You Can Take It Easy

Holy crap.

That was not the gist of the conversation I was thinking was going to happen today with my professor.

I had been having some trouble registering for a certain elective for my spring semester and had reached out to my professor, who also happens to be my advisor to ask for assistance.

We had a scheduled phone call for today.

Of course.

I figured out what the issue was before the phone call, but only just barely  before, so I decided to call my professor anyway and just check in about the final project I have to do for the class.

“You have gone above and beyond, just great work this semester, I was just talking to Jen (my TA in the class) about your writing, and she agrees, really great work,” he said.

I was so touched and moved.

I thanked him and we chatted a little about the school and the semester and about the registration process and if I had any questions to be sure and reach out over the holiday.

It was such a nice conversation to have with him.

Then he asked if I had any other questions and I did say, yes, about the final project…

“Oh, you can do anything you want, literally anything, do whatever you want, you’ve done so much work this semester, take it easy, relax, turn in whatever makes you happy,” he finished.

I was silently jumping up and down with glee.

I hadn’t gotten as much time the last few days at work to focus on my homework.

I have gotten some done, posted my last big discussion post, but the work I had really wanted to do wasn’t able to get done.  The baby’s been a little under the weather at my nanny gig and his nap schedule’s been way off.

Today, for instance, he was sleeping when I showed up, which is highly unusual and meant basically that he wasn’t going to be taking his regular afternoon nap.

The regular afternoon nap I rely on to do homework in.

In fact, he only slept a bare thirty minutes into my shift, so the little time I did have before he woke up was devoted to household odds and ends and I didn’t crack the paper I had been hoping to address.

So when this professor told me to take it easy and that I could literally turn in anything for the final project, I was so overwhelmingly happy, yeah, I did feel like dancing a jig on the sidewalk pushing the stroller up to the Noe Valley Rec Center.

Interestingly enough.

I have had some inspirations as to what to do for the final project for this class, it doesn’t have to be a paper, although it could be, and I floated my idea past my professor.

“Would it be ok to record myself reciting a poem I wrote during the semester and send that to you?”

“Yes!  I love that, fantastic, and take as much time as you need,” he said.

I let him know I’d have it in by the deadline.

I have turned in all my papers so far on time and I have no desire to start turning in anything late at this point.

I feel like I pretty much got the A for the class, so might as well send it out with a little fanfare and a poem.

A Year of Tears

You pointed out to me

Every time I see you I cry.

I thought about that for a moment.

Then I cried.

Tears slipped down my face.

Do they carve soft channels in my skin?

Do they leave a trace mineral history writ upon my cheeks?

The certainly, the tears, they do, affect my eyes.

Oh.

I could well argue that it is my new phone with its very good camera that shows all those lines around my eyes.

But it shows, those tears, in my eyes.

I have cried over you for over a year.

Yes.

You were right.

I have cried every time I have seen you for a long while now.

Perhaps even a little more than a year.

Though, not that much longer since we have been together.

Apart.

Together.

Apart.

Together for only so much time.

SO MUCH TIME.

A year and  a half.

Oh!

The moon.

I raise my bruised eyes to the sky.

I sing your praises to the moon.

Like a child, I cry for that which I (think) I cannot have.

Longing for you, the moon in my sky.

You say the same to me, that I am your moon.

Your stars.

You talk to me when you are afar.

We talk to each other through the music of the spheres.

The crows carry our conversations to us.

The wind in the trees, a susseration of our words of love.

Each to each.

The avocado tree at work sends my love.

The oak trees where you are pick up the vibrations.

I see you in the beauty of the sunset, in the rise of the moon, in the wind blowing the leaves.

The moon waxes.

Wanes.

We talk to each other from new moon to full moon.

Underneath the Harvest moon.

Through on to the Strawberry moon.

There are many moons, but to me they are all the same, no matter the month.

They are all the Lovers Moon.

And oh.

I love you.

I do.

A secret.

Shhhh.

You may already suspect.

But I will tell you now in all truth, from the bottoms of my feet on up through all the bones of my body, I don’t mind the tears.

Not really.

No.

For they mean I have lived and loved you fierce.

Passionate.

Unrestrained.

With my whole being.

I have loved you.

I love you.

I will love you.

The tears tell me how important you are to me.

So important.

And.

Last night.

Oh.

You held me in your arms.

Such arms, may I always have the fortune to recline in them.

You shining eyes on mine, your kisses showering me.

I knew then.

As I know now.

Every damn day of tears was worth it.

To be, once again, in your embrace

Acceptance this.

Powerful knowing.

The love that matters between the black and white lines of our story.

That is all.

That love.

Surrendered I am to the situation.

For just the being with you my sweet moon brought it all home.

The sea salt tsunami of my love for you shall be the waters I sail my boat upon.

So dear, dear, dear, Dread Pirate Roberts.

I do expect that you will always come back to me.

For true love never dies.

Not ever.

Not now.

Not then.

Not really.

Not until the moon fails to rise and set, to wax and wane.

That moon which blushes with secret admiration for the words we float up to it.

The conduit for our missives to each other.

Telling all our stories of love and adoration, awe and tribulation.

The moon sees us my love.

The moon approves.

 

Is It Over Yet?

Normally this would be a lament about the holidays and being overwhelmed with being cheery and bright.

But frankly I can’t wait for that shit.

No.

I’m on the “can this semester please be over yet?” tip.

I’m feeling pretty done.

I have to finish one book, which has been decent if not scintillating material, do one more big discussion post on that book, write a ten page paper, a twelve page paper, and do a creative piece (of my choosing, thank God) that encapsulates the material of one of my classes.

Meaning I have thee big things yet to do.

The book reading is just reading, it does involve effort, but hey, I can sit at the laundry mat on Sunday and kick it out.

