“Fun”ded

A friend told me today that it’s called “Funemployment.”

Jesus.

I don’t know who you are talking to, but help me get some of that, please.

Now that my rent, thank you God, and my phone, thank you friends, and my utilities, thank you family, and my groceries are taken care of, thank you Universe, what indeed do I have to be afraid of?

“Easy does it,” she told me yesterday, and “we absolutely insist on enjoying life, so go have fun.”

I am not quite sure how to do that.

I suspect that going to Wisconsin is going to be fun, you could put me in a paper bag like a cat and I’ll be happy to nestle in it for days, hanging out with my best friend, is the best.

I suppose that’s why she’s my best friend.

That and she’s damn pretty and damn smart and funny, and well, yeah, I am biased, but she’s all that and more.

So, in like 9 days, I’ll be having some fun.

But what can I do now?

In the next nine days, now that I don’t have the anxiety of what is going to happen to me since I can’t work for over a month? I have to incorporate some fun into my existence.

I have a lady coming over to do some work tomorrow, which is its own kind of fun.

And the gentleman who helped organize the whole crowd funding thing himself, is going to stop by for tea, he wants to see what all the fuss is about.

How it is that I know so many people from so many places.

I get around, dontcha know.

I know a lot of folks because I like to live life, I like to say yes, I am not upset at myself any longer for the scooter, I was just trying to cram more into the stream of life and I got ahead of myself.

There’s got to be a balance for me.

A little fast.

A little slow.

“It’s going to whiz right by you,” a friend told me tonight over a cup of tea up at the Starbux in Noe Valley, “before you know it, you’ll be right back in the mix.”

I know that’s true.

The days loom long, but if I keep it small, they are manageable.

Today I got up and was already having a hard time with what I was going to do.

I did my morning routine and asked that I be guided to just take the next action in front of me instead of having anxiety about how the entire day was going, that I “didn’t have anything to do” was actually a lie.

I could begin to break my day down into small, bite sized pieces and go from there.

I had breakfast, which is not quite the ordeal it’s been since I am able to now walk well enough in the boot to not need the crutches inside.

So, breakfast, made the bed, made the coffee, iced the ankle while I was eating, made a second cup of coffee, iced the ankle some more, wrote four pages long hand, sat and did a meditation, and got myself into the shower.

I will admit, that despite the shower stool in my bathroom, I am still not showering quite as much as I would prefer, it’s still a big ordeal to do it.

But it went easier than the last time and I was able to get in and out without doing irreparable damage to myself.

Then a load of laundry.

A few phone calls.

My ankle is singing, so sit down.

Have a cup of tea.

Elevate it.

Ice it.

I have to say, I probably ice it more than it needs, but my god, it feels so good that I enjoy it.

The best part is when the cold is just a tiny bit wet, the condensation soaking my sock, the frozen peas somehow get colder, and it numbs it all out.

It is lovely.

I also reminded myself to continue with the ibuprofen, the pain is not too bad and I can manage it without, but I also know that it’s an anti-inflammatory drug and when I walk for a bit in the boot or don’t have my ankle elevated, there is still swelling happening.

It doesn’t look dead dog leg bad.

But it don’t look real purty yet either.

So, ibuprofen is still happening.

But the fun.

How do I get some fun up in this bitch?

I will say I have been writing more, that’s a kind of fun, low-key, you know.

I have been listening to a lot of music.

That’s great.

Doing a little chair dancing with my foot on a pillow.

Sitting outside when the weather abides it, the sun on my face is fun.

I’ve gone through an old photo album and found some photographs I had completely forgotten about.

That could be a little fun for me.

Now that I am a bit more dexterous with the walking boot and the crutch–down to one crutch when I go outside, I could go for a little walk in the neighborhood, like a block, maybe two, and just take some photographs.

Get really into the tiny details of the block I live on.

I’m sort of movied out, tell the truth, not too interested in watching videos.

