The Jumping Off Place

I was talking to my therapist about all the things today.

All the things.

My God.

So much to cover.

It’s been a busy few weeks since last I saw her.

The buyout happening.

Looking for a new place to live.

My upcoming interview with another private practice internship.

Relationship stuff unfolding.

Going back to work.

My PhD program starting in less than a month.

Paris.

France.

My relationship with Paris and France and how I have always looked for something there, something intangible, but with a similar feel for what I have looked for when I have gone to Burning Man.

That I’m not going to Burning Man this year.

And.

That I don’t feel at all bad about that, it feels right.

There is so much transition happening.

I am grieving the loss of my home.

I love my little home and it’s unfathomable to me where I am going to land next and things will be very different wherever that is.

The packing up and putting away of the life I created in this space will be hard.

Saying goodbye to it will be hard.

Thinking about it is hard.

You and I together, together in this room.

I have so many memories of this space with your face all over it.

Your body there, in that corner, on my bed, sitting, sleeping, everywhere I look, there you are.

And you are no longer here.

Removed.

Away.

Gone.

And like the feel of you in my bones, you are here in these walls, on these walls, the photos of us together, that will get packed up in a box and put away.

They won’t go up on the new walls of the new home and when I think about that.

Well.

I am sad.

I thought of it this morning and I cried.

Good thing I was on my way to therapy.

Ah.

Love.

How I shall miss you.

I miss you already.

And there is something terrifying and exciting about this next part of the journey as well.

I feel like I am at the pinnacle of a mountain about to leap off.

But instead of falling.

I see myself flying.

I just don’t know where I am going to land.

I do know.

It will be where God wants me to be and I do know that I won’t be dropped.

I will soar.

I will sail.

It doesn’t mean that I am not afraid, I am afraid.

I don’t know what to do without you.

I have believed, shit, I still believe, that we are meant to walk through this world together, hand in hand, side by side.

The ease I have with you.

The attachment I have for you.

How will I be without you?

I keep listening to this album by Herbert.

British electronic pop house music.

I got turned on to Herbert by a clerk at a record shop in Noe Valley back in 2007?

I was enthralled and for whatever reason, the music has seemed so apropos to what I am going through.

Tears fall down my face when I least expect.

Staring out the window at work looking at the avocado tree and thinking of you and all the other times I have sat and watch the wind ruffle through those leaves.

When I used to be so antsy with anticipation to leave work because I knew I was coming home to see you.

The feel of you on my skin, in my bones, against the line of my neck, the touch of breeze on my skin a whisper of where your mouth would soon be.

Gone.

But not the memories of  you.

I fear that those memories will fade when I move.

I won’t see the shadow of the bamboo blinds on the back door slatted with sunlight splayed on my bed, just that one spot when I rode astride you, my hair full of sunlight, your face golden, and your eyes, the pool of them that I fell into without having any idea of the ocean of love I had dived into.

How will I be when I can’t hold those memories of you within these small four walls?

Different.

I know.

I maybe, well, I don’t know yet, but I know it will be different.

Perhaps I won’t cry as much.

I can see you everywhere in this studio.

There is not a place your presence hasn’t touched.

You are everywhere.

Sometimes it is unbearable and sometimes it is sweet, although, truth–it was never bitter and I suspect it never will be.

I have no regrets my love.

I have none.

Nary a single thing I would have done differently.

It all carried me here.

You and I together, together in this room.

And I am at the top of the mountain and I cannot see through the fog and mist to the valley below.

I cannot tell where I will land.

Where I will go.

Only that go I must.

Only that.

I must leap.

I must leap.

I must.

I shall kiss the sky.

I shall pinion upward.

I shall.

But before I go.

I will take these last few sweet moments to hold you dear.

Darling.

Love of mine.

To hold you momentarily just a bit longer in this room.

Which really.

Is just another reflection of the room in my heart.

That room where you will never exit.

I promise.

Even when I cease to live here.

You will always live in me.

Get Your Sexy On

That’s what it felt like today.

When I wasn’t in tears.

