Love Flower

 

My sweet love.

My heart in my throat.

I really want to see you.

I stare through the agapanthus outside the cafe window.

Crow on the telephone wire across the street looks at me.

Winks.

Flies off.

You have flown off.

Here.

Not here.

Yet.

Still in my heart.

Which rises now in my chest, beckoning to that crow

On that high wire,

Breast puffed out in the chuffing wind–

Here, take me,

Take this heart, carry it off

Plumed with daisies,

Take it and beat your wings across the blue,

Drop it at his feet.

 

I hear you in the damned music.

I stuff my hand in my mouth to

Baffle the cries that arise behind my lips.

 

Shall I get another tattoo, my love?

More lyrics to memorialize you?

I really want to be with you.

 

(God fucking damn these love songs in cafes)

 

Hallelujah.

My, my,

My, sweet love.

Don’t Stop Writing

I was told recently.

“I like reading what you write.”

God.

I love that.

Validation.

Although it’s not why I write and I am struggling with that.

Let go, I whisper to myself.

But.

It’s hard to let go of something that I have been in relationship with for seven years.

I have to shut down my blog.

I haven’t written the last few days and I can feel it in my bones.

Actually, that’s not true.

I have been writing, a lot.

Just not my blog.

I have been busy.

And the not writing I can take with a great big grain of salt because I was busy doing wonderful things and having life altering experiences.

Life is happening.

My God, is it ever.

I started my internship.

I take my first client next week.

I have read my client file, contacted said client and set up our first session.

I am navigating all the paper work and all the insurance stuff, more stuff, all the stuff, the policy papers and the keys, oh my God, the keys, I have a lot of keys right now.

Which is fine.

I jangle when I walk, but whatever.

Today I had my first group supervision training.

It was great, I learned a lot, it’s rather like being in a small classroom and getting to ask the teacher all the things, and I took some notes and got the questions I needed answered.

Most of my questions had to do with administrative stuff as I haven’t met with a client yet.

All the others in the group have been seeing clients and thus they brought up what they needed to have addressed.

It was great learning for me to just sit and listen and I did have some input and that was nice, I was able to see a few things and offer some different perspective and I was thanked for my experience and my insight.

Which I appreciated as well.

I also asked about my blog.

This blog.

My baby.

My love child.

My little place in the universe to pour out my heart and talk about all the stuff on my heart and in my mind, or to get out all the stuff in my mind so that I can listen to my heart better.

I have known, probably since I started school, that one day the blog was going to end.

But.

The writing doesn’t have to end.

And that was what my supervision group gave me today.

I got very affirmative feedback from everyone to take down the blog off social media and make it completely anonymous.

I have already pulled it from my Instagram account and I privatized that account so random folks can’t join it, I have to approve the follow request.

I have also dropped a few folks off the friends list on Facecrack.

I could probably winnow that out a little more as well.

It was recommended that I change my name on Facecrack.

I’m not sure to what, but I know a few people in my cohort have already started doing that.

It’s a damn good idea.

The next suggestion was to not link my blog to Facecrack.

It would eliminate a lot of my readers.

I mean.

A lot.

But.

It would provide me with more anonymity and it would also give my client room to see me as a therapist, not as some poet girl, Burning Man aficionado, single lady in the Outer Sunset riding around the city on a scooter.

Then.

Sigh.

Ugh.

It was suggested and I knew the moment I heard it that it was the next action to take.

That I stop writing this blog.

Double ugh.

I knew it in my gut, but I teared up.

I am tearing up now.

Fuck.

I know that because I have such big feelings that I am going to be a great therapist because I can empathize, but shit, sometimes it’s just a bitch being sensitive.

Granted, I wouldn’t wear it any other way, that is, my heart on my sleeve.

 

Gerber daisies in a Mason jar.

Dark pink stars on slippery green stalks opening toward the light.

Petals kissing.

And blushing soft.

Mouths like hungry little beasts blossoming into the warm air.

My heart.

Threaded with light.

Opening and beating against the back of my ribcage.

Tender under the bruised spaces on my breastplate.

This then.

Each moment timeless and gone only to be longed for again.

And again.

And again.

 

I digress.

But you get the point?

I like to express.

I like poetry.

I lie.

I love poetry.

I am a whore for it, like cello music and Clair de Lune and Brahms and Mozart and Chopin, I prostrate myself to it and hope, really I do hope, to gracefully surrender to whatever beauty is taking me at that moment with a kind of asunder that only perhaps is heard inside my soul.

