Overwhelm

I got hit with it yesterday.

I was on a Zoom call.

When am I not on a Zoom call?

I was going over the lesson plan with the former professor of the Psychodynamic’s class that I am teaching this fall at CIIS.

The class that starts next weekend.

And.

I got panicked.

We had been on the call for a while, an hour and half maybe, she’s also my supervisor, so I was also doing client work, it wasn’t all class prep.

But, the last half hour of it was and I suddenly felt myself totally start to lose it.

Like a slow motion melt.

I should have known.

I was wearing cat eye makeup with black eye liner.

Guaranteed to have an emotional moment and cry, I mean, duh, I should know by this point.

But.

Yeah.

Anyway.

I teared up, I got blown up, and overwhelmed and sort of lost it.

I said, “wait, stop, I don’t understand what you just told me.”

It sounded something like, “PDF, blah, blah, blah, download, blah, blah, blah, upload to Canvas, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, just sent it to you, blah, then you blah, blah, blah, and that’s it!  You’re all set.”

I literally had zoned out.

I am not a great tech genius.

I am ok.

I mean, hey I publish this blog.

Although half the time I just think of it as turning on a light switch, I don’t understand how electricity works, just that when I flip the switch the light turns on.

Same here.

I sit down, I type some stuff, I edit it for spelling mistakes and then I hit the “publish” button.

I have no clue how it works.

You probably know this.

I don’t have some spiffy amazing page.

I don’t understand back end stuff.

My back end is what I am sitting on in my chair.

Basically what was happening was the back end stuff for the platform the school uses for online learning.

Also.

Let me reflect that when I agreed to teach this we were not in shelter in place, there was no pandemic (although there were some weird things going on out in the world.  I do remember telling my supervisor that I felt like something big was going to happen. I thought maybe there would be a dot.com bust not a pandemic), I was going to be teaching in person, lecturing in front of a class.

NOT ON A ZOOM CALL.

Fuck.

So figuring out how to handle the class and transition to online teaching and making PowerPoints (why God why?) and uploading this and creating that.

And fuck.

Vomit.

Shit.

I am the wrong person for doing this.

I am not going to lie.

I wish I wasn’t teaching.

I wish I could just quit.

Technically I could quit.

California is an “at will” state.

I could get fired at any time and I can quit at any time.

However.

I just don’t think I can quit five days before the class starts.

I can be an asshole, but I’m not that much of an asshole.

Also.

Jesus fuck am I glad I did not accept the core faculty position.

The thought of having to do more work like the work I have been doing to prepare for this class makes me want to throw up with anxiety.

I already have enough anxiety.

Which was pretty obvious to me yesterday.

I love my therapy clients, but everyone of them is stressed to the max, hello pandemic, the current political situation, riots, economy in the tank, and oh yeah, the fires.

The world is literally and figuratively on fire.

I have had a low grade constant headache for the last four days.

I hate even complaining about it.

I”m safe in San Francisco, but the smoke is bad, I don’t have to evacuate my home like so many people I know.

My supervisor had to evacuate her home three days ago.

I don’t have problems.

I do have a headache though.

Currently in California there are 560 wild fires happening.

There’s a lot of smoke.

I made myself go for a walk yesterday despite the smoke.

I could only handle being inside for so long.

And.

Yeah, the overwhelm thing and me crying on a Zoom call with my anxiety about getting all the tech crap set up for the class and I was kaput.

I had intended on working on my dissertation proposal defense yesterday and I just had no juice left.

I mean none.

I called a bunch of friends and left messages and tried to focus on listening to others instead of whining about my stuff.

And then.

Oh.

The loveliest thing.

I connected with a friend who also was out for a walk and we literally happened to be three blocks from each other.

I hadn’t seen him since right before shelter in place and it made me want to cry.

He’s housesitting in my neighborhood!

We walked, socially distant, in our masks, through the smoky streets of the Mission District and caught up and laughed and joked about hugging, but we did not.

I felt a lot better.

Not good enough to give my proposal any work, but better.

Truth.

I haven’t worked on it today either.

Except in my mind and in my heart and in my psyche.

That’s my soul.

My PhD work is around healing sexual abuse trauma.

Mine in particular.

And it’s a lot to hold.

I just have to acknowledge that.

When I’m strong and resourced and the world isn’t on fire or in a pandemic or a crazed political state, I am able to do the work.

Right now.

The work is letting myself off the hook.

Resourcing with friends.

Breathing deep (inside my sealed house).

Sleeping eight hours a night.

Watching silly light hearted tv (Glee).

Sitting with my cat.

Calling friends.

I’ll get the proposal done (another PowerPoint, ugh again).

I will teach the class next week.

I will be great in them both.

Because I am smart and strong and I am a good teacher and I will make mistakes and that’s ok too.

I will show the fuck up.

As I know from showing up in the past.

It really is 90% of the work.

The rest is non-judgmentally allowing myself to teach without expectations of perfection.

I’m perfectly imperfect just the way I am.

Recognizing that is the work.

So.

Yeah.

My proposal.

It will get done and I will be ok.

Everything is going to be ok.

It really is.

Hello Again

It feels like forever.

And it has been awhile.

But I am still here.

Still writing, though not so much on this platform

I have missed it, but I have also been too tired most days to log in and write.

I write in the mornings still, long hand, my three page a day habit, thank you The Artists Way, thirteen years and still going strong.

I have thought about this though, my blog, the thing that I would do religiously come rain or shine, good day, bad day, nothing really happened today day.

I sort of had a nothing happened today day, with highlights of, this is surreal, though I’m used to it.

Sort of.

We’re still deep in the pandemic and although it’s been five plus months now, there are times I’m still caught off guard with the strangeness of it.

Or that I am estranged from my friends, fellows, family, colleauges.

Oh the desire to hang out with friends at a coffee shop.

Although, truth, I did sort of last weekend.

I drove up to the Russian River area with a friend, one of the few people allowed in my bubble, and we did get coffee at a cafe in Guerneville.  There was no sitting inside, though, grab and go.

So many things are shut down, but when I get the chance to go to a cafe or a restaurant I have done so.

It happens quite infrequently.

I do better weathering things on my own.

I have been very safe and very cautious and kept pretty to myself since this has all been unfolding.

But yeah, a trip to the Russian River and being out in the sun felt extraordinary.

It’s not a big deal typically, but a bunch of months of quarantine and I felt like I was playing hooky, albeit wearing a mask, from the pandemic.

Also.

Just getting out into the sunshine was so good.

San Francisco, got to love her, has been having her typical “summer weather” which is cold, foggy, overcast and quite dreary.

Add that to the general malaise of the pandemic and it’s a bit depressing.

So when my friend suggested we head out of town and get some sun I hesitated, I have things to do (homework, prep for teaching, zoom meetings), but folded as soon as I googled the Russian River and saw the trees and sun and water.