I do need another book.

The Jonathan Lethem book was so not doing it for me, I had it dropped off at the library by a friend yesterday.   And today I ate the entire book “Slam” by Nick Hornby, not bad, not great, but easy and light and a quick ass read, so I have nothing new in the house to read.

I think what that leaves me with, aside from the no fun data entry I agreed to do (half way done!), is the crafty bit of making some hair pieces.

I found out another friend is going, (I actually typed right over that, assuming that you know where I am going. “You can still go to Burning Man?” A friend asked, and when affirmed that indeed I would be, he concluded, “then everything’s fine.”) to that man who burns in that place over there in Nevada, and I thought, I should make her a fancy little hair piece to give to her on playa.

Now that sounds like fun.

Make some things for people, not think about myself.

Get crafty, girl.

Now that I am not having financial nightmares about rent, et al, I can perhaps enjoy the rest of my down time.

Aw.

Hell.

I will enjoy the rest of my down time.

Maybe I’ll even glitter my boot.

Another Day

Another bag of peas.

Actually, it’s the same bag of peas, constantly recycled back to the freezer to get good and cold again.

Peas porridge hot.

Peas porridge cold.

Peas porridge in a pot.

Nine days old.

Some like it hot.

Some like it cold.

Some like it in the freezer.

Fourteen more days to go.

Ugh.

Midway between crazy and crazier.

But grateful for the care and support I have been getting.

So many wonderful folks who have helped with the group funding–people I barely know, to people I love and respect and know well, to anonymous donors, so much help–so much so that my rent is nearly covered.

That’s what the amount was for–rent, phone, utilities, and the gentleman who set it up added a little extra to cover the costs of the platform.

Today he asked me if he could swing by and have a cup of tea with me this weekend.

“You’ve got some awesome friends, and clearly lead an interesting life, I’ve gotten responses from Paris, from Iceland, wow!”

Then he said I would like to find out more about you, let’s hang out.

And it’s not in a seedy kind of way.

He’s gay, folks, and older.

Not that either of those things have stopped me in the past.

Ahem.

However, he’s just being of service.

To the point that he has also asked me to keep him anonymous, except for a few close friends who helped him organize the funding site, I have told no one.

It’s not my place, and again, I am so glad I am not doing it, I would muck it up, or make it out to be something more, or less than it is.

I explained to a lovely lady who was here this afternoon doing some work with me that I can’t even go on the site, it makes me feel crazy and uncomfortable–clear signs that it is the right thing to be doing–and that it is still hard to accept that so many people want to help.

I really am so blessed.

The least I can do is entertain my support network with a cup of tea and tell him of hijinks in the desert, Burning Man, or on the Continent, Paris, London, Rome, or just about Wisconsin, which is another world in and of itself.

“Let me know what you can do, or can’t do, if you can walk, or if you have any interest in doing, this, this, or this,” my best friend said in a voicemail to me.

My fervent hope is that I will be out of the boot, and though not running, I will be mobile and able to walk without it.

I am looking forward to seeing my friend and her family and having some Wisconsin summer, although, the weather here has been pretty lovely, truth be told, night-time in the Midwest is an amazing experience.

As long as I can out run the mosquitoes, I should be alright.

And of course everything she said sounded fantastic, mostly just because I will get to hang out with her, wherever we go, whether it is to traipse, slowly, about the Twin Cities, or it’s a trip up to her family cabin on Mud Lake.

Or Lake 19 or 7 or what ever lake number it is.

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes.

Wisconsin is home to 15,000.

So, yeah, lots of bodies of water.

I wouldn’t mind going for a dip.

I don’t believe I will be pulling out my butterfly stroke, too much effort involved in the dolphin kicking, believe me, but I wouldn’t mind a lazy float in the water, that would be spectacular.

And silly as it sounds.

I am looking forward to Hudson, Booster Days.

Carnival.

I can get behind that.

