It Was The Best of Times

It was the worst of times.

This Burning Man was the best and the hardest and the most magical and connected and hottest and Jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick, the worst entry and exodus I have had.

And.

I can’t wait to do it again.

Next year I will have all the things.

And do many of the things differently.

First.

No more tenting.

I’m figuring out a better way.

I just can’t do the dust coffin again.

I’m too old, and frankly, for the first time, truly ever, I can afford better accomodations.

I’m not saying I’m about to go out and buy an Airstream.

But I think I can swing a little camper trailer.

This burn I literally put up and took down my camp three times.

It was a disaster.

Fortunately.

I had a lot of lovely neighbors at my camp help me out.

And that was a learning lesson in humility.

I do not like asking for help.

I like helping.

I am really fucking good at helping others.

But asking for help?

Not so much.

I had to ask.

And ask a lot more than I was comfortable with.

I also had no choice.

Like.

When I got sick and had to go to the medics.

I had severe heat exhaustion, vomited, had hideous stomach cramps, dizziness and lightheadedness.

I knew I wasn’t doing well, but until I threw up I thought I was muddling along ok.

This literally happened my first day.

I still can’t believe I wound up in the medical tents on the first day I was there.

And thank god I let myself be taken.

I joked that my first “gift” on playa was a bag of fluids.

But really, thank God.

I didn’t realize how sick I was until I was in the tents.

And the beautiful, sweet people who took me there and sat with me there and helped me get back to camp were angels.

The next day I got to experience a playa miracle when a person who I barely knew magically provided a new tent for me.

Oh, wait, I left that part out.

In a nutshell, I land on playa Friday night at midnight, in a white out dust storm, Gate is closed, I sit for four hours before I finally get to Will Call to pick up my ticket and vehicle pass.

Then I spend an hour finding camp because none of the signs are up and I keep missing it.

Find camp around 5a.m., sit on the corner waiting for anyone to stir to find out where I am located, around 6:30a.m. some folks start getting up, figure out where I’m supposed to be camp, get somewhat situated, connect with the friend I’m setting up camp with, help him get settled and get shade structure up, start to get worried around noon as I haven’t gotten my own tent set up and it’s getting hot and I feel a dust storm coming (enough time on playa you can sometimes sense that shit in the wind), unravel may tent and start crying.

The “upgraded” new tent I had splurged on was a mesh top.

OHMYFUCKINGGOD kill me know.

I bought a dust coffin.

But with no other options.

I set up said dust coffin.

Storm sets in.

Sequester in dust coffin, try to nap, in a my dust mask and goggles and basically I could have just been on the open playa, there was so much dust, I was covered.

I might have slept an hour.

Maybe.

Which is why when I got sick, I got so sick, I had’t really slept in 36 hours, that and not enough food (I actually had been drinking a lot of water) led to the heat exhaustion, plus, well, duh, the heat.

So.

I’m telling my story about the multiple vans I had cancel on me, three separate reservations that all canceled on me and how I had to take my tiny Fiat and make the drive and basically halve the things I was bringing and I didn’t stage my tent and fuck my life, dust coffin, and the folks I was sitting with the next day commiserate, they’d had van cancellations too, and then.

HOLY SHIT.

My friend’s boyfriend goes behind the magic curtain and comes back with a tent, the same tent I used to use, so I know how to set it up, and it’s weather proof–no mesh top, no dust sifting down from the ceiling, “I’ve got a spare, you can use it,” he says.

So, I tore down dust coffin, and set up a new tent.

Two camp set ups in two days, extreme heat exhaustion, long wait to get in, not even on playa a day and a half and I thought, wow, this is really intense.

And it got wierder.

Harder.

Dustier.

And, as always, more magical in ways I could never expect.

I met and connected with new friends.

I reconnected with old friends.

I missed seeing a bunch of folks I for sure thought I was going to see.