I’m glad I did.

I am also grateful for getting out of the city.

I haven’t been outside of the Bay Area since before shelter in place.

I realized the last time I had gotten out it was Christmas when I went to Paris.

Now, that’s nothing to shake a stick at, but it also meant that I hadn’t left the city in over six months.

I don’t, fyi count Oakland, Berkeley, or Alameda, all places I have gone to, as getting outside the city…they just feel like continuations of it.

Though, San Francisco is definitely in transition, it is still the city, and once in a while to appreciate the city, I need to leave it.

I will go up one more time to the Russian River before summer ends.

Just a quick day trip to work on some teaching prep the weekend before I start teaching Psychodynamic’s.

I’m not exactly excited, truth be told, I haven’t felt like I’ve had much of a summer–my private practice therapy business has been full (and yes, I do know how lucky I am to have work to do) and I have been doing so much psychoanalytic theory reading, my brain feels about shot.

But.

I have finished, as of today all the books that are required reading for class.

I also, I haven’t shared much about this, turned down the core faculty position I was interviewing for.

I found out how much work was expected and how little money was being paid for it and I changed my mind about wanting to work for the school–I was making more money as a private professional nanny then what they were offering for a full time core faculty professor in a master’s program.

No thank you.

I kept thinking to myself that I did not work this hard to keep working harder for less money.

I felt bad, for a moment, when I told my individual supervisor who really wanted me to take on the teaching position, but I realized if I had taken it I would have been terribly resentful with myself for taking on so much work.

Especially since I am still working on my PhD.

It’s been a minute since I’ve been here, so I cannot recall if I have written about that the last time I was blogging.  But.  I have made some progress there.  I have my external third committee chair member and she has my dissertation proposal as does my internal second.

So.

I await their critiques and get to start working on a Power Point (ugh) to defend my proposal.

Once I defend the proposal I will move into PhD candidacy.

I am ready for that.

I am hoping that I will get to defend by the end of this month and then turn around and start doing the study part of my dissertation.

My hope is to do the study this fall and then do the writing for the dissertation in the spring.

I want to put in one more year and be done.

In fact.

That is my goal.

One more year at the school working on my PhD and teaching one master’s class, then I’m done.

I’ve been on this track for five years now.

I’m ready to finish it.

I have it in my sights and I am hopeful that I can put down my head and push through this last year.

I suspect things are going to be challenging with the pandemic continuing to rage and whatever weirdness is up and coming with the pending elections, but I shall keep busy, keep pushing and get through.

And.

When it’s all said and done and I have my doctorate.

I am going on a big fucking trip.

I’m thinking fly from San Francisco to London, train to Paris, then train to the South of France, rent a car there and tool around and then reverse the trip back.

Two, maybe three weeks.

That’s a carrot to work towards.

Seriously.

One More Week

Of freedom.

From school.

Which is fucking hilarious as I carted around two gigantic text books today on the off chance of being somewhere I was going to read.

I learned to always carry my books with me, because inevitably the day will come when I don’t, (this past Saturday) when a client no shows and I have down time to read.

Or I’m at work and unexpectedly get time to read.

I probably won’t at all be able to do that at work tomorrow, I just don’t see it happening, but sometimes it does and as my time is super precious I use whatever I can get.

I have finished one of my text books for the fall semester and started in on another one and I am simultaneously reviewing a few articles for the class I will be guest lecturing on the 21st of September and reading a book for that class as well.

I did question myself a little about that today as I sat in a training in Berkeley for my agency, what am I doing teaching a class too this semester?!

But, I feel it’s good for me to do and I’m excited for the topic and the few people, outside of school, I have run it by, really like listening to me talk about it.

I find that encouraging, if someone who doesn’t have a background in psychology finds it fascinating, those who are pursuing the Master’s degree should like it too.

Or so I hope.

Regardless of whether they do or not,  I am learning as I prepare to teach.

Which is always how it goes.

Want to learn something on a deeper level?

Teach it.

I have had that experience over and over and over again.

And I’m grateful to get to go before an incoming Master’s cohort who are just beginning their journey and say here I am, in my second year of a PhD program, as a licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist with a burgeoning private practice.

I get to model what they can become and that’s really a sweet gift to give back.

I didn’t know how much work it was going to be and I’m pretty glad I didn’t, I did know I was right where I was supposed to be and I want to share all the things that I have gotten to learn over the past few years.

An hour and a half lecture will not encapsulate that, but it should be enough time to lecture on Reverie, which I find totally fascinating.

Reverie is something that happens in sessions where daydreams, wayward thoughts, fantasies, visions, intuitions, come to the therapist.

The first time it happened to me in a session, a dyad at school with a classmate, I got spooked.

I thought I had drifted off.

But there was something so potent about it, the image that came to mind, that I mentioned it to my professor who then told me that I had experienced  reverie and that it was clinically significant.

We discussed what I saw, how it was clinically relevant, and how to make an intervention around it.

It was fascinating.

It still is and there’s lots to talk about, and I won’t bore you with it at this time, since I don’t know that you’re really here to listen to me practice my lecture in Psychodynamics.

Heh.

Who knows why you’re here anyway.

I don’t.

I mean.

This blog has been dark for almost two years now, maybe actually it has been a little more than two years.

I don’t link it to social media.

I don’t post it anywhere.

This is just me noodling away at my keyboard.

There are perhaps of handful of folks that still follow me out there who know me, but most of the people that read this have no idea who I am.

Once in a while it gets read a whole bunch and I’ll be curious who has discovered it and why is it so fascinating.

Recently it was getting a ton of reads in, of all places, Hong Kong.

No idea why.

But for a few days, on and off for the last couple of months, literally hundreds of my blogs were being read in Hong Kong.

That was kind of cool to see.

I don’t know how many blogs I’m going to get out before the semester starts, I’ll be starting with some new clients this week and trying to get some homework done before the intensive.

One of my classes doesn’t have the syllabus up yet, which always makes me nervous, but the other two do and there is going to be some major work and a lot of reading to do this semester just for these two classes.

But.

I am not going to stop blogging.

Especially since I am going to actually try to incorporate my blog into a “Work In Progress” assignment for my class in Arts Based Research.

I know that I won’t be able to do a blog a day like I still managed to do with my Master’s degree.

That became really evident I am sure when my blogs took a total nose dive once I began my PhD and started building up my private practice.

The blog took such a hit.

But.

I have never stopped writing and I’m going to keep sending out these little missives to the Universe whenever I can.

It helps me to keep my writing chops and it helps me process all the things.

Like not speaking or being in contact with my ex and what that feels like.

Good and super hard all at the same time and scary and sad.