Fireworks, Midway rides, Tilt-a-Whirl, the smell of popcorn and cotton candy, the lights, the Zipper, and most important of all small town carnivals, the ferris wheel.

I’d like a ride on a ferris wheel, in the warm summer night with the Midway lights below flashing and the air busking me with kisses, the smells, buttery, salty, hot, sweet billowing underneath the carriage, the wheel of love spinning against the horizon.

Something beyond romance in the archetypical wheel at the carnival, a kind of Americana mythic symbol all of its own.

I also never, my one regret, really, did go on the gigantic ferris wheel at the end of the Tuileries in Paris, by Place de la Concord.

I wanted to go, but I wanted to go during the summer and with someone, you know, not alone, not by myself.

There goes that old romantic fantasy again.

Sigh.

She still pops her head up now and again, and you know, darling girl, Paris, well she’s not going anywhere and we can go back, ok.

Ah.

Well.

Paris is another day-dream, another time.

For the being, time being, I am here, in San Francisco, getting very intimate with my room, with the back porch, with the sounds of the birds at different times of the day and the ocean.

How during the day I don’t hear it, but now and again, and then as the light fades, the traffic slows, the time between MUNI trains barreling down Judah eases up, I suddenly hear it more and more, until the whole studio seems engulfed in the thrush of sound and I am swaddled in the waves.

Sound waves.

During the day it is the warm sun that draw me to it and at night it is the cool rushing sound that assures me that every thing is fine, easy does it lady, you’re taken care of.

“Now that your rent is being taken care of,” she said to me, mocking with love, “what do you have to worry about, quick let’s manufacture something!”

Exactly.

There is nothing to worry about.

There is nowhere to go.

That might be the most exciting trip indeed.

Not to the playa.

Not to Paris.

Not to LA, Rome, or London.

But inside.

Inside to that cool, calm place of serenity that beckons with the lush seductions of ocean waves and steadfast compassion.

Sigh.

That’s the real journey.

The one to the interior.

My own little heart of lightness.

 

Blessed, Supported, Loved

Taken care of.

I could increase the list ad infinitum.

I was blown away by the generosity of my friends, family, fellows, this past twenty-four hours.

So many sweet thoughts and gifts, it makes me want to crawl under my bed and hide.

The I don’t deserve this police are trying to knock down my door, but I keep telling them I’ve moved.

And I have.

Some place into a kind of humility.

A sweet place of grace where I can actually allow myself the afternoon to sit and bask in some sunshine as it comes through the back door of my studio.

To snuggle into my bed, a bed I made again today!

That is progress, making the bed.

To get into that made bed, unmake it a little, and put the soundtrack to Amelie of Montmartre on my laptop and drift off into daydreams of Paris and scenes in the Metro, to actually being asleep, cozy and cared for.

Now, I can also get antsy as fuck and I don’t know how many of these “idyllic” afternoons I can take without running around the house in a panic, but though I am slow to surrender, surrender I am.

The thoughts danced about this evening as I was listening to another share her experience with life and humility, getting right sized, and a small, very small, epiphany–how long I have taken care of others, from the ripe age of three, four, to two weeks ago when I left my last nanny shift since the accident.

Today marks two weeks since I have worked.

So much, and so little (moving), has happened in those two weeks, the GoFundMe (which is still surreal and I am glad I don’t have a hand in doing it or running it, it does freak me out a bit to ask for that level of care), the folks who have consistently picked me up and carted me around town, the new friends I am making, the old friends that I am getting to actually see, the number of people who have come over to my house to hang out, do work, or just sit in a chair and shoot the shit with me, it’s almost overwhelming.

As some one astutely put on my fund-raising platform,

Sit your ass down and heal. Your friends love you.

My God.

I am loved.

I feel a little Sally about it, “you really love me, you really do!”

But so taken care of.

So taken care of, I wonder, well, shoot, what do I have to worry about now?

