Kindness

I was blown away by a conversation I had with my boss today.

It started out as a bit of a joke around how I didn’t strike yesterday for International Hooha day yesterday.

That’s Women’s Day for you.

But you know what I mean.

I told her it just didn’t feel right to strike on my job when I work for a mom who runs her own business and has three children.

We joked a bit and the conversation turned to family and I found myself sharing things with her that I have not shared with previous employers.

I found myself sharing as though she were my friend.

Cautiously.

Yes.

I mean I needn’t go into gory details.

But.

I did tell her a bit more about my family.

Specifically my dad.

Which I found myself quietly feeling out the words to explain the relationship and also, and here I was really surprised by my openness, that I was thinking about going and seeing him this July when the family is traveling in Europe.

They will be gone for three weeks.

And.

I was just told tonight as I was leaving that they have the dates for their trip and also the dates for a work trip the dad will be taking at the end of this month.

I am going to help out while he is away for a week.

I’m not sure exactly what that will look like, but I will be helping out more.

I also suspect that I won’t mind at all.

She, the mom, is really becoming my friend and it’s a different relationship with a boss than I have had.

Granted.

I have had some amazing.

AMAZING.

Parents that I have gotten to work with.

Let me repeat that.

Amazing.

I am really lucky to call the majority of them my friends.

But I would also say that it was more after the fact than during the beginning of the work relationship.

I just find myself so at ease with her and I feel like I am a different person than the nanny I was when I first started.

I am also much more sure of myself and I am very aware of how good I am.

Which is not ego, but humility.

It would be false pride to belittle what I do or to downplay it.

“I could not do what you do,” my person told me last Saturday, “you really do astound me with how good you are, I still remember how you just pulled out a bag of snacks that one time I ran into you with the boys.”

She recounted a time years back when I was first began doing recovery work with her and I had a nanny gig at the time in Cole Valley.

I ran into her and some fellows and I had one of my charges with me and I had snacks and diapers and back up clothes and milk and wet wipes and god only knows what else, probably a teething ring or three and bags to put wet clothes in and hand disinfectant and the kitchen sink and…

She remembers, though and recounted it, not for the first time, with awe, and I don’t think anything of it, that’s just how I roll, prepared.

There used to be a time though when I was a lot more uncertain of myself and my worth.

I don’t think I was ever uncertain of my abilities, just not of my worth.

I  remember fondly an “intervention” some friends of mine did at Samovar Tea Lounge after I had just moved back from Paris.

It was a combination welcome home and you’re amazing and should be making more money at your job and we want to help you do that.

Eventually all that peer support sunk in and I got the picture.

I started to advocate more for myself and I started to get better jobs.

And now.

Well.

It may really be the best nanny gig I have.

Health insurance.

Paid vacation.

Sick leave.

Invitations to imbibe of their food, nice food, organic food, really nice procured stuff.

I drink nice tea and have all the coffee I could possibly want.

I get to be out and about with my charges.

I have a credit card in my name.

Of course, I can’t get cash with it and they are fully aware of what I use it for, but it’s so handy, I pick up dry cleaning, I use the card, I run to Whole Foods or Rainbow, ditto, I have it to put extra money on the Clipper card (the MUNI pass for the trains), or to take my charges to Dolores Park Cafe for mini pizza.

I have the dream nanny job.

And.

I LOVE my boss.

I feel appreciated, understood, and we talk.

Like we have conversations about the world, the state of the nation under the current administration, art, Paris, Burning Man, San Francisco, homelessness, the mayor, rent and rent control, health insurance, school stuff.

I mean.

I have shared a lot.

So today it was not new exactly, it was just sharing on a slightly deeper level and twice I found myself tearing up in empathy for her kindness and good heartedness and how she just looked at me with her big blue/green eyes and it seemed as though she got it.

She got me.

In fact.

I felt like I was in the field with her.

The field is a psychology term that I liken to be in a therapy session.

There is intuition there and connection and things are seen from both sides, the therapist and the client.

There is often a kind of subconscious connection and things pop up and out and it happened today.

I thought something as she handed me the baby and then she said exactly what I was thinking.

I have found things like that happen to me when I am in tune with another, but I don’t know that it has ever happened with an employer, although as soon as I write that I have curiosity about that statement.

Regardless

It happened.

We connected.

It was a moment of awe that I got to take in and I was just super grateful for her.

And for the little lady bug who tonight when I was making dinner stopped me, looked up, and said, “Carmen I love you, and Carmen,” she said and paused almost shyly, “Carmen, you’re beautiful.”

I stopped stirring the pot and looked at her, this little fairy elven woods creature with big saucer blue eyes and the fey downy blonde eyebrows on her face rose as her eyes widened, and she looked up at me, “you want to hug me now don’t you?”

“Yes,” I do, F__________.”

“Ok.”

I put the wooden spoon down and gathered her up and hugged her.

“I love you too.”

And I do.

Very.

Very.

Very much.

I am such a lucky girl.

Luckiest girl in the world.

