my day job, that I have it pretty motherfucking good.

I do.

I have discovered many things about myself in the dozen or so years my friend and I have known each other and they all seem to have played beautiful and rich into the hand that I have been dealt.

I am on the path and in the place I am meant to be.

“You look amazing,” he said.

And you know what?

I feel amazing.

I think that shows.

Happy.

Joyous.

Motherfucking.

Free.

 

Maybe I’ll Sleep In

Probably not.

My brain will wake me up.

Thoughts will come a cruising through my head and I’ll get up.

I was just thinking about sleeping in as the yoga class tomorrow that I was going to go to was cancelled.

Ugh.

I have plenty to do.

Don’t I always.

So.

I’m not super frustrated, and it’s not typical for me to be able to go to yoga class on a Thursday morning anyhow.

I am usually going to work.

But my family is still away and I’ve only got my internship to be accountable to tomorrow.

Ok.

Not true.

I was asked by the family to go to the house and open it up and collect the mail and water the plants and stuff of that nature.

So I’ll be making a little venture over to Glen Park in the late afternoon.

Prior to that I will be reconnecting with an old friend in Hayes Valley.

Do some catch up and see what’s going on in his life.

It’s been years.

Sometimes it amazes me.

That these years they pass.

They go so quick and I want to make sure that I impress upon myself as many experiences as I can.

The sun on my face.

For instance.

I made it out of the fog for a little while today and the sun on my face was exquisite.

The wind in my hair, my eyes closed, the smell of creosote and the sounds of hummingbirds flitting about.

Hummingbirds do make sound.

The whir of their wings close to my ears as they darted about in the flowers.

A high pressure thrum of air and the stirring of molecules by my face and off they go.

I had one of those days that felt like such a dream.

Sweet and sunny and soft.

I even napped.

I know.

I never nap.

I fell asleep listening to the Chopin station on Spotify.

Also something that I do not do.

Fall asleep listening to music.

I generally need it to be dark and quiet.

Music catches at my mind and I can find it distracting, but this today, soft, dreamy, sweet, warm, late afternoon nap, which was not in my plans, and was so good, to feel so held in my sleep.

The best.

Such a gift.

And all the little reveries I had drifting in and out between the piano notes floating through the air in my room.

Exquisite.

I wore a new dress today.

Maybe that was it.

I like getting dressed up and not having to wear my nanny clothes or shoes is a nice change of pace for me.

I have a closet full of dresses that I don’t often wear as they are not suited for nannying.

Shit.

I should wear one tomorrow that I have been itching to wear.

I totally forgot I had gotten it in the mail last week, but I was annoyed that they hadn’t sent both the dresses I had ordered and I didn’t pull it out as I wasn’t sure what or if the company was going to refund my order or deny that they hadn’t sent the dress.

I sent them an e-mail and I think there was a part of me that was all stubborn, like, I wanted the other dress more, damn it.

Turns out that they had sold out and they happily refunded the dress to my bank account.

So.

I took the other dress out of its packaging.

And oh.

It’s pretty.

Sort of old-fashioned retro styling with a sweetheart bodice and a bit of a flared skirt, white with small black polka dots and navy and royal blue roses.

It’s very fetching.

I could wear that tomorrow.

Although, it doesn’t strike me as a therapy dress and I have a client tomorrow night.

Ah.

I don’t need to figure it out right now.

It was just nice to be in my dress today, out in the sun, the wind fluttering the long hem around my ankles.

I felt ethereal at times.

The way the sky looked between the tree leaves.

I was in awe.

I have such a good life.

I am really happy.

Oh.

Sure.

My brain likes to sneak attack me when I’m least expecting it.

But it passes and usually I can take a moment in those places of vulnerability and say, hey, “thanks for sharing, but I got this,” or better, “God’s got this.”

Which is true.

I’m human.

I’m going to fall on my face no matter how hard I try.

The point is to try.

If I’m falling down that means that I am trying and I am living.

I want so to have a full rich experienced life.

I want to see things and experience things and feel.

I definitely have the feelings thing down.

Ha.

I have a friend who sent me a check in the mail today.

We share a MOMA membership and I just renewed it.

He used to say “you wear your heart on you sleeve,” to me all the time.

I didn’t quite understand what he meant, but I believe he was referring to me being emotionally transparent in my blogs.

Which, strange though this may seem, has changed a bit for me.