Or thinking about the time I was in Cuba, just recently and had an overwhelming spiritual experience at a Catholic church where Santoria is practiced.

Floods of tears, praying on my knees, and asking for forgiveness in front of a black Madonna.

Or when I was walking the cobblestone streets of Old Havana with my hair up, a long white dress on, a bright turquoise parasol protecting me from the sun and the feeling of awe in wonder at who I get to be in this life and where I get to go.

And.

Where I get to go home to.

San Francisco.

I am still here.

Hanging on at the edge of the city.

The ledge of the Western seaboard.

Two blocks from the Ocean.

The moon rise and the the dark breach of universe turning above me.

I am so fucking grateful to be alive.

It’s ok that I got my heart broke.

It’s ok that my rent’s ridiculous.

It’s ok that I’m still a nanny.

I get to do all these miraculous things.

It’s ok that I’m busy with my PhD and nervous to teach the class.

I get to do all these things.

Because.

I am graced.

Happy.

Joyous.

And so very.

Very.

Very.

Free.

Back Home

With a huge stack of books and notebooks and pages and pages and pages of syllabi.

Oh my God.

What have I fucking done?

I went from feeling pretty good about it all to feeling super overwhelmed after my last class.

The irony being that it was the class I figured I was going to enjoy the most.

Of course, with some perspective, I still think I am going to enjoy it the most, but I am awash in the anxiety of having to produce the work.

There is a lot of work.

Yesterday’s class blew me out of the water at the intensive.

I really liked the professor.

In fact, I am quite fond of him as he swooped in one morning seeing me sitting by myself at breakfast and made me join his table at the intensive.

We had a great talk.

He loves Paris.

I love Paris.

We are now friends.

Plus, he has had an extraordinary life, three marriages, multiple degrees, Harvard, Brown, CIIS, somewhere else I forget.

Of course he has a PhD as well.

And a lot of papers that he’s written and he seems to be the co-collaborator of the way the course work is designed.

First of all.

Let me say that I had some, well, not exactly contempt, but a little wiggle of worry that because my PhD is an “online” program, that it would not be academically rigorous.

Fuck my life.

Academic rigor galore.

In fact, as one second year told me, she thinks that we actually do more work than a traditional PhD program and I think she’s right.

Second.

I was in the dark a little about the length.

I had this idea that the program is only two years long.

The course work is only two years long.

Then there’s methodology, the comprehensive exams, research, the writing, the proposal and the defense of said proposal.

The course work will be four semesters.

Then I can expect at least another four more semesters of work to finish the dissertation.

Which means two more years.

And the professor made it very clear that the fastest anyone could possible do the whole shebang was 4.5 years.

What I heard from most of the people in the program was that if I did the course work and stayed the course with my research, readings, writing, methods, etc, that it would take in total about 5 years.

So.

It’s no different from any other doctoral program with the exception of the majority of the coursework is submitted online and that a large component of all my classes is to interact and engage with the learning community on-line.

There are 30 of us in the cohort split into two sections.

There are three classes.

Introduction to Transformative Society; Self, Society, and Transformation; and Creative Inquiry: Scholarship for the 21st Century.

I am the only student from San Francisco, though the school is located in San Francisco.

There were a lot of students from the East Coast, New York mainly, I think six of my fellows were from New York, one from up state New York.

One from London, a University Professor of Psychoanalytics and Psychodynamics.

One student from Hong Kong.

One student from Oakland.

Another from somewhere in the East Bay, a few from up North, somewhere in Canada, I totally forget now, another from D.C.

The woman from D.C. was also an MFT and teaches as well at university level, specifically Art Therapy and Play Therapy for adults, she was super sweet and insisted I call her if I have any questions about marketing or setting up my private practice internship.

Said internship that although I took materials with me to work on I did absolutely no work on at all, I was so immersed in the classroom experience and the work at the intensive.  And I read a lot while I was there on my breaks, as much as I could without totally isolating myself in my room.

Anyway, a lot of high-caliber, smart people.

Majority of them women, which was very, very cool.

Grateful to be part of some smart, intelligent, driven women.

Very grateful.

One of whom came up to me with a piece of paper today in a notebook that she was keeping to show to our future selves, our name with Dr. in front of it.

I was more than happy to write mine down.

Dr. Carmen Regina Martines.

Fuck that looks good.

And now I can stop giving myself grief that I maybe was in an “easy” PhD program because it was two years and online.

Silly rabbit.

It is not easy at all.

The great thing that I realized though, after having a bit of panic and overwhelm when I was in my Creative Inquiry class yesterday, is that the material is not beyond me.

I understand the concepts, they make sense.

Oh sure, a lot of the material is new to me, I haven’t studied these things before, but I have been reading academic papers and books now at a higher level of understanding for the last three years and the materials are not cowing me.

Nope.

Not at all.

That was a nice realization for me to make.

What was causing the panic was the number of deliverables that I must have for Creative Inquiry.

8 papers.

8!

And though some of them are short, I have a couple that are not, and two that are quite big.

Plus I have to get published.

Are you fucking kidding me.

I have to actually publish a review of a scholarly journal.

Holy shit.

Now.

I am excited.

But yesterday I was just overwhelmed.

What the fuck?  I remember thinking I have to get something published too as a requirement of the course, Jesus, plus, oh, great, thanks, I also found out that I have another book to read, in addition to the books already lined up for the course, I had to pick one of four others that were presented.

Let me say this.

I will not be going anywhere without carrying a book or an article to read.

That’s why I got overwhelmed, 8 papers for this class, three for Self and Society, and one big whopper for Intro to Transformative Studies.

Plus weekly discussions and comments and interactions with my cohort.

I worked a lot on my calendar yesterday and I’m not 100% certain, but it looks like I will have to read two to three books per week to get through all the material.

Well, not quite, more like 2.5 per week.

Plus the articles, many of them big, long, academic papers of over 30 pages, and every class has three or four of these a week.

So yeah.

The material doesn’t scare me, it’s just getting the time to do it.

I’m not sure what’s going to have to go out of my schedule, but somethings definitely are.

Maybe a few less blogs a week.

Maybe.

I’ll let you know.

For now, I’m just happy I’m home and all my stuff is put away and I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.

Very happy for that.

Very.

 

And. End Scene

I made it!

I got through the school weekend.

Only one more left in the semester.

Holy shit.

Very excited about that.

Although not at all excited about the extraordinary amount of work I will have to produce for the last weekend of classes.

Four papers.

One final group presentation.

Plus wrapping all my online CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) webinars and assignments and doing all the work for my online Child and Elder Abuse class.

Whew.

It’s a lot.

But.

I’ll get it done.

I always do.

I did have a moment today, though.

I was pretty wiped out by the class, a lot of emotional content for me was coming up, shocker that, go get a degree in psychology and watch the stuff surface, and I really couldn’t even decide what the hell I was going to do with the day.

