No Charge

When you, I mean, I.

Let me use “I” statements, I am in graduate school for a psychology degree after all, I need to remember to only speak for myself.

When I have no charge.

Nothing.

No feeling of regret.

No longing.

No nothing.

When nothing comes up.

Well.

God damn.

That’s when I know I made the right choice for me.

I saw an ex today.

I, in fact, had a feeling I was going to run into an ex, but I ran into a different one that I had suspected I’d run into.

A few years ago, three, I think I was dating a man, and it was brief, who was very, very, very, VERY, much into the kink and fetish scene in San Francisco.

Folsom Street Fair was today.

A kink and leather and sex and fringe San Francisco festival and street fair.

And I went.

I wasn’t planning on going and I definitely looked like a tourist–I was wearing a bright yellow sundress and my hair in braids.  I looked like I should have been traispsing through a meadow.

I haven’t gone there “dressed” in attire in about a decade.

I think the last time I wnet I wore high heels, platforms and a corset I had gotten from Dark Garden over in Hayes Valley.

It was a beautiful piece and I needed a lot of help getting into it.

I had a friend who had talked me into the piece, which I tried to return a few days later to only be told flat-out that I couldn’t.

I was pretty devastated as I spent a lot more money on it than I should have considering that my rent was around the corner.

And.

That I only wore it once.

Granted.

I looked lovely.

But.

I soon thereafter lost a lot of weight and it was too big.

I gifted it to a woman at the Burning Man offices who was an intern there at the time.

She’s now a major player there and I remember fondly how excited she was when I gave her the corset.

Anyway, Folsom Street Fair.

My friend had talked me into it and a mutual friend of ours picked me up on his Vespa, in tennis whites, I will never forget that, the audacity of wearing tennis whites to Folsom, right down to the wrist bands and the visor.

We all met at Glide, a church in the Tenderloin, went to services there, then, yes, we did.

We went to The Armani Exchange store and had lunch at the counter.

The server fawned all over us.

It was super fun.

Then off to Folsom.

And that was ten years ago.

How the time flies.

I wouldn’t have gone today.

In fact, I had very definitive ideas about what I was doing, I was going to class, then go hit a spot up in the Mission and do the deal and then errands and a mani/pedi, and groceries, and cooking.

And.

And.

And.

All the things.

l was going to do all the things.

But.

Well.

School happened.

I had a big moment in class, I handled some conflict within class and it was a very powerful moment for me.

A woman in class later reflected to me that I was the embodiment of “fierce grace.”

I don’t remember what I said, only the flavor of it, and I know I was a channel for what was being spoken.

I didn’t feel possessed, so to speak, but when I am in that place, I open my mouth and out comes something, I am a channel, a conduit, a mouthpiece for the Divine.

Or God if you will.

I will.

But you don’t have to.

Sometimes when I talk about God I think folks get a particular idea and feel like folks don’t quite get it.  I am a bit of a spiritual rebel and a bit of throwback all at the same time.

I love me some Lord’s Prayer.

Most folks can’t stand it.

I love the prayer of St. Francis.

I say that one every day.

Every day.

I say a lot of other prayers too, suffice to say, I have a deep and effective spiritual life that I am very grounded in and supremely grateful for.

I spoke to that a bit, but really, I don’t recall what I said.

But I will say this.

I was powerful.

I felt powerful.

I spoke with great articulation, emotion, and care.

I know that much, I know how it felt and I had a lot of power flowing through me.

I felt like I was on fire.

I teared up.

I know that tears drifted down my face at one moment, but I couldn’t tell you the words that evoked them.

I know that it was a kind of spiritual honesty that just rolled out of me.

After I had finished and the class processed what I had said, and my professor, and I remember very well the look on his face, he knew what I was talking about and resonated with it, he looked lit up as he listened to me, I realized that I could not leave right after class.

I owed it to the people in my class that I had spoken up for to connect with me and I with them and I knew that I had to be present and stay with what was brought up.

So.

I did.

I talked with a lot of the folks in my class and one of my classmates said she’d never been to Folsom Street Fair and wanted to go see it.

She flies in from Miami and has offered me her guest room so often that I know it’s not just a polite offer, but a “please use the room whenever you want it” sort of offer.

She even told me I didn’t need to ask, book a ticket and just let her and her husband know and I’ll have access.

That’s always nice to hear.

Anyway.

I decided to not run off, I stayed and connected, I blew off all my “obligations” my “plans and designs” and let the day decide for me what I was going to experience instead of imposing my will on it.

We walked around Folsom.

There was much to see, but not much that excited or intrigued me, I have eyes for other things.

And chatting with my friend in front of someone doing suspended rope bondage I had a sudden feeling that I would run into my ex.

Whom I haven’t seen in years, but, well, Folsom is his bailiwick for sure.

But nope.

In fact.

I didn’t run into anyone but a few other friends from school–campus is three blocks away–in all the hundreds of scantily dressed folks I saw.

Then we came out to my place, I showed her where I live and we went and caught a late lunch at Sea Breeze Cafe in my neighborhood and talked and talked and talked.

She left around 4 p.m. and I took a nice long walk on the beach in my sundress.

Yes.

I said sundress!

It was summer in San Francisco today.

It was so nice I didn’t even wear leggings.

I had a good check in phone call with my person as I walked the beach and then just after I got off the phone, literally seconds later, I look up to my right for no particular reason.

And there he is.

An ex, not the one who I thought I would run into a Folsom, but another more recent relationship (not that recent either, now that I think about it, two years ago now) and a woman.

They were holding hands.

I didn’t stare, but at first I couldn’t understand, consciously, what had caught my eye.

I didn’t understand what I was seeing or why I was even looking.

A nice couple walking on the beach holding hands.

Then I realized it was an ex.

I think I waved?

Not sure.

I remember thinking, “oh, that’s nice, he’s seeing someone,” and that was it.

That was it!

Nothing.

No charge.

No heat.

No energy.

My energy, my love, my attention is so elsewhere, is so taken and captured.

I had absolutely nothing.

Except that little bit of “how nice for him” moment.

He said my name, “Hi _______________,” dropped the hand of the woman, “you look great!”

I was startled that he said anything at all to me and a  “thanks,” popped out of my mouth and then I just walked away.

I didn’t turn back.

There’s nothing there.

I just walked the beach.

Happy and content in my skin.

In my pretty yellow sundress, fluttering in the wind.

I went home and I cooked and I read some homework.

I took a good hot shower.

I ate my dinner.

And then I started my blog.

That’s it.

My day.

It was good.

I’m loved.

I’m happy.

I got sunshine on my face.

It was a damn fine day.

Wonderful in fact.