The papers are where the big effort comes in.

I mean.

The things that I need to cover are deep and conceptual and complex.

I have to use language I’m just beginning to get the hang of and I have to write on concepts that are deep and multi-layered, plus, god damn, I have just read so much this semester I’m not sure exactly where to go for my references.

I have a lot of them.

I also feel like I’m going to have to go back in and re-read a bit, not heavily, I really don’t see that happening, but I will have to have a good sit down with my materials, articles, videos, books, and discussion posts and see what jumps out at me.

I am very grateful that I did my book review a week early and got it out-of-the-way.

I have already gotten quite a good amount of feedback from my TA in that class and my professor, who also noted that I had very satisfactorily submitted all the deliverables for the class.  I could probably send in a pretty picture and a poem for my final project and I would pass the class easily.

Of course.

I won’t do that.

I do want to do something that integrates my whole experience and I have a few thoughts and ideas to explore before I really have to knuckle down.

But as this project and the ten page paper are both due the 17th of the month I need to attend to one this weekend and then to the other next weekend.

I will use the time between at work for finishing reading and posting to my last, thank God, discussion thread for the semester.

I don’t really want to write the ten page paper this weekend, I really just want to chuck it all and go Christmas shopping.  I haven’t at all and I have just barely begun writing a few Christmas cards.

My mom sent me a message yesterday that both my birthday and Christmas presents are in the mail.

ARGH.

I have nothing in the mail.

Well, except for the three cards I have managed to write out in between supervision this morning and work, clients yesterday and work, therapy and being a therapist, and all the school work.

I am allowing myself a compromise as far as it all goes, since my Trauma training on Sunday was cancelled and I have five extra hours in my day that I wasn’t expecting to work on the paper.

Therefor I resolve to let myself go Christmas shopping on Saturday after clients and appointments.

I will try to do it all in one fell swoop.

I actually don’t have a ton of folks to buy for, so it shouldn’t be too hard, mostly I just like the idea of going out and buying some nice things for people I love and then maybe a little something for myself too.

I am on the fence about Sunday, as far as scheduling stuff goes.  Even with the Trauma training being cancelled I still have household duties to do and I’ll be meeting a lady in the afternoon to do the deal and my person in the evening and I really want to get my Christmas tree.

I am just wondering if I use it as a carrot or if I just get the tree early and then whatever time I have left in the day before I meet my person in the evening I will then devote to working on the paper.

Either way, it will get worked on.

I am not going to pressure myself to getting it all done, but I am going to take a really big swing at it and then give myself the week to let it stew and process and hopefully refine it as much as possible.

Considering that the paper is the only paper (well, I have written a lot in the discussion posts) example of my writing this professor is really going to get and he’s the guy that designed this PhD program, I kind of want to blow him out of the water.

Kind of.

Ha.

I really want it to be a good paper.

Which means I have to not do the whole thing in one fell swoop.

I can do that, in fact, I have done that for a number of the papers for my other classes this semester, but I usually have a plan and the papers tended to be towards creative things that I was able to crank them out.

This paper feels like it has to be a bit more thoughtful.

Anyway.

Enough with the school stuff.

I posted up another discussion before starting this blog, so I can say that with no compunctions.

I want to wrap up my day, I was up at 6a.m. for group supervision before work, and have some tea and watch some Peaky Blinders.

Yes.

Brain Break

My head just needs a serious break.

Today at work I was cussing out my classes, my computer, my head, the stack of books next to me and my notebook.

Fuck it all.

I was tired.

I am tired.

And it’s Monday.

It’s the god damn beginning of the week.

And I’m already tired.

oh well.

At least I got some discussion posts up, after much profanity, and I did some follow-up work on a discussion post I’d put up the day before yesterday and I checked in on the responses to my work and responded to a few people in my cohort.

But my brain just hurts.

My tooth is also a little tender tonight, not sure why, so I had oatmeal for dinner and I’m just taking it easy.

I’m not really behind on any of the work for school and my head really does feel like it’s been blown open.

Of course it doesn’t help that a TA and a professor from my most demanding class are demanding some more work in the discussion thread I have done the most work in.

I’m like motherfuckers, I have posted over 5,000 words in the damn thread in the past five or six days, I’m tired of the topics and the demands of the class and where the hell is everybody anyway?  I’m seeing a fuck load of people not even posting or discussing, so why ask me to do more?

Of course.

I will do some more, I just need to grouse a little bit about it.

And that is why I love my little blog and being back here again, I can’t exactly say “go fuck yourself” to my professor on my discussion threads.

I mean.

I did send him an e-mail near the beginning of the semester saying he was asking for an unreasonable amount of work and I still think he is.

And I also see that I am one of the few people keeping up with what he’s throwing at us.

I have to also see it from the standpoint, this is his program, he’s the person who started this PhD program at my school, he created it, he loves it, I know, I’ve read one of his books and enough of his articles to choke a horse.

Sigh.

But when I give it some space I also see that I am learning and learning at sometimes a terrifying pace.

Is there enough room up there in my head?

I don’t know if there is, maybe I’ll forget the things that aren’t so important like math.

Bwhahahaahha.

Anyway.

I’m also roasting a chicken, in hopes that tomorrow I will be able to eat some pretty close to solid food.  I mean, I love some good oatmeal, I know, crazy right, (with juicy, tart, sweet apples, persimmon, sea salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie space, plus vanilla almond milk, come on, that’s some good shit), but a nice bit of roast chicken will be good for me.

I also know that though I am not burnt out, I am juggling a lot of stuff right now.

I almost screeched in joy when I found out that the trauma training I was mandated to go to this Sunday for my internship was cancelled as the trainer had a family emergency and won’t be available.

Holy fuck.

Thank God.

Not going to that training will save me five hours of time this weekend.

