On The Eve

Of my fifteenth year of sobriety.

I had to stop and ponder and wonder in awe at the scope of my life in these last fourteen years and 364 days.

I have come so far.

So fucking far.

It leaves me breathless with awe.

I’m a psychotherapist.

I live by myself in the most expensive city in the United States.

Although.

I still cringe at my rent, I can afford to live alone and I understand what a precious gift that is.

I work a lot, it’s true.

I’m still working six days a week and two jobs.

But!

Soon.

I will be done nannying.

I have been a nanny for thirteen years.

That’s a lot of time to be in any career, let alone one in which I have gotten to have so much unconditional love poured into my heart.

Nannying has been a tough job and the most incredible gift too.

I have never had children.

Shit.

I have never even had a pregnancy scare.

I have occasionally thought of what it would be like to have my own child, but really, I have gotten to raise so many beautiful, sweet, amazing children.

I have had so many children tell me they love me.

I have had so many babies fall asleep on my breast and in my arms.

I have felt the soft sweet breath of a child on my neck so many times as I lay them to sleep that I cannot count them.

I have sung a lot of lullabies.

I feel replete.

I do not feel grief stricken for not having had a child of my own.

I have had children.

I have also gotten to give them back at the end of the day and go my own way.

I will be hanging up my nanny clogs soon, my last day with my current family is February 24th.

So by the end of February I will just be working full time as a psychotherapist and a full time PhD student.

Just.

Hahahahahhahahaha.

Oh.

I also got my grades back for this past semester.

Straight “A’s.”

Not like anyone has every question someone with a PhD, “hey how were your grades during your course work?”

Most folks don’t give a fuck, you got a doctorate, you are doing great kid.

I had a 4.0 all through my Masters and I am looking to repeat that with my PhD.

I have also received the news that I have been granted the first person I requested to be my PhD committee chair.

Over the moon.

I found out from a fellow in my cohort that my pick only chose two of us to work with.

I am thrilled and honored that he took me on, it’s going to be some work, the work is nowhere near done yet, but it’s still a great big wonderful thing to be entering the last semester of my course work.

And I’m doing it in two years.

Most of my cohort is doing it in three and some in four years.

I know one other person who is doing the course work at the same pace as I am and we made a pact to get through the whole damn program in 3.5 years.

I am still on track with that.

I am also really on track with getting my hours for my MFT license.

I am 737 hours away from being able to be on my own without supervision, without having to pay extra for supervision and fees and stuff and things.

I will get my hours before the year ends and I am fucking thrilled by that.

My life is pretty amazing.

I looked at my things today, I looked at the art on my walls and the pictures and the beauty that I have surrounded myself with.

I am not rich.

But I am awash in beauty and prosperity and abundance.

I am so grateful.

I have slept on cardboard.

No more of that.

I have been homeless.

I have had to go to food pantries and be on food stamps.

I have worked some pretty grimy jobs.

I have struggled and worked and struggled some more.

I own a car.

What the hell?

A new car, my own car, the first new car I have ever bought.

I go to yoga.

I still can’t always get over that.

Who is this person hopping into her cute little marshmallow colored Fiat and heading up Balboa Street to do yoga?

I have nice clothes.

I bought in Paris. 

I used to wear hand me downs from my youngest aunts.

I used to have only one pair of shoes.

I have a lot of shoes.

I mean.

A girl likes her shoes.

I have framed art that I have bought in Paris too.

I remember having posters pinned up to my walls, when I had walls, I didn’t always.

Or magazine photos taped to my walls.

I always have liked to look at things.

I have gone to so many museums.

I have traveled the world.

Not a lot, but a good amount you know.

Paris, New York, London, LA, Miami, Chicago, Anchorage, Marseilles, Rome, Aix-en-Provence, Austin, Havana, Cuba, Burning Man.

Not bad for a girl raised in an unincorporated town in rural Wisconsin.

I have some pretty amazing tattoos.

I have gotten to meet and hang out with one of my musical hero’s–more than once.