I randomly bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in 8 years as I was pulling out on my bicycle from one art piece to head to another.

I got to go on an art car I have always dreamed of getting onto and rode one of the amazing mechanical carousel horses on it.

I danced.

One day, lost in a dust storm, shocker, I know, dust storms, I found myself so far beyond the area I was looking for that I just tried to find shelter to ride it out and stumbled upon a very, very, very lavish camp.

They had amazing music, and, holy shit, A/C.

I mean.

Fuck.

A huge common tent with A/C being piped into it.

There was also a lot and I do mean, A LOT, of drugs being very openly consumed.

I did not give a fuck.

I was sheltered in A/C dancing to amazing music.

I was never offered anything and I didn’t want anything and I didn’t care that there was so much wealth on display, all I did was, every once in a while, stop someone who was cavorting to ask for a water.

I was kept well hydrated and I danced for over three hours until the storm passed.

Then merrily took my tired knees back across playa on my bicycle.

I got to see my original poems hung up in the Museum of No Spectators, that brought big walloping tears to my eyes.

I had secret dream when I was young to see my art in a museum.

I was blown away by that.

Later in the week, with friends and family-an uncle on my father’s side of the family, I walked in my cap and gown and had a dear friend and the architect who designed the art piece, hood me in a graduation ceremony.

It was profound and moving and it meant an awful lot to me.

I also, promptly, got lost on the way back and wound up taking over an hour to find my way back.

Surreal to get lost in a place that I have been to so many times.

I star gazed in deep playa.

I cried in the middle of an art piece that moved me beyond words.

I danced in line waiting for ice.

I met a lot of international folks.

I got to know folks at my camp on a deeper more meaningful and intimate manner than I have ever experienced.

I don’t know how to write about one of the things that happened at camp that profoundly affected me without making it about me and I have been wondering for days about whether I would even write about it, or write a blog at all about Burning Man this year, though I have wanted to process it (my damn therapist had to cancel this week) but I do want to mention it lightly with respect and grace over drama.

I witnessed a death.

I was a first responder and performed CPR.

I was not a hero, but I was present and I am so very grateful that I was of service in the moments I was there.

I was also in shock at what had happened.

I leaned into people at my camp.

And I let myself cry when I could.

I only told a few people about what had happened.

Most of what I talked about was very minimal.

There was one person who heard the whole story, had been there when I walked out of the trailer stunned, held me as I shook with silent sobs and took very kind care of me.

I witnessed the camp come together in a way that stays with me, and I suspect, will always stay with me, to honor that person who passed and hold space for all those affected.

I told a woman who was there in the depths of the experience with me that this camp, which I had camped with twice prior, was now my camp for good, I was a member and I wanted a service position, I would be attending the business meeting and picking one up, commit to coming back, camp with them and be of service.

She welcomed me and suggested something to me and the next day I was elected to that position.

So.

I am going back next year, and every foreseeable year I can.

And I stayed, of course, I stayed, for the Temple burn.

Man burn was amazing and fun and I love me some pyro, yes, yes I do.

Temple was sweet, a touch sad, but not as forlorn as I have experienced it the few times I had been prior.

Honestly, I have only seen two Temple burns.

This burn was soft and sweet and though tears slid down my face a few times, it was not the horrendous vomiting of grief that I experienced after putting my best friends ashes in the Temple my first year.

Sidebar.

Yes. I do, now, know, that ashes are not welcomed there, but I was not aware of that at the time I went in 2007 for my first burn.

I can’t take those back.

And my best friend is always out there for me.

As I packed up my tiny car and got ready to sit in exodus for 6.5 hours, had I fucking known, ugh, I heard music from the camp next to me and I burst into tears.

You always get me at the end Burning Man, don’t you?

It was my friend’s favorite song playing.

It was like getting a soft kiss on my forehead, like he used to do, as I left the burn and headed home.

Tears wet on my face.

Gratitude for the intensity and the humility and the deep connections I made.