I had some ideas.

Maybe I’d go shopping.

But.

I’m trying to hold out from purchasing anything as it looks like I’m getting quite close to actually putting down money on a car.

My application for a car loan was approved and I can go into the Fiat dealership in Berkeley and get the Fiat 500 Pop that I’ve been eyeing.

It seems surreal that it’s actually happening.

I even transferred the money out of my savings account today.

I am not sure exactly when I’m going to go and get the car, the dealership actually offered to deliver it to me!

But I want to go into the dealership and go with a friend and make sure I’m doing all the things correct.

I have never bought a new car before so it’s all completely outside the scope of my experience.

Anyway.

Clothes shopping, though tempting, did not seem like the best idea.

I vacillated between rushing out and getting over to the Mission by 12:15 p.m. to do the deal, or just taking it easy and seeing where God wanted me to go.

Rushing is not what I wanted to do and so I meandered towards the Inner Sunset.

I realized I was super hungry and though I needed to do grocery shopping and I could just make food when I got home, I was too distracted and it felt like too much and when a friend in cohort asked what I was doing for self-care today, it struck me that I had no good answer for her.

“Maybe yoga?” I replied.

And it struck me that maybe I wanted to treat myself a little.

So.

I went to Marnee Thai in the Inner Sunset and got my favorite dish there–banana curry with duck and brown rice and a big mug of tea.

It was perfect.

And I did do some clothes window shopping and even tried on a few things, but didn’t buy anything.

Instead.

I went and got a manicure and perused a trashy magazine.

I got a decaf, yes, I’m that person, past a certain point in the afternoon I go decaf, cafe au lait at Tart To Tart and finally did my numbers from my spending plan for October and then did a spending plan for November.

After that.

I went grocery shopping after and that felt very good and proactive.

I did some work around the house and attended to a few small things and did some food prep.

Then.

Yup.

I wrote.

I wrote a lot.

I re-wrote the narrative completely for the “People Who Usually Don’t Lecture” folks.

I meet with them again tomorrow in between supervision in the early morning and work.

I think I had been dreading doing that work and not having an idea of how to get it going, but as I finished balancing my check book and I was sitting by my computer, I just did it.

I just kicked it the fuck out.

Then when I finished it I realized I could make the 6:15 p.m. restorative yoga class at my studio.

Yippee!

I scurried into my yoga gear and walked over, getting nice and settled in as they dimmed the lights and light the studio with candles.

So pretty.

So relaxing.

Such a nice gift to give to myself.

An hour and fifteen minutes later I came home, made a hot dinner and proofed my narrative.

I just sent it out a few minutes before starting my blog.

Super fucking happy.

I’m going to go take a shower and chill out.

Fuck yeah.

 

Oh.

And here’s the piece in its entirety, I may still change it, but well, I thought you’d might like to read it.

Enjoy.

 

Running Away From Myself

I ran away from home to San Francisco. I was 29 years old. I had just graduated from college with my undergrad degree in English Literature, which would translate to a career of asking “wilt thou like fries with that?” I had also just gotten a black belt in Shaolin Kempo Karate, and I had won an award for a manuscript of my poems from the UW Madison Book Store. I was on my way. I was going to be the next great American novelist. I had a plan.

I was going to find myself in San Francisco. A friend later told me that she was quite concerned for me, one does not find themselves by moving across country in their two door Honda Accord with all their possessions and a two month sublet in the Mission District. I, however, was convinced that I needed to move to San Francisco, it was home, Madison, was not. I never considered it to be running away from myself. I just thought I was getting the hell away from the craziness of my family.

I was running away from my mom who was smoking crack, from my sister who was shooting crystal meth with dirty rigs, from my homeless father, who would spare change for beer money outside the brewing company I was the manager at. I had been to San Francisco to visit a friend the year prior and knew it was where I wanted to be. I moved here Labor Day weekend of 2002. I had a blast. I drank, I danced, I partied, I went to clubs, I cut lines at 1015 and DNA Lounge, and one day did blow in the bathroom with a friend, maybe it was the Mezzanine or the bar at The W Hotel. I had arrived! I made so many new friends my phone could barely handle all the numbers. I was having the time of my life.

Then I started to have repercussions from all the partying. Drugs are like that, fun, fun with problems, then just fucking problems. The problems led to me getting really creative with my money, stashing it in my bra or sock or back left pocket of my pants so I wouldn’t spend it on coke. But inevitably, after a few drinks, I would call my dealer. And the money ran out, really, really, fast. I was gregarious and the life of the party, and as a dear friend told me later, “just because you didn’t go to prom in high school doesn’t meant that you get to be the prom queen now.”

Yet, I kept going. I got ominous warnings from my friends, I got warnings at work, and I pissed off my roommate for bringing the after party back from the clubs at 4 a.m. I accidentally did a line of meth in the bathroom at the End Up one night, with a new friend who I thought was giving me cocaine and two days later found myself still awake deconstructing Laura Croft in a trailer in Brisbane where my new best friend was making banana walnut pancakes in the kitchen.

I still don’t know how I got home. I started making deals with myself. Don’t drink tonight; I noticed I was quick to call my dealer after a beer. But didn’t you see how hard my job was, what assholes I was working with, and how much my feet hurt? It had nothing to do with the three grams of blow I did the night before while dancing at DNA Lounge in platform Steve Madden heels, no, it had to do with the head manager at my restaurant giving me a shitty section where I had to run all night long to serve my tables.

Things spun out of control. Faster and faster. One night I was just going to go home and a friend convinced me to grab a bottle of wine from the restaurant and go back to her place. A bum outside her door spare changed us as we were going into her apartment, I gave him a cigarette. Hours later when I left, he was still there and he offered me some crack cocaine. Of course I smoked it. And twelve hours later I found myself hiding on a piece of cardboard between parked cars on Minna Street smoking rock with a homeless man who was angling for me to become his girlfriend.   It had to stop. It had to.

I tried a number of ways to control and enjoy my drinking and using, but things just never took. No matter what I did. I lost that fine dining restaurant job, I lost friends, and I lost a lot of dignity. I left a $500 a month rent controlled room in a large Victorian house in the Mission for a room on Potrero and 25^th for more than twice the rent. I figured I wouldn’t spend my money on cocaine if my rent were more expensive. I was wrong, was I ever wrong. I remember waking up one morning for a lunch shift and wondering what I had done the night before and when it finally came to me as I was getting out of a cab in front of work I was so overwhelmed I leapt out, and ran and vomited in the bushes before going in for my shift.

