Getting Closer

I am three days away from my trip to Havana, Cuba.

Three days.

Where the hell is my damn filtration water bottle and Cuban Spanish/English phrasebook?

Really Amazon.

This is not the time to drop the ball.

Of course, I have only myself to blame, but it is a little hilarious that these are the only things missing from my bag of stuff.

I am really set to go.

And.

I am not too worried about the phrase book and the water bottle.

They will show tomorrow.

I leave Sunday.

I was proactive today knowing that I wouldn’t want to have to deal with annoying things and took care of getting my laundry done.

I almost wore a dress today that I was planning on bringing to Cuba and I thought, um no, don’t sabotage the summery, warm weather, it’s even going to be warm at night, dress, for a foggy grey San Francisco day.

And then not have time to wash it before packing and heading out.

I wore a dress today that will not be coming to Cuba and did laundry and did a tiny bit of grocery shopping and really, I have nothing to do but see clients the next couple of days and get my nails done.

I am really excited.

I haven’t really been on vacation since last July when I went to France.

I am ready.

It’s been really nice having off from my nanny job, but I have been still seeing clients and I have more clients then I did this time last year.

I now have sixteen clients!

I am really happy to report that.

But with the extra clients comes extra supervision, extra paper work, extra scheduling.

Fortunately I finally got my phone and my laptop calendar’s synced up so that when I make a change on my computer it updates my phone and vice versa.

Such a huge relief.

Sometimes my calendar looks like I’m playing a game of Jenga or Tetris.

Tetris for sure.

I have eight more clients to see in the next two days.

One dinner with my person tomorrow night.

One manicure/pedicure.

And a night with hanging out with some girlfriends or doing fellowship Saturday.

Supplies are bought.

Although I would love to get a market basket purse, I have not found one that works well for travel and I won’t be bringing the one I bought in Aix-en-Provence last July, it is just too precious to stuff underneath the seat in front of me on an airplane.

I realized the other day that I was unnecessarily running around trying to distract myself with buying a purse when I needed to be feeling my feelings.

Oh feelings.

Man they suck right now.

I went to acupuncture Tuesday and the doctor tapped this spot on my tummy and said, “stuck emotions” and I just about burst into tears.

Yeah.

Those.

I had reconnected with my ex in an attempt to just be friends.

It just didn’t work.

I am not at all sad or upset or in anyway regret having seen him.

I missed him so damn much.

Miss him now.

But.

Being just friends with someone you are madly in love with might be the hardest thing in the entire world.

So.

Sunday I said I can’t do it anymore.

And I really want to ball my eyes out all the time, but it just keeps getting stuck.

Like right now.

I want to cry and the tears sort of start and then my body just hunches over and it stops.

Yeah.

Stuck emotions.

Reflux.

Tummy upset.

It’s all getting internalized.

I think I’m afraid that if I start I won’t stop.

I want to reach out.

I can’t.

I haven’t.

I won’t.

I want to anyway.

I did mail him a card on Monday and then my person said knock it off, no more contact.

I almost bought him a card yesterday and today too.

I still feel like there is so much to say.

So much.

And so.

I am just over here trying to breathe and let it go.

Let him go.

Even though I didn’t want to.

I had to.

I have to change.

I have to do something different.

I recognize I’m enough but I have to act it too and saying no more to trying to be friends was a part of that.

I don’t know what else is and I’m just going to try my best and believe.

I believe something wonderful will come of all this damn work.

It just has to.

I mean.

Seriously.

It fucking has to.

I have done so much work over these last two years.

I have suffered and cried.

And I have loved.

I have loved unlike anything I have ever done before.

No regrets.

No apologies to you who may have judgments.

I did what I did and I fell in love and I don’t have a single damn regret.

I would do it all over again.

And the love hasn’t gone anywhere.

I don’t suspect that it will.

So I will go somewhere.

I will change my scenery like no one’s business and I will immerse myself in a culture and people and experience and I will bring my best self.

Even if once in a while, it may be my sad self.

I will bring it all and I will dance and I will swim in the ocean and I will meet new people and have a new experience and adventures and take photographs and grow.

I have not died.

He has not died.

Although.

Yes.

It felt like a part of me died when he walked away.

I die a little more now thinking about it.

Perhaps that is what this is too.

I am too afraid.

That if I let it all out my heart will just die.

That it will just break this time.

Oh there.

Hello.

There are some tears.

Another reason to write, it gets the emotions unstuck.

The acupuncture helped, but the blog is the best.

That and my morning pages.

I cried a little writing them today.

I cried in my towel last night after washing my face.

Surprised myself.

Howled with grief.

The gasped and stopped it all back up.

Stuck again.

I keep reminding myself–

Those things worth having are worth the work.

What I am working towards is a free and untethered love,  completely out in the light of day, in the sunshine, transparent and honest and open and I am worthy of that.

So this pain.

Though it hurts.

Hurts so damn bad.

Is worth working through.

I am worth it.

I am enough.

 

I Love My Job!

This was the thought that popped into my head as my last client left my office today.

Yes.

I do see clients on Saturdays.

It’s one of the days I have access to the office and I can use it all day long, so I’m trying to build in more clients, but not too many.

I do need to figure out when I will give myself a break to stretch, use the bathroom, grab a bite to eat if I need one.

I have four clients currently on Saturdays.

Which brings my case load up to nine clients.

I can squeeze in one more client and bring myself up to ten clients with my current supervision.

Once I go over ten client hours I have to add in more supervision.

I want to get to 25 full fee clients by next January.

Which means I basically want to be a full-time therapist and not a full time nanny.

Not that I don’t love my nanny job, I love that job too, which was why it was so satisfying for me to feel the way I did when my last client left.

I love both my jobs.

Oh.

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of challenges with both of them.

There’s the fact that last week one of my charges was home from school sick with pink eye.

Can you guess how many times I washed my hands?

Good grief.

And the poor lady had to constantly wash too and really couldn’t play with her siblings that much, it sucked for her.  We did a ton of art work and made valentines and cut up cardboard boxes and paper bags and drew and used probably 3/4s of a big bottle of Elmer’s glow in the dark glitter glue.

Where was this stuff when I was a kid?

Then again, my family was so poor, I barely got to have a 12 pack of Crayola crayons.