Shit.

I didn’t even tell you about the sauna in an Airstream I got to have, but I’ll save that for another day.

It is late.

And I have sleep to catch up on still.

I’ll see you in the dust next year.

You can’t get rid of me.

Seriously.

Burning Man, you got me for life.

Damn it.

Frank Sinatra

Christmas carols.

Laying in your arms in the glow of the blue lights on the tree.

My heart beat syncopated with yours.

Warm, soft tears slide down my face.

I hope you do not notice.

Content and wrapped in your embrace a softening shelter I did not know I needed.

I think about you.

Love.

And.

Our.

Love.

So many kinds.

Blue love.

Joyful love.

Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie love.

Christmas carol love.

Hanging filigree ornament love.

Pink bunny love.

Walks on the beach at twilight love.

Butterflies in the garden love.

Flowers wrapped in gunny sacks and tied with twine love.

Candlelight love.

Untold love.

1,000 kisses love.

Tears on my pillow love.

Crows passing red berries in the snow, beak to beak, love.

Love letters love.

Poetry love.

Shameless love.

Not sorry love.

Not safe love.

Hands entwined love.

Squish love.

Passionate love.

Chemistry love.

Alchemical love.

Magic love.

Moonlight love.

Star shine love.

Dressing up in my prettiest dress for you love.

Pink glitter lip gloss love.

Baby girl love.

Dearest, sweetest, tenderest love.

Vulnerable love.

Smash love.

Precious love.

Spectacular love.

Cannot wait to see you love.

Miss you all the time love.

Dreamy love.

All the love I have for you, love.

Christmas Eve love.

Wishing you all the joy love.

All the blessings of love.

All the happiest happiness of love.

For you.

My love.

Wishing you it all.

Merry Christmas baby.

I love you.

 

 

You Are My

Eucastastrophe.

You are my euphoria.

You are my sudden joyous turn.

You are the opposition ending the couplet in Shakespeare.

You are the happy ending to the fairy tale.

You destroy me from within.

When all joy seems to be lost, you find me.

You grant me beauteous hope.

You light a fire in me.

You have burned me down and I am built back up.

I babble in tongues for you.

I am overwrought and emote arrows of hearts.

I flail in my fear and shake in my desperation.

And then.

You see me.

You show me the beauty of the story.

A narrative I thought I wrote alone.

For I have written my own dark ending so long ago, that I forgot.

Happily ever after is possible.

With you.

I can glimpse the underlying truth.

I am in awe of you.

Of us.

Of alchemy and passion and love songs.

You wield the sight of angels.

You see me.

I cannot lie.

I have tried.

I need to be truthful in all things.

I need to be passion.

I need to be fire for you.

You encompass me.

I will slay dragons for you.

You are the impossible problem overcome.

You resolve me.

You are the joy that brings tears.

You are the laughter after terrible adventures.

You.

Yes.

You.

Love.

Are my everything.

 

 

Overwhelmed

Much.

Sure.

I was.

I feel better now.

It was a long day and as the day progressed I kept getting more and more information about what I needed to do for my internship this week.

Namely.

That I am taking on a new set of clients tomorrow.

That’s right.

SET.

I have my first couples therapy session.

I was like.

Oh.

Shit.

It’s on now.

I did get a little overwhelmed and then I just breathed and went with it.

I also picked up a consult for next week and I have a new consult this Friday.

I’m getting busy.

It’s still super new, just getting used to where I am, the facility, etc and that I am practicing therapy.

I mean.

I really am a therapist.

It’s pretty fucking surreal.

And.

Also, pretty fucking amazing.

I am also really grateful to be getting some hours tucked in under my belt and to be getting to practice and getting used to what it feels like to juggle all the things.

There’s a lot to juggle.

I am happy for it all, but I have found myself winnowing things out here and there.

I debated whether or not I was going to blog tonight and realized that I really wanted to, I needed to process through the day and shake it out of my head.