I was in this interesting back and forth between working it and being worked over.

I went to yoga and had a really great class, my favorite teacher was teaching and he may start offering some more classes at the studio, at times I could make, so I don’t have to obsess about doing more yoga while I’m doing yoga.

I felt soft and strong in my body and I had a very open moment as I was finishing the class in the final meditation where I just felt some heart opening and some letting go of old, old, old wounds.

I think I moved through the world with that awareness today, both tender and beautiful, open and sore, alive, and sad, awed and in wonder.

I felt in my body and confident and sexy.

And I found out today that a man who I have always found drop dead sexy gorgeous has found me attractive too.

What?

And.

Of course he’s not really available to me at the moment, but fuck, it was really awesome information to get.

It means that my instincts are pretty spot on.

In fact, my instincts are so much better than I give myself credit for that I am really seeing that I am, in fact, my problem.

I was talking with a friend earlier about a coffee date I have tomorrow and how I wasn’t sure if the guy was really interested, and where’s the follow through, and…

“You know, I hear you say that a lot, like, the guy is interested, wants to hang out but doesn’t set a time, I hear this a lot, and…”

Ugh.

And yeah, I know, I have to say something, I have to be the confident one.

And confidence is sexy and God only knows how badly I want to be sexy.

Psst.

Hey lady.

I hate to break it to you, but you are sexy, just stop shooting yourself in the foot.

Don’t bother with vague, be assertive, if someone says “hey, let’s hang out,” or “we should hang out sometime,” nail them to a time.

I don’t have the patience or bandwidth to dilly dally around.

I will always be busy, that is the nature of who I am.

There will always be something in my life, because I don’t wait around to live, I go out and do things.

Except date, I’m not so great at that and it’s because I am in fear.

Fear of not getting what I want and fear of getting what I want.

So.

I am vague, I don’t say what I need, I dance around.

Fuck that.

I am confident.

Well.

Ha.

Obviously not always, but thinking or acting like I’m not a hot tamale is asinine.

I am gorgeous, I sound like an asshole, but I don’t often affirm my attractiveness as I have been classically trained like many women, to deny myself, my beauty, my authority as a sexy creature, as someone worthy of being pursued.

When I down play myself, I actually de-value my worth and I wall up and I get cold and then, well, fuck, who would want to ask me out?

I remember an ex-boyfriend telling me once that he was very surprised by my lack of self-confidence, “I feel like I am constantly having to ‘piss on my tree’ you are always being stared at, and you have absolutely no clue.”

Of course not, because I won’t be safe then.

But I’m not safe anymore in my bubble of self-dom, dancing alone in my room when I should be, could be, ought to be dancing in someone’s arms.

So.

Fuck it.

Fake it until I make it.

I’m not going to get back on dating apps or sites or any of that happy horse shit.

But.

I am going to get a hell of a lot clearer and more direct with men.

The next time a man says we should hang out, I’m going to ask when, give a time I’m available and say let’s make a plan.

Because this sexy beast is worth making a plan for.

I have had a lot of friends advocate for this sexiness and God forbid I waste it, I only have this life to live and I am not going to live it with regrets.

I have made many leaps of faith in my life.

Moving to Paris to turn 40.

Quitting a highly paid nanny job to go work in a bike shop.

Traveling by myself to London, Rome, New York.

Moving to San Francisco with a 2 month sublet, $2,000 in savings and no job.

Fuck.

The biggest leap of all.

Getting sober.

If I can do that, I can ask for what I want from a man and a date.

Yes, yes I can.

I have the power.

It’s not mine.

It’s Gods

And if you think that’s crazy, that’s ok.

God is a sexy beast too.

Like to like.

I always say.

My instincts are just fine.

How could they not be?

They are God-given.

Seriously.

Time to unleash myself from my own fear and shame shackles and get the fuck on with my life.

God did not mean for me to be alone and it’s my own fear that’s keeping me that way.

I’m over it.

Ready for the next phase of my development.

Bring it the fuck on.

This PSA, FYI, is not brought to you by my hormones.