I cannot tell you how much I coveted the Crayola Markers that many of my classmates had, or the colored pencils.

Oh.

I wanted them bad.

Bad.

Bad.

The amount of art supplies the kids I nanny for have boggles my mind.

Clay, play doh, different kinds of colored paper, a huge box of stickers (be still my beating heart, I am often compelled to take them all with me.  I don’t, but I won’t lie, I’ve thought about it), paint box after paint box, and not just water colors but acrylics too, models and glue, and tape and coloring books and origami paper, funny pens with feathers or in the shape of flamingoes or cacti, ink pens, gel pens, highlighters, colored pencils, cray pas, pastels, face paint, a huge box of that, I mean there’s so much.

There’s literally a huge drawer full of stuff and then a cupboard packed with more.

It’s a treasure trove.

I found myself more into the art this week than my charge might have been, but that may have been coming off my Arts and Creative Leadership class, I did some drawings in that class, used markers and crayons and colored pencils and got down.

It was a party.

I’ve actually loaded up a few things in my Amazon cart to buy, but I haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

Part of me could just go nuts with it so I want to be careful about that, I don’t need to dump too much money into it.

I could also just hit an art store, but I suspect I will get a better deal on stuff online plus, I won’t have to squeeze another thing into my busy schedule.

I am busy.

The client work is great and I’m happy for it, the nanny job is great, and its full time and now school is on.

I mean.

It’s on.

I need to get my school hat on tight.

I didn’t get a chance to really do much homework with the little lady home from school.

I did a little on Wednesday, but nothing Thursday and Friday.

Monday and Tuesday I was still at the intensive.

And I will commend myself for doing a lot of work there too, so I’m not behind, but I only really have Sundays as my day off.

Fuck the Super Bowl.

Which I didn’t even know was tomorrow, but was informed by one of my ladies that I normally meet with on Sundays who asked to have the day off from our work.

I totally didn’t have a problem.

More time for me to study and I will have to write my first paper of the semester.

It’s not due until Tuesday, but as I saw from last semester, I really do have to do a lot of the work for the classes on Sunday.

I tried to get it together today to do some reading.

But I had too many errands to run after I finished with clients.

I ran around and took myself out to lunch and squeezed in a manicure and tried to not get too caught up in the constant notifications on my phone from the Canvas app I have on it that the school uses as a technology platform to teach the online classes.

I am getting much more used to how the classes are set up, but it still takes me a bit of navigating to get through them.

I also sat down and had a Canvas tutorial at the intensive too that I found super helpful.

But yeah.

Tomorrow is a school work day and then I’ll be smack dab back into the busy week.

Sigh.

I also realized, just a few minutes ago, that I haven’t had a day off in thirteen days because of the intensive.

Tomorrow is my first day off in two weeks.

No wonder I am a tired kitty cat.

But a happy one.

I really did have a  great day and I am happy and I feel really useful and I did do a lot of good self-care today.

Heck.

All things considered.

Life is fucking amazing.

It really is.

Small Steps

Almost, even, baby steps.

But steps nonetheless.

I have not been exercising for a while.

Not that I’m super out of shape, work five days a week as a nanny, picking up toys, the baby, who is now no longer a baby at two years old, the six-year-old and the almost nine-year old, up and down steps, over to the park and back, and you’ll stay in decent shape.

However.

I haven’t really exercised much since I moved into my new digs.

I’ve been here now three and a half, almost four months.

Part of it is that I’m in a PhD program and the majority of exercise there is lifting a book and turning the page or fretting about having to write a paper.

I’m sure the anxiety of walking through my first semester of the program wore off a few calories, but not really in a way that was healthful for me.

I have been thinking a lot about exercise, partially because a dear friend of mine keeps sending me messages about going to this or that yoga/dance party class.

I keep saying no.

And.

I keep saying I want to.

I don’t actually like exercise.

Until after I’ve done it and then I’m all like, why the fuck don’t I do this more often.

Of course, that feeling often fades and exercise becomes a bit of a chore, but I also know, rather well at that, that feeling better is important.

It’s not just my body that feels better.

It’s my brain.

My brain needs the break from thinking.

Sometimes I just need to get into my body and exercise is a great way to do that.

One of the things I have been telling my friend is that it’s a scheduling thing.

I just can’t see myself getting up early and heading across town to do a yoga class then hauling ass back here and getting ready for work or for seeing clients.

Nothing is convenient.

I looked at pools last night, which I have done enough times to know that it really is a haul to get anywhere that has a pool.

Then I fret about how long it will take to deal with my hair.

My hair is a serious thing.

Not that I do a lot with it, per se, just that I have a lot of it.

In fact, I think my hair is the longest its been in years.

I love my hair and it’s actually easier to deal with when it’s long, I don’t do much with it, it’s just that it takes a long time to de-tangle, wash, condition, and dry.

I have naturally curly hair and if I don’t treat it right it goes bonkers.

So swimming, though imminently appealing is not always the best option for me where I’m living and with the schedule that I keep.

Then.

This morning I had a dear friend over for coffee and he mentioned the gym down the street.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

There’s a gym around the corner.

I walked past it on Christmas Eve at sunset when I went for a little stroll around the block and I noticed it.

And it’s been taking up a little corner of my brain for a while now, but until today I wasn’t really taking it seriously.

My friend happened to park next to it and talked to me about it and how it was a key pad punch in and that it didn’t look busy and that it seemed really reasonably priced and wow was it close.

My friend doesn’t have a gym that close to his place and he works out frequently.

I knew when he was talking to me about it that it was the answer and I had also gotten an e-mail at the turn of the New Year regarding the gym as it was part of the mailing list I got popped on for my old yoga studio.

Too many signs saying, ahem, you want convenient and fits in your schedule?

Here you go.

So.

I went online and found out that it really is quite reasonable and there’s a student discount and I could get a membership for $55 a month.

Which is $30 less than I was paying for my yoga studio.

But I don’t have work out shoes, my brain tells me.

Buy them, you twit.

Today after my friend left I headed to the Mission to see clients and I had nothing really to do until my 7p.m. commitment and I thought, you know, there’s that place in the Inner Sunset that has a pretty good athletic shoe selection.

I went.

They didn’t have anything that worked for me, but I had the idea in my head and I knew when I got home that I would just go online and order a pair of shoes.