I have extraordinary friends.

I have a way of life that is full of purpose and meaning and service.

I have love.

I have had terrible heart ache and I have survived it.

I have resiliency.

I have lost dear friends to death far too soon.

I have danced under the stars until dawn, in underground clubs in Paris, on top of speakers in dancehalls in San Francisco, arts cars out in deep playa at Burning Man.

I have narrated my story and performed  in front of 100s.

I have recited poetry to audiences small and grand.

I am in the world and I am alive and I am so grateful for that.

For this wonderful, sometimes painful, but always so full, so amazing, so extraordinary, beyond my wildest dreams, life.

Here’s to (almost) fifteen years of sobriety.

And many, many, many more years to come.

So many.

 

Break My Heart

Oh.

I got a little verklempt tonight and it was  so unexpected.

It breaks my heart.

I hear in my mind all of these voices.

I hear in my mind all of these words.

I hear in my mind all of this music.

Oh Regina.

You have all the clues.

I had to put the Spektor on.

It reminds me of my second year at Burning Man and the first time I heard this album.

I was staying at camp watching my ten and a half month old charge while her parents were out going to Burning Man.

I was dancing on top of a wooden bench that was next to the burn barrel and I was sad and happy and full of this bright music that just caromed into my heart and burned itself there.

I recall another time, same album, a few years later, also at Burning Man, being told by an admirer, “I watched you dance by yourself, it was so beautiful I couldn’t help myself.”

I had been having my Regina Spektor moment, by myself I had thought, unaware of being observed.

I have Burning Man on the mind.

Burning Man in my heart.

I am heart sore and surprised by it.

Maybe I have just been whistling in the dark about the whole not going thing.

“You need to go up early and come home early,” a friend said to me weeks ago when I told her that my plans to go had collapsed when I got the word of my school schedule and the opening weekend being the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of September.

I couldn’t very well work.

I couldn’t take the ticket, the camp offer, the job offer, the ride, none of it if I wasn’t going to be able to do the job that I had been hired on to do.

I explained this to a dear friend of mine who saw my face fall when a mutual friend showed us a photograph of his tickets and the Survival Guide.

I teared up.

I got all emotional.

I am rather teary right now writing about it.

I guess I could feel some shame about that, but it means a lot to me.

It’s where I go to see so many friends that I would not otherwise see.

It is where I feel almost most whole and myself.

You are my sweetest downfall.

I went to bed last night and said my prayers and got into my bed and said, just an aside, hey God, I want to go to Burning Man.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know what I am going to do.

But.

Fuck it.

Fuck this.

I want to go.

It’s home.

It’s year ten in a row.

I can’t see myself not going and it hurts, like physically, to think about not being there.

I thought to myself.

I don’t have enough money.

Bullshit.

Then.

I can’t get the time off from work.

Again.

I call bullshit.

If my employers were willing to give me ten days off they’ll be willing to give me four days off.

I don’t have a ride.

So fucking what?

I am sure I can catch a ride with someone.

I travel small.

I travel light.

I don’t have a place to camp.

So fucking what?

I know enough people I’m sure I could bivouac with someone.

“Do you want me to ask her for a ticket?” My friend asked tonight.

I balked.

I hate asking.

I hate it.

But.

Yes.

Fuck.

Yes I do.

And so here we go world.

Interwebs.

Friends.

Family.

Burners.

I want to go.

I’m ready to do whatever needs to be done.

I don’t want to roll over like a dead mouse on this one.

Which means taking some actions.

I am going to ask some folks.

I’m going to see what I can see and do what I can do and if there’s a hot chance in hell that I can go, I’m going to go, if it’s only for a few days, fine.

I have had my three week stints out there.

And yeah, I love that shit.

But.

As a dear friend relayed to me via a message, that the playa Goddesses would understand, that the noble arts of healing and psychology were worthy pursuits.

He added that he thought coming up early was a good idea.

I do too.

So.

I have to do the asking.

