Driven

I did not fuck around today.

This happens when one, and I mean, me, is up at 6 a.m.

I actually woke up at 4 a.m. to use the bathroom and my brain attacked me.

I couldn’t fall right back to sleep.

So many thoughts in my head.

So many places I wanted to be.

I had a rough time getting back to sleep, so when the alarm went off at 6 a.m. I was not happy, but I bounded out of bed and jumped right into my day.

I was up early to do my morning routine and because I had to be in Berkeley this morning to set up my account with Wells Fargo.

Grateful Heart uses Wells Fargo and thus, now, so do I.

I also was up early so that I could get across town and pick up another associate who I have known for years who happened to get hired the week before I did.

She knew I had a car from doing orientation with me a few weeks ago and had asked if she could get a lift to and from the city.

I was happy to oblige.

I was thinking earlier of all the people who have given me rides here and there in the city and how nice it was to finally be playing that gift forward.

So yeah, I could have used an extra half hour of sleep, but it was really quite nice to be of service to a fellow.

We chatted and caught up on the way there and I think I may be developing a new friendship.

With a woman!

With a woman my age in recovery.

So freaking nice.

I have had some dear, amazing, special friends over the years, but San Francisco can be a bit transient, especially with the rents being what they have become and the cost of living going higher and higher.

We talked a lot about that.

I told her about my buyout and she told me how she negotiated down a rent raise at her current place.

A place that although she does not have rent control, but because she’s been there so long and it was in an area of the city that was previously not a delicious place to live in the city, is still relatively cheap.

When she told me what her new rent was I was astounded, it was $100 less than what I spend her on my studio and I’m paying below market.

I told her she could not move, that there really was nothing at all out there in the price range that she described.

In fact.

There is little in the price range that I was hoping for, for myself.

But.

The buy out.

And having taken a bit extra out in student loans for this semester, I have enough to get me into a place comfortably.

And I can spend a little more than I want, should I need.

I started doing some bigger price searches.

I’ve raised my rent to $2300 a month in my searches.

Part of me cringes at that.

That’s basically a thousand more than what I spend now.

But I can do ten months of that kind of increase with the money from the buyout and with the student loan disbursement after I paid tuition, I can cover a few more months of that and be in someplace much more expensive.

Because, fingers crossed, I will be making substantially more money as I go about setting up my private practice internship office.

I got the small business loan monies, that I have to pay back to Grateful Heart, either through fundraising, which I will shortly be setting up a GoFundMe account, or through the accrual of fees from my clients.

It wasn’t a huge loan, $1500, but that’s enough for three months of rent at my office space.

It doesn’t cover three months of administrative costs, or the cost of getting a Square account, setting up a website or doing GSuite, which I have to set up all of that as well, plus business cards, but it gets me started.

I can’t withdraw any money from the account, I can only deposit to it.

So now that I have the account number I can set up the GoFundMe and it goes directly to Grateful Heart.

I can be transparent about where the money is going, that it’s not lining my pockets, but setting up a base for my practice so that I can get started.

So that happened.

Then I headed back to the city, dropped my new friend/old acquaintance, and headed to my first open house of the day.

I had four that I wanted to make before I got to supervision, for my other internship.

Between the two internships, I put in four hours of work on my “day off.”

I didn’t know if I was going to make all four, but the one I wanted to see the most was the one with the earliest open house.

And in the end, it was also the only one that I applied to.

Fingers crossed people.

I was ready to drop all the money I could on it, but the manager had very strict directions for how the process was going to go and I couldn’t get into the conversation with him without it getting misunderstood really quickly.

Language barrier.

So.

I just made it very clear that I wanted the place, I filled out the application, turned over my credit report, my letter of reference from my job, and gave him all the information he needed.

If I get it, move in would be next Thursday.

If I get it, I’m moving in next weekend.

Like I said, fingers crossed.

The only thing it didn’t have that I wanted was laundry on site, but there’s a laundry mat a 1/4 block away, so I wasn’t too upset about that.

It was big, the main studio part wasn’t that big, really just a touch bigger than my main room currently, but the kitchen.

OOOOH.

So big.

I mean.

Really big.

I could have a huge table, which I have always wanted, I have always envisioned a great big farm kitchen table to spread out all my books and school work and papers on.

I once housesat for a man in East Oakland who had this magnificent huge dining table and I would spread out all my work on it, it was just lovely.

I could see myself in this studio, with a great big table, a couple of chairs and just acres of room to write and work and do homework.