I had transitioned to Saucony running shoes when I hurt my ankle about five years ago now, and I wore the hell out of them for a while and I know what size works for me.

Plus.

Oh yeah.

I have an Amazon gift card my employers gave me for Christmas.

Voila!

Free athletic shoes.

And the decision to go to the gym and get a membership as soon as the shoes arrive.

I’m thinking I could even lose a little weight, not that I need to so much, but I wouldn’t mind dropping one more pant size.

“You just keep getting skinnier and skinnier,” my friend said over coffee this morning, “what are you doing?”

Not much, honestly, obviously not working out.

But when I had all the issues with the reflux I cut a few things out of my diet.

I stopped eating a hard-boiled egg in the morning with my breakfast and I stopped having a snack at night.

I think that was really about it.

I’m just basically eating less.

I don’t think I’m still losing weight, but it was nice to hear that from my friend.

I also don’t see myself very clearly.

I will often see myself as heavier than I am or think that I am bigger than I am.

Partially because, well, I was for a very long time in my life.

Anyway.

Here’s to baby steps and ordering new work out shoes and making the decision to join a gym.

A gym!

Ahahahaha.

I am now one of those people who joins a gym in January.

This isn’t really a resolution though.

More like an intention to do just a little more self-care.

The next semester will bring much work with it and I sense that having an outlet will help me deal with the homework.

And maybe.

You know.

Look sexier in a pair of jeans.

Heh.

Preparations

I have started gathering the things.

All the things.

All the things that will get dusty.

Yes.

I was once again reminded by a friend yesterday that Burning Man is coming.

Holy shit Batman.

I have had a lot of other things on my mind.

None of them dusty.

My friend asked me over an iced coffee at Java Beach yesterday in the early evening whether I was done packing for Burning Man.

Um.

No.

I haven’t even started.

Then again.

It’s a no brainer at this point.

This being my 11th burn in a row.

11.

Where does the time go?

Seriously.

It goes though, it really does, and knowing that I realized I did sort of have to get on the stick and get some things ordered.

Love me a little Amazon for that.

I got a new camp shower.

I left mine on playa last year.

It was brand new and full of water and ready and waiting for me to use it in the camps communal shower.

But.

Um.

Fuck.

Major white out dust storm totally negated doing that.

And by the time it was over.

Well, it was nightfall and no fucking way do I ever want to take a shower in the desert at night.

Way too cold, I mean, no.

So.

I left the bag thinking, I’ll grab it tomorrow, and I didn’t, it just hung out by the showers, and I totally forgot it.  It was a short trip for me, my shortest to date at 4 days, and I actually, yes, for the first time in my history of going to the event, did not shower once the entire time I was there.

I made up for that a lot when I got home.

A LOT.

Anyway.

So I ordered a new camping solar shower bag.

I also got some more solar lights, I have some, but it’s always nice to have a few more and I feel like I was a little too dim at times last year.

I will be in a tent again.

Unless some fairy godmother has a trailer hiding up their sleeve.

I don’t mind the tent, it’s a big guy, four-man, and it’s one of the ones that you can completely set up yourself, it took me ten minutes to do it my first time opening it out of the package.

Super freaking easy.

It also fit, quite well, my queen size blow up mattress.

I’m a whore for a nice comfy sleep space.

I have sheets for the mattress, a quilt, pillows, fuzzy throw blankets.

Aside from the fact that sleep is super important out there, the temperature at night can drop drastically and I have been in some super serious cold sleeping conditions.  I prefer to be over prepared with a nice cozy bed than not.

I decided it was time to upgrade my bins and splurged and bought a new four box set.

My bins are ok, but they’re super old and they don’t seal as well as they used to.

I just said fuck it and added them into the Amazon cart.

I am sure I will be quite happy I did so.

I also ordered a new rug.

Yes.

I will be taking a rug to the event.

But not the one I ordered.

I’ll be taking the rug in my kitchen.

It’s gotten a bit thread bare and I wanted to replace it, so I ordered one-off Amazon and I will use the old one at the event.

It’s super nice to keep the dust down inside the tent if you have a little bit of flooring material.  So instead of throwing out the old rug, I’ll use it for my tent and be quite happy I have it.

I also ordered a new cooler.

I have one, but it only stores about four days worth of food.

I will be there this year for a full week.

A cooler never used to be a big deal since I was always working with some team or other or being a nanny, my food and water and ice were always taken care of.

Last year was the first year I had a cooler with me.

So.

I upgraded to a bigger one and one that has a long handle and wheels.

Fancy.

What else did I get?

My mind is drawing a blank.

Oh!

Yes.

A couple of 24oz Mason jar drinking mugs with handles and screw top lids.

Super nice for having my iced cold brew coffee.

I ordered so much cold brew coffee concentrate last year, yes, that’s how I roll, fuck the bullshit, just get the concentrate, I might as well have shot it up, a couple of times I wasn’t really thinking about it being concentrate and just poured it out like it was, well, not water, but regular coffee.

I was a little zipped up.

Ha!

Anyway.

I like the mugs, the screw lid keeps the dust out and they travel nice and I keep one for my coffee, iced, always, and the other for various forms of fizzy water.

I do love me some bubbly water.

I think that was about it.

I still have to source a bicycle, so I didn’t get bike lights, having lost my faithful steed last year, I also lost all the lights I had on it, wheel lights, basket lights, etc, etc.

But until I know the kind of bike I’m getting I will hold off on getting all the bright and blinky.

Although, not for too long.

The days they do fly by.

I still haven’t gotten a ride there and back yet, although I have updated my post on the ride share board, nothing so far, a couple of nibbles but nothing that was a good fit for my situation.

Keep your ears peeled.

This is when I wish my blog wasn’t dark, that I still was putting it up on social media, I usually get all sorts of offers in regards to Burning Man stuff when folks read my blog.

Ah well.

So it goes.

My clients don’t seem to know that I am out here blogging away.

I also took the time off officially from my internship just a little bit ago when I got home from seeing my clients.

It’s official.

Off from work.

Off from internship.

Supplies slowly coming together.

It will come together it always does.

Usually in some odd ball, goofy, yes, totally Burning Man way.

“Man I love Burning Man!” My friend said last night as we were wrapping up coffee and heading out to do the deal.