Not being emotionally transparent, per se.

I think that I am pretty damn transparent here in my writing.

But.

That my writing has changed since he made that comment.

I don’t share as much content as I used to.

Oh.

Sure.

There is stuff that happens and I will report back factually, with much acuity, I will paint a picture of rolling hills, the grass drying and cream yellow, the smell of sage in a garden, the look of tiny green tomatoes just beginning to bud on the vine, the surprise kiss of beauty planted on me in the garden, the roses, the old garden ones that proliferated in all gardens on the edges with the fallen soft pink petals crumpled on the ground, the sound of hawk flying over head screeching for its lunch to show itself in the grass.

I can show you these things.

But my content used to be a lot more focused on who and what and when.

I find that I am leaving out that more and more.

Then it’s just the feelings and the susuration of wind in my heart.

The way love feels in my body.

How I want to be and more and yes when I stumble, getting back up and trying again.

All the things.

All the lovely things.

All the beauty that I took photographs in my mind today.

The bluest blue.

The soaring in my heart.

The glad song on my lips.

The dreams and revery.

All of it.

Wonderous and magic.

Sometimes

I’m smiling and you may not know the reason, but I’m smiling and damn it feels good.

I am happy.

I had a great day.

Lots of scootering all over the city.

Lots of errands run.

Amazing what I can do when I’m not working.

Ha.

I mean, I did go to my internship and I saw two clients today.

One who is new and the other who is returning, in fact, my first client, which feels pretty damn good, getting to know this client and seeing how the therapy is working for the client is an amazing experience.

I am growing more and more and finding out more about how I am a therapist.

I model myself a little on my own therapist.

She was fucking fabulous today.

We had an amazing session.

I sat down and said one name.

I want to talk about _____________.

And we dove in.

There was so much there.

I gave a history of the relationship and why it is relevant to me today.

I talked about conflict resolution and how in my past I wasn’t allowed to have conflict.

Conflict was not rewarded with resolution.

It was generally smashed and violently so.

Conflict for me was dangerous and scary and so I just learned at a very, very young age to avoid it at all costs.

Thank you to my school program and working towards getting my Masters in Counseling Psychology, (one more year!) that, oh, what?! Relationships have conflict and that’s ok.

Shit.

Who the fuck knew?

So.

I had some conflict that I needed my therapist to weigh in on.

It was astounding to hear her perspective and when I was stuck she helped me figure out where I was stuck and what it was.

We got to the bottom of it.

I was so freaking happy.

I am still not excited for conflict and when it happened, the conflict I am alluding to, it was years ago but it has become very relevant in present time,  I did not know that resolution could happen, that repair could happen.

I am much better at it now then I used to be.

Some practice, some stepping up and being a woman and an adult.

I remember when I really stepped out of my comfort zone with a former employer and let her know how I felt about an interaction we had and how I was really hurt by it.

I am certain that my past employer had no idea how her words had landed, but man, they had landed so hard on such a tender part of me that I knew I had to address it.

It would mean changing patterns of behavior I had been using for years, survival skills if you will.

And I did.

It was hard.

Man, it was so fucking hard.

But.

It opened a door that I didn’t know was there and an opportunity to exit that work environment a few months later with a kind of grace and dignity that I would not have thought I could have done.

Except that I let the repair happen.

I had the conflict, I said this doesn’t sit well with me, this is how it felt when you said what you did and I want you to know I can’t be treated like this.

It was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had.

Scary too.

So freaking scary.

I mean.

It was my job, my everything, and I loved my charges so very much I was devastated by the thought that I might lose my livelihood, one, and two, that I would alienate myself from the boys.

Those children meant so much to me it was excruciating to confront their mom.

Yet.

When I did, as I mentioned before, the conflict though hard was not as hard as I had thought it would be and it led to an unexpected resolution and repair of the relationship.

I mean, the last time I saw her we hugged and we both expressed how good it was to see the other person.

Oh there were lots of other things to work through, in that relationship before we got to that point, but the point is that I got to and I grew so much it astonished me.

There is always an edge to push always an experiencing for me to have.

For which I am grateful beyond words.

I have had so many life experiences that I can really be of service and value to my clients.

That is a huge gift and one that I don’t take lightly.

I have to say.

I really like therapy.

I like being a therapist.