Thank you very much.

Just my own personal reality check.

With a little help from my friends.

Thank you friends.

I couldn’t do this without you.

Thanks for having my back when I was too afraid to.

My heart is open.

My eyes are clear.

My sexy is definitely back.

Watch out.

 

 

No News

Is good news?

I think.

I guess.

I don’t know.

As I haven’t heard back yet from the mom in regards to my cost of living ask.

Ack.

It could go either way.

But.

I have a feeling, fingers crossed, that what is going on is that they are working on putting together a contract.

I hope that’s the case.

I was giving myself a case of anxiety checking my e-mail all day long.

Nothing.

Not a peep.

But hey!

Guess what time it is?

Time to fill out my FAFSA forms again.

Ah.

Sure, more student loans, why not?

Just what every girl needs this time of year.

And, heck, all times.

I’m not mad though, it’s just another thing that has to be done on my journey through grad school, through life, through this next twist in the road.

I was thinking, ooh, I know, it gets me into trouble, watch out, that I could have worded it different, my ask to the family, or that I should have waited until they had sent me the contract, or….

And then I realized.

Hey.

It’s ok.

If it was a mistake, that’s ok, I get to make mistakes.

I’m allowed to fuck up.

I will be taken care of.

It still is uncomfortable waiting to hear back, but I also realize the last couple of days have been an intense time for a lot of folks and they may just have a lot on their plate.

No need to panic.

I’ve got other things to panic about anyhow.

I have a great big paper to write this weekend.

I have great big amounts of reading to do.

Sigh.

But.

So it goes.

I have done a lot of reading in the past week, more so than I thought I would get in, heck, I even snuck in two and a half chapters at work today while the boys were in quiet time, which never happens.

Ever.

But there is still much to go and I really will need to focus my time and energy on all things school this weekend.

Not like I had date plans anyway.

No dates since last Saturday’s MOMA coffee date, which was my last of the last Tinder dates that was floating out there.

I haven’t been asked out and I haven’t asked anyone out and I don’t have plans to.

My monkey brain wants to make something of that, but at the moment, I am just trying to keep my mind on the big Psychopathology paper I need to kick out this weekend.

But maybe I just need to focus on what is in front of me this next day and not worry too much.

Just do what I can when I can.

It will get done.

Doesn’t it always?

I actually had a classmate reach out and ask me for some directions on the paper and I broke it down and I was like, hmm, I think I actually understand how to write this paper better than my brain wants to let on.

Good old brain.

You just love creating some anxiety don’t you?

Tomorrow is Friday and I am grateful.

It’s been a big week.

When tomorrow wraps I’ll have put in 41 hours.

Which on one hand is not so much.

But when I throw in grad school reading, meeting my person on Monday, meeting another lady on Tuesday, and just the day-to-day out and about and doing the deal.

It feels like a big week.

Full time, full tilt, full on, boogie.

Friday how I do love thee.

The weekend always goes by fast and it’s hard to believe that it’s November.

I’ll hand it to grad school for that, the days they do go by quick when they are so filled.

I do wonder when I try to add dating into the mix if I am just trying to distract myself from thinking about all the work I have to do.

But.

I also don’t want to wait until I’m done with grad school to be dating.

Although it’s been suggested that I not worry about getting into a relationship while I’m in school.

Sure.

What’s another few years?

And how come?

I mean, I am actually in the minority in my class, most of the people in there are partnered up and or married.

I’m a slow learner, I suppose.

And there were so many other things I needed to work on that I know relationship stuff tended to get tossed into the back yard.

Here’s a funny.

Guy who stood me up on a date a month and a half ago, yeah, which one, anyways.

Now following me on Instagram.

What is up with that?

He is hot though.

Ha.

Ah.

Doesn’t really matter, I don’t foresee a hottie in this weekend, I’ve got too much to do.

The weekend before the weekend of classes is often the biggest work weekend for me of the month.

I have to prep food for work, for school, and for the following work week–although, hey!

I just realized, maybe not so much.