“You don’t even go!” I exclaimed.

“Nope, never been, don’t want to go, but fuck, I love it when the city empties out, it’s so nice to have parking in the Mission for a week!” He said with a chuckle.

Fingers crossed one of those cars will have me in it heading to the event.

Fingers crossed people.

Seriously.

The Man Burns

In 90 days!

Throwing up in my mouth.

SHUT UP.

Wait, I’ve been so super involved in my internship saga and supervision and training and ending my blog, and summer work schedule and shit, I just about peed my pants when I saw that posted on a facecrack group I belong to and really I was like, whatttttt?

Shit.

It’s time to get my stuff together.

Yeah, yeah.

I know.

It’s three months away, but that’s the burn, the event starts a week before that and considering that I am in school the weekend that I will need to leave for the playa, I’m going to have to get my ducks together faster as I won’t have much prep time for the event the weekend that I leave.

I am going to have to start stockpiling beverages, and start food prepping, well, ok, maybe not quite yet, but it’s a good idea to start getting a few things together.

Fortunately.

I have a tent, new last year, a nice 4-man that I did really well in.

I have a blow up mattress, a cooler, a chair, my bins.

Although I might invest in some new bins, the ones I have are easily seven or eight years old, I could stand a slight upgrade.

I may also pick up another cooler, not working event means not getting fed and means bringing all my food, I did pretty well last year, but the one cooler was only for four days of the event.

I’ll want basically double what I brought.

Fine.

That’s not too big a deal.

It’s small stuff really.

I have all the outfits I could possibly want, a decade of going to Burning Man has supplied me with plenty of playa clothes.

I may splurge on a pair of tights, but I don’t need socks, or bandanas, I don’t need goggles or a utility belt, I also have a thick cloth and lace back harness with a little saddle bag that was super handy last year when I didn’t want to wear my utility belt.

I have great boots.

I have my Mary Fucking Poppins umbrella.

I have almost all the things.

And I have Amazon.

For all the other things I need.

I went online this afternoon after having a really nice, slowed down, mellow day.

Slept until 8:15a.m. got up and stripped the bed down and washed all my linens, yes, I’ll be sliding into fresh crisp sheets, such a pleasure, tonight, plus a big load of laundry.  I went to yoga, even though it was an instructor who I don’t like, went anyway (you are going anyway, I told myself this morning when I saw there was an instructor change on the studio’s schedule), took a hot shower, washed the hair up good, ate a nice breakfast, drank a coconut milk latte, put my availability on the calendar for my internship and wrote.

And wrote.

Such a luxury to not have much to do today.

I had a mini panic attack, not really, sort of, yesterday when I realized that for the first time in weeks I didn’t have anything scheduled today.

I called my person and confessed my nerves, I like to be busy, makes it easier to not listen to the radio KFuck in my head,  on AM Station ‘Thinking All About Myself All The Time,’ and told on myself.

I got a cute text this morning telling me what I should do, I don’t think should was part of the message, it was more just a quick list of things to do today.

Rest.

Eat.

Yoga.

Mani/pedi.

Navel gaze.

SUCCESS!

I did all the things.

Yup.

After my writing this morning I headed up to the Inner Sunset and hit my nail spot, I had to wait a little, got a cafe au lait at Tart to Tart and read a trashy magazine in the salon.

Mani/pedi, waxing.

Yes, the eyebrows needed some tending.

Then hopped back on my scooter and headed to the grocery store to pick up some stuff to cook and food prep for the week.

From here on out all my weeks are six days weeks.

And I need to stay on top of my food prep.

I got back from the grocery store, had a very late lunch, al fresco on the back porch.

It was intermittently amazing and horribly chilly, depending on whether or not the wind was blowing.

It was sunny though, so I really didn’t care, when it got too chilly I retreated back to my little studio and just sat in the sun coming in through the back glass door, I got my sunshine fill in for sure.

I made dinner.

Very simple.

Roasted chicken, pot of brown rice.

I got the stuff to make soup out of the chicken when I finish it up.

A chicken can go a long fucking way for me.

It was while I was cooking dinner that it hit me.

Oh yeah.

Fuck.

That thing in the desert.

I better get on taking care of the things I need or the damn thing is going to be here and I’ll be caught with my dusty pants down.

I made a list in my head of the things I needed and the things I wanted.

First.

The things I need: new air mattress battery operated pump, mine broke last year; batteries to run pump; a playa bike and a bike basket.

My bike died last year, it’s a long story, better told elsewhere, but suffice to say I wasn’t expecting to have to replace my faithful stead and I have had some resistance to doing it and I realized, just do it.

So.

Yup.

I got my playa bike too.

One speed beach cruiser.

Done.

I also got the other stuff too, the pump, batteries, and the bike basket.

I have photo evidence that some of the things that were on my old bike are still out there for me, my bike pennant, and the vanity plate that had my name on it, that I got at the LA airport when I did the AidsLifeCycle ride, as well as a pair of fuzzy velvet dice I got in Reno many years back.

Every one needs a pair of fuzzy dice.

I mean, really.

I’m super psyched to have it out-of-the-way.

The thing that I didn’t get, out of my budget right now, but I may still throw down for it, is a pop up car port for shade over my tent.

I am not sure if I will get it or not.

Regardless.

I got my stuff and I posted up to a group I belong to that I am also looking for a ride to and from the event.

So, it’s all out there in the Universe.

I’m pretty excited.

It will be here before you know it.

And.

Ha.

This is great.

To wrap up my day, after, catching some last sunshiny rays on the back porch for dinner, chilly, but so pretty, and the wind had died down a little, I scootered up to a place up on Quintara and 20th and did the deal.

Always a good way to wrap up a day.

I went up to a woman and thanked her for what she had to share and she paused and looked at me, “I know you,” she said.

I looked at her and I realized, yeah, I had seen here somewhere else before, “you do look super familiar,” I replied.

She smiled.

“I wasn’t sure until I saw you up close, you were at Burning Man in 2015.”

Ha!

Yes.

As a matter of fact I was.

Heh.

We caught up and it was funny, my God has such a sense of humor, you know, the afternoon that it hits me that Burning Man is just around the corner so I do my big playa order.

And.

Boom.

I run into someone I met at Burning Man.