I can do a lot with five hours.

I am glad I didn’t know this information yesterday as I pushed myself to write my book review for my Creative Inquiry: Scholarship for the 21st Century paper.  I still have some editing to do for it, but I wanted to get it out-of-the-way because it’s due this upcoming Sunday and what with the trauma training it was going to be a tight push to do it.

Now I have a nice big chunk of time on Sunday to go get my Christmas tree!

I was planning on doing it on Sunday anyway, after the training and whatever work that there was to do for the book review.  But with the training cancelled and the book review pretty much done I can, oh my God.

I can sleep in!

I wasn’t able to yesterday, I had to get up early and run a bunch of errands that were on time constraints.

Sunday is my only day to sleep in and next Sunday if I was going to the trauma training I would be getting up really early to drive over to Berkeley for the three-hour training.

I get to sleep in!

My God that makes me happy.

Sleep.

It is such a nice thing.

I’m going to tell you a little secret.

That’s how I’m doing this PhD.

As much work as I can do during the day, thank God the baby took a big nap and the mom was out of the house at a meeting all day, then I come home and do a bit more and then.

Well.

I fucking stop.

I make sure that I am getting as close to eight hours of sleep as I can.

I don’t always succeed, Wednesday nights are notoriously hard for me to get more than five or six–I have group supervision for my private practice therapy internship in the morning before work and I have to be up by six am on Thursdays and since I have clients until 8:30p.m. I’m not home Wednesday night until a little after 9p.m.  By the time I get things sorted and have a bite of dinner it’s already time for bed and I find it pretty hard to wind it down fast enough to actually get the solid sleep I could use.

But that’s it, once a week I’m shy on sleep, the rest of the time I let myself rest.

My brain can’t hold all the information otherwise, there is just too much, I have to sleep.

Speaking of.

Time to wrap this up, make some tea and get ready for bed.

I have a lot to do tomorrow, therapy before work, work, and then seeing two clients in the evening after work.

Tuesday is a twelve-hour day for me.

So, yeah.

I’m going to let myself off the hook for the rest of tonight, call it a day.

And.

Sleep.

All the good, dreamy, yummy, sleep I can get.

 

Ouch

My poor mouth hurts.

I am in a lot of pain, but I know, from last years experience, that it will get better.

I had to get another crown put in.

I cracked, yet again, another tooth.

This is tooth number two.

My dentist told me that I am grinding my teeth in my sleep.

Great.

I’m not stressed, really.

Bwahahahaha.

Sigh.

So, two weeks ago I got a temporary crown.  What had been an appointment for a teeth cleaning became a three-hour session in the chair.

And cost a fat $1475.

Then today, two weeks later, I got my new crown in and dropped another freaking $465 to get a mouth guard because my dental insurance doesn’t cover mouth guards.

But I tell you what.

When my dentist says I need a mouth guard or I run the risk of cracking more teeth and having to get more crowns, I’ll fucking pay it out-of-pocket.

Happy birthday!

Merry Christmas!

Yay.

Dental work.

Oh well.

At least I had the money in my account to just pay it out with cash and not freak out.

I wanted to sort of freak out, but I don’t have to.

I still have some student loan money left over to get through the rest of the semester and I will be alright.

I always am.

There was a time that dental work of this nature would have blown me out of the water, but I have a touch more experience with padding my bank account with my student loans.

I told a friend today what my student loans were at, around $104,000 and he blanched.  He’s also from country that doesn’t charge its citizens to go to school, so he’s not really accustomed to what it means to be an American with a great big heap of student loan debt.

I don’t care though.

My education is worth it and hey, I took out a big chunk to help with my move into my new place and I have no regrets about it.

I am interning at a non-profit and plan on working for them for the ten-year period that the federal government asks one to do if you want your student loans forgiven.

I can do that.

So it’s ok if I have them.

And yeah, they’ve helped with more than just paying tuition at my super expensive school.

I’m worth it and I still get to live in San Francisco.

So, there’s that.

I’m not on any pain killers for the tooth though and it feels big and hot and ouchy in my mouth.  If I remember correctly from last January it passed within a few days, the big pain by the next day, hopefully that will happen for me as well.

I expect that there will be some tenderness and hot cold sensitivity for a while, but it does pass too.

I will say I am not in the mood to do any homework and since my landlord is having a party I’m not really in the space to turn my attention and focus to homework.  I’m playing some pretty loud French music right now and trying to not think about my tooth.

I also did some apartment hunting on Craigslist.

I’m happy with my new place and not happy at the same time.

I had to move all of my things out of storage in the basement today, which I was not planning on having to do.  When I moved in the landlord offered me space in the basement to store stuff as my unit as no storage space, just a tiny closet that doesn’t fit all of my clothes, I got a big dresser and a rolling garment rack to deal with that.

But I don’t have anywhere to put my camping/Burning Man gear, nor the boxes of notebooks and text books I’m not currently using.  Fortunately my boss offered me space in her storage unit.  So tomorrow I get to get up way earlier than I was planning for on my one day off during the week to take my stuff across town to the Bayview to put in storage.

Two weeks ago I had asked my land lord that the basement be unlocked, I wanted to grab my Christmas ornaments a something to wear to the Burning Man ARTumnal event I went to a few weeks back.

It was at that time I was told that I was going to have to find another place to put my stuff as the landlord’s wife is pregnant and they are going to be renovating a room into a nursery and needing to store stuff in the basement.

FUCK.

I was floored.

I was also fucking pissed.  Where the hell was I going to put my stuff?

And.

I hate to be a bitch.

But fuck my life, I moved in here partially because I was assured it was a really quiet space that I was going to be able to study and not be disturbed and all was going to be chill.

A new-born living over my head is not a quiet living environment.

Now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love kids, I adore babies, for fuck’s sake, I’m a nanny.