But hear it I do.

And to renounce this forum feels terrifying and sad.

So sad, the richness of sweet lipped tears on the tops of my cheeks and the sudden catch of my breath in my throat.

Oh.

All the feelings I don’t want to feel.

But.

OH.

All the feelings I get to feel, I am so grateful and graced and loved.

Beloved.

I am.

And I am aware of my great fortune.

But.

This then, begins the end of my blog.

I have to let you know I won’t stop writing.

Nope.

I just won’t be writing here any longer.

I will have an end date on Auntie Bubba.

She has been such a good girl to me and shown me my strengths, and oh yes, my defects, those in spades, all things intimate and good and intense and wounded and sad and well, just all the things.

Yes.

All the lovely things.

This bearing witness to my own journey.

I am forever grateful for it.

So.

As this chapter closes.

As the Book of Bubba comes to an end.

I will admit.

That I am not finished.

That I am not written out.

That there are more words and worlds of words and galaxies and yes, a universe to still discover and write about.

There is a theory about the Big Bang and how the universe was created and when the universe will end and that it all came from one spot and explodes out and then shrinks back in on itself.

This is called the Big Bounce.

This is all very general and not very theoretically informed, mind you.

However.

It speaks to me and what I endeavor now to share with you.

I will be starting a new blog.

I am not done.

This blog is, however, just about done.

I will only publish a few more blogs here.

I am not quite ready to say good-bye yet.

But it is only days away.

I will start a new blog and I will continue my writing, my growth, my learning, my pushing my edges and finding out more and more who I am through this medium that speaks so much to me.

Writing.

I will not be connecting it to my Twitter account, in fact I am damn close to doing a deactivation on my Twitter account, I don’t feel like I use it all the often any way.

I will not be posting my blog on Facecrack.

I will not be making it known who I am.

I will be writing anonymously.

I haven’t a name yet.

Just a taste on my lips, like the last kiss at the end of the night, the push of tongue into my mouth and the startled stillness in my heart that precursor to the shaking tremble that befalls me and  tells me, yes, here, go here.

I will consider sharing with some of my readers my new blog.

But you will have to message me privately.

Which you may do by posting a comment.

I approve all comments before they are linked to my blog.

I will message you my new blog when it goes live.

Otherwise, seven years later, I will bid this space adieu.

They say that after seven years all the cells in your body turn over.

I know not what will be next.

I just know that there is a next.

And I thank you.

My readers.

Who ever you are, where ever you are, for humoring me and my poetry and my words and my tears and my heart ever beating upon my bloody damn sleeve.

With so much gratitude.

I thank you.

 

Little Boxes

In the hallway.

I got my first little small packages of joyful celebration in the mail today.

Yeah.

When I discovered that I had gotten the time off request for Burning Man from work I made some celebratory purchases on-line.

I couldn’t help myself.

I got some hair flowers.

Heh.

Yes.

And some glitter barrettes.

Because.

Hello.

Sparkle pony.

I had a host of hair flowers.

Like.

A lot.

Really.

From all over, from places I have traveled too, a hair flower from a wig shop in Brooklyn, to a hair piece from Magazine Street in New Orleans, to barrettes I have gotten in Paris.

But.

After the lice apocalypse over Thanksgiving.

I got rid of them all.

I know.

I know.

I could have quarantined them or something.

But I was in a frenzy.

When they comb through your hair and it takes four people, FOUR, three hours to get through all of it and they can’t and won’t guarantee that they got them all, in fact, they did not, and I had two more treatments, when you go home and firebomb your house and put everything and anything that is fabric in the wash, thereby blowing the fuse to the washing machine because you’ve overloaded it, and you throw away your brush, all my hair accessories went the fuck out to the trash.

It was such a horrendous and horrific experience.

I just couldn’t fathom ever putting that stuff in my hair again, even if it meant starting over completely from square one with some basic hair elastics and bobby pins.

Part of me thought.

Well.

Hell.

Maybe that part of my life is over.

You know.

The one where I play the part of the girl with the flower in her hair.

Maybe she needs to grow up.

Yeah.

That lasted all of a few seconds the minute I found out I could go to the event.

I was online buying hair shit like nobody’s business.

I will say this year I won’t be dying my hair any funky colors.

Been there.

Done that.

I’m good with just going with my natural shade of brown and quite happy to augment my hair with accessories versus hair dye.

So.

Yes.

Some fabric roses.

A yellow satin one and a dark red velvet one.

Some daisy hair clips.

Pink and white.