Finally, on January 10^th, possibly the 11^th of 2005, I hit the bottom that would change my life. I went to the restaurant I used to work at to see a friend, I wasn’t going to drink. Nope. I wasn’t, but the bartender put up my regular, a double dirty martini on the rocks with extra olives and a pint of Sierra Nevada. I drank a sip of the beer and called my dealer. I rang a friend, he met me out, and we went all over the city and at one point ended up at my house. He left his drugs with me, “you won’t do them will you?” He asked as he left. I did them. I stole from my friend and in that moment I made the decision, I was done, I don’t know why stealing a few grams of coke from a friend was how I smashed into my bottom, but it was. I made a cry for help. And it was answered.

It came from unexpected places. I thought I was just going to go to rehab. Instead I got introduced to a community and an amazing fellowship, and I drank a lot of coffee, a lot, I still do. Twelve years and some change later, notice my star tattoos? One for every year I’ve been sober, I still don’t know how the magic all happened, I am grateful beyond belief that it has. I get to do and be someone I never even knew I wanted to be. I am a nanny, I’ve been one for over a decade, I get to give children the kind of love and attention I missed getting as a child. I’m also a third year graduate student in psychology, I go to a full time graduate program on the weekends at CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies) which is located on Mission and 10^th in the SOMA. The back of the building abuts Minna Street.

That same street where I gave a homeless man a cigarette, and he smoked me out with crack, I was once again twelve years later. I will never forget coming out of my Psychodynamics class at the end of the semester, holding a paper I had just gotten an A+ on and hopping on my scooter to go home. As I pulled out, I heard the roll of a lighter be flicked and the inhale of breath, there was a girl, a young woman, hair up in a messy bun, eyes downcast, smoking crack on a piece of cardboard between two parked cars. She was I and I was she. I can never, not now, not ever, express the tremendous gratitude I felt in me at the moment. As I zoomed off on my scooter, from my grad school program to my little studio by the sea. I was no longer running away from myself. I was just going home.

Tired

But.

In a good way.

I got up at 6:30 a.m.

I didn’t get my full night’s sleep, but I got close, I had been up later than I wanted to the night previous, so I was ready for bed when it came last night, but my thoughts were busy being annoying, it took a little while to drop of.

But when I did.

Holy shit

I did.

Slept like a rock.

Grateful for that and that I don’t hesitate to getting out of bed when the alarm goes off, I don’t hit the snooze, I just get the fuck up.

I  read somewhere once that snooze actually back fires on you and it’s better to just get up and go, of course I could just be making that up, but that’s what I do.

I get the fuck up.

I got dressed.

I put on my interview shoes.

I peeped the weather.

Fuck yes!

The rain cleared and I was able to take the cover off my scooter and ride it down to my interview today with my new supervisor.

Yes.

That’s correct, my new supervisor.

I have another.

Score!

Very, very, very happy about that.

It’s a small piece, but I piece I needed to address and I’m so grateful to have it taken care of

And actually.

Scratch that.

It is a big deal and it was more than just a small piece, I put in some work to find this person, co-ordinate my schedule with him, ask questions, collaborate with the practicum placement office and do my homework.

And I showed up.

On time.

Early.

I found motorcycle parking by the Ritual Coffee house in Hayes Valley and I had a full punch card from when I was nannying by the Ritual in the Mission, so I scored a free latte and happily traipsed over to the office on the corner of Fell and Gough.

I let myself in using the code and went up the stairs.

I paced around the waiting room, paid the bathroom an unnecessary visit, just in case, and practiced breathing.

Then.

I met him.

My new supervisor.

We went into his office and talked for an hour.

I told him a little bit about me, how I came into the program, what I was planning on doing with the degree, first my MFT (Marriage & Family Therapist) license, then eventually my PhD in Psychology.

I told him about having taken one class as an undergraduate and then what happened when I was at Burning Man, yes that is where I decided to go to grad school, and how that experience unfolded and led to me applying to CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies), how I balance my recovery with my work, and where I will be doing my practicum hours at.

We had talked for about a half hour when, and I’m not sure exactly when the shift happened, but it happened, and there I was saying, “well I hope that I will be working with you,” and then.

Then.

Then he looked at me, almost surprised, “oh absolutely, the slot is yours.”

Thank you God.

I opened up my binder and handed over my paperwork that I needed him to sign and yes.

He signed them.

Thank God.

And handed them back to me, I felt like I was handling precious metals and jewels so carefully and reverentially I put back those papers, 3/4s filled out, I just need my school advisor and the head of the department to sign off.

He’s one and the same for me, so that should be pretty easy.

Actually.

I should e-mail him too, set up a time to make sure that I had them to him, he signs, then I walk over to the practicum office and hand them off.

God damn it will feel so good to have this all sorted.

It basically is.

And I like my new supervisor quite a bit.

He happened to intern with my favorite professor, which was a serendipitous conversation, he’s psychodynamically inclined, also a hot modality for me, and he went through the same program that I am going through, so he has experience with the school.

Although he admitted he’d not worked with any interns that were getting their hours through the site I’m at.

And we talked about that.

And we talked about my schedule and we set our first date to do the work.

I will begin with him on Monday, April 24th.

I will meet with him once a week for three semesters while I am in school.

Every Monday morning at 9 a.m. for one summer semester, one fall semester, and one spring semester.

Three total semesters of practicum must be compete for me to graduate.

I will graduate from the program in May 20018.

And I’ll get to walk with that graduating class complete in my practicum.

A lot of folks don’t start their practicum until next fall semester, the majority of my cohort, from what I can tell will be starting then,  and they’ll be able to walk, but not graduate officially until after finishing the summer of 2018 practicum.

I will circumnavigate that and be free to walk as a graduate.

I am so down with that I can barely breathe.

I mean.

It’s a hell of a lot of work.

But.

As it was suggested to me today.

“Take a minute and appreciate what you accomplished today,” she admonished me over the phone, “don’t just jump into the next thing to be anxious about.”

Gah.

I know, right?

Because I was so ready to go there, but there is no there there.

I am allowed to enjoy this moment, this work has been, well, work, and I deserve to acknowledge to myself that I have been showing up to it and meeting it and matching it.

And I have a phone interview in the morning before work to secure a therapist.

Fingers crossed that will be taken care of tomorrow and then.

Shit.

I can go back to just “worrying” about my homework.

Bwhaahahaha.

Sigh.

I did that too, today, I did homework on my lunch break.

Maybe I take myself out to do something sweet this weekend, really take a moment to let myself enjoy what I have done over the last week and a half.

It’s been a lot and it is an accomplishment.

Yes.

There is more work to do.

But.

For right now.

Let me just.

Take.

A fucking.

Moment.

You did good today kid, you really did.

Seriously.

Hey, God, It’s Me

Carmen.

And hey, I’m listening.

I heard you and well, yes, let’s do it.

Yes please.

Yes, oh my God.

Yes, I’d like to.