I love my life.

And.

Though I am by far not ready for the event.

I am much further ahead then I was this morning.

Seriously.

The Man burns in 90 days!

 

 

Limbo Land

At least it has a pretty moon.

I stopped my car, my cute little VW rental in powder blue, on the down slope of the road.

Sonoma Mountain Road.

To pause, stop, appreciate the beauty of the big, full, pumpkin orange moon in the sky, peeping through the trees.

I took a photograph with my phone.

Perhaps not the best way to capture that glory, but a small remembrance of the moment, a stop, a pause, push the reset button and breathe.

I’m out of town.

I’m out of my element.

I’m in Glenn Ellen.

I’m doing the travel nanny gig in the hills replete with vineyards and blackberry brambles.

It is a pretty place.

I keep using that adjective, but it is apropos.

As I drove off the property headed to Sonoma proper, the town, not the mountain road, I caromed around the corners and marveled that this was my life.

I was a little sad, I’m not quite sure why, a sweet sad song on the radio perhaps, a hint of melancholia, a wish to be with someone, other than my lonesome, but I gently reminded myself that though lonely in the moment, I am really never alone.

The sun slanted ahead of me, as it was going down in the West and I was heading East, splashing a gold liquid shine onto the trees and the hills and the dry yellow grass.

It’s drought time up here.

Has been for a while.

But even with the absence of moisture, there was no absence of beauty.

I was also deeply reminded that I am a California native.

I was born here.

And though I was raised for a good part of my life away from it, it speaks to me in murmurs and memories, it has seared itself into my being and my first senses and experiences happened here in the Golden State.

The synchronicity of it did not escape me, the almost deja vu like experience of driving in a VW Bug down twisty roads in the golden highlighted moment of the day right before dusk falls and the sun sets.

My mom’s boyfriend when I was a young girl had a VW Bug.

I have many memories of being in that little car.

Which was not so little when I recall it.

I used to ride around in the back, lying on the shelf between the back seat and the window.

They didn’t give a fuck so much then about car seats and seat belts.

I would watch the sky overhead pass and the clouds too, would impress themselves upon me, layering me with all good things, all things California.

I took many naps in the back seat of that car.

The rental car handled beautifully and hugged the corners and seemed to almost drive itself.

It took me a minute to get used to craning all the way around to make sure I was backing up well and that there were different blindspots to the vehicle than in other cars I have driven.

But.

It has begun to feel like home.

Being in that car.

Transported from this house in Glenn Ellen and back out into the world.

I did not want to return.

There was a moment, unacknowledged while in it, but there nevertheless.

I can feel it in my heart.

When I thought, I just might keep on driving.

Take it for a spin down the coast, ramble about the state, fuck the job, don’t come back, see you later, alligator.

Of course.

I did no such thing.

Rather I zoom zipped over to Sonoma to the clubhouse there and got right with God.

Brief pit stop at the Whole Foods to pick up some hair conditioner since I have run out and a couple of late season white nectarines.

One more day.

Then I’ll be back to the city for the weekend.

I canceled on a date I had for this Sunday.

Not sure I can afford the time to hang out and also, oh man.

I have to pack for that thing in the desert.

All my friends be like packing maniacs right now and I am stuck, in limbo, in Glenn Ellen, mentally going over what I have to do.

I was hoping to do a dry run on my tent, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I’ve got bins to fill.

Clothes, gear, this and that, stuff and things.

I ordered a few more things on Amazon this past week to make sure I wouldn’t have to run around willy nilly in my last hours to gather supplies.

See I have to pack this weekend, there is no other time.

I’ll be back here, in Glenn Ellen, either Sunday evening or early Monday morning for one more work week before I go.

I’ll work up until 6p.m. on Friday, then speed on out of town, drop the rental car back at SFO, catch a hired car back home, pee, then pack my cooler and smash everything into my ride share to the playa, who’ll be picking me up at 8:30p.m.

We will be driving all night to end up on the playa Saturday morning.

I hope to get my tent and such set up before it gets too hot and then sleep through the worst of the heat.

I have evening plans.

Yeah, ahahahaha, plans at Burning Man.

But I do.

A girl friend is having a birthday party and I’m a going.

I can’t wait.

I will get dressed up.

In what?

Who the fuck knows, but dressed up I will.

And I get a head of myself.

Pull back.

Pause.

Breathe.

Because I am still here, in Glenn Ellen.

Still doing my homework and reading and keeping up with all things graduate school.

Because that’s happening too.

I have two papers to write before I leave for playa and a lot of reading to do.

Not as bad as last year, but enough.

All the things.

They will get done.

Or.

They won’t.

Either way.

I’m alright and the moon, like a quiet place to rest in the sky, my pillow of beauty to lay my cheek against, moves asunder and smooth through the night.

My heart a float.

Here and now.

Here and now.

Here.

And.

Now.

My Body Hurts

My brain hurts.

Everything hurts.

I am not sure why.

It’s not sick hurt.

It’s like I slept on my back hurt in a strange way.

But I slept like a baby, like a tired baby with hot milk in its belly.

In my own bed for the first time in eight days.

I remember putting my head on the pillow and rolling over and I was out.

I mean.

OUT.

I woke up to go to the loo at some point.

I think.

I mean, I usually do, as I like to have a cup of tea before I hit the hay, but I don’t even remember if I did, it was just an assumption.

I woke up when my alarm went off and got moving.

Now that I remember it, I did feel sore when I woke up, but I think I just shrugged it off.

And perhaps it’s tension or psycho-somatic, or who knows, I certainly don’t have to figure it out, but it is certainly there.

And there is no sleeping in my sweet, cozy, dreamy little studio tonight.

No.

I have made my return to Glen Ellen, to Stone Tree, to a week of being in Sonoma, but instead of being in Petaluma, I am at work.

The family’s vacation spot for the summer.

It’s not a bad bed and fuck, the room I have is huge, I mean, really gigantic.

Bigger than my in-law, that’s for certain.

It’s just not my bed.

I will be wrangling up some ibuprofen in a little while, after I blog and make a cup of tea and I think, yes, an episode of Mr. Robot.

I tried to do some Burning Man stuff, order a few last minute things, but I found I didn’t have the focus in me to do so.