Just that, sit your ass down and heal.

That is the directive.

Healing takes time and like the crazy person I am, I don’t have time for that, but I have heard, oh too many of them over the last two weeks, horror stories of folks trying to get back to sports, athletics, daily living, or what have you, work, before an injury has healed and done themselves worse and re-injured themselves.

I cannot afford to do that.

I will lose my mind.

So, yes, I will nap.

And yes, I will sit, sitting now, elevating, icing, compressing.

I will also cook soup.

Made a pinto bean and rice stew with purple and gold carrots, chicken, cauliflower, and yes, kale (if I sneak it in with all the tastiness I can’t tell it’s kale, I just feel good about getting some greenery in me), plus brown rice, today.

Made my bed today.

Well, it was made for a minute.

Worked on some data entry.

I will not be continuing forward with it once I have finished doing the service, not my thing, not.

I can do an hour, then my brain feels like it’s gotten a sprain.

Which is great information.

Should I be so inclined to not want to go back to being a nanny, which is not the case, mind you, I know that my career path is NOT data entry.

“Oh goodness,” I told her, on the way to the Inner Sunset, “I have tried so many things, and I am really glad that I have tried going after my crazy ideas, helped kill the fantasy, and get out of the obsession that something, a job, was going to fix me.”

Anyone remember when I was going to be an accountant?

bwhahahahaha.

Oof.

So sorry, I actually have two very dear people in my life who are accountants, and they are amazing, but you know, it’s not the job for me.

Or retail.

I got offered a retail position yesterday.

“You’d be great!  And you don’t have to move around too much,” she said, “and if you need more time to heal, the shop would be willing to wait for you.”

Again, amazing how people are so kind, generous, helpful, but that’s not the fit either.

I do like to move around, which is why the nanny thing is a good fit too.

“Are you going to be ready for the great nanny share-off that week in July?”

One of my families sent me a message today to check in and remind me that I had agreed to do a three family share for the week of July 15th-18th.

I think I am.

As long as I am not trying to do jumping jacks before then.

I will also have had one week back at work, fingers crossed, and will be able to gauge it.

The ankle is healing.

I can tell it is, the swelling is slowly going down, I don’t look like I have fat sausage toes most of the time.

My foot doesn’t look like a dead thing hanging from my leg.

Serious.

There have been a few times when I felt like I was carrying around a rotting dead part of my body.

I kept having these horrid flashbacks to when my family dog got hit by a car and instead of doing an amputation on the front leg, we attempted to try to keep it, but it didn’t heal.

In fact.

It started to rot.

That is a smell I can never, ever, erase from my memory.

Looking down at my foot a few times was like seeing that dead limb on my dog.

It doesn’t look like that today.

Thank God.

And if I follow directions, sit still, let my body heal, and love myself as much as I can, which really means having some humility and accepting the love that is being showered upon me instead of shying away from it, then I know I will come out of this with not only a healthy ankle, but an amazing community of friends, family, and fellows, with whom I get to continue sharing this crazy journey.

The best of both worlds.

Love is the master principle.

 

Doing For Me What I Cannot

Do for myself.

Wow.

I had no idea how hard it would be to surrender to this, but, I have, and here is the result–I let someone start a fundraising campaign to help me get through this month plus of not working due to being out of work with a severe sprain.

It’s hard to wrangle toddlers when you can’t do more than hobble about on crutches.

Although, hurrah, I did do some more walking about my studio.

I even did a load of laundry and I made my bed.

Then I took a shower.

In between these monumental tasks, because that’s what they are at the moment, time-consuming, monumental chores, I text back and forth with my new friend and followed the directions he gave me to get the link and see the site he set up.

He started a Go Fund Me donation site to help me get through until I am back at work.

I did nothing other than say, yes, you may and yes, thank you, and yes, I need help, and yes, I will let you.

Yes, yes, yes and more yes.