Yes, yes, yes.

Heh.

I had a little serendipity come and find me this evening when I was in the student kitchen at school having my dinner break before my last class of the day.

One of the women who is in the program, but a year a head of me, came into the kitchen to get her dinner and I thought as she was putting together her dinner, I should talk to her.

I had seen her yesterday at the practicum workshop and hadn’t the time prior to class to speak with her, I had, very in passing, talked to one of the team and made a tentative appointment to see him today at lunch, but decided to have lunch with one of my friends in the cohort.

We had such a nice lunch and a good catch up.

And.

HA.

I got another invite to travel.

Not sure when I’m going to do it, but I am.

She lives in Miami.

I have always wanted to go down for Art Basel and maybe this upcoming year.

Not this year, it’s like in two weeks and I have already made all my travel plans for the year.

But it’s nice to know there’s another place for me to go and I have a living amends to make to Miami.

The last time I was there, well, I was smoking crack and wasn’t perhaps the best citizen in Dade county.

I wasn’t the worst either, let me be clear, my ex might have had that title wrapped up.

But that’s another story.

A book actually, but yes, for another day.

My friend had extended the invitation before and I just said yes this time.

When?

I don’t know, but yes, I’ll be going.

So.

Yes.

I missed the 12:30p.m. lunch appointment, but I had bumped into the person at school and I think he’d forgotten about me anyhow, he’d mistaken me for another student.

I just smiled and walked on.

Then dinner tonight.

I sat and eat my dinner, coconut curry chicken with brown rice, carrots, and cauliflower.

And a persimmon.

Have I ever told you how much I love persimmons?

So much.

To the moon and back.

A thousand times.

Just saying.

LOVE them.

And I had the little voice inside my head, say, you really should talk to her.

But I kept my silence.

Then.

She paused at the door to the kitchen.

I sat and watched her.

She was having some internal dialogue.

She turned and chuckled, acknowledged what she was saying  to herself and grabbed a cup of water from the tea kettle.

“Actually,” I smiled, “I’m glad you turned around, I saw you yesterday at the practicum workshop and I was going to see Jeff today and it didn’t happen, and well, I have a couple of questions for you.”

We talked.

She gave me all sorts of fantastic suggestions.

I asked questions.

She clarified.

It came out what my interests where, where I had thought of applying, what I needed for the site approval, when it made the best sense to apply to a site and where I should look.

She made a suggestion.

I just about died with disbelief.

What?

What?

You don’t say?

No fucking way.

Ok.

I’m so checking that out.

In our conversation I had said that I was overwhelmed a little bit, that I was a full-time nanny and that it was hard sometimes to just get my papers and reading all done on time, let alone do all the extra work that I was feeling I had to do for practicum applications.

She broke it down in nice little chunks for me.

Then I asked about references and letters of recommendation and then I had a thought.

And it was like she read my mind.

Spooky.

“Wait, you’re a nanny?” She asked.

“Yes, I’ve been doing it professionally for the last ten years,” I replied.

“And you’re interested in psychodynamics and psychoanalysis, and Gestalt?” She cocked her head, “well, of course Church Street (where I was planning on applying, which is the Gestalt orientation school site), since you’re interested in Gestalt, but have you looked at the UCSF program for infants and mothers?”

What?

No fucking way.

Yup.

UCSF Infant Parent Program.

Well, hello.

I found it on the placement site and I’ll probably be applying there, along with the CIIS sites, Church Street, Golden Gate, and Pierce Street.

They, the administrative team for the program I’m in, recommends that you apply to 6-8 sites.

I have four in mind.

And.

I realized, um, heh, I know one of the people who I will be asking for a letter of recommendation.

One of the parents I work with as a nanny is a psychiatrist at UCSF.

Heh.

And the verbal recommendations she has given me to my face have been pretty amazing, the information she’s shared with my main employer, and the fact that she has been super kind and nice and appreciative of my efforts as her nanny, well, heck, I think I will need to ask her post-haste.

It’s nice to be making some head way around this.

It’s nice to say, I’m three-quarters of the way through the weekend of classes.

It’s really nice to say, I have two more classes then I’m free.

I’ll have to do one big presentation in Child Therapy, a big paper for Psychopathology, a 15 page assessment, and a 5-7 page paper for Family Therapy.

Two papers and one presentation to go.

Then the semester break and holidays.

Yes.

But for right now.

Well.

Fuck.

It feels good.

I have some direction.

I have some ideas.

I have a course of actions that I can begin to take and that feels really good.

So.

Excuse me while I get my snack on, some more persimmons please, and a cup of tea and a bit of a video.

Then bed.

And back to school in the morning.

One more day of classes.

Almost there.

 

Do A Little Shimmy

In front of the mirror.

Um.

Yes.

But before that I have a lot of moving and shaking to do.

Holy shit do I have a lot of stuff to do.

I preempted it by doing some of the work today.

I mean I got busy already.

I brought reading in with me to work and for the second day I was able to do reading while the boys were on their quiet time I kicked out some reading.

I also just finished doing another hour of reading.

That’s right.

Because this is how I have to roll to get it all in.

Actually.

I did an hour of reading then I took another twenty minutes or so and organized the material that I will be using for my big Psychopathology paper.

It has to be 12-15 pages long, in APA style and it will be an in-depth analysis of two different diagnosis with emphasis on using the DSM V and as well as a psychoanalytic approach.

I will be addressing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

And.

Alcohol Use Disorder.

Ahem.

I may have a little experience with the two.

Hahahaha.

Fuck I amuse myself.

But.

Hey when writing I have found that the best things to write about are things that I have experience with.

I have experience with both in spades.

Thank you very much.

So after I did another two chapters of reading for my Family Therapy class (this is after working a full day at work, and yes, it was full, though lovely, so lovely especially, getting out to the park in the sunshine) after I got back from doing the deal tonight, I sat down and organized the reading and the materials.

I did not start the writing.

But I have started the thinking.

It sits and stews a little up there in my head.

I don’t know exactly how that works, but I do know from a great deal of experience that it does.

I have done the reading, which is a huge part of the battle.

I have the beginnings of where I need to go in my mind.

I have reviewed the directions for the paper a number of times.

I have started sticking post it notes in the places I need to go back to and integrate into the paper.

I will devote seven pages to each diagnosis.

I will break them down, do an assessment, how it presents in the client, what the diagnosis looks like in the DSM V, what it could be, and how to address it psychodynamically.

I have FIVE books I am working with.

One of them is the full size DSM V and the other is the desk reference.

One book on psychodynamic psychiatry and another on psychoanalytic case formulation.

Plus one book of personal experiences.

I actually won’t be using that one so much, I have, ahem, plenty of my own first person accounts to draw from.

I really won’t have any problem sketching out what the presenting problem looks like in the client.