I just paid my phone bill and that was all the online activity I could handle, no Amazon shopping for me tonight.

I made it out here ok, although there was a bit of a miscommunication between me and the mom and I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to lock up the house after letting in the housekeeper.

So I was in and around the Mission for many unnecessary hours.

That being said, I made an appearance at one of many fine church basements in the Mission and got right with God.

I figured, a week out of town, a week away from my fellows, from my favorite cafes and food and San Francisco, from my bed, my home, my things, was going to warrant a little getting steady with my emotional, mental, and spiritual needs.

I will be getting compensated for the additional money I had to spend on the rental car, which is nice, but I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with the parents about it.

The conversation happened via text this morning while I was at the house waiting for the cleaner to show up.

And today when I got there.

Well.

I was too busy catching up with the boys who wouldn’t let go of me.

Dinner was had with one leaned against me and the other in my lap, there was no removing myself.

The youngest was such a little darling, he was napping when I showed up and dad had to run to town on an errand, the older boy and mom were out, and it was just the little guy and me and the dog.

Said dog who was so happy to see me it made my heart warm and fuzzy.

When he woke up, the look on his face, incredulous joy.

“Surprise,” I said softly, touching his sweet face, and wiping his little sweaty brow.

He sleeps hot.

“Carmen!  Oh, Carmen, I missed you, I want to go pick tomatoes with you in the garden and make you a salad,” he said all warm and soft and cuddly and my god, my heart.

So much.

So much love.

He crawled into my arms and wrapped himself around me and told me how much he missed me and how much he loved me, and then he took my hand and we walked to the garden and picked tomatoes off the vine and fresh basil.

When the oldest boy got back, he proudly showed me all the places they had picked blackberries and then insisted that we go back up to the garden and pick even more tomatoes, because he too, missed me, loved me, and wanted to make me a tomato salad.

They remembered from last year.

The tomatoes were out of hand and I probably ate two or three each meal, mostly chopped up with sea salt and olive oil, black pepper, lemon balm (it’s a type of herb), oregano, and fresh basil, splash of balsamic and I am a very happy girl.

Both the boys helped me make the salad and then they both ate out of my bowl and dredged their fingers through the olive oil and vinegar and ate bites of grilled chicken off my plate and just were relentless with touching me, cuddling with me, sitting on me.

“Carmen,” the oldest boy whispered to me, “please massage my back again,” he said, then tugged on my hand, when I had stopped to take a bite of dinner.

I melted, just a little bit.

Ok.

A lot bit.

We sat chair to chair and while his brother basically licked the bowl clean, I rubbed his shoulders and told him about my graduate school adventures and the animals I saw at the institute–hawks, the deer, the does and their fawns, the jack rabbit in the grass, the ears so high and big.

I tried to get a photograph of it, it was just huge, but it loped off into the high grass before I was able to get my phone up and open to the camera.

After dinner, which began to devolve, I think the eldest has a bit of a cold he’s struggling with, I let the boys smack me with pillows.

I had a sense that though they were not necessarily mad at me, there was a need to be a little aggressive with their feelings, get out some of the consternation and energy from not getting to see each other for the two weeks I was away from them.

They had missed me and they had feelings around it and they needed to express that too, not just the snuggly love stuff, which not withstanding was divine to experience, so a pillow fight ensued.

And it was absolutely the best.

I set a timer and let them hit me with pillows for three minutes solid without defending myself or hitting them back with the couch pillows.

It was so much fun.

The giggles.

Mine and theirs.

Then, when the alarm rang, we all just collapsed in a heap on the couch and snuggled more.

I was with them far past what should have been my end of day, but I couldn’t resist catching up and re-connecting.

I’ll be here until Friday.

Drive back into SF in the evening then have the weekend in town.

I’ve got some organizing to do in regards to Burning Man, then depending on what next week looks like, I’ll be heading back to Glenn Ellen in the evening on Sunday, I think, for one more week of summer vacation travel nanny fun.

Then off to Burning Man next Friday.

Oof.

Not quite ready yet.

But not really able to do anything more tonight.

Too tired to figure it out right now.

Time for Mr. Robot, I’m into the second season now, cup of tea, apple, bed.

Night y’all.

See you on the flip.

Dry Run

Well.

The good news is I did a dry run.

The bad news is that I need another tent.

Fuck.

I bought a tipi off Amazon and did not read all the fine print, the super fine print hidden way below all the glowing reviews.

The ones that said, the floor is not attached!

Not a good tent.

Super unhappy I bought this tent.

Want my money back.

Those comments.

Ack.

Ah.

Sucker you blew $120 on a tent that you can’t use on playa.

Because the side walls are not attached to the floor.

I might as well string a tarp and sleep under that.

There would be absolutely nothing between me and the dust.

For one moment, one, I thought, I could make this work.

Then.

I laughed maniacally at myself.

Yeah, right.

There is no amount of duct tape that will make this work.

None.

And.

At least I found out, I am super glad I took it out of it’s bag and went to set it up, I wanted to see how many stakes of rebar I should buy to reinforce the tent stakes and I was going to put it off for another week, because you know, facecrack was so exciting to troll.

Gah.

But I had a nice productive early afternoon, I went grocery shopping and cooked food and finished completely my food prep for playa.  All my food for the days I will be up is in the freezer happily chilling, literally, just waiting for me to throw it in my cooler with a few bags of ice.

Today I made garlic, ginger, chicken and shrimp fried rice with bacon, corn, onions, brown mushrooms and peas.  I have three options to take with me.  This yummy bite, or the pork, chicken, bacon fried rice I made last week, or the Italian vegetable and tomato stew with herbed ground chicken and brown rice.

I have three different menu options.

All set.

So after I had my yummy lunch and had some tea and rubbed one out.

Hey, a girl’s got to have priorities, and since there was time and um, quiet, the housemate’s out of town, why not have a little afternoon delight?

Anyway.

After I finished the business at hand, heh, ha, ah, I amuse myself, sorry, I grabbed the tent and made my discovery.

Of course.

Then I spent the next couple of hours being annoyed with myself, ruing my decision making abilities and beating myself up for not getting it right.

Like that helps.

But it was what was happening.

So.

I rolled the tent up, no I can’t return it, I tossed the stuff, receipt, packaging, etc. before realizing I had a dud, and put it away in the garage and took a walk and made a phone call and got some much needed perspective.