Little, like tiny miniature daisies that you see growing in the outfield of baseball diamonds.

And.

Yes.

Glitter barrettes in pink, teal, and silver.

Because.

Glitter.

See aforementioned sparkle pony.

I may have some other things arriving too.

Ahem.

Yes.

I did.

I went ahead and ordered a jackalope headpiece.

Yes.

It was expensive.

Yes.

I don’t care.

Yes.

I got a tax return.

I am fucking going to embrace it.

A friend at the event last year had a pair of horns with flowers that really were sweet and she loaned them to me for a night and a day and I wore the fuck out of them.

I have been ogling a pair of jackalope bunny ears and horns on Etsy for three years now.

I got the news about getting the time off and I went to the site and I bought them.

In fact.

I totally splurged and bought a bigger set then I had originally been looking at.

It can’t be called an impulse buy if I’ve been thinking about buying them for three years.

Or so I rationalized the purchase.

Check them out.

Here.

God.

I am such a dork.

And.

Nope.

I don’t give a flying fuck what you think.

I am happy.

And they are fabulous.

The artist is going to make the ears in candy floss pink and use cream flowers for the headband.

I also asked that she incorporate some daisies into the piece.

Since.

Favorite flowers, yo.

I’m stupid psyched to see them.

I should get them sometime in March.

Plenty of time to co-ordinate outfits before the Burn.

Heh.

I also reached out to a camp today about camping with them.

I really liked where I camped last year.

But.

I want to try something new.

Not too new.

I know plenty of folks where I asked to camp and the head of the camp is a dear friend of mine and someone with whom I experienced my first burn with when he and I were both affiliated with another camp.

Then he split off from that camp and started his own and I was always working and camping with whomever I was working for.

But.

NOT WORKING.

No.

Not working this year.

I have vowed to myself that I am going to Burning Man.

I am going to participate and help out wherever I camp.

But.

I am not working the event.

No nannying.

No fluffing.

No nothing.

Just me and a spiritual experience out in deep playa.

Aka.

Make out session.

Hahahahaha.

Sleeping in whenever I want.

(If I can manage a shad structure over my tent this year, it gets hot early and there was little sleeping past 7 a.m. in my tent last year)

Staying up late.

Not being tied to anyone else’s scheduled.

Free to play.

Free to wear flowers in my hair.

And jackalope horns.

Because why the fuck not.

I’m an artist.

I get to express and dress as I want.

Not to impress anyone.

No.

But because it makes me happy to do so.

I love playing dress up.

Putting up my hair.

Putting on make up.

I’m just going to go and play playa princess all fucking week-long.

So help me God.

I deserve to put myself first for a turn.

And.

Like that.

I just got word back from the head of the camp, that I am indeed invited and welcome to camp with them.

I’ll be at Camp Run Free this year kids.

Seems quite apropos.

Does it not?

 

 

Happiness

Is  a fucking rare ass steak.

Holy moly.

That was good.

I had a little celebratory dinner out and yes, I got my steak and ate it too.

So divine.

Then I get home and there are flowers.

Seriously feeling special.

So nice to celebrate and take a moment to appreciate the hard work that I have put into being where I am at.

I still have so much more to go, to do, to learn, to be, but how exciting is that?

That I can create and do and be more, that there is more room to grow, that there is more to come, in fact, the best is yet to come.

I firmly believe that.

And.

I can still have today, this moment, this nice time to reflect and let it sink in.

Really let it sink in.

I feel like I took a giant leap forward, but really, it was just doing the same things I have been taught to do for such a long time now.

Show up.

Be kind.

Be yourself.

Be honest.

Be open.

Be humble.

And listen.

And be.

It’s just not nearly as complicated as my brain wants to make it out to be.

It is not.

It is lovely and simple and sweet and that how I feel right now, loved and full of sweetness.

Daisies and roses.

Steak in my belly.

Hot tea in a mug.

Candles lit in my studio in-law.

Music in my heart.

A little Regina Spektor.

And it’s Friday.

And the school sent me my tax documents so I can finish my taxes this weekend.

I am busy, but busy in a manageable way.

Although when I spell it out, it does sound a little crazy.

Yoga in the morning, then a lady will be coming over and we’ll do some work, then I’ll have lunch, I’ll cook up a bunch of food for the week, I’m in class next weekend, a necessary evil to make an extra big batch of food, then write my paper for Trauma class.

After that a ride on the train to the BART.

BART to Oakland 19th street station.