I like being smart, I like using my brain, but more importantly I like making intuitive moves and letting things unfold in the field as my clients and I work together.

It is powerful.

It can be really hard too.

But for the most part.

Man.

I am happy getting to be a therapist.

I have so much to learn but that I am actively using the skills that I have learned over the past few years, in school, and the decades of experience I have had over the span of my life and the challenges met, my God, I have had some challenges and I have a lot to share.

And having the tools and language of therapy is a huge gift.

It’s like having done the readings and the trainings and the dyads and all the paper writing and all the books and articles and internet Ted Talks, the podcasts and the lectures that I have sat through, the work I have done on myself, the inventories and the taking suggestions and trying different things, my God, I can see how important all of it is.

And that none of it is wasted.

None!

My therapist has remarked a number of times to me how “alive” I am.

And I am.

I am happy.

I am free.

I am joyous.

I am of service.

I have purpose.

I am love.

I know.

That last one sounds full of myself.

But you know.

I think I am.

Or better.

That.

I am a conduit for love.

That feels more apt.

A channel.

And to know that I have been given that and that I get to grow more into that shape of love excites me.

Even when it feels overwhelming.

It is an amazing revelation.

And I am here.

Open to all of it.

Grateful.

And.

So relieved to no longer be in my own damn way.

It is extraordinary.

And now.

Please.

Pardon me.

I have some happy dance to do.

Sweet.

Sweet.

Sweetest.

Dreams.

See you on the flip.

 

Baby, Oh Baby

I got some good snuggles today from my friends twins.

Oof.

The gorgeousness of them is devastating.

The heft and weight of a baby sleeping upon my shoulder has to be one of the most beautiful feelings I have gotten to experience.

I’ve held a few of them.

The smell of baby, too, such amazingness.

Makes me feel very human.

I joked with my friend that it was a good thing I was on my period or I would spontaneously conceive holding the babies.

I’m 44 years old though.

I am pretty much at the point where if it was going to happen it would have by now.

I wonder if I had things different, if I had gotten better faster, had a better childhood, yada, yada, yada, if I would have had children.

I certainly could have gotten pregnant in the past.

I was not always the most on top of it lady in regards to my sexual interactions.

I.E.

I was not using protection.

I guess I just got lucky.

Or unlucky.

Depends on your perspective.

“You are going to make such a great mom,” is something that I have heard more times than I can count.

It is always such a compliment.

“I see you with children, I can imagine you with twins,” said a woman I used to work with years ago.

I was a twin.

Maybe there’s something there, but twins tend to skip a generation in my family, it’s doubtful I would have twins from that perspective.

I have done a lot of nanny shares, so juggling two babies is not outside my realm of experience.

Being with my friend and her twins reminded me of that, doing the nanny shares I have gotten to do.

Huge gifts those experiences.

I have been a nanny for over ten years now.

I have had so many children, from that perspective.

I have raised many children.

Sure.

None of them have been mine.

But.

Oh.

They have all been mine.

I have gotten to experience a depth of love that is vast and profound and I am always, ALWAYS, surprised that I have this deep capacity, this well, of love that seems to be infinite.

I have thought.

“I can never love another child as much as I love this child, this baby, this little one, right now in my arms, fallen asleep on me,” all the heavy, sweet, luscious love that has been in my arms, there is no way I could have more of that.

But.

Every child.

EVERY child I have picked up I have felt that love, vast and universal and profound.

It astounds me.

The profundity of it.

The gift of it.

I think.

See.

You have gotten to have all the experiences of unconditional love that you didn’t get when you were little, you got to see all these children being loved and taken care of, you have witnessed so many first smiles and laughs and the sweet dreams and yes, all the other milestones that are not as much fun but help shape the vast enormous and extraordinary experience of watching a child grow.

I have borne witness to miracles.

Again and again.

Each child a mystery and opportunity to again learn the face of God, the rosebud mouth that purses for milk from the bottle, the drowsy scent that arises from the warm body, like some sort of baking bread smell that intoxicates me and lures me back for another long inhale of sweet baking baby.

I must have smelled the twins every other minute.

Fresh baby.

So delicious.

I don’t know if I am sad that I haven’t had my own children, for I have had a wealth of children.

I do know and I can acknowledge that for many, many years I would not even entertain the idea of having children.

I knew my sister wanted babies.

And she had two.

But I always thought, nope, no children for me.

And.

I have not had a one.