The kitchen also had a full size fridge, a full size gas range, lots of shelves, two windows, and a pantry!

The bathroom was no great shakes, no bathtub, but a good clean space, and a decent shower stall, plus again, lots of shelves, including shelves outside of the bathroom.

I mean.

Really I want the place.

I did all the actions I could do, now I have to let go of the results.

And I really made an effort to get to all the open houses.

From the one I saw at 11 a.m. on Guerrero and 18th (location!!!!) then over across town, like literally all the way across town, to a one bedroom in-law in the Outer Sunset on 45th and Taraval by noon.

To a studio on the Haight, literally on Haight street, just in the lower part, not the upper.

To another studio on Fell Street.

All three were poor fits for me.

The in-law was cramped, dirty, and ill lit, low ceilings, bad light, I was like, no more goddamn caves for me.

I said thank you, no thank you and left.

Which was what happened at the next one on the Lower Haight, much smaller than the place on Guerrero and $150 more expensive.

No thanks.

Then when I zipped over to Fell Street, the studio was already taken and was no longer being shown.

I mean, literally some one did what I was trying to do at the Guerrero studio, but they managed to drop the cash to the landlord and get it.

There was an agitated man on the porch angrily texting a friend when I arrived who informed me.

Oh well.

So then I drove back over to the Mission and made group supervision with enough time to grab a salad from Guss’s Market and do twenty minutes of reading for school.

And that’s not counting the driving I did later.

I think I drove more today than I normally do in a week.

I am very, very, very grateful to my best friend for talking me into that car.

It has been such a gift.

So I took care of her too, my little marshmallow, and drove her to the car wash as well.

Before I did my evenings derring do’s.

Grateful for that car does not begin to even cover it.

Seriously.

The Song Hit Me Hard

Like a nova in my chest.

A painful sunburst of love, loss, longing.

I wanted to reach out so very much.

I didn’t.

I just sang along to the song in the car driving down Division Street.

Pushing up the hill between Valencia and Guerrero with flashes of sun piercing the July fog.

You there with me.

In the car, in the song, in the spaces between notes.

I managed.

All day.

To out run you.

Out write you.

Out manoeuver you.

I was not going to sit idle with the feelings.

No.

Not when I could drive them off with business and doing.

I am glad I was doing the doings.

And sad too.

I finished the big project, the internship application.

Remember two weeks ago today?

Remember sitting in the cemetery with me when I got the news?

I burst into tears.

Sitting in that green vibrant lushness that sprung from the brows of dead men.

My face.

Your voice sick with concern.

The tears falling without thought of being in public.

It’s a cemetery.

I’m sure there have been tears there before.

You said why don’t we just go home?

And I wanted to.

But there were places to go yet.

Rabbits to burn.

Bridges to cross.

So to turn round.

Two weeks, to the day, a project, another application, another launching of hope onto the sea, a small newspaper boat with a popsicle stick sail, all I wanted.

All I wanted.

Was to reach out and tell you.

I did it!

But you were not there to reach for.

So I moved.

I ran out into the day.

I did things to prepare.

I am going on a trip tomorrow.

I have zero excitement for it.

And it’s Paris.

I should be over the moon, in the tops of the trees, singing the soundtrack to Amelie.

Or something like that.

But it’s Paris.

Without you.

That makes me.

Well.

What rhymes with you?

Blue.

Yes.

That will work.

There is rain in the forecast.

And all I could think about was your eyes in the shower, how bright they are when you are sleek and wet, how much I wanted to fall against you.

Press into you.

Stay hidden.

And seen.

In the waterfall of warmth and never leave that small space.

I saw the weather for Paris.

Rain.

“I love Paris in the rain,” danced through my head.

I would love it more if you were there walking in the rain with me, eyes wet and full.

You weren’t with me last year when I was in Paris either.

Yet, you were.

I remember walking along the Left Bank, hurrying to find cover in a cafe before the rain hit.

Nestling into a corner in the back, connecting to wifi.

And voila.

There.

Your face on the small screen of my phone.

I won’t have even that this year.

In Paris.

I will be sad.

But it will be in Paris.

Which makes it prettier, sexier sadness.

But sadness nonetheless.

And now.

Now that I have stopped running.

The sadness swarms me and I recall you telling me how to run into the feelings.

Have them.

Just have them.

If I can’t have you.

I can at least have the feelings.

There are so many.

So many.

I can’t outrun them all.

As.

I can’t stop loving you.