Anyway.

So yeah.

That.

That will be taking up a big part of my weekend.

But it won’t be all my weekend.

I meet with my person tomorrow.

I plan on getting up and doing yoga, I need some exercise, before I meet her as well.

I need a mani/pedi and some eyebrow waxing and I need to do grocery shopping and cooking for the next work week.

I will also do the deal tomorrow.

And I will meet with two ladies on Sunday.

I plan on doing the bulk of the writing tomorrow after I get back from doing my errands in the Inner Sunset.

I am not sure how long this paper is going to take, it’s a big fucking paper, but having started to delve into it and having organized my materials is a big step forward.

I estimate three to four hours.

That sounds like not that much, but for me three hours of straight writing is a fuck of a lot.

I wrote my Family Therapy paper last weekend in two hours, but that was not with as much referencing and was seven pages.

This paper will be double that.

So I figure four hours of writing.

My hope is to get the majority of it written tomorrow before I head out to my 7 p.m. commitment.

And I will work on it more after ward.

I had originally planned on doing the bulk of the writing on Sunday.

But.

Um.

Ha.

Something came up.

I have a date.

What?

Totally out of the blue.

Once it was all set up I messaged my friend, what do I wear?

I laughed to myself, the quintessential question.

Not whether I can appropriately show differential diagnosis in a co-morbid presenting psychological disease, but what dress to wear, and heels, should I wear heels?

I mean he is 6’4″.

6’4″!

Yes.

Thank you God.

And doesn’t drink.

Yes.

Lives in Oakland.

And happens to be a friend of a friend.

This was not the message I was expecting to get today as I was reading my text books at work while the boys were down in their rooms.

A message pops up.

A friend doing some match making!

OMG.

Blush.

Flattered.

So, so unexpected.

Would I be interested in?

Check out…

And yes?

Ok?

What’s your schedule look like?

How about these days?

And this time.

And.

BOOM.

Date with guy set up for this Sunday at Samovar Tea Lounge.

Holy shit.

I mean.

My friend did all the leg work, said to both parties, hey go check out so and so on my page and if you like I arrange.

She did it all.

Professional like.

Damn Gina.

I feel hella looked out for.

By the time guy had checked me out and I had checked guy out she’d verified times and dates for both of us and had gone ahead and made a freaking reservation for us!

Holy Toledo.

And like that.

I have a date for a cuppa tea and a new friend on Sunday.

So.

Yeah.

Um.

Writing that fucking paper tomorrow like a house a fire.

Heh.

Oh.

And side note.

I GOT THE ASK FOR MY NEW JOB!

I got it.

I got the money I asked for.

They responded today and said, absolutely, totally reasonable, no problem, we can do that and we can’t wait to start working with you.

Quote, “can’t wait’ end quote.

Fuck yes.

I was so freaking busy after lunch with the boys, then doing the deal, then homework that I totally forget to check my e-mail.

The response had sat for seven hours in my box.

Hahahahaha.

“I’m sure you’re going to be taken care of,” a friend of mine told me when I bumped into her after my get right with God.

“I always am,” I said, “I’m sure they’re just figuring out the contract.”

And they were.

The family will have the contract to me by next week to sign.

Huge sigh of relief.

So what am I wearing to my date on Sunday?

When I jokingly asked my friend.

She was like, girl you don’t have to worry about that!

And I liked her rule of thumb.

Wear whatever makes you stand in front of the mirror and do a little shimmy.

Yes.

I know exactly what to wear.

Hello weekend.

Let’s get cracking.

I got places to go and things to do.

So.

I get to get my shimmy on.

Shimmy, shimmy.

Coco pop.

Shimmy, shimmy.

Pow!

Oh.

Yes.

Yes, please.

So, So, So Close

I can taste it.

It tastes like Lacanian sherbert with Milly D. on top.

It sounds like Vagina Punk.

It swims in the electric blue seas of eros.

It is the Psych(e)dynamics paper.

And.

It is all I have left to do.

I have finished my Ethics and Family Law take home final and sent it in.

I have finished my last paper for Applied Spirituality and sent it in.

I sent in my huge 11 page paper with references on transference and countertransference last night.

I have one paper left.

ONE.

I can’t do it tonight.

Oh.

I suppose I could.

I probably could spit something out in an hour and a half of so.

I know what I want to write on, although I may change my mind, I already discussed it with the professor, Mildred Dubitzky, my punk rock, radical feminist, pro-Freudian, professor, and she gave me the thumbs up.

The only fly in the ointment is that two years ago another student wrote on the same topic and I’m a little loathe to write on something she has already read about.

So.

I may change my topic slightly, depending on my mood.

But, not tonight.

No.

Tonight, the rest of the night, is not for going out or being crazy or trying to get across the bridge and hit the party at NIMBY, although I got umpteen requests and questions regarding whether or not I was going to go.

I turned them all down and said, not today, Ethics final has to get done.

I’m actually pretty fucking proud of myself today.

I got a lot of stuff done.

I got up and went to yoga.

Showered, breakfasted, coffee’d, did some writing.

Hopped on the scooter went up to 7th and Irving and hit Tart to Tart for some heart to heart with my person and some discussion of amends.

Amazing that.

I don’t owe anyone any direct amends.

NO ONE.

Fuck yeah.

This shit works.

I, of course, will stay the course with the living amends that I have had outlined and really I am doing well with those and having fun, actually, who knew, amends could be fun.

Being light.

Letting myself have fun.

Even with all the school stuff hanging over me.

I have had my moments.

I also had a great hour of sitting with my fellows and hearing someone with a lot of time, a lot, 37 years, break it down.

So freaking grateful.

After that I treated myself to a little lunch and a new pair of silver hoop earrings.

Because this girl cannot get enough hoop earrings.

I will be buying some when I go to New York.

I always buy earrings when I travel.

I actually am wearing a pair of pink heart earrings that I got at a brocante (flea market) in Paris that was around Square D’Anvers, right before I left Paris three years ago this May.

I love wearing earrings that I have gotten as souvenirs, never fails to remind of the moment or the place where I got them.

I don’t spend a lot of money on them, typically no more than ten bucks or so and they are small and travel easily back with me from where ever I am.

I’ll be at 262 Taafe Place, fyi, in case you were wondering, in Brooklyn, in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, which is not as gentrified as Williamsburg.

Which means a little sketchy but good vintage shops and coffee.

As long as I have coffee I’ll be fine.

And I’m not afraid of rough neighborhoods and I won’t look like a tourist in New York and I’m not staying in a place that tourist typically stay.

Ironically it’s maybe a mile away from where I stayed the last time, my first time, in New York, so I have a pretty good feel for what the area is like.

Dirty, bodega, bodega, subway stop, ooh coffee shop with house roasted beans, vintage store, bodgea, bodega, etc, and hopefully, some good graffiti.