AND.

I’m a nanny, I deal with crying baby at work all the time, I don’t want to come home to crying baby.

Ugh.

I might be making too much of it but that coupled with a few other things, like the unit is not nearly as sound proof as I was lead to believe and that the landlord and his wife have had two knock down screaming fights with each other where things were smashed and doors slammed since I’ve moved in that makes me think I will be looking for a new place to live when my lease is up.

I’m not going to break the lease, unless something extraordinary gets dropped in my lap, but I do think I may not be making this quite the permanent place I had thought.

And really, not that permanent either, I wasn’t planning on being here longer than my PhD program.

I sort of figured that I wanted to get settled in and cozy and then not have to think about moving until I was finished with my program and by that time I would be making good money with my private practice and could afford a one bedroom instead of a studio, or even, maybe start looking at what it would take to land a house.

I really do have the  dream of owning my own home one day in San Francisco, crazy as that may seem, I have my hopes and I have seen stranger things happen.

So.

Yeah.

A tooth ache and a loud party upstairs are not conducive to doing homework, but I thought, I can blog!

And there you have it.

I’m back to the blogging and my, it does feel fine and I just realized my tooth hasn’t hurt that much while I was writing.

Win/win.

The Poetry Is

Spectacular.

I was bowled over by the compliment I just received from a professor regarding a poem I wrote and recorded for a group project in one of my classes.

It is always nice to hear that, that my poetry is “spectacular.”

I mean, who doesn’t want to hear that?

I’m always so flattered.

It comes naturally and it comes with great effort.

I have taken a great deal of time to cultivate and practice my writing skills.

I find that because I have taken so much time doing the work that when I need to sit down and do it, it comes easily and smoothly with what feels like minimal effort.

That means, however, that I have to continually be practicing to keep that flow going.

I can’t rest on the laurels of my gym results from last year if I want to stay in shape.

I have to write.

And therefore it gives me much pleasure to be back here again writing.  I don’t know that I will be able to post as much as I did prior to jumping off into my PhD program, but I am hopeful that I will give it a good god damn shot.

I have to admit that when my blog got intertwined with my professional site I was really upset, how was I not going to be able to blog?

How?

Then, slowly, I saw that it was a gift, this little break from my practice.

It was a opprotunity to do the writing for my classes instead of for my blog.

I have done so much writing for classes.

Each week I’m posting about 4,000-5,000 words in discussion groups.

On top of a pretty constant hum of papers, projects and just all the reading.

My God.

There is a lot of reading.

But as I sit here reflecting on all of that I am also sitting next to a gigantic stack of books I have read.

In fact.

There’s only one book left to read and I’m not 100% certain, but I’m feeling pretty close to it, there may not be any articles left to read either.

I’m sure something will crop up, it always seems to do so.

Yet.

When those things have cropped up I have been able to navigate through them.

Not without some profanity, I won’t lie, I have sworn a lot at my computer over the last couple of months and on more than one occasion, or fifteen, I have wondered, what the fucking hell am I doing?

I have so much on my plate.

Just working full-time and getting my private practice up in running is more than enough to keep anyone busy, let alone putting the course work for a PhD on the line too.

I have a lot going on.

And somehow, everything’s been getting done.

Sometimes at what feels like the last-minute, but I realize that I get it done and I get things turned in on time.

I have already witnessed a distinct amount of people in my cohort suddenly just disappearing.

Some of it is in not participating as much with the discussion groups and some of it is not even checking in on a group project.

I basically had someone completely no-show for the entirety of one of the group projects I was involved with, and at one point I actually thought that I was going to be doing it alone as the other person took such a long time jumping in.

And it got done and my professor thought my poetry was spectacular.

So.

Yeah.

I think my brain can let up on the, what are you doing part, because I am doing something big and worthy and worthwhile and beautiful and it’s going to be a long haul, it is, but that’s ok.

I’m only getting older anyway and I want to really leave my mark out on the world.

However I can, whether it is in service to my recovery community, my therapy clients, or just being an example to someone that you can get what you want despite where you come from or the hardships you have had.

I am excited for what it will all bring, even knowing that it will be a tremendous amount of work and that the great deal of effort I am putting in now is not done for naught.

I keep being told too that my writing is good, that my writing is needed in academia, that my ideas are good, that my contributions are worthwhile and wanted.

It’s nice to feel wanted.

It’s nice to feel that I am contributing, especially at this level of academia.

I suspect that there will be fewer people next semester in my cohort than there was at the beginning of the program.

But I know I will be there and I know that I will continue to strive to do the best I can and show up.

One day at a time.

One hour at a time.

One minute at a time.

Just doing the next thing in front of me.

I will get there.

Wherever there is.

There is here, is now, is in this moment, in this creation, this mass of words and thoughts and dreams.

There is in the space between the words where the love light shines and I find myself again and again in the poetry and the prose of my experience.

In my narrative, my story, my life.

Writing it all as it happens, lucky to be so fortunate to be able to do so and happy that I can continue to do so.

For that I am aware that I am lucky.

I am a very lucky girl.

Very.

Hello Stranger

I’m back!

Oh my God, I’m actually back.

Wow.

This feels so surreal.

It also feels weird because WordPress has once again changed some things on the site and the layout I’m used to using has changed.  But so far, well, so freaking good.

It is nice to be home.

I have missed you!

I have been busy, I won’t lie.

So busy that it makes me wonder how it is that I can even take the time to be sitting here in front of my computer not working on homework.

My God.

The amount of homework.

It is horrendous.

There is literally not a day.

Ok.

There was a day.

That I don’t do homework.

I didn’t do homework on Thanksgiving.

I almost did, but then I just cut myself some slack and said, no, take the day off or you’re going to be pissed.

And the day was taken off.

I went to a movie!