I can’t just sit on my hands and hope that something will happen.

The man burns in like, I don’t know, 60 days?

Less maybe, I can get it all together quickly to do the deal.

I just have to do it.

I have to take the action.

I hate asking for help, but that’s what I have to do.

If I can get it together to get out the evening of the 26th, I could be there for four days.

That would be fine with me.

Better four days than no days.

God, what do you think?

I say yes.

I want to go and I am willing to be the beggar at this point.

I have some selling points, I’m good company on the ride, I’m good at taking people out on playa bike ride dates, I give a fantastic hand massage, face massage, back massage, I like to recite poetry, I love to be vulnerable and open and sunny and bright and I bring something to the event, I don’t just take.

I will go and be of service, even for a short time, there is service that can be done.

It’s late.

It’s late notice.

It’s short, short time, short notice.

But.

I am not afraid.

If I’m not supposed to go, it’ll be obvious real fast.

If I’m supposed to go, it’ll be easy and fall gently, beautifully, sweetly into place.

Now.

A big deep breath.

I’m willing to do the work.

And I am willing to let go of the results.

Come what may.

To Burn or not to burn is not the question.

I am always on fire.

Just get me to the church on time.

God.

I pray.

Just get me to the playa.

I’ve been a good girl this year.

Yeah.

I know.

God is not Santa Claus, but I also know that God knows what is in my heart and wants to give me those things.

I have faith.

Exuberant and raw.

I plant my rebar stake here.

Let’s go to Burning Man.

Let’s please.

Yes please.

Let’s go.

Go.

Go.

Go.

Ready, Set,

Paris!

I found my passport!

I booked the studio and paid for it.

“Wow!” My friend sent me a message after receiving my e-mail regarding my trip to Wells Fargo and the deposit made to her account.  “That happened so fast, I’m almost in shock.”

Me too.

But the good kind.

The pinch me, I’m dreaming kind.

I also requested and was granted two paid days off for vacation.

I am covered.

I have asked off, my passport showed up, and within twelve hours of having gotten the ticket I’ve got a place to stay in the 7th arrondisement.

I will be at 18 Rue Juge.

Metro stop: La Motte Piquet.

It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Eiffel Tower, the Champs de Mars, the Trocadero.

I know that area fairly well having meandered there every morning, or there about, Felix Faure was typically the stop I got off at, on Sundays around 11 a.m for six months.

I know that there is a great farmers market there on Sundays.

Unfortunately I will be traveling all day Sunday and leaving early Sunday morning for Charles de Gaulle.

I’m flying out 11a.m. on the 20th and arriving around 11 a.m. on the 21st.

There is the time change, but it will feel like traveling for a day.

I don’t really care.

I’m going to Paris.

It’s such an awesome thing.

Such an unexpected surprise.

Such a gift.

Truly.

My life, the things I get to do, how lucky I am.

I am graced.

Sitting here in my cozy in-law, astounded at how much my life has changed since I moved back from Paris.

It was three years ago on November 1st that I moved there.

How far I have come since coming back.

Getting in touch with my friend in East Oakland reminded me of that.

He responded this morning that he’d looked around the room I had stayed in and no passport.

Which was no problem.

As I found it last night.

That was crazy.

It was amazing actually.

And such a surprise to find it where I did.

I was sitting here finishing up my blog last night thinking about how I may have to go to the embassy and what that would look like and when I was going to do it, what the timing was going to have to be, etc, and I kept looking at a stack of books on my bedside table.

I wonder if it’s in my ……

Big blue book with the broken binder, the old one that is well-loved and used, and made “real” like the Velveteen Rabbit, the one I don’t use anymore as the binder is broke and I have another newer version and a little pocket guy, and I thought, “did I stick it in there?”

i kept staring at it.

I finished my blog.

Made a cup of tea, cut up and apple and some persimmon for a snack.

I carried my snack and my mug of tea to my bedside table, set them down, and unearthed the old book from my stack.

I flipped it open.