“Didn’t you just get gifted a ticket?” My person asked.

Yes, yes I did.

And I sold the one that I had previously bought, so I have money.

In cash, in my wallet.

And I also have the humility to share when I am obsessing about something and use it that as a way to reach for a spiritual answer.

Which I did and then had a friend approach me and say, hey after I get back from the Water Front camping trip, you can borrow mine.  We’ll just set it up in my drive way and make sure it’s what you need.

Fuck yeah.

Thanks man.

And if it’s not the right fit.

Fine.

I will still have the time to go and buy one before the event.

And instead of trying to figure it out online, maybe go to an actual store and see actual tents and get what will work for me.

It was also suggested to me that I keep trying to find a ride, to save the money of renting a car and have faith that I can get up there.

Which of course scares me.

But.

It’s true.

I bet a ride could come through and it would be nice to not worry about getting a rental and all the cost of leaving a deposit that I won’t have access to for 30 days, that’s like school book money and readers that I would be able to buy instead.

Remember Carmen.

You’re a grad school student footing all your own bills.

If you can get help.

Fucking let people help you.

I just don’t want to be a parasite or a whiner or not self-supporting.

There is a balance and I want to find it.

I am going to keep the car rental reservation, but I will update my ride board post and just be open.

Open to the possibility that I don’t really know what’s best for me, that perhaps I need to ask for help, and take suggestions and show up and help where I can.

Tomorrow I get to go in and help out at BMHQ (Burning Man Head Quarters) and I’m super stoked on that.

So let me be super stoked that I am going, that it doesn’t matter if my tent snafu was a fuck up, maybe I can give that tent to someone or keep it for something else, might be fun for Lighting in a Bottle or something.

Or I can try to sell on Craiglist.

It’s not used.

Just unpackaged.

There’s plenty to be happy about, I get to go to the event, I got a free ticket, I got early arrival approval.

I’m totally taken care of and I get to help, in my own teeny tiny way, host one of the best, biggest, most amazing experiences in the world.

Like literally.

There is nothing else like Burning Man.

I get to do this thing.

Luckiest girl in the world.

Regardless of my crappy tent purchase.

It’s going to lead me to the experience I am supposed to have and that will be wonderful.

I am absolutely positive of that.

Everything is exactly how it should be.

It.

Always.

Is.

 

Luxury Problems

I am almost loath to write this.

However.

This is what happened in my day and this has been in my head all day long and I know I don’t have to do anything about it.

I just find it interesting.

And I am reminded of a conversation that my professor brought up in my Multi-Cultural class about how it takes three generations to break the cycle of poverty.

I am not poor.

Not by any means of the word.

But I act poor all the time.

I “feel” poor often.

I am scared of being homeless pretty much on the constant.

It’s prevalent.

Even when I have money.

And I am treating myself gently with it and being ok with it and I am letting it sink in.

Slowly.

But.

Um.

Yeah.

I could stand to do some shopping.

I tore the hem on my slip dress today riding my bicycle into work.

It’s an old dress and could stand to be tossed and I contemplated having the hem, well, um, haha, hemmed, but the dress is old and I figure it’s going in the trash bin.

Along with the top that I have been layering, cleverly, I may add, over anything black, as it has little holes all over it.

And it’s a hand me down from my employer.

I am basically wearing an old, throw away outfit with holes in it and Converse sneakers that I have run through the wash three or four times.

The point being.

I got some money.

I got back my Federal Tax Return today.

I was shocked.

I just did my taxes like, um, 8 days ago?

I don’t even exactly recall, just that I was procrastinating doing some homework reading, and decided I’d focus on getting my taxes done.

I did.

Submitted.

And promptly forgot about.

Then.

Yesterday.

I got my state return back.

It was only $190 and so it was really easy to spend.

$120 for a new pair of shoes, $50 in savings, the rest in my wallet for a little walk about money.

But today.

Shit.

I yelped with surprise when I checked my account, I was looking to see if my rent check had cleared and I just wanted to make sure that I was square in my accounting.

And there it was.

My federal return.

I kind of froze.

I realize that I sort of expected to not get it back or that I had fucked up the return, or I don’t know, something was going to go wrong, I’m getting audited, I didn’t do it right last year, yada, yada, yada.

In short.

I had not planned on doing anything with the money because my brain actually decided I wasn’t getting the return.

My brain, sorry graduate school, but my brain, is a fucking idiot.

I have the weirdest fears sometimes.

I recalled my mom haunting the mailbox one year, waiting impatiently for her return.

Weeks on weeks of checking the mail box and checking the mail box and days of disappointment that it hadn’t arrived.

And then, one afternoon, it did.

I swear to God my mom was signing the Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music.

Ok.

Perhaps I exaggerate a little.

I remember it was sunny, school was out, the grass was green and we suddenly had a baby sitter, a pizza from Pizza Pit, sausage, black olive and mushroom with cheese, and a six pack of Pepsi Cola in glass bottles.

I distinctly remember the taste of that pizza, thin sliced, goopy with hot cheese, spicy sausage, the mushrooms slippery in my mouth, the black olives salty, the sweet hit of carbonated fizz from the Pepsi–my mom was a died in the wool Pepsi drinker.

Unless she was drinking Mountain Dew.

The babysitter put us to bed that night and I don’t remember when mom got home, but I will always remember that tax return landing in the mailbox and the glee with which it was met.

I met my tax return with dread.

Like.

I am going to fuck this up.

This is too much money for me to handle.

It’s not.

It’s two grand.

I put some right away into my savings.

I feel like I should put more in.

However.

I am holding off for a minute.

I want to let myself enjoy it.

Because I am afraid to do so.

The next thing I did, like a good girl, is I bought a “new” printer.

I bought a “used” printer from the warehouse store of Amazon, it’s basically a pristine refurbished printer that would have cost me $285 more dollars but I got it and a ream of 500 sheets of paper for $193.25.

I got it for basically 1/3 of the cost.

Then.

I balanced my check book and pondered all day long the weirdness of having money that I don’t know what to do with.

Yeah.

I could put it all in my savings.

It’s not like I have huge savings, one months rent, sort of a safety hatch if something stupid happens.

I do want to buy some new clothes and to that end I made the decision to go shopping 18 different times today.