In fact, heh, I went to two movies!

I cannot remember the last time I saw a movie in the theater, probably last Christmas?  And to see not one, but two in the same day was crazy.

I went with my people to a matinée at the Embarcadero Cinemas, which I love.  I do adore a good art house space, plus, there is just something pretty about that part of town when it is emptied out, as it was being a holiday.   The view of the city, the Embarcadero, the bay, the Bay Bridge, the downtown skyscrapers and plenty of parking, which in and of itself is a miracle.

We saw At Eternity’s Gate, the Vincent Van Gough movie with William DaFoe.

First of all, DaFoe is a fucking genius, he’s got the Oscar on this one.

Second.

Horrendously sad.

But I mean, you know it’s not going to end well, the man cuts off his ear for fucks sake, it’s not like this is going to be a happy movie.

Yet.

It was a gorgeous movie, Julian Schnabel did amazing work.

It’s filmed on site where Van Gough did his paintings, Paris first, than the South of France in Arles, and the light he manages to capture is just exquisite.

It felt like being in one of Van Gough’s paintings.

So much beauty.

So much grief too.

I was in tears and the ending just had me with tears pouring down my face, but ultimately, it was such an extraordinary work of beauty that I was grateful to be able to see it.

And I was grateful to reflect that I have gotten to see a number of Van Gough paintings in person.

Although I have never been to the Van Gough museum, I have seen his works in the Louvre, the MOMA New York and the MOMA San Francisco, and The National Gallery in London.

That’s pretty damn good if I think about it.

I am blessed with having gotten to see the amount of art I have seen in my life.

There is so much more to see.

So much more.

Speaking of art, I had hoped that during my down time from work with the holiday I would get to the MOMA, but I did not, too many other things were happening.

Lots of homework, internship work, seeing clients, seeing friends, running errands that needed desperately to be run, clothes shopping–I hadn’t been clothes shopping in so long it felt kind of crazy.

I’ve lost a little weight the last few months and really had to get new jeans.

And I’m not complaining about that at all, it just took forever for me to have the time to get to it.

You may see a theme here.

Busy.

The new internship is going well and I feel like it will grow me into a very healthy private practice therapy business.

Which is also part of the reason why I haven’t been blogging here for some time.

I’m not much of a tech person, not really, not at all, and for my internship I needed to build a website.

Now if I had the money I’d just hire a friend to do it, in fact, when I do have the money I will most likely do just that, but in the mean time.

Well.

Shoot.

I already have a blog on WordPress, I’ll just use WordPress.

Except.

Ugh.

I didn’t realize that I had inadvertently connected the two, my professional website with my, very private, thank you very much, blog.

I mean.

Some of you out there know who I am.

But most of the people reading my blog don’t know who I am.

I am anonymous here and I always have been, since it allows me to pretty freely write about what ever I want to write about.

Oh.

Sure.

There are things y’all don’t know and that will stay like that for ever, thank you.

But.

I am really transparent here.

I write about all sorts of things.

All sorts of things that no therapist wants their clients to know about.

So you may imagine my horror when I realized that you could access this blog through my professional site.

I don’t believe I let that oversight go more than a few days.

The horror I felt though when I realized that the website I’d worked on so hard was linked to my personal blog was no bueno.

I mean.

Yuck.

I don’t believe any of my clients found it.

In fact, I do wonder if anyone actually did figure it out.

It wasn’t very obvious, but for a couple of days the “About Me” was my “About Me” blog from this site, which isn’t exactly scandalous, but it is sassy and certainly not anything I would want a therapy client to read.

NO.

So once I fixed that I spent too much time trying to figure out how to separate the two entities.

I spent too many precious minutes and hours away from my homework on the help chat.

And then WordPress went down, well, it didn’t go do per se, but the administrative support did and really, the couple of chats I did have done nothing for me, except taunt me with the fact that there was a way to separate the two from each other, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Like.

My understanding of technology is a five-year olds.

So for a while, like a petulant five-year old, I just stopped trying.

Then I started reaching out to friends.

I have had three-hour long sessions with friends and nothing was accomplished, except for me to get more frustrated.

I wanted to blow up the site.

I wanted to pull my website, but I’d fucking bought the domain and paid for two years of hosting.

I wanted to delete my blog, my baby, this guy, but really?

No way.

l have over 2,500 blogs on this site and they are valuable to me.

More about that later.

So.

My best idea was to lay as low as possible and not write any blogs while I was getting it all sorted.

And yesterday.

I think.

I hope.

Fingers fucking crossed, I figured it out.

Well.

Not the real solution.

But something that would allow me to be anonymous here and not have any tie to my professional site’s identity.

For now it seems to be working, so I’m not going to jinx it.

And hey.

Look at that.

I got to run.

It’s time for me to get ready to go to bed.

I have early supervision now before work and I’ve got a six am start.

Blah.

But hey.

It’s so nice to be here again!

I am.

So fucking nice.

I promise, I won’t be a stranger no more.

Nighty night.

Speak To Me

In the language of trees.

Specifically.

In the whisperings of God dropping through the boughs of the giant avocado tree.

Said tree that I stand next to at times, times of the day when I am alone at work, out on the balcony to the world staring down at the bowl of San Francisco from my perch.

A  perch just on the cusp of Glen Park.

Borderlands to Noe Valley.

A perch of privilege, a deck of wonders.

Who knew there was such a view?

Or that God would choose the avocado tree to teach me of my love for you.

For a moment I could not even remember if you liked avocados.

Then.

The memory of the first time I cooked you breakfast.

(You requested, something simple, like avocado toast, which you got, as well as prosciutto and asparagus fritatta with pecorino and grueyere and fruit, all organic and curated, and granola parfait, said toast dusted with sea salt collected by the soft milk white hands of virgins under the new moon–at least that is what I told you,  as it cost $58 a lb)

How I wanted to please you.