Nothing there.

Damn it man.

I got my computer and I set it down.

I looked at my book shelf.

The book shelf that has a lot of my notebooks on it and some of my books and I could see that I had made some space yesterday after digging through everything, every notebook I wrote in Paris, every scrap of paper, every envelope, and I didn’t like the way it looked.

Too much unbalanced space.

I looked down at the books next to the chaise lounge that were starting to stack up and I thought, “hmm, maybe I’ll move them on to the book shelf, there’s some space there now.”

So I picked up four and set them on the shelf.

The fit.

I went to sit down and the two that I left on the floor toppled over.

Annoyed I righted one.

It fell over again.

I righted it once more and was about to settle into my spot and have my snack and my tea and sure as shit, the damn book fell again.

I looked at the shelf.

Hmm.

There might be space if I rearrange it just a tiny bit more and put those notebooks there and stack those books there.

I have them stacked horizontally, not vertically, since there’s so many notebooks on the shelves.

I like to write a little you see.

I picked up the two remaining books and settled on the top shelf and the other just squeezed into the last bit of space on the second shelf.

But.

Ugh.

I have to say this, sometimes it is a defect of character and sometimes, well, is it odd or is it God?

Or was it my God box?

Who can tell.

But I have to say.

It was fucking magic.

Magic I say.

The defect, if you will, is perfectionism.

I recall recently getting a message from my person that said, “perfectionism is not an option.”

Well.

Fuck.

I still fall into it often.

And.

Last night I did.

But it also felt like I was being quietly guided.

Just nudged here and there.

So.

I put the book in the space on the shelf, but it was larger, longer than the book underneath it and I didn’t like the way that looked, so I unshelved it, set it on the floor and pulled out the stack of books so I could reshelve the bigger book on the bottom of the stack, thus aligning everything and making my obsessive compulsive sprite inside my brain happy.

And what the fuck do you know?

There it was!

Standing straight up.

On the second shelf of my bookshelf.

(underneath my God box)

Under the shelf below my hot pink magenta bunny rabbit bank that I bought in the Marais of Paris.

A gift I had given myself when a friend sent me 50 Euro and said spend it on something nice.

I wanted that damn rabbit bad.

I carried it through the Louvre later that day and took pictures of it next to works of art.

I know.

I am a weirdo.

But whatever.

I digress.

Underneath the shelf, standing up, looking all sassy and proper and navy blue.

My passport!

Oh my fucking God.

I yelped and grabbed it and laughed.

There it was!

I flipped it open.

Wow.

My hair has grown out so long.

That was my first thought.

Then I looked at my stamps.

Entering and exiting Paris.

The EuroStar train stamp from going to London and back.

Then the last stamp from the airport in Frankfurt where I exchanged my last Euro for a measly $10 American and headed on my last leg back to the United States.

So much there.

So many memories.

Just in seeing those small stamps.

I am so excited to get to add another series of stamps to the book.

I’m over the moon, I keep saying it, but it’s true.

Christmas in Paris.

I am so.

So.

So.

Ready for you.

A Full And Grateful Heart

I got off campus!

I was able to scoot out tonight for a much-needed hour of reprieve.

I read some stuff.

Some things were said.

The deal was done.

Then a woman there gave me a great big hug and said, “here, take these, there’s a woman in the fellowship who brings them fresh every day, they’re obviously for you.”

“They” were a big bunch of Shasta daisies and pink freesia and Echinacea, stunning and sweet and my favorite flowers are daisies, I was so pleased, so warmed, so right exactly where I was supposed to be.

Then  a lady bug pulled up in her truck, she splits time between Sonoma and San Francisco and typically we meet in the city on Friday nights after I get done with work at the Church Street Cafe on Church and Market.

The sunset was happening.

The soft evening breeze caressed my face.

I had left the flowers on the hood of the car in parking lot and she had no clue that a gorgeous bouquet was waiting for her after we checked in and did our reading in the last golden rays of the sun setting in the West, just over Sonoma Mountain.