It will be a short week as it’s Thanksgiving.

I am so looking forward to going out-of-town with my girl friend from school.

Slumber party!

It’s going to be nice to, to have Thanksgiving plans.

Last year was awful.

That was when things were actively falling apart for me around an unrequited love relationship.

Every once in a while I think about him.

He popped into my head today.

Some one read a blog in my archives about him and it made me think about him for a moment and wish him the biggest love.

That was nice.

To wish love for someone with no strings or expectations.

I have a few of those in my life.

I am lucky to have the love in my life that I have experienced.

No.

It has not always, um ever, looked like what I thought it should or would.

But that’s ok.

It’s been love.

And for that.

Well.

I am grateful beyond words.

Love.

 

How Did I Get From

Here to there and back again?

The day just flew the fuck by.

And here I am again, at my little sky blue, robin’s egg blue, tiny table writing yet again.

I have already written a lot today.

I started and finished my Multi-Cultural paper.

Five pages, 11 pt font, 1.5 paragraph space, 2,653 words–not counting my reference page, I haven’t put that together yet.

And I haven’t proofed it.

I was typing out the last paragraph before work when I realized, holy shit, I have to go to work.

Now.

I mean, go.

I was a few minutes behind my normal walk out the door time.

I had gotten up early to do the paper, I also wrote before I wrote the paper, my standard three pages long hand.

All the writing.

All the time.

I don’t mind though, the words they come and I am continually grateful that I have the words to express the pictures in my head.

There are a lot of scenes, there is a lot of language.

There are a lot of notebooks, blogs, papers, book manuscripts, poems, etc, etc.

I have written (not including the blogs, probably about 45-50 that I scrubbed when I started this previous nanny gig, my employers did a deep back ground check and I did not want them to find anything should they be led to my blog) 1,789 blogs.

HOLY SHIT.

Really?

Each of my blogs is at least 1,000 words.

That is always my goal, get to a 1,000 and if I get past that, fuck yeah, but at least get to the 1,000.

The same goes for the morning writing, at least three pages long hand, there is importance to not losing that muscle for me, often times I am working something out in those pages, even if they seem insubstantial, I can tell when I have skipped, rarely, or skimped, again, rarely, but it does occasionally happen, I can feel it in my bones.

I am many, many, many things.

But I am always a writer.

It does not matter how many views I have had of my blog.

67,771.

Or how many people have visited my blog page.

20,475.

Or how many followers I have.

Not so many.

But most of them I don’t know, they, you are not my friends, you stumbled upon my little blog and read a few of them and subscribed.

How fucking flattering is that?

I have 281 followers.

281 people that have opted to have my blog sent to their e-mail.

Whether or not they read it, well, I have no clue, but I am flattered none the less.

But I don’t write with you in mind.

Oh.

Sometimes I edit what I am going to write about or I allude to something, I can wear my heart on my sleeve, I can be totally transparent, but there’s still so much left unsaid that I am quite aware that I could be writing another blog entirely with a lot of material that I would not dare put here.

That being said, I do like being available and writing about things that matter to me, to my heart, to my being, I like speaking to and about my experience.

I don’t know for the most part what I will write when I sit down to share.

He sent me a photograph of train tracks.

I was reminded of summer days in Wisconsin, living in Windsor, the railroad tracks that cut through town.

Depending on my mood I would go left or right.

If I was going left I was wandering off into fantasy land.

To the left were banks of golden red snap dragons, their sword like leaves cutting through the humid air, there was a farm with horses that were out to pasture, there was a small bridge over a creek, there were blackberry brambles, and off to the left, heading out of Windsor, toward Madison, there was an island of old oak trees in the middle of a corn field.

I would balance on the rails and walk them as far as I could without falling off.

I would see that island of oaks and think about sitting in the grass there, what that perspective would look like.

I would fantasize about sitting under those oaks and the romance of it was dire and daunting and isolating, but sweet too, though bitter, I would nibble at the fantasy, a thin wafer cookie of sustenance to get me through another summer day.

However.

If I was going to the right.

I was running away from home.