I explained to a friend earlier how uncomfortable I was accepting the offer that it made me realize that I needed to accept the offer.

In fact, the site had been live for an hour before I could bring myself to look at it.

It takes something to admit, at least for me it does, that I need help, that I haven’t gotten it all figured out.

Granted I don’t need as much help as I would have if my employers hadn’t agreed to pay me a little stipend until I get back.  I haven’t yet received word as to how much exactly it is, but I am estimating it to be about $300.

I sat down when my friend said figure it out, the total to ask for, $2,000, $3,000, and I’ll make it happen.

Whoa.

I don’t need that much.

Although, sure, give me the money!

Eek.

No.

That’s dishonest.

That’s not a principle I am supposed to be working.

The opposite of that in fact, so I took out my notebook with my spending plan, took a photo of it and sent it to him, sans the manicure/pedicure/eyebrow waxing column (no one need pay for my vanity except me, thank you very much) and what I had in the bank and was expecting to get from my employers.

The needed rest to get through I estimated at $1500.

He set it up to be slightly higher than that, to cover the cost of the fees for using the site.

I finally looked at it.

And yes.

I did cry.

I also shivered and got goosebumps, I am so playing this forward.

I am currently doing some data entry for a service entity in my community and I was offered $10 an hour to do it.

I made the decision to not ask for money, but volunteer my service to the facility until I was back at work.  I told the manager of the establishment today and he said I may change my mind, to keep track nonetheless, and maybe we could move forward with it when I went back to work.

Uh.

Probably not.

But who knows.

$10 and hour for data entry is not my cup of tea.

And I like tea.

But not all tea.

I don’t like green tea, it tastes like data entry.

So.

I also resolved that I would continue to do creative work and use my time well that way, to not sit on my ass and watch movies and shows and downloads.

I read a little today, in between the chores, and that felt good too.

To be a competent writer I need to help hone my craft by reading.

I will say, I am not really into the book I am currently reading, Jonathan Lethem’s Dissident Gardens, it’s ok, but it’s too transparent and obvious in the narrative, and too wordy in a historical way that I don’t find compelling–I’m not much on historical novels.

However, I am reading it as it’s well written, sometimes I will continue to read something that doesn’t capture me all that much  just because it’s written in a style completely different from mine.

It is the learning and being teachable.

And hey, something’s working for Lethem, he’s got a lot more books published than I do.

Plus, I only have one other book in the house that I haven’t read and I am saving it for as long as I can.

I still have two and a half weeks of down time before I return to work.

I am feeling better, just getting to be a little more active is helpful.

I did notice that I pushed a little harder and had to sit down and rest more this afternoon than I wanted too and by the time I was ready for my once a day outing, I was reduced to needing to use the crutches to get about.

But, hey, they are some fancy looking things, all gold and shiny, that I don’t mind relying on them.

Keep that upper body strong since I am not hauling and toting little boys and girls around.

Ugh.

Miss those little monkeys too.

I feel like they are going to be five years old by the time I get back to them.

With full on adult vocabularies and career paths that outstrip mine.

Right now, there is no career path for me other than humbly accepting with gratitude the help being offered to me.

“You are helping other people to ask for what they need,” she said to me on the phone when I choked up telling her about the GoFundMe  account.  “It is so important that we allow ourselves to ask for help when it is needed, and it’s keeping you connected, you aren’t isolated.”

No.

I am not.

I have taken more phone calls these past thirteen days then I can recall having all the last two months.  I have seen people whom I haven’t gotten to see because our work schedules and life schedules haven’t synced up.

Now, well, I am hostage, humble hostage, to this ankle and this slow recovery and healing.

But I can see it.

The healing.

Both of my ego and of my ankle.

It’s an amazing thing.

Not something I could have ever orchestrated on my own whatsoever.

And for that I am grateful.

Over the moon grateful.

Thank you friends for your help.

May I return the favor soon.