And.

I did not write this morning.

I needed to go back into my internship and deal with some paperwork before heading into work this morning.

It was rush hour and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to have the thirty minutes to write, and I couldn’t bring myself to get up any earlier.

I have been getting up pretty early for the last couple of weeks and the thought of just sneaking in another fifteen minutes of slumber was worth it.

Plus I took a shower.

And did my hair, that always eats time.

So not having written this morning I really wanted to make space and allow myself to write my blog even if all I wanted was a cup of tea, a bowl of cherries and some Orange is the New Black.

I may still do all of that, just not watch an entire show.

I was so busy at one point last week that the one episode I managed to watch was spread out over four nights.

Heh.

I have also noticed that I am checking in less and less with social media.

I just don’t have the time and since I haven’t been linking my blog to social media, it hasn’t had as much of a draw for me.

I am ok with this.

I like to talk on the phone or in person rather than dancing around social media.

It’s a nice way to keep tabs on folks but yeah, it’s not been so much on my plate recently and I am ok with that.

I still post Instagram photos and I’m still on the social media tip, although not Twitter, closed that account, I’m just not as into it.

It has been interesting to see my blog nose dive so much with the readership, but it has allowed for a kind of leeway in my writing and I do love that.

I do love that I am still here, typing away, writing my little words, cataloguing my life.

Occasionally letting the poetry out of my heart.

Like.

 

Your face glowing in the red of the traffic light.

Love lit and reverent.

Words trembling upon your lips.

But they do not fall.

Then.

That.

Mouth.

Full of promise.

Sweet, open, vulnerable.

And.

The thrum of it.

The strings and somnolent vibration, the headiness of having your face

Smote with emotion in front of mine.

How I wish to crush you to me.

Let me flower for you underneath the star light and the moon roof.

Blooming with the nights soft remonstrance in my mouth.

The crash of the ocean at Miramar Beach.

Cold wind pushing me into your arms.

My feet sink into the sand and I tumble against you.

Falling and falling and falling over again.

For you.

Shot through with the blue of your eyes.

From the awe and reverence there.

Even when.

You don’t always let me see it.

Shutters on your heart open and close.

I know though.

I know all the way through me.

Straight through.

There.

Is.

This

Arrow winnowed into my heart.

Lodged there.

Succinct and brilliant.

I lapse upon its bright point.

Collapsing.

Knowing that I am caught.

Held.

Loved.

Be it unspoken.

Or writ.

Large in the promises your eyes speak to me.

Captured.

Asunder.

Those.

Fallen angel eyes.

Falling forward.

Compel me on.

Like star-gazer lilies blooming while I dream.

You.

Enthrall.

Me.

 

And like that.

I get to make time for my poetry.

My heart opens.

And now I can have my cherries in a bowl.

My cup of tea.

And my rest.

Sweet dreams my love.

Sweet dreams.

 

I Got A Christmas Tree!

Yeah.

I know.

I am a dork.

So what?

I am a happy dork.

A very, very, very, very.

Happy ass dork.

Bwahahahaha.

Oh my gosh.

My heart is so full and bursting with love, it rather hurts.

But it’s that good kind of ache, that feeling when your face hurts from smiling a lot, my hurt hearts like that.

It’s an ache I can get used to.

I am also full and heart happy because I received the most beautiful gift from a girl friend today at school.

Oof.

I’m crying.

I just got so much love in this short little period of time.

I am almost overwhelmed by it.

Monstrous love.

How you try to eat me up, but I a still standing.

I shared something with this girl friend our last session at school, how I once had this angel ornament from when I was a little girl.

She was a porcelain angel, a little girl angel, with brown hair in a pink night gown with little bare feet underneath her kneeling legs and the smallest, prettiest pair of white porcelain wings.

Her head was bowed and she was praying with her eyes closed.