Heading toward school.

Going towards the town of DeForest.

It was infrequent that I turned right, but it did happen.

And usually at night.

Or.

Once in a while I would be returning from school at night, too embarrassed to accept a ride home from swimming practice or debate or forensics, or French club, because my mom had forgotten me or was late or, who knows, I would wait and wait and wait.

And at some point.

I would head through town, walk out to the front of the school, hope to hear my mom’s car, knowing all the while that I wouldn’t, I would walk down the left side of the road and hit the railroad tracks heading back to Windsor.

I would hope for a passing train and I would imagine jumping up and catching the last rungs of the metal ladder hanging off the caboose.

Once in a while a train would come.

Most of the time I would scoot down the sides of the shale and quartz rock and let the train pass, berating myself for not trying to jump the train, not having the courage to do so, the where withal to really jump and save the hours of walking ahead of me back to the house in Windsor.

I remember once making the decision.

I could hear the train coming and it was going to be coming around a corner of the rail and it was going to be moving at its slowest, I was determined to jump it.

I gathered myself and sprang up the tracks as the last car rattled by.

I chased it for awhile, “jump, jump, jump,” I admonished myself.

I could just reach it.

If only I were to jump.

I didn’t make the leap.

I think back now and I am glad I did not.

“Argh, you are lucky to be alive,” he texted me.

Yes.

I am.

Who knows where I would have gotten off, if I had gotten off that train heading away from town into a wilderness of unknown possibilities and challenges.

To read the story of The Boxcar Children was one thing entirely.

To think that it could actually happen for me was another.

In one way or another, I realize, I have been catching trains all my life, jumping, trying, falling, stumbling, dreaming of things that are just outside my grasp, just beyond my reach.

Until one day.

I realized I had caught my train.

I had been riding it for years.

Irony that I have dated three train conductors since I moved to San Francisco?

Is it odd.

Or.

Is it God?

I don’t know, I certainly don’t need to analyze it.

Fuck.

I did enough analyzing this morning while I wrote my paper.

Suffice to say.

I am pleased with the work and the gift of being allowed to do the work.

I’ll be riding this train for a while yet.

Dream train.

Steam train.

Good night.

The moon in the window, the tracks a circle on the floor, the little engine that could puff, puff, puffing into the shadows of the night.

I think I can.

I think I can.

I think I can.

And.

I did.

My paper’s done.

My day is done.

I made it.

Tickets please.

Leap Of Faith

He leaned forward.

And jumped.

I was two steps below what I would have like to have been to make sure that it was not such a leap, but the boy was ready to not be napping and to get down stairs and be in the world.

His arms wrapped around me.

I caught him.

I always do.

His leaping lizard ways do cause my heart to lurch into my mouth at times, but the sweet and absolute trust in me he has, makes me feel always at the ready to catch him.

“I love you,” he said and buried his face in my shoulder.

“I love you too, bug,” I said and squished him close to my heart.

It never fails to amaze me.

This thing called love.

I felt love of all sorts tonight.

I met with a dear friend after work tonight and we hung out and had tea and talk all things girlfriend and life and the stuff of it.

I went where I always go on a Friday night, that bastion of crazy good and weird and wonky, Our Lady of Safeway.

I texted with a darling friend who just had a baby last week to check in on her and see how I could be of some service.

I’ll be heading over to her side of the bay next Saturday to spend time with her and the new little guy.

I rode home, slowly, in the thick of the night through shrouds of fog and wind and mist that slowly materialized into rain.

I did my stretches and strengthening exercise and though I did not want to do them, I did them anyway.

I have love of self too.

It doesn’t always manifest itself in the most logical of ways and that is why I also have a big community and fellowship that helps me discern when my feelings are having their way with me.

But love.

Well, love can have its way with me.

I may get hurt.

However, I will still have the experience.

I want to experience it all.

I have taken some leaps and leapt into some uncomfortable situations, painful, life affirming, and experiential all.

I don’t see myself sitting on the side lines with anything at the moment.

I am committed.