Oh, Sweet Friday

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

One sparkling, clean, fresh, tidy home.

I got up early today and I did the deal, wrote, breakfasted, coffee’d, wrote some more, and ran up to the market to pick up a few things for the weekend–my little co-op will be closed for International Workers Day on this Sunday, May 1st.

Which marks three years back from Paris for me.

I remember leaving so well, like it was yesterday and I am marveling at the amazing amount of life that I have lived since I have returned from my adventure in trying to be French for a little tiny time in my life.

It was so very, very, very hard.

But it was so worth it.

Every tear I cried, sluiced away in the memories of buttery smells from the patisserie by Square D’Anvers–which I am quietly and joyfully reminded of every time I ride my scooter to work past Tartine on Guerrero Street.  Tartine is the only place I have ever smelled that same delicious baking smell from outside of Paris.  It has something to do with the butter they use for making the croissants and something to with the bread making.

I am no expert, but my nose, well, it knows.

Three years since I moved back from Paris.

And here I am at the nadir of my last month of my first year of graduate school.

Here I am heading into a well deserved weekend from a great job with children I love and a family I respect and am privileged to work for.

A family that confirmed they want me full time for the summer.

Whew.

Although there will be changes in my schedule which I am not horribly thrilled about, I’ll start much earlier with the family than I do now, for instance.

I will be back to working 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

40 hours a week.

I’ve been averaging 35 hours a week when I’m not in school and 28 when I am.

Plus, I have worked a few extra hours here and there and been hyper flexible with them in regards to coming to the house and doing extra stuff for them when they have travelled.

We will review at the end of summer in regards to fall employment.

I am not afraid of that, although I felt a momentary twinge of fear, it went away fast.

Forget you fear, even should the family decide to not run with me as their nanny and I really can’t see that, although, who knows, come this fall, I will find other employment or it will find me.

l have ten years of nanny experience and I’m getting a Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology to be a Child Psycho Therapist.

Who the hell wouldn’t want to hire me.

Yeah, humility, not always my strong suit, but I certainly don’t need to be anxious about employment, I have always, always, always been taken care of.

As long as I put my recovery first, everything, absolutely everything has followed.

It has not always followed the way I thought it would, but everything has been better than what I could have planned or hoped for.

I mean.

If I had had my way, I’d still be in Paris.

But God had his way.

And.

I’ve been back in San Francisco, making it through the crazy tech times and the boisterous economy and the sky rocketing rents.

Side bar.

My land lord sent me a text asking for my e-mail address and my first thought, was “fuck, here it is, she’s really raising the rent,” and then I remembered what my person said to me–“be positive Carmen, don’t always go to the worst case scenario,” and decided that wasn’t the case at all and sent her my e-mail.

She replied by sending me an invitation to her birthday party.

Ha.

Oh.

I fucking love my crazy head.

So.

Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of that practicing being positive.

“You seem to be coming through this whole Burning Man thing, the not going, really, really well, I am so impressed,” my person told me last night.

I reflected.

Yeah, it was hard and I was sad, but it passed quickly and I know, really deeply, that there is something else I am supposed to be doing, some other experience.

I don’t have to know what it is.

I just know that I need to have the experience rather than Burning Man, otherwise I would be going to Burning Man.

There are no mistakes in God’s world.

I’ll go next year.

And what with confirming my full time employment with the family I was also asked to go with them again to Stone Tree, the place they rent out for weeks in the summer for a part of their summer vacation travel plans.

I will once again be up in Sonoma, outside of Glenn Ellen for a few weeks come this summer.

They go twice, once in the early summer and then again right before school starts back up for the boys in August.

I also found out that they will be traveling to Oregon, but I won’t be going with them, I’ll stay back, do some house work and then.

Hmm.

Maybe Wisconsin?

I have really felt a pull to see my best friend from back home and what with my other friend being in Minnesota not too far from the Twin Cities, I may kill two birds with one stone and see a couple of dear friends.  I have to double check dates and times.  I won’t get paid proper vacation time for it, but I’ll get a short week, 28 hours, for their time away and I will still get my full week of vacation time for my second year school retreat, also in August.

It looks like summer is going to be big regardless of what I do.

It’s not here yet though.

My sparkling clean house attests to that.

First the weekend.

Yoga in the morning, shower, breakfast, coffee, writing, meet my person.

Then.

Yes.

My date.

Eek a mouse.

Finally here.

Yay!

It’s the weekend.

I am officially arrived.

Thank fucking God.

Seriously.