How I wanted to make you happy.

How I wanted to impress you.

And yes.

How I wanted to show you how much I loved you.

Although the words had not been uttered out loud.

They were there.

Lingering in the cast iron skillet I sautéed the asparagus in.

Late spring asparagus I had culled with much discernment at the market.

Everything needed to be just so for you.

You may see how mad I was to impress you.

See.

Here.

Here are my list of skills.

Cooking, obviously.

Did I tell you that I know how to make pie crust from scratch?

I know I must have enraptured you at some point with tales of apple pie and vanilla custard ice cream in the house in Windsor, in Wisconsin, with apples that I picked myself from the Cortland tree.

Apples that to this day I can taste faint, sweet, crisp, with a wicked whisper of tartness that reminds me of you.

You flavor my ways and days and the memory of you wicks through me some times with terrifying speed.

I digress.

Apples.

Apple pie.

Apple tart kisses, my bonny boy, my blue-eyed one, my love, my love, my ardent heart.

I digress.

Where was I?

Oh.

Yes.

Skills.

Cooking, cleaning, pie crust making, massage, poetry, recitations, love-making.

We were oh so good at that last, weren’t we lover?

Digressing again.

I shivered, it felt like withdrawal, in the car tonight, on my long drive home, waiting in line on Lincoln Avenue for the light to finally turn green so that I could turn on to 19th and head to Crossover Drive, to float down the hills, rolling and soft, like a asphalt veld, to the sea.

To 48th and Balboa, my new digs.

You were the first person to see it.

Just the bones, you know.

Just the bare walls and the wood floors and the oh so, oh my God, is it really all mine, deck.

I almost kissed you there, in the shadow of the house, I wanted you to kiss me there, in the corner of my heart, in my new home and cement yourself even further into my heart, is that possible?

It is I think.

You managed somehow.

And though I did not kiss you, I stopped, startled, stunned that I wasn’t allowed to kiss you anymore, momentarily forgetful of this whole grown up thing we are doing, the no contact thing that we keep breaking, like my heart, trying to find our way through the morass and the mire to that high road of love, I wanted to.

I wanted to kiss you.

And I did.

Later.

But I am not at later yet.

For.

I digress.

The digression too becomes a part and parcel to the piece.

Does it not?

Where was I?

Oh yes.

I was shivering.

Shaking with need, a good addict response, what had triggered me?

Aside, not digression, I hate that word, trigger, so banal, so trite, so overused and misunderstood, excuses to act out on desires, I was triggered, I could not help myself, what was it that pulled my focus, that made me shiver.

The damn car wash.

Remember that one?

You know the one, when we were on holiday, what a horrid way to misuse that word, from our sexual appetites, trying yet again to figure out how to be and not be with each other.

We’re just “friends” now.

I knew then, but did not say it, there is no going backwards.

So when we were just supposed to be going for a ride, just supposed to be talking, how we ended up at the gas station with the discount gas if you should happen to buy a car wash.

No overheated teenager ever made out more furious with passion than did we.

I do not know how long the water pelted down but it was not long enough.

It was never long enough with you and I.

And then I’m turning, the light is green, it is time to go, and I let the yellow and orange and white lights of the gas station melt away in the rear view mirror, but the song is still there and I still feel you in the air inside my car, some sort of ghost in the machine.

Deux ex machina.

And I feel you seeping under that layer of skin between muscle and sinew and I cry, out loud, your name in the darkened shell of my car, the dashboard lights the only witness to my pain.

I half expected you to text me immediately.

You do always know when I am almost there on the ledge of love waiting to leap and always wanting you to catch me when I fall.

But you didn’t.

Text me, that is.

No matter how much I may want you to.

You’re not allowed.

I am not allowed.

We are not in that place.

Yet.

And.

I do not know the place exactly that we are in now.

So.

I talk to the avocado tree at work.

I pace the back balcony, the view of the city spilled out before me like a sumptuous private banquet that only I shall eat at.

The clouds, high, and tight in the sky, flick past, but are not big enough to blot out all that wide open blue.

That sky that does me in.

You had to have eyes the color of the sky, didn’t you?

Eyes so blue, so deep, flecked with green and gold and burnished with love.

Like the leaves of the avocado tree.

Leaves that when ruffled against the blue of the sky remind me of when I fell, headlong, heedless, and in absolute knowing, that I was irreconcilable in my love, into the blue of your blue eyes, straight through to the sea of your soul.

I launched out upon that sea and I have never looked back.

And though I am so far from shore.

I know, I really do believe.

That if I can just decipher the secrets that the avocado tree is whispering to me I will unlock the key and bring you back.

Back.

Back.

Down to the sea.

Where the driftwood bonfires burn brightly on the edge of the ocean and the mermaids sing each to each.

Do not make me wait to be old, a Prufrock figure, with trousers rolled, feet bare to the sea-foam, pushed about by incoming waves of salt sadness and sea bream.

Come back to me my love.

Come back.

At least please see me in my dreams.

Where once again I will fall for you with nary a regret.

Never a regret.

Over.

And over.

And.

Over.

Again.

Always.

Will.

I fall.

For.

You.

 

And That’s About Enough

Fuck.

It’s been a long damn day of study.

I’m all done in.

I could use another two hours of work, but I can’t do it.

I have written two different reaction responses to material.

I finished a book.

I read another dense chapter in another.

I watched one video of an hour and a half and launched into another four-hour documentary.

The level of discourse is deep and I appreciate all that I am learning and I’m tired.

Pooped.

Done.

I also am getting settled into my life, my home, my new space.

I got furniture assembled today and organized.

I hired someone from Task Rabbit to do the work and honestly, I’m so happy I did.