A friend is picking me up from BART around 8 p.m. and we’re going to have dinner and catch up, I haven’t seen him since Burning Man.

Then off to a late night speaking engagement at 10p.m.

Back home via BART and the MUNI.

Sunday, more yoga, then I will be heading to see my tattoo artist at 1:30p.m. to get my star tattoo touched up.

After that I’ll have some opening in my schedule, I’ll probably do some reading for school, take my laptop with me and hit Maxfield’s in the Mission and hang out there until 6p.m.

Do the deal.

And then a double anniversary dinner with friends at Pakwan in the Mission.

There it is.

My weekend.

I’ll get my taxes done in there as well.

That actually won’t take too long as I already did  the majority of them, I just was waiting on one form and since that came in the mail I will be able to finish them within twenty minutes, half hour tops.

I could do that between yoga and meeting with my lady.

Yeah.

I know.

Busy town.

But.

Good busy.

Fulfilled busy.

Happy busy.

Useful busy.

I wont’ be taking my scooter anywhere though, rain all weekend long.

The rain boots will be out and I’ll be doing public transit.

And there will be down time.

Time to watch the rain fall from the streets and the wind ripple through the palm trees on Dolores street while I watch from the big plate-glass windows of Maxfield’s House of Caffeine.

Time to sit with friends and catch up.

Time.

There is more of it then I think or know.

The streets wet and slick, the foyer of a pretty building in the West Portal district.

The soft laughter of shared knowing and the openness of my heart tonight as I spoke out into the dark room, a string of Christmas lights glowing in front of me as I faced the people and shared my self, my story, my strength and the fact that I don’t do it alone.

I can’t do it alone.

I have you.

I have us.

I have fellowship and friends and family and loads of laughter.

So much laughter.

Today at work.

The six-year-old, soon to be seven, so soon, like the day after tomorrow, laughing and chasing me around the four-year old hugging me and dancing around in her tights and balancing on the toes of my nanny clogs as we pirouetted around the living room.

The rainbow sprinkles.

OH.

The rainbow sprinkles.

BiRite Ice Creamery on a Friday afternoon after school has let out.

Strawberry ice cream in a sugar cone with rainbow sprinkles.

How lovely to be a child, hazed out in the glory of ice cream and candied sprinkles.

We sat smooshed next to tables full of people blissed out on sugar and the reprieve from a sudden downpour of rain showers.

The train ride back to the house, the fat bottom clouds scudding across the sky threatening rain, but never quite delivering again.

There will be plenty tomorrow.

And the next day and the next and the next.

Lots of rain in the next week.

But that’s ok.

That’s life.

Stomping puddles in rain boots.

Joyfully popping open my umbrella tonight as we stepped from the restaurant, giddy and full, to walk the slippery shined streets and head home to the Outer Sunset.

Hugs and words to hang again soon.

Such a good life I have.

And I walk in and I can smell the flowers in my house.

So wonderful.

So loved.

So grateful.

Thank you all.

May I mirror back even a glimpse of the happiness I have for you.

The joy, happiness and freedom that I wish for you.

All the things.

All the things.

I wish them for you.

I CHOOSE HAPPY

I CHOOSE HAPPY AND LIGHT!

I hollered out loud scootering down Lincoln Avenue like a maniac.

I have no idea if any one heard me, but I am laughing out loud thinking about it.

I had previous to that moment been a little in my head.

I was feeling small and sad.

I texted a lot of people right as the day was ending.

I had an unexpected thing happen and it threw me for a loop and I found myself in a quandary trying to decide how to proceed.

Breathe.

There’s a start.

Um.

Do the next thing in front of you.

I have two small boys in a bath tub, attend to that, wash the hair, condition it–it was not suppose to be a bath night with hair washing but how the 3 year old got cheese dip in his hair, well, it’s a long story, suffice to say, hair washing happened.

Heh.

God I love these little boys.

Even when they drive me bats.

It took me a good fifteen minutes to get the little guy into the bath, he’s definitely going through a bit of a rebellious phase, and he did not want a bath.

AT ALL.

And of course once I managed to get him in the bath he did not want to get out.

So often that child could be me.

But, but, but, I’m all focused on this thing here and I want this thing here and it’s not good for me, but so what, let me get all engaged with what I think is right and you’re wrong and fuck me.

I’m an emotional three year old.

However.

I do have some tools and mama opened up the tool box and took them out.

I prayed.

I texted my people.

I got some fantastic suggestions.

I couldn’t really use the phone, mom and dad were down stairs and I was not inclined to have the conversation be overheard.