Nor a pregnancy.

Not once.

Not even really a scare.

Knock on wood.

But yeah, since I’m currently on my cycle, I don’t think there’s anything happening there.

Ha.

I know so many women who have agenda, must get partner, must get pregnant, must, must, must.

I have heard it from contemporaries, community, women in my fellowship, desperate and straining against their own body clocks.

I feel it.

I have felt the clock tick tocking in the corner of my uterus, and there were times when my hormones had me clocking any man who gave me a spare glance, but nothing ever took.

I used to think, after I got sober, you know, give it a year and I’ll be in a relationship and then you know, a great job, and you know, a book contract, and a movie adaptation and then a house, and you know, a couple of kids.

That was a drawing I did in therapy.

I might have had about two years of sobriety at the time.

Shit.

I forgot about that picture.

It was an assignment my therapist asked me to do.

Draw my home, draw my goals.

I feel I might have that drawing stashed somewhere in my piles and stacks of notebooks, but I can describe it pretty well.

I am standing, pregnant, with a girl, I think I somehow indicate that it was a girl in my belly, with a little boy holding my hand, blue eyes, dark hair, and there was a man next to me holding my hand and we were all smiling, the house was three stories, I mean I went for it, and had a back yard and garden and a brick patio, it had a swing set and slide and a tire swing, I mean, come one, everyone needs a tire swing, it might have had an apple tree.

The inside of the house that I can remember having colored in was a library, with a fireplace and a big deep leather couch and a cat curled up on the hearth in front of the fireplace and bookshelves so full of books.

I had a study on the third floor, my own office.

I also drew things in the a small circle around a globe.

I wanted to be a world traveler.

I drew an airplane circling the globe and a tiny Eiffel tower and I think islands somewhere.

So.

Yeah.

At two years of sobriety I figured, won’t be too long now, I’ll have a husband and a little boy and a little girl, a house and office and books and I’ll be a writer and we’ll all travel together and it will be perfect.

I was 34.

Now.

I am 44.

None of those things happened.

Well.

That’s not true.

The travel did.

I have gotten to do a lot of traveling since I drew that picture.

The house I modeled it on was an Italianate red brick Victorian in the Mission that has a back carriage house and I could envision there being a garden back there and a swing set.

The man.

Well, he was a mystery.

Life hasn’t given me what I expected.

Fact is.

I have been given more than I could have dreamed of.

I have been given an astounding amount of love and so many opportunities to grow and so many times have I gotten to experience the unconditional love of a child that I don’t feel that I have lost out on some important life experience.

If anything I have heard from many people that they envy the life I have created for myself.

It hasn’t always looked pretty and I’ve fallen down and had to start over and I am now in the process of becoming something entirely different from what I set out to be.

But ultimately.

What I really wanted.

The thing that I wanted the most, the most, the MOST.

Was love.

And I have been showered with love.

Washed in love.

I have been given so much love I can’t breathe sometimes when I see it.

My heart is so full and I get to love right back.

The extraordinary experience of letting myself be loved.

Love in all its forms and sweetness.

And there is no end to it.

There really isn’t.

And I feel that is the key.

That I am not searching for something I think I am missing.

I know what I have.

And it is invaluable.

There is no price tag on it.

And it worth everything.

This love.

Well.

Not only is it worth everything.

It is everything.

And so.

I wish you the same.

That you be so graced and so touched with love.

You must know.

Deep in your heart.

How much you are loved.

So much.

I haven’t the alphabet for the words to spell it out.

But you.

Love.

Well.

You are poetry.

 

So Many Things

This Sunday.

Although I did not set foot out of the Sunset.

I almost didn’t get out of the Outer Sunset, but I did manage to scooter up to a lovely little church shrouded in the heavy fog this evening.

Wow.

The fog tonight was no joke.

It was super spooky riding home and the visibility was little to none.

I went very slow.

Grateful to be in a neighborhood that was quiet and sleepy and muffled.

The few cars I did pass basically blinded me with their headlights refracting in the fog.

So careful.

So slow.

I don’t want to die.

I say that with and without tongue in cheek.

There has been a lot of death around lately.

I joked, in a rather morbid way, the other night, the God must like taking folks in July.

“What is under that fear,” I asked her today.

“Well…..” she said somethings and got closer and closer and then, “I’ll drink and then I’ll die.”