The woman was really kind and quick and it took her, a skilled person, she’s got great reviews, three hours to put together the furniture I ordered.

I did not have three hours to spare today.

I should probably not be blogging, but you know, the blogging saves my fucking ass.

I need to get all the cobwebs out and I need to process and this is where I do it.

Oh, I know, you’ve had to have noticed, I’m not blogging as much or as regularly as I have in the past, but I am doing it when I need to.

It feels like a need.

Just like writing in the morning feeds me and helps me to get ready for my day, the blogging helps me filter through everything that happened and helps me to not ruminate too much on what the day has brought.

It brought laundry.

My first trip to a laundry mat in years.

Sigh.

I’m not going to lie, its not optimal.

I wish I could use the laundry that is here at the house, but I don’t have access to the garage.

On one hand its fabulous, I don’t have to go through the garage to get to my place anymore.

“I am so jealous of your space!” The woman who came over exclaimed looking at my place.

I had to say, it did look pretty spectacular today, the sun was shining in the windows, my God it gets such beautiful light, today was my first time being in the space most of the day, so I got to really see how much light came in.

So much.

I was reluctant to leave today.

But I knew I had to.

I had to do laundry and I did it and yeah, it wasn’t super fun and I feel like the laundry mat rips you the fuck off with the cost of drying and dryers that don’t really dry, but it is what it is and I did study the entire time I was there, which set the stage for the writing that I did for my classes today.

I still have to do a response in one of my classes, I did two out of three today, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do more.

I had to shut down the video I was watching, which I have watched before for my Freudian Analysis class three years ago.  I remember being fascinated by it when I watched it then, now I’m just tired from it, it’s a bit dark and like I mentioned, four hours long.

That’s a long time to watch anything about psychoanalysis and I’m a psychotherapist, it’s material I do enjoy, but it’s a heavy-handed version of Freudian analysis and I just got a bit worn down by it.

Anyway.

I am happy to say that as my home becomes more and more realized, that I am resourcing myself by being in the space.

It is warm and sweet and inviting.

It is also pretty and fun and colorful and it smells good.

I like the good smells I do.

I can look anywhere in the space and I will find something beautiful to rest my eyes upon.

I really like it and I like how unconsciously I have found things that fit together in interesting and arresting ways.

I don’t set out to create these patterns, but they are there when I step back and look, colors that blend with each other, complimentary shapes and pleasing ways of things coming together.

I will, as I have mentioned, post pictures soon, but it’s not quite fully realized, I still have to get my dresser and it will get set up next week, yeah, I re-hired the woman who helped out today, especially since next Sunday I will be deep in a ten page paper.

I can’t spare the three hours of assembly the product says it will take to assemble.

I mean.

It’s hella cute and had I the spare time I would totally do it, I have the tools I have put together plenty of things before, but this is an active act of self-care to delegate this out.

I have to focus on that paper and I have some ideas percolating, so hopefully it won’t break me.

It’s going to be a big week as I end my time with Liberation Institute and say goodbye to some clients and to the group I have been working with the last year and a half.

I also have to get the rest of my things together for Grateful Heart.

Like now.

I’ll be sitting with a friend from school to design my website on Wednesday and I will be getting a phone number and setting up a Square Reader.

I need to research that too, find out how long it will take for me to get the reader, etc.

Jesus.

I just did it.

Now my brain is officially fried.

I just set up and ordered my Square reader.

I will get it sent to me in the mail and hopefully it will arrive, it should, by the time I have my first client who will be using a credit card.

This is happening.

I think I have done just about all that I can today.

I have to call it a day.

Or a night.

I’m cooked.

Time to make a cup of tea and wind down, get some sleep and leap into what is going to be one hell of a busy week.

Seriously.

So Very Pleased

I got a lot done today.

I hung all my artwork in my new home.

I got my new couch delivered and my new chair and they were quickly assembled and they got here ahead of schedule, which was so awesome as it made it possible for me to not only attend a Zoom session for school, but also get to my group supervision on time.

Effectively making it possible for me to even take enough time to do some much-needed personal grooming and pampering, I went and got a mani/pedi and my eyebrows waxed.

And no, I didn’t glaze out with some trash magazines but actually did homework reading.

My books go where ever I go.

That has become mandatory.

Even if I don’t think I will have time, I’m bringing them along.

One at a time I will get through the reading.

There is so very much.

And though a part of me really wanted to do more homework tonight when I got home from doing the deal, I realized that I needed to finish as much of my unpacking as I could.

I just needed to feel settled completely in my home.

I am pretty damn close.

Hanging all my artwork really felt good.

So too blasting some French House music.

My place is sound proofed, plus the landlord is away camping this weekend.

So I didn’t have any compunctions about using a hammer at 9p.m. at night and hanging up my art.

It feels so nice to look at my space.

My couch is freaking perfect, so to the chair and the pillows I got really work nicely, I almost didn’t get them when I was at the store and I even had a moment when I packed them up and I was going to return them, but something made me stop and I am so glad I did, they work really well and look hella cool.

I’m very happy with my couch.

And tomorrow I will get my coffee table, end tables, and bedside tables set up.

I actually hired a woman from Task Rabbit to do it.

I figured it was worth it to not frustrate myself for hours.

I will instead spend a great deal of time tomorrow studying and doing homework.

I have to.

My work week will be full on again as the mom is back from her work travels and I will have the baby full-time again, I may have some time to do readings, but I won’t have time to do writing, which is what I was doing a lot of in the early afternoons before I headed out to pick up the big kids from school.

So tomorrow is definitely a full day of study.

I have one ladybug coming over to do work for an hour and I’ll get out and do the deal, but other than that, I can’t do anything but the work.

Well.

Probably some laundry.

I will want to do that, but I’ll bring homework with me for sure.