I never am.

I’m either on camera or the monitor and I would rather just keep it discrete.

I can text at work and that feels ok, as long as I am paying attention to what is going on with my little guys.

That being said.

I practiced some restraint and I am grateful for it.

So grateful.

I am also grateful to know that I have choices and though, yes, for a little while I did feel small, sad, and though my heart hurt, it didn’t hurt for long.

I had a bit of conversation in my head about how to respond.

No response is a response, Martines.

No.

No, is a complete answer.

And this nice little tidbit, I don’t owe anyone a reason or a response.

I can choose to not engage.

I can choose happy.

I can choose light.

I can choose joy.

I can choose to get up early on a Monday and go to yoga and work so hard that my arms are literally shaking, I mean, I am holding the pose, but I can see the muscles in my arm twitching and vibrating from the strain of holding the pose.

That was a first for me.

My arms had quite a bit more of a work out than I was expecting.

But it did lead to an enormous release of energy and I was able to turn my heart up to the ceiling in a certain pose and suddenly.

Light and happy.

I saw a crown.

I saw a bunch of daisies.

I felt a wash of joy.

I felt dipped in happy.

It was a pretty swell feeling leaving the studio this morning, climbing into a super hot shower after, putting on my favorite Big Mac vintage overalls and zooming out the door and off to work.

Just a little early so I could throw some gas in my scooter and also get to the post office before I went into work to send off my mom’s Mother’s Day package.

It felt good to do that.

Get my mom’s gift into the post.

I’ll be in school all weekend, though I am sure I will find a minute to reach out and call, I wanted to make sure that I had the package in the mail before the week got a head of me.

I showed up.

I got present for work.

The family wasn’t there.

The boys in school.

The parents out.

It was really sweet and nice to have the house to myself for the first hour of work.

I kicked through most of what I needed to do before the mom came back, cleared with me the day and what to do for dinner, talked about menu planning for the week, and also got my doctor’s appointment approved for next Friday.

I had a nice little Monday afternoon reunion with the boys when they got home from school and did a lot of reading with them before heading out the door to gather a few things from the market, the cleaners, and Lucca Ravioli.

I also found a bird’s nest.

It was so beautiful and small.

It was in the middle of the sidewalk, soft grasses and small twigs, tiny little white pin feathers all interwoven.

I took some photos, gave it to the oldest boy and enjoyed the small gift of beauty that I was given.

So many small gifts of beauty.

Perspective being one of them.

“Of course you feel sad,” he said via text.

“Have your feelings.”

Oh yeah.

That’s right.

I get to have feelings and they will be fleeting.

I can be sad.

I can feel small.

And.

Then I can let go of those feelings and reach for others.

Which is why I was hollering “I choose happy, I choose light!” at the top of my lungs on Lincoln Avenue as I was riding my scooter home.

I choose to not engage in a story or make a drama.

I choose to be happy.

I choose to be an artist and joyful and silly.

And.

“Are you really 43?” He asked me as we leaned up against The Addams Family pinball game at Free Gold Watch.

“You do not act 43.”

“I really am,” I said.

Forty fucking three.

And astounded with happy, joyous,

(lightness)

And.

Free.

All the fucking time.

 

 

Do You Go To

Burning Man?

I replied yes.

And for the first time ever I got such a super negative response that I was a little surprised.

Hey.

Um.

What happened to you have a great smile and you’re really smart.

Yikes.

Who pissed in your Cheerios dude?

FYI.

That kind of vitriol is pretty much a big red flag and I won’t pursue dating you.

Nope.

Yeah.

I’m out there, I’m trying.

I haven’t another date lined up and it’s not a race, I do have a lot of homework to do this weekend as well as a friends birthday party, so a date this weekend might be out of the question anyway.

Oh.

And when you look at my profile and see me in fishnets, boots, with hot pink hair smiling so big it might be hurting my face, you can probably assume that yes, I do do that thing in the desert and if you’re so vehemently opposed–you have a bad experience with Gate?

Get the fuck over yourself.

And don’t bother pursuing a connection.

Not that I said any of that.

No need to.

I just didn’t continue engaging.

I don’t owe anyone an explanation as to why I do anything, I really love my life and I’m pretty fucking stupid happy, except when I’m not, most of the time.

Burning Man is relevant to my life now and for the foreseeable future.

And even if it weren’t I have too many friends that work for the organization, or who have worked there or who still go or who volunteer or want to go, anyway, you get my drift.