All this weekend.

All the while forgetting it’s Super Bowl weekend and the idiocy of Super Bowl City is happening and where I typically go shopping is downtown.

Not going anywhere near down town.

Maybe I’ll go to the Haight.

I resolved to let myself have some fun with the cash.

I bought two new pairs of Converse that I have always wanted but never let myself get.

One pair is black glitter.

Giggle.

I told you I was a fucking sparkle pony.

The other pair are denim with white polka dots.

I also quite fancy polka dots.

I need a new purse, I was going to buy one in Paris but never got around to it.

I also had eyes on another super cute pair of shoes at Fluevog.

I need some socks.

But that’s it.

I will give myself an artist date and go to Flax and get some new things–colored pencils, coloring books, stickers.

Maybe a movie.

Maybe a trip?

That’s the funny thing.

I have the money.

But.

I am loathe to part with it too.

So.

I am just recognizing that it’s ok to enjoy the gift I have been given–which is basically getting my own money back, and just a fraction of it when it comes right down to it, I had $10,000 taken out in taxes over the past year–and allowing myself to have a little fun with it.

I am going to find out what is happening with the family for the week they are in Hawaii and maybe see about booking a massage and making matinee movie plans, getting together with a girlfriend from Castro Valley I don’t get to see as often as I like, grabbing a meal, doing the deal.

I have options.

And.

Apparently.

The money to enjoy which ever ones I choose.

I remind myself this is nice.

Not a burden.

My brain wants to be freaked out.

I am going to opt for excited instead.

Enjoy myself.

Be flexible.

And.

Have fun.

I swear!

“Pet Me”

Oh baby.

Of course.

Curl up in my arms and I will hold you and pet you.

I stroked his small, warm back.

We had us a day.

it started out with one hell of a temper tantrum.

Screaming.

Outside.

Yikes.

It escalated and then.

It stopped.

He blew himself out and then got tired and we sat down on a neighbor’s steps and I held him against my heart and when his breath had slowed I looked at him, “take another breath for me, big deep breath,” I said and demonstrated.

He breathed in.

His wet eyes, mashed eyelashes, brown pools of sweet soft little boy.

“How old are you sweet pie?”  I asked him, brushing the hair off his forehead.

“Three,” he whispered.

“Three more breathes in and out and then we’ll talk about what we can do to make this better,” I cradled him on my lap while his brother hid in the stroller with his hands over his ears.

I am sure that the older brother was not the only one with hands over ears on the block for the duration of the tantrum.

But.

Then.

Peace and the struggle was over.

It was about his stuffed cat, who, yes, I refer to it as a who, sometimes a she, sometimes a he, Meow Meow, has become a source of such comfort for the littlest guy that now, this last week especially, he has insisted on leaving the house to go to the park with the stuffie.

Unfortunately.

The once white cat is now grey.

“Look!”  The five year old said at the park yesterday, “Meow Meow is camouflaged!”

And indeed he was.

The stuffed cat blended right into the dirty sidewalk.

Ugh.

It’s not that I really care all that much if the stuffed toy gets dirty, it’s more that Meow Meow has become a weapon of destruction when the three-year old loses his ability, slight at this age, to communicate his needs.

Reminds me of myself at times, I will lash out unhesitating in my necessity to claim what ever security I can grasp in my small little world.

But the reaction has gotten pretty bad and the cat ends up being used as a device to beat his brother or worse.

He’s used it to hit other little kids at the playground.

So far no real cats have been hurt in our capers, but I am concerned.

“Meow Meow is a lover, not a fighter,” I explained to him today.

More than once.

But we’re working it out.

The summer is coming to a close, in a manner of speaking, for the boys.

School camp starts next week, which is the school’s way of integrating the new students into the system, the pre-school kids and the new kindergarten kids into the system, as well as providing a nice little segue for the parents into the school year.

It is handily timed, as I will be out-of-town next week myself.

I’ll be in school too.

Oh god.

This is happening.

I got a little freaked today and wished for a minute that I could be a little cat, curl up in someone’s lap, hide away from the world with my blanket and be pet and stroked and taken care of.

But it’s just me here doing the deal, so to the best of my ability, I’m taking care of myself with kindness and compassion and breathing through the moments as calm as possible.

Being 42 years old I wonder if I should be taking that many breaths when I get overwhelmed.

It’s not a bad idea.

I had to remind myself to just take the time to sort and look at my books today, get a little more organized, I still have loads of reading to do before I hit the retreat on Sunday.

Check in time is 4p.m.

Granted, classes don’t start until Monday morning, so I do have Sunday to do some reading as well, but I really want to have the majority of it done before I head to the retreat.

I would like to also ask the cohort how the hell I’m supposed to enjoy the retreat if I’ve got hundreds of pages of reading to do to be prepared for just the retreat and as far as I can see I also will have two papers due relatively soon thereafter the retreat–which will be written while I am working with the family in Sonoma.

Retreat my ass.

It feels like boot camp.

But that’s just my perspective.

I had to take manageable little bites with the reading.

And also to be kind to myself.

“MOTHERFUCKER!”

I shouted this evening when I got home from work, looking over the syllabus for one of the classes.

I realized I had overlooked a book on the list of readings that I had to do and it precipitated a great deal of anxiety as I looked over the stack of books and yes, did indeed confirm, that I was missing a tome.

I got online immediately and ordered it through Amazon.

Most of my books I found online and I have bought all of them used.

I would not be able to afford them all at list price and I’m willing to overlook the used quality of the books to just have them in my possession.

Fortunately I discovered that the reading out of that book was not listed for the retreat.

Whew.

And I’ll have it by the time I do have to have it.

And breathe.

I’m sure the retreat will actually be good for me.

I’ll meditate.

I’ll get outside.

The great out doors.

(G.O.D.)

Get right with the trees and hills and sky.

I’ll take walks.

And, fingers crossed, I’ll get myself into the hot tub underneath the bright stars outside the city lights and I will soak away the worry and fear.

I’ll let myself be myself and I won’t be afraid.

Or I will.

But I will remember to breathe and when I have that feeling that I just need someone to hold my hand, someone to pet me, to console me, and stroke my hair, I’ll ask for God to hold my hand through it.

And I’ll get by just fine.

I always do.