God I love me some graffiti.

I could just do a walking tour of the neighborhoods and take photos of graffiti.

I would pee my pants if I saw a Banksy.

A girl can dream.

I have not done a ton of research yet around my trip, I’m still rather in the throes of school.

But I also got my grocery shopping done for the week and my cooking.

I had to grocery shop today.

Tomorrow will be a shit show out here what with it being Bay to Breakers idiocy.

Drunks running around in costume.

Whee.

I’ll be too busy writing my paper to notice.

Or I’ll hang out in the back yard.

Or.

Ooh.

God, wouldn’t this be nice.

I get the paper done early.

I’m not going to make any promises.

But I should have it done by dinner time.

I really do believe that.

Most of my papers for the class I have gotten done under two hours.

Really what it comes down to is reviewing the reading and my notes and just sitting down to my computer and starting.

And now that I have the proper software to format my papers, thank you so much to my friend in cohort who turned me onto it (it format’s your paper automatically in APA so I don’t have to beat my head on the Purdue OWL or the Chicago format page), I won’t have to worry about references being wonky.

I really do think I’ll be done by dinner time.

What will I do to celebrate?

Run around the park naked?

Oh wait, every body else will be doing that tomorrow.

I’m going to New York, I am going to be celebrating there.

Although, you know, finishing my first year of grad school does deserve some instant recognition on the day I turn in my last paper for the year.

I’ll come up with something.

I’m clever.

Heh.

God damn.

I’m excited.

I’m almost there.

It’s been a crazy ass year.

So much has happened.

I have changed so much.

So fucking much.

“You have changed,” she said to me, across the table at Tart to Tart, “you really have, it’s amazing to see.”

I smiled.

I have changed.

I am in awe.

I am amazed.

I am in love with my life.

Fuck yeah.

I really am.

Yes.

The luckiest girl in the world.

 

I Have No Idea

What fucking day of the week it is.

This has been such a strange week with my work schedule.

That being said.

I do know one thing.

I finished my Psychodynamics paper!

Yes.

I had whispering in my ear about, hey, you know, you don’t have to do it yet, you still have time, the teacher extended the deadline, and yada, yada, yada.

I didn’t have any plans, just an inkling that I wanted to walk the beach today.

I was supposed to go on a coffee date today but the texts suddenly stopped yesterday and I was like, you know, if you want it you got to come after it, I ain’t chasing.

I got books to read.

Articles to highlight and stick post-it notes on.

I got papers to write, yo.

If you can’t be bothered to confirm a date you don’t get to have me saving time for that date.

There was a time, and not that long ago where I would have just been wracked with “what should I do and where should I go and how long before I ask, hey are we still going on that date?”

Not so much anymore.

People show sudden intense interest.

Then poof.

Nothing.

Ok then.

It’s all just for practice, it’s all just for fun, I’m just here dancing to the tune on the radio.

If you want to slow dance all you have to do is step up and tap my shoulder.

I know it is an age of technology but I feel like folks forget how hard it can be to be present, to just show up and meet each other.

I’m worth the showing up for though.

I won’t bite.

I promise.

Unless you ask very nicely.

Ahem.

So I wasn’t so upset when Mister Coffee didn’t confirm after settling on today for the date, I had plenty to do.

I also did it with the idea that I would take care of the big stuff first, the things that make my heart hum, the things that help me walk balanced through the world with my heart on my sleeve.

I changed my sheets and put fresh ones on the bed.

I showered and hell if I haven’t had the best hair day in weeks.

Seriously.

My hair was on point today.

Too bad Mister Coffee.

Your loss.

Heh.

I knelt, I prayed, I read some stuff, I said some stuff, I was thankful and I asked to move toward being of service the way I needed to be to have a good day, to show up and share the message and not the mess.

I had a speaking engagement this evening.

Then breakfast, coffee, and loads of writing.

I have been writing a bit more over the last couple days, I think partially just from the standpoint of not quite writing as much as I normally do over the past school weekend.

Then I did a coloring meditation for about a half hour.

I was so happy after that half hour, filled up unexpectedly with the calm of the colors and the serenity in the sound of the pencils on the paper, it just set the tone for my day–colorful, serene, lovely.

I walked around the neighborhood and made some check in phone calls.

I went grocery shopping.

I cooked.

I decide I wasn’t going to write the paper.

The ocean, it looked so appealing, the sand, the beach, the sky, fuck it, I have time to write the paper tomorrow.

I peeled some carrots and ate them raw with some sea salt and made a pot of rice.

I folded the laundry and the fresh sheets and put them away.

Hmm.

Maybe, I mean, the rice needs another half hour before I start making lunch, maybe I’ll just sit here and look over my notes and see what there is to see and review the articles in the reader and just, you know, look over the paper requirements.

I mean, I’ll probably still write the paper tomorrow, but you know, read the material again and see if anything sticks.

Oh my God.

What a night of good sleeping can do.

I looked at the material with fresh eyes and it all came popping out at me.

Holy shit.

I know exactly what I am going to write about.

I scribbled notes in margins, I stuck post it notes all over the article, I organized my notes, I got the title for the paper in my head.

I looked up, the rice was just about where the rice should be.

Excellent.

I heated up some coconut oil in the cast iron pan, chopped up an onion, browned it, added some ground turkey meat, salt, pepper, tarragon, Spike (a spice mix), mushrooms, zucchini, and brussels sprouts.

By the time the rice was done, the main dish was done, I spooned some in a bowl and topped it with the turkey and vegetables and added some amino acid’s and put away the rest of the food–for work, I do get to go back to work tomorrow, albeit for a short day as the family will be in transit (I’ll be going in, doing some cooking, running to Lucca Ravioli to get deli shaved turkey and pesto and cheese toretellini’s), then a full day on Thursday and Friday, earlier than typical, like I said, this week has been so weird and it’s only Tuesday.

I ate my lunch excited and knowing in my head all the directions and also that the paper was going to be the full five pages easy, in fact, it had all come so clear to me that for a moment I was miffed that I was not allowed to write more than a five page paper (the assignment was for three to five and no more than five).

That feeling did not last long.

But.

Yes.

I came in at a full five pages.

1,654 words.

Add those words to these words and the words I wrote this morning.

And um, ha, that’s a lot of words.

I probably wrote 3,500 maybe 4,00 words today.

Not bad for a Tuesday.

Yes.

I actually do know what day it is, it’s just a little off kilter when I think about it.

I felt like it was Sunday today.

Tomorrow, who knows what it will feel like.

Tomorrow is tomorrow.

Tonight.

Well.

My papers are done, I’m fresh and clean, my house is tidy, my food is cooked, my words are written.

My life.

My life is.

Well.

Good.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Good.