I many not have a Burning Man tattoo, I have plenty of Burning Man burned into my heart.

So, yeah, dude, move on.

Moving on can be nice.

Even.

When I am still connected enough with someone that I think about them and the next thing you know I’m getting a message from an ex boyfriend.

It was cute and it gave me pause for a minute.

How people move on, how they leave an imprint on you.

Some people I will always be connected to.

It’s just how it is.

Some people I have moved so far on from that I can’t imagine engaging with them ever again.

I’m not sure how that works, but I suspect that I stay connected to people that I am vulnerable with, that I show my true self to.

Which is how I have such an affinity with Burning Man.

I connect to people out there.

I am trying to connect with people here as well to.

In fact, I just sent out an e-mail asking for a ride to an event this Saturday.

I said yes to a birthday part in the effort to stay connected, to keep up with the friends when and how I can.

It’s not a school weekend for me and yes, despite three papers to write and a lot of doing the deal–started today met with a lady, got someone Thursday, another Saturday, and two folks on Sunday–I need to also have some semblance of a social life.

And these women are special.

Some of whom I may not have seen in months and if I don’t see them this weekend, God only knows, it might be back out at Burning Man when I do see them again.

So.

Working it out.

And working on letting myself stay in today as well.

I found myself getting a bit anxious about how all the things were going to play themselves out this weekend with school, life, recovery, etc, and how in the world was I going to do….

And I just knew.

Slow it the fuck down.

I finished my typical morning routine and added to it instead of detracting.

I did a coloring book meditation and really let myself let go of being anywhere but right where I was at, right here, at this little robin’s egg blue table, having just read the “Just for Today” card that I keep there as a gentle reminder that today is in fact the only day I really have.

I can choose to enjoy it, show up for it, or I can get all up in the future and fritter away the joy that is right here waiting for me to accept and embrace it.

I got a spiritual solution for your desperate aim.

I opened up the back door and listened to birds and the ocean, the running of the N-Judah on the MUNI tracks, I heard my neighbor building something and thought about all the work that we do, humans, just in general to stay alive, the feeding, the grocery shopping the bill paying, and then I brought my focus gently to what I do for myself and how I can continue, no, that I get to continue, it’s not a can do sort of thing, it’s a “I get to do this” thing, to take good care of myself.

I smiled at the flowers in my glass Ball Mason jar on my table.

I have been buying myself a bouquet of flowers ever since the weekend before Valentines Day.

Buy your own damn flowers, I heard in my head, and laughed.

Yes.

I do.

And it’s really nice.

I have three different kinds of daisies: pale pink Gerber’s hot pink Gerber’s and pretty little Marguerite’s, plus a little filler of tuber rose and a couple of soft pink lilies.

So pretty.

I dress for myself and I am becoming.

I represent.

Not for anyone else, but just for me.

I eat tasty food and cook for myself and splurge on good coffee beans.

Oh.

I have written all the ways over and over again, but there is always still this deepening awareness and acceptance of where I am in my life, dating, work, school, yoga, friends, recovery, Burning Man, my scooter, the city I live in, the shifting heart in my chest growing bigger.

A meteorite of love launched against the black velvet sky over the ocean.

I am changing.

And I don’t have to force the change.

It will just happen on it’s own.

Buy your own damn flowers.

Took me years.

But now I do.

Pretty dresses for my love, pretty flowers for her hair, sweet perfumes to spray over my clavicles, music to soothe, and uplift, I am my best date.

And I go to Burning Man.

Ha.

No surprise there.

I know what makes me happy.

Happy.

Joyous.

Free.

All the God damn time.

Hello Daisy

I had this profound experience in yoga class today.

Yeah.

I know.

I’m gonna be that bitch.

Don’t even ask me how much money I dropped on yoga clothes today.

But damn, I was not wearing the right stuff and nothing says distracting like needing to breathe through a ridiculous hard pose, for me, and inhaling my shirt.

Yuck.

I figure I made an investment, I’m going to have the clothes for a while, I will be using them, and hey, I haven’t invested in sports or athletic gear in years.

Not since I did the Aids LifeCylcle and suddenly every other day I felt like I was dropping bills on kits, shoes, socks, saddles, not to mention saddle sores, but that’s another kind of expense, protein powder, water bottles, lights, portable air pump, tires, levers, inner tubes.

I could increase that list if I thought a little harder.

You get the gist.

I just bought three pairs of leggings, three sports bras, and three tops.

I’m committing to three days of yoga a week.