“So, you’re afraid to die,” I said softly.

I am too.

I remember the first time someone spelled that out to me.

I hadn’t made the correlation from the resentment I was holding onto to the point that I was ultimately afraid that I was going to die, that so many of my fears stem from that oh so basic fear of death.

Oh.

There’s littler fears, smaller fears, the classic ones that come to my mind are always the same, fear of being unlovable, fear of being abandoned and alone.

Always they come up.

But tonight.

Well.

It was just plain old fear of getting hit by a car on my scooter because the visibility was so bad.

I was very glad I had my scooter jacket on.

Aside from the fact that it’s a great windbreaker and it has padded elbows, shoulders, and a back piece, it is also pink and has reflective fabric sewn into it.

I’m pretty visible.

I mean, nothing is 100%, but I would say that I have more visibility than someone who is riding in a black jacket, that’s for sure.

I’m running around in loops.

Get to the point.

Today another person died.

Taken off life support.

I knew her a little while after I got into recovery, she’d been around, on and off, for at least ten years, maybe eleven of my time doing the deal.

Always a bright light, always a lovable woman.

She came in and out a lot, there were many times I saw her after a relapse and they were not pretty.

But.

She got out and she was doing well and had relocated back to the Midwest and was doing it, she had two years when she died, had gotten married, had a great job, she was a step mom and happy, and you could see it in her photographs and in her cute little quips and fuck, she just recently recommended to someone in our community who recently had a baby that they reach out to me as she knew I was a “great nanny.”

She’d been a nanny too.

We often times would commiserate about our families, and more often swap pictures of the babies we worked with, our charges, and we would share stories of endearment about them and our nanny adventures.

It takes a special kind of person to love unconditionally children that way that she did.

That’s what she was doing.

Swimming.

Teaching a child how to swim.

If I understand the story correctly.

And she drowned.

She was pulled out and they tried to resuscitate her and she spent some time in the ER, but she never came back.

She passed this morning and once again I find myself taking a big break from social media and trying to titrate how much I take in.

I did reach out to a dear friend of mine and offer some support.

He’d dated her and though the relationship hadn’t lasted, I know how very important she was to him and how much they still stayed in touch.

He was devastated.

He’s got a great support system though.

And I think of the community and support system I get to be involved with, all the gratitude I have for my fellowship.

And.

Yes.

Sigh.

I think about Shadrach.

He would have run the marathon today.

He was supposed to ten years ago today.

But that was not what happened.

Ten years ago he was hit on his scooter and though not outright killed, he was in the ICU on life support for a week, he was killed that night.

He just hung around long enough for us all to say goodbye.

And sometimes it feels like there was never enough time to say goodbye or never will be and I keep going on living and when I used to feel guilty I just feel graced now that I get to be so exuberantly alive.

I bitch about going to yoga.

But fuck.

I get to go to yoga.

I get to do so many things.

All the things that he didn’t get to do.

And I wonder about this woman too, what things did she not get to do.

I am grateful that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was at the best place she’d ever been in her life and that God took her at the peak of her experiences.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not sad.

God damn it’s sad.

She was so freaking young.

I’m forty-four.

I think she was about to turn 40 this year.

I just recall that we were close in age.

Sigh.

Shadrach would be 42.

I don’t feel the sads the way I did a week or so ago when I was walloped with emotion, but it is there, soft, and slow, and muffled, like the fog, creeping in and nestling down in my heart.

So.

I lit some candles and I will have a moment and I have looked at his handsome face today in the photographs I have on the wall.

And I will say thank you friend for showing me how important it is to live to my fucking fullest every damn day.

Sometimes it’s tiring.

But.

Fuck.

I get to be tired.

I am so lucky to be here.

If life was fair I would be dead.

I am not.

I am here and I promise.

YOU.

I will keep loving with all my heart.

Loving so damn hard.

Regardless of how much it can hurt to live.

The pain is worth it.

I get to live.

I get to love.

I get to.

I am so, so graced.

 

Flip A Bitch

I found myself doing a surprising and sudden u-turn on Folsom Street today.

Oh please.

Don’t worry.

My person arched his eyebrow at me when I said that to him tonight over some sumptuous red beans and rice with spicy Andouille sausage at Brenda’s.

“I was careful!” I exclaimed, “I looked both ways and there was no traffic anywhere, and there was a really good reason why I did it.”

And there was.