I sound like I am talking in circles and I am, but I know what I am talking about and as it winds itself out of my head and down into my heart I see where the wound is and how that it might sting, like, a lot.

Or not.

I don’t know.

So I took some action, reached out, and now, well, the results are not mine, the words, with a little help from my friend, thank god for friends, the timing so not mine, but the feelings, succinct and sure, are all mine.

I look forward to what ever happens next knowing that I have asked for what I need given the information I have been given.

And then life, well, it continues forward.

Through the rain and the gentle mist and the days and the nights, through the music and the poetry.

To the hair salon!

Yes.

Tomorrow I go in for a much-needed hair cut and color.

“I’m thinking of _____________,” I told a friend tonight as we were comparing schedules in regards to going out to Berkeley next Saturday.  “I don’t know that I want to do color, everybody is doing color now (meaning blue and green and purple and what have you), I was doing color before color was a thing, I think I’m going in a different direction.”

I will take photos.

Don’t worry.

It will be fun to have a ladies day at the salon too.

I’m going to do the deal and then meet with my person at Tart to Tart and do some reading and checking in and then some lunch and the salon.

I’ll be heading up to Solid Gold in the venerable Tender Nob.

That nice narrow strip of town nestled between the bourgeois in Nob Hill and the hoi poi in the Tenderloin.

It’s not quite the same as the tech smash-up of gentrification and the homeless drug addicts strolling around Mission Street, but it is a clash of worlds and I am grateful that I get to navigate it the way I do now instead of the way I used to.

I have come a long way, baby.

There’s a coffee shop that I used to score at just around the corner from where I get my hair done and it’s always a fond trip down memory lane for me to go past it and occasionally even go in for a fix before getting my hair done.

Caffeine, that is.

That’s a leap of faith too.

All the things I have done that I can forget about.

All the ways that love as aligned to get me where I am now and where I will go next.

As I sit and look around my home and everything that has happened here in the last year and a half and how much I have done and seen and grown since moving back from Paris with $10 in my pocket, I am truly amazed.

Awed really.

Look ma!

No hands.

I’m doing this life thing.

It’s not just fantasy in my head.

And I have been in some fantasy in my head over the last week.

I took some action and, well, I get to let go of those results too.

Surrender is an act of faith too.

“Shh, sweet darling,” I said as I gathered him up from the stroller, “Meow is right here.”

He hung his head down onto my chest, clutching his stuffed cat to his body and clung to me as we climbed the stairs into the house heading straight up into his room, where I tucked him in and turned on the sound machine and a little fan.

I brushed the hair of his face, tucked him in, and bent down to kiss his forehead.

“I love you,” I said and my heart grew a little more full.

“I love you too, Carmen Cat,” he said, finishing with a sleepy, “meow,” has he turned over onto his pillow and burrowed under the covers.

I almost fell over and tumbled down the stairs myself.

Love.

It will catch you unaware and bash into your heart.

And I find.

There is not protecting myself from it.

I am open to it all.

To know that.

Is to know.

Grace.

And.

I am graced.

Morbid Reflection

Must be careful to not drift that way.

Just a reminder.

I was supposing that as this day drew near that I might be tempted to do just that.

However, without even realizing it I am excited to be here, one year later, ready to take some of what I experienced and move forward with it.

“The first time I moved to Paris,” he said to me with his rakish British accent, “I fell in love and married her and within a year we were divorcing, she took everything I had, and I had to move back home to live with my dad.”

He shook his head, “I was sixty thousand dollars in debt and living on the fucking pull out at my fathers flat.  I was 45.”

“Nobody makes it their first time in Paris, it takes time, but I wouldn’t give up that experience for the world.”  He paused, ran his hand through his hair, “I was in an awful place, but I was there for a reason, and I took a lot of photographs.”

Photographs that were about to be the main attraction in a big show at the Tate in London.  Photographs that had already done the Biennial at Venice and shows in Paris.

I knew he was an artist and I knew that he was annoyed by me.

Sometimes we are annoyed by that which reminds us the most of ourselves.