I secretly may do more if I can squeeze it in.

Tomorrow will be day four in a row.

After that I won’t have the opportunity for a class until Thursday.

I debated a moment before signing up for the class, but pretty much knew, as I floated, I mean FLOATED out of the studio, that I would be going tomorrow.

Partially as Mondays will be a day that I have time to get to a class before I head into work.

I want to set the intention of going on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

I will probably also do Sundays.

That, of course, will not happen on weeks that I have school, and that’s ok.

School is a priority.

Work is a priority.

My recovery the biggest priority of it all.

And yoga is going to be a priority.

First, because it was heavily, I mean heavily suggested by my person that I start exercising three times a week, a safety valve to let off the steam of stress caused by full time work and full time school.

I can see now how right she was.

Not that I ever doubted she was right, I knew she was the entire time, I was raging over being right versus being happy, I was the person balking.

My disease, the nature of the malady, is such that anything that it thinks may bring me some sort of joy or love or lightness.

Well.

Fuck that.

No.

So I often take opposite indicated actions.

And even knowing that, I still balked at doing the yoga.

However.

I can report that I am really feeling better.

Yes.

I am sore.

But.

Not as bad as yesterday and I let myself get unattached to how I looked or held or not held a pose, I let myself topple, I let myself fall out of certain poses, I sunk into child’s pose a bit more, but I also tried.

I tried every pose.

I found I was more flexible in regards to a couple of poses that flummoxed me the first time they were introduced to me.

I found myself able to do a few things that I wasn’t able to do yesterday.

And.

My hips feel loose.

Oh my God.

They get so tight from riding my bike.

My knees haven’t hurt, my hips are loosened up, I can feel in my body a general lengthening and releasing of old energy, old thoughts, old ideas.

I love it.

I am so happy that I am letting myself do this.

I am so grateful for tax returns!

And student loans.

I can afford to do this and in all actuality, this is going to save my life, I can feel it.

I have been much more relaxed, more in my body, more present, more accountable.

And happy.

Not always.

I’m not saying I’m all high on yoga, but I am a little.

I caught that delicious feeling more than once of realizing that I had forgotten completely the outside world, the clock on the mantle, the life on the other side of the wood floor, school, work, chores, it was all gone.

I was just there.

In the moment.

So divine.

So needed.

The instructor was the same teacher as yesterday and it was a deepening of the dharma talk she gave yesterday.

It syncs well with my own, personal, Carmen based, spiritual practice.

Meaning I could get behind what she was saying even if I didn’t understand the names or words that she was saying, I got the point.

Non-attachment.

Intention setting.

Yesterday I meditated about love.

Today I set the intention for joy.

I felt light and full of love and joy and I held a person in my heart and sent that person that light and then.

Ha.

I had the vision in my mind of a daisy sprouting from the top of my head.

It was divine.

And silly.

And so apropos.

My favorite flowers are daisies.

In fact, after I went shopping for yoga clothes, thank you Sports Basement for the 10% discount! I went to the grocery store and picked up supplies for cooking and meals for the week at work, and I promised myself I would get myself some flowers.

I got a sweet little mix of pink Gerber daisies, tuber rose, lilies, and purple poms.

I felt happy.

Very happy.

It’s a small thing.

Flowers.

But so much too.

I love getting flowers and I don’t have to wait to be given them.

Buy your own damn flowers.

It’s been a good six days off.

A lot of heart work, thank you Valentines Day for your lessons in service and love.

Which were extrapolated out into my world all week long.

I saw dear friends, I had tea dates and walks on the beach, I saw a movie, I started doing yoga, I rode my scooter a lot, I did lots of doing the deal, I even, yes, I know, did homework–finished my reading for Multi-Cultural Counseling and the Family and got started on my reading for The Therapeutic Relationship–I sat outside in the sun, I went to ModCloth and got fitted (and I got the clothes on Friday!) and dressed up in my crinoline three times this week.

I had me a lovely, sweet, darling, “staycation.”

It was awesome.

I am ready to dive back into the fray.

Knowing.

Especially that I have a new tool in my box to help me be a stronger, healthier, more connected person.

Amazing.

Luckiest girl in the world.

Let me tell ya.

I am.

I am.

Sunshine Day Dream

I woke up to daisies on my doorstep.

Not a bad way to rise and shine.

Happy.

That will be my principle today.

Not that I had any time,  not a single down moment or minute, to spare, to call my person and check in with her that my principle was such, but it was.

October is one of my favorite months in San Francisco.