When I was a little girl I would think of that little Christmas ornament as me, as my best self, as that perfect little angel–literally.

I felt like a tiny bit of my soul was thrown away when I discovered I had lost that angel, that it had been thrown out in the trash.

I had forgotten about that angel until I saw my friend the first day of our class retreat across the room from me in a gigantic circle.

She was kneeling, her hands resting on her thighs, relaxed, yet alert with a kind of grace and lightness about her and she glowed.

Yeah.

I know.

Maybe it was because she was backlit.

Maybe it was because I was just actually seeing her true self with no filters.

Just this warm, white glow.

Sometimes people are lit up for you to see.

You just have to take the time to stop and notice them.

We had our reunion today at school.

She lives out of state and commutes in for the weekend.

It constantly amazes me the students that do that, hell I bitch about commuting from the Outer Sunset and there is a woman in my cohort who commutes from Miami, Florida.

It was wonderful to catch up and she told me she had a little something for me.

My birthday is next Friday, but I won’t see any of my classmates after this weekend until next semester.

Wow.

That is crazy to write!

Anyway.

She gave me the gift and said, I was drawn to it, it reminded me of you, open it when you get home.

I gave her a big hug and stuck it in my bag, and though I did not forget I also was distracted by a text that told me I had something waiting for me at my door when I got home.

I pulled up on my scooter after refueling at the gas station (figured I was going to have to do it tomorrow, might as well get it out of the way tonight) for the grand total of $1.63 and I peeked into the gated area of my house.

I didn’t see anything.

I thought, oh, I bet my housemate took what ever it was inside and left it by my door.

I secured my scooter, grabbed my keys, and went in the gate.

And there it was.

The tiniest.

Sweetest.

Most adorable little Christmas tree ever.

My heart, like the Grinch who stole Christmas, broke open four sizes too big and my face broke out in a smile and I laughed with pure joy.

I got a Christmas tree!

My darling, sweet, dear friend had left me a Christmas tree on my door step.

Am I the luckiest girl in the world or what?

I brought it inside.

Arranged my kitchen table.

Tucked my school books away for the night and took out my box of Christmas ornaments from the entry closet.

I strung it with blue lights and hung it with ornaments and my heart grew bigger and my smile grew brighter and well.

I think I just became this beacon of pure love in my little home.

I unpacked my present from my school girl friend and set it under the Christmas tree.

Perfect.

Absolute perfection.

I smiled some more.

I really was the fucking biggest dork, I don’t know if I could have let any one see me in these moments, even now I am a bit ridiculous with my glee.

Then.

I opened my gift.

Oh my goodness.

An angel.

A beautiful angel with brown hair.

Tiny wings on the backs of her strong shoulders.

Hands clasped behind in humility.

Eyes down looked and close.

Serene look on her face.

Roses.

Yes roses in her hair.

And these words carved into the fabric of her long dress:

Seeker

She could 

hardly believe

all that 

was waiting

when she 

finally opened

her Heart

and followed

her TRUE NORTH.

 

Excuse me while I collapse with tears.

The thing is.

It hit me while I was beginning this blog.

It was like she gave me back my little girl angel.

Except.

All grown up.

Alive, whole, beautiful, stronger for having been discarded, standing on her own feet, wings open behind her, serenity etched on her face.

I felt this wash of sorrow and grief open in me and flood out of my heart for the little girl that I had lost and for the gift of her coming back to me.

More alive and real than I could have ever imagined back when I was so young and struggling and lost to the wiles of the world.

I am still seeking.

And may I seek forever and for always.

I know, though, I am well on my way and loved.

Oh.

So.

Loved.

I put my angel at the foot of my Christmas tree.

My little guy is too small to bear the weight of the angel.

So she will be my anchor and my acknowledgement of who I am.

Of how far I have come and.

Most importantly.

How I shall proceed.

From a deep abiding place.

Of

Compassion.

Joy.

And.

Love.