By the end of my time in Paris he would bear me grudging respect, and he hugged me when I was saying my good byes the last time I was on George V heading away from the American Cathedral to the Metro.

“Everyone comes to Paris to write a book, you’re not special, or unique, if I had a fucking dollar for every person who dreams about coming to Paris and making it as a writer, I would be a filthy rich man.”

He was not always the nicest with his opinions, but he had a point.

A point that I have been reflecting on as I sit here not at all sad to be in the place that I am.

Happy indeed, “I love my life,” popped into my head a lot today, walking through the park with my charge dressed as a bunny on our way to Music Together to do some Halloween themed singing and dancing; on my bicycle as I crested Lincoln Ave at 19th and the smell of singed pumpkin tops greeted my nose; again when I was walking out of a store on 9th and Irving.

I bought myself a pretty dress.

It had been too long.

I paid my rent yesterday, leaving me flush today, anything I earned was to be my special treat.  I dropped $21 at Bi-Rite on Divasedero getting myself some brown rice, avocado, cucumber, and crab sushi for lunch, some artisanal apples and persimmons, organic pears, and yes, some carrots for the bunny and me.

The dress cost $95.

I made $128.

I still came out ahead.

And I have a new dress to wear tomorrow.

Tomorrow it will fly out behind me as I wing down Valencia Street after work to make an artist’s date run on Flax.

Why Flax?

They have my Claire Fontaine notebooks.

I am doing the writing challenge.

I had an idea and I am going to run with it.

Because even if I don’t succeed at doing the novel, which I will, it’s there, I can feel it itching to come out of my head, in fact I can’t shake the story even if I am not sure of the middle and the ending, I have a beginning, an antagonist, a heroine, a character, and she, like Athena, longs to spring forth from my brain.

I am going to buy my favorite notebook, a bunch of stickers, and a birthday card for my mom.

Then I am going to go to Philz on 24th and write until I meet with John Ater.

Every day I have time in between this and that which I can fill with the writing.

The implementation to my laptop can happen on the weekends and in its own way become a second draft.  It will be a project, but a project I am happy to attend to.

My time in Paris was amazing.

Hard.

Challenging in ways that I never expected.

And when I look at the experience with a little perspective, where I was six months ago moving back from the experiment, to where I was a year ago, I can see that I took a fucking research trip.

I gave myself up to the city.

I walked as much as my feet could handle, and probably past the point they could handle.  I took so many photographs, I wrote, endlessly in my journals, in my blog, in notebooks, in a moleskin that I jotted down my financial spending.

I can tell you what I spent where on what day when in this neighborhood, pair it with the blog I wrote, see the photographs I took and recount in detail things that happened.

I gave myself a huge experience to draw from.

I gave myself the best artist date ever.

And to not use that would be sacrilege.

I suspect that what will happen is that I will sit down and start writing long hand and just see what comes.  Showing up for the page is two-thirds the battle.

Then when I take the words to the second draft from my notebook to my laptop I can flush out ideas, images, sensory happenings, I can write in detail what it was like to be in Sacre Couer on Christmas Eve pressed in to the masses of people singing with the choir, the smell of roasting chestnuts in the Metro stops, the way snow flakes looked falling in the light of the sodium lamps on Pont d’Alma next to the Eiffel Tower.

I can flush it all out and bump the word count significantly, I believe without too much of a stretch.

My first short story to get published was a science fiction piece inspired by something I observed on the Metro heading to French class.

It was published in The Bastille.

Which, fyi, small aside, has contacted me to submit to the December issue.

I shall be sending them some things, as well as some photographs.

How fitting, then to write my first real fiction novel set in Paris, a future Paris, one I get to make up, that’s the fiction, and a Paris that I will allude to in flashback, to the time when I was there, utilizing the astounding amount of data I collected.

That’s what I did.

I made a leap of faith and I went.

I did something brave.

I shall not let down the experience.

I shall continue to do something brave.

I will show up for the page and see where the story takes me.

I will write.

Wasting nothing.

My experience, my greatest gift.