It’s a gorgeous kind of Indian Summer that most out of towners are not aware of, the sun shines bright, there is a lick of cool in the wind if it’s windy, there’s not usually fog and there usually is sun and high, wide, blue, blue, robins egg blue, skies.

My kind of weather.

My outfit was inspired by the flowers.

I wore my bright yellow polka dot shirt and pig tails with a daisy, fake, but still, in my hair.

And gold on the eyelids.

I could have been a bumble bee if you had stuck some antennae on my head–I wore black tights as well–in fact, I had a moment when I thought, if I didn’t already have an idea for a costume for Halloween, I would go as a bumble bee.

It would be super easy.

Maybe for when I go trick or treating with the boys this year, they were in their police office costumes all day today and are definitely ready for the holiday.

Although, Halloween is on a Saturday this year, so I may not be trick or treating with the boys.

Still it’s nice to know I have a couple of costume ideas and options before the day sneaks up.

It always sneaks up.

And then it’s suddenly here and everyone is raiding Mission Community Thrift and Buffalo Exchange and all the stores in the Haight and no, really, I don’t want to spend money on an outfit, but I don’t also want to be left out.

I only have been invited to one Halloween event so far and I am not certain I want to head over to Berkeley on a Saturday night to play Halloween with the kids.

Maybe.

I also just checked and I do have another invite to the party at the Park Gym, that’s a possibility.

Although, I am not sure about heading into the Mission on a Saturday night Halloween.

The Mission on a Saturday night is enough of a horror show as it is.

I heard of another party in Glenn Park.

Who knows.

If I do go out

I will probably dress up like a pin-up girl.

I have all the stuff.

Polka dot dress with a flare out skirt and crinoline, high-heeled pumps, and I know how to draw on a pretty good cat eye.

What I would need, is someone to do my hair pin-up style.

I know a lady who does her’s in a victory roll and it’s hella cute, but I have never done one and I have neither a flat-iron or a curling iron and I can’t tell you when the last time was I owned hairspray.

Never?

But it would be fun.

I did have a couple of girl friends that wanted me to go to the Armory party, there’s great dance music going on there and there’s another good party at Public Works, but I am hesitating to commit to anything right now.

Committing the most now to getting as much reading done before school rolls around this weekend.

In fact, I set my alarm a little early for tomorrow so that I can get to the rest of it.

Halloween.

I may pass you by.

However.

I am interested in getting dressed up and going to the ARTumnal Burning Man event that rolls around in November.

I got word from the photographer/architect/artist that I am collaborating with for a project he wants to present there.

I would love to see my work out there in the public eye.

He was quite happy to receive them.

I was happy that he was happy.

I really quite adore them.

In fact.

I am thinking of submitting them to The Bastille–the publication in Paris that published one of my stories when I was living in Paris.

They reached out to me today and said they were looking for submissions.

It’s not paid, but it’s a chance to have my work in another publication and I would get a copy of the publication and an invitation, haha, to read from my work in Paris at Shakespeare and Company.

Not that they would pay to fly me over.

I was thrilled when they picked my story The Button Boy to publish and invited me to speak at the event and read the story at Shakespeare and Company.  But by the time the publication came out I was already living back in the states.

I do want to have a reading one day at Shakespeare and Company.

I mean.

Really.

What writer doesn’t?

So in lieu of going to Paris, not that I won’t hey, you want to go to Paris?

Let’s go!

I speak some French and know a few folks over there.

But realistically.

I think the ARTumnal is more likely for me to get into than Paris at this time.

I do want to go back to Paris, especially since one of my fellows in the program at CIIS is from Paris and it would be tres cool to hang out with her there–ma poulette across the Atlantic.

I will too.

I can tell.

I keep digressing on the Paris track.

Ah, the Bastille e-mail is doing it to me.

Anyway.

I would like to go to the ARTumnal.

The tickets are pretty steep.

But I am thinking that I want to be there.

I know I will see people I love and care about.

I know I will see some art and I might even see my own poems somewhere in the big mix of spectacle and carnival, music and mayhem.

If I don’t go out for Halloween, I definitely want to go and get dressed up for this.

Oh.

Shoot.

I just looked up my school syllabus.

I am in freaking class that weekend.

Damn it.

Ugh.

I don’t know that I can get out to it.

FROGS.

Oh well.

At least the poems are done.

And I am happy I wrote them.

They make me happy.

That’s what important anyhow.

Happiness.

Sunshine.

Daisies.

Love.

I got it all today.

Who needs more?

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.