There was also a, I am not kidding, I do not jest, I couldn’t make this up if I had tried to, a choir practicing hymns in the Community Center behind which were we sat at the picnic table and read from the literature.

She underlined sentences.

I tried to not get choked up.

Watching her young face, framed with long sheaves of strawberry blond hair, catch the last drops of sun from the sky and glow ethereally in the light.

I was stunned

My life is stunning.

My joy and love know no bounds.

I can not believe that this is the life I am leading.

I drove back to Stone Tree with the fullest heart and the utmost gratitude for the sky, for the silhouettes of trees against the indigo dusk, for the navigation on my iPhone telling me where to turn in 1.2 miles turn left.

Thank God for navigation.

I would still be out there back tracking.

I kept telling myself that I should not listen to the voices in my head which said, “you just missed the turn!”

Shush voices.

You’ve never done me right and being directionally retarded, I was more than happy to rely on the navigation system on the phone.

I will be relying on it again as I leave Sonoma and drive straight to SFO on Friday.

I will leave here at 3 p.m.

The drive is 1.38 hours according to the navigation app and I shall drop the rental car at the place on 710 McDonnell road, where I was assured it would only take me 15 minutes to drop of the car and for them to revert the deposit of $150 back to my account.

$150 which I had to deposit since I used my debit card.

$150 which may take two weeks to get back to my account.

Whatever.

Small price to pay to have some autonomy here in Sonoma and how fortuitous when I was offered the trip down to LA that I would have a rental car under my care and all I would have to do is drive straight to the airport.

Is it odd?

Or is it God?

That is a rhetorical question, I know what it is.

I can see this beautiful design for living that I have been granted and I am charmed and loved, graced, and so blessed to have the things in my life that I have.

I mean.

I got some huge news with the scholarships.

Plural, remember.

Not one, but two.

I sent a thank you note to the head of the department letting her know how grateful I was that she had referred me to the scholarship opportunity that has been afforded me and was there any further action that I need to do.

She replied how pleased she was that I was awarded the scholarship and how much they are looking forward to working with me and that all I had to do was accept my financial aid package when it is sent to me.

Done and done.

I accept!

Then I have some one amazing and new, but not new, just never quite seen before, there all along, there doing the deal, just on the outskirts, just beyond my periphery, present in my life.

Such a gift.

This person.

Who is flying me down to Los Angeles to celebrate my success and joy and to accompany me about the museums and to look at the art and to do the deal and have some fun and then road trip it back to San Francisco.

He’ll be picking me up at LAX and we’ll be staying at an Air BnB in Santa Monica.

I think I have a date to go down to the boardwalk and ride the ferris wheel.

I have never been to the boardwalk.

I haven’t really been to LA.

I did ride into it on the Aids LifeCycle ride in 2010, but frankly by the time that adventure was done, I couldn’t care less what city I was in, I just wanted to go home.

The next time I went was about six years ago when I was in a production of Jackie B’s and I travelled down to do a show in Santa Monica.

I got done with work at 6:30p.m. on Friday, got picked up by a friend, and we drove through the night to get into Santa Monica and stay at a tiny house with 9 other people.

I got no sleep.

Did the dress rehearsal.

Wandered around in a sleep deprived haze and ate lunch at an old-fashioned diner on Santa Monica Boulevard.

I remember seeing a lot of tourists and being hot.

That’s it.

The show went off and I spent the night back in that same house, cramped, and dirty and tired and then my ride went and hooked up with someone and left me to my own defenses, leaving me to ride around in the back of someone’s camper with no concept of when I would get back to San Francisco.

I feel that this trip will be far different.

And I am so looking forward to it.

The museums.

The company.

To get to share my celebration and joy with another person and go to museums?

Please.

Who am I to say there is no God?

Or love.

If you will.

I am loved.

I am so loved.

My heart is full of daisies.

Sunshine.

And bright sweet love.

And with that.

I am.

Back on the beam.