It will be my first time going to a laundry mat in years and though I am not excited about that, I am quite happy with how my home has come together and it feels very good to be here.

There are still some things that need to happen for me to entirely settle in, I haven’t gotten a dresser yet and I still have some clothes in a big garment box, but for the most part the space is nicely curated and it feels like me and it feels fun and polished and warm and sweet.

Once it’s all set up I’ll post a few photos.

I really do love the fact that I got myself a pink velvet couch.

Pink is not my favorite color, but I do like it and the couch is just so very me.

A sort of vintage 1970s Paris couch.

It’s the best.

Yeah.

I am very happy in my new home.

It’s also quite a space of reflection for me, to see how far I have come in the last few years.

When I think about how I moved back from Paris with $10 and what I have now, it’s really astounding how much can change in five years.

I got my Master’s degree, I’m working on my PhD,  I went through a buyout (a San Francisco rite of passage now it seems), I found a wonderful new place to live, I have had the most intense romantic love of my life happen, I have traveled back to Paris three times since I moved back, as well as going to New York three times, New Orleans, Burning Man five times, D.C., Atlanta, and L.A.  I bought a scooter, sold the scooter, bought a new car.

I never thought I would actually buy a new car, and holy shit, I did.

I’m starting a private practice internship.

I am fucking living life.

And yeah.

It does get overwhelming at times, but I have a primary purpose and I’m sticking to that.

The PhD is an amazing gift to get to do, but ultimately, it is not the endpoint for my life, although I know it’s going to consume a good bit of my life for a while, it is not my omega point.

Love is.

Deep love.

Loving myself to the best of my abilities and spreading that love as far out into the world as I can.

And now that my home base is almost secure and safe and settled.

I feel that I will be able to do so with even more veracity and courage.

I am in a good place.

It is a challenge.

There are challenges.

No lie.

But I am in a good place.

And I vow to love as hard as I can from this place as I can.

I promise.

Really.

I do.

I Should Be Doing Homework

But I have done so much already today that I am taking a break.

I was actually just working on something now and it became very clear that I am at the end of my capacity for work today.

Granted it was not homework for my PhD.

It was homework for my private practice internship.

Said private practice internship which begins in eleven days.

Well, technically twelve.

I don’t have a client scheduled for the first day of October, but I do for the second and my lease and paying rent on said lease begin on the first.

Speaking of rent.

I am completely done.

Done.

Done.

Done.

I turned in the keys to my old in-law tonight and got the other half of the buyout monies.

I was so relieved.

It was uncomfortable, but not horrible, I could tell there were many things being left unsaid, especially by the grumbling way everything was said, but I didn’t care, I had the check, the keys were out of my hands, done and done and get me the fuck out of there.

The relief was so big I started to cry on my drive home.

Home.

I am home.

It’s nice to be here.

It’s official.

I mean.

It’s been official for a few days.

But tonight, it feels really official.

And I have a chicken roasting in the oven as I type.

Not that I plan on eating it tonight.

I already had dinner, cereal with an apple and a persimmon, but I wanted to cook, I felt it called for it, and making a roast chicken is easy and a pot of rice to go with it and I won’t have to think about cooking for a few days and dinner for the weekend won’t consist of me eating cereal.

Last night I ate out in the Judah and 44th neighborhood as I went over to clean the in-law after I got done with work.

I will add that the landlady begrudgingly admitted that the in-law was far cleaner than she suspected I would leave it.  I think she was rather surprised and though there were a few moments when I just wanted to say fuck all of this, I was totally committed to leaving things well and so I did.

I will get my damage deposit sans some monies for taking care of patching some holes from nails in the wall, which I knew would happen so not concerned, back pretty much intact.

Which is what I wanted.

And it’s done.

I am really quite happy to be moving on from this.

It was exhausting dealing with it all and stressful and anxiety ridden and I don’t know that I slept all that well in that space for the last few months.

Especially in comparison to how I have slept the last few nights, sound and tight and deep and sweet.

The moon kissed me awake last night though, shining through the back window on my face.

I thought of you, dearest.

I think of you often and wish I could reach out to you.

I know I can’t but it took all my efforts to leave you be tonight when I was driving home, driving home elated and relieved and grateful that I got through it all and wishing I could pick up the phone and tell you all about it.

You were the first person I called when things went south.

You are always the first person I want to tell things to.

I know that’s not for now.

But I hope that you felt it, my joy at the release from the situation, the shutting of the door and moving forward, the handing over the keys and lessening the load.

I hope that somewhere in your heart you know how very important all your support was to me during this time, even when you couldn’t support me more I knew how much you wanted me to be safe and happy.

I’m safe.

I’m happy.

I would be happier with you, I won’t lie, I believe that to be true, but I am also happy to be in a place I can truly call mine, with a signed lease and rights that I know and can advocate for.

Sigh.

So many things to tell you dearest.

I wrote you another letter in the notebook I keep for such times.

It makes it easier to write them down, the desires to talk with you, sometimes I will call someone else to get through it, but tonight, I knew it was just time to write you another letter.

A letter, maybe, perchance, you will one day read.

I do believe that’s possible.

I do have faith.

Love is love is love and our love has not died or gone away.

It’s just up on a shelf for a little while.

And sometimes I have to take it down and shake it a little, like a snow globe from Georgetown in the winter where the trees are dark and wet and the grey Potomac rolls smoothly by whilst you and I in a cozy restaurant listen to music that swells the heart and creates memories that I hold forever close in my hands, like your face, the last time I saw you.

Your face in my hands.

You still have my heart, my dear, please be gentle with it.

And be gentle with you.

I love you so.

And you’d have been proud of me tonight.

You really would have.

It’s done now.

I can move on.

At least in the sense of creating a new life in a new space.

I have not moved on from you.

I doubt I ever will.