Tub Tim Siam Massage.

Oh yes.

I got a fucking massage.

I am so proud of myself.

It’s been on my mind for weeks if not months.

I have had on again off again pain in my left arm for a long time, its soft tissue pain and sometimes I get wheedle it out with a Lacrosse ball, those small hard rubber balls massage therapists and rehab therapists use for working through muscle knots.

But most of the time it comes back and harasses the shit out of me at some point and it was really bothering me yesterday.

I don’t know if it was the yoga class I took yesterday or what, I mean, I carry most of my stress in my shoulders anyway, so could be just a big build up, but it has been pretty discomforting now for, well, months.

It’s not so bad that I can’t deal and I do.

I carry the baby at work, I do my blogging and my writing and I show up for yoga.

But I could really feel it yesterday, I could feel it flaring up when I was riding my scooter, I could feel it when I went to bed, it was up and down my arm and into my neck and at one point I swear I felt it in the left side of my face.

I have been to a massage therapist years ago who specialized in pain management through massage and I have thought about going and seeing her, but she was expensive and I had been given a gift certificate from my employers, otherwise I would have never seen her at all.

Anyway.

I had been to Tub Tim one other time when it first opened and that was back in December.

And I hadn’t a massage prior to that in years.

So when I zipped by on my scooter heading out to grab a late lunch after going to my group supervision at my internship, I flipped a bitch and decided it was time to get that massage.

I grabbed a light lunch at Rainbow and went to Tub Tim Siam.

It’s a small spot and I wasn’t sure if they would have time for a walk in, but I was going to check and if they didn’t at least make myself an appointment to be seen and seen soon.

But.

Yes!

They had an opening.

I got a ten minute hot sauna to warm up my muscles and then I got an hour-long traditional Thai massage.

Which means that they manipulate you muscles using hands, feet, elbows, and knees.

It was amazing.

It also hurt like a bitch at times.

Inside my head the conversation went like this: “ow, ow, ow, Oh My God, OW! Oooh, oh that feels so nice, OW, ow ow, ow, ouch, shit, fuck what is that, OMG that feels so good don’t stop, ouch, ow, ow, OWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW, i”m going to die.”

And then I would remind myself to breathe into the pain and to relax and to let it go.

She found spots that I knew where really bothering me, I had circled them on the sheet they asked me to fill out, and then some that I was expecting that were excruciating when they were being worked on, but after, amazing how much better I felt.

I mean, I felt lighter walking out of the shop.

I need to do that more often.

It’s not something I can do weekly, it’s a little too pricey for me, but maybe once a month, alternate between doing a Thai massage and then going and hitting the Imperial Day Spa, the Korean women’s only bath house on Geary.

The spa is only $25 a session.

I think that’s the kind of self-care I really need to let myself have as I continue moving forward with taking on clients and doing the psychotherapy work.

I’ll be back to school soon too.

Eek.

In about a month.

Shit will get really real.

But.

I’m not there yet and I’m not going  to live in the future.

Just today.

All I have to do is today.

I can get lost in the “there won’t be enough time” bullshit story my brain likes to spin me out with.

But the fact is, there is enough time, and all the things I need to do get done and I’m going to be ok.

Because I already am.

I had a beautiful day today.

I did some great self-care.

I went to yoga in the morning, had a super hot shower, washed my hair, I had a yummy breakfast and a big latte, I did laundry, I wrote a bunch, I did some e-mails for my internship and I took care of little household stuff that needed attending.

I dressed becomingly.

I wore a pretty dress and shoes.

I took my time on my scooter and didn’t get crazy trying to speed to my internship.

I had a great group supervision meeting and I got a massage.

Then I went and did the deal and it was fantastic.

Afterwards me and my person went to Brenda’s and had a good catch up.

It was perfect.

The scooter ride home was even perfect.

Not too cold, there was still a kiss of warmth left in the night and I could smell a bonfire down at Ocean Beach.

Note to self time to get in a fire at the beach, that too has been too long.

And now.

I’m home.

Cozy and relaxed.

I even signed up for a yoga class in the morning.

I am held and cared for and I deserve to have these nice things.

Yoga.

Massage.

My scooter.

My home.

I work so damn hard.

It’s nice to take a moment and appreciate my efforts once in a while.

So, yes, I may have made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Folsom Street today.

But it was for a really good reason.

I promise.