And.

I’m also a school girl.

Tomorrow is my first day back to school.

So.

Off to bed I go.

See you on the flip.

Sweet dreams my loves.

Sweet dreams.

Shake It Off

Dance it out.

Grind it out.

Jump around.

My blood is up.

Happens sometimes, sometimes when I least expect it and I am suddenly inundated with energy.

Might have something to do with writing a lot of pages today.

I got my Child Therapy assessment paper written.

Twelve pages, over 2,300 words.

It actually didn’t feel like it was that long, it wasn’t scintillating writing, it didn’t make me excited per se, although I did have some trouble falling asleep last night as I was thinking about the case assessment and the history I was making up to do the paper.

But.

Sleep I did.

And it didn’t hurt that I saw a lover last night and got the kinks worked out.

Not enough, to tell the truth.

Sometimes my blood runs high and I could well.

ER.

Ahem.

What was I writing about?

Oh yes.

Graduate school.

That.

That thing I do on weekends.

I didn’t do all that much reading, today it was mostly the writing.

Again I am rather shocked that I wrote twelve pages, that I am writing now, that there are still words to write, they just fall off the ends of my fingers and onto the page.

I have so much I want to write about.

And so much that I don’t.

Oh the stories I could tell.

The flirtations with life and narrative and the long lines of elongated tales tripping down my head, all the sexy words and heart navigations.

The flush on my face.

The small red bite mark on my collar bone, faded softly after a night pressed into a pillow case.

Were you here.

Mouth on my neck I would stand asunder at the thunderous applause of heat on my face.

I distract myself.

I look at the heap and stacks of books and the reading and the comprehending and I can get hooked onto fantasy.

Not that there’s a damn thing wrong with fantasy.

Especially since I don’t have a boyfriend.

I have pondered the mystery of it all so many times and I just don’t even know.

The ones that really want to be with me aren’t available for one reason or another and the ones I want to be with aren’t interested and then I’m just doing this dance.

The dance around my house by myself.

And.

That’s ok too.

It’s just life.

And it doesn’t always mean forever and when I’m honest.

I mean brutal in my honesty.

I have had more lovers than my due.

I have had more than my fair share and maybe your fair share too.

I haven’t always gotten what I want.

I have not had a long-term relationship in a while.

But I have had too many friends tell me how jealous they are of my single life.

Of my ability to choose or not choose how I spend my time.

“So why are you dating him if you want something else?” My friend asked me last night.

“Because no one else is interested in me,” I said flippantly.

Truth.

I don’t know how I responded, but my friend arched his eyebrow at me and said, “oh really?”

“No, it’s because I don’t think I’m good enough” I said, and delightfully, surprisingly, gently, I only teared up a little.

I have teared up a lot more prior to this.

And.

I actually have started to believe, fake it til you make it, yo, that I am good enough.

That I’m not irreparably damaged.

Yeah.

I’m a pervert.

Wouldn’t you like to know.

But I think that’s ok.

I’m a deviant.

So be it.

I can embrace it and love it just as much as everything else about me.

I’m interesting.

And deviant sounds, well, deviant.

But I am thinking that I’m just not of the norm and I think the norm is well.

Boring.

I am grateful I have gotten to explore who I am and allow for all of it to be there, all the good, the bad, “the bad” whatever, it’s all good, the nuances and shades and colors.

The sunset more glorious for the obfuscation of the clouds.

So much life there is to live.

It rained today, the smoke of evergreen pine needles in the air, the fog of sea salt water and the warmth of it, the humidity, the full moon in the eves of the morning when I woke up startled by a dream and fell back asleep pressed into the warm scent of roses on my pillow.

As though your hands were in my hair and tugged me back down into sleep and soft repose.

I wonder at myself, my heart, my desires, the awe with which I still find myself mesmerized with when I think about how lucky I am to live in this world.

When I can get my mind off of myself and into the moment.

When I can let the moon just be the moon in the sky.

Or an owl hovering over me is just hunting a snack in the dark dunes.

But.

I prefer the magic.

The mystification.

I heard him swallow the “I love you” as I hung up the phone, it was there and gone, a soft undertone of story that lines a narrative older than all my desires, old friend.

I love you too.

The romance of the unrequited longing for love.

It still dances next to my skin.

Here.

Then gone.

A ghost.

An imprint.

A kiss of sunshine through a butterfly wing.

A memory of sky blue outside the window of school bus rolling through the barren hills of late autumn, the cold hard frost on the ground belittling the eternal summer inside my heart.

I will continue to dance to French house music in my room, candles lit up around me, cheeks flushed, and even if I am alone.

I know that you see me.

And for that I am grateful.

To be seen.

To be acknowledged.

There is glory there.

Love.

Love.

It’s always.

Just.

There.

Fluttering across my face.

Sauntering in the smile on my lips.

Alive in and to this moment.

Graced.

Yes.

Graced.

And that is all.

For now.

Anyway.

 

The Count Down Begins

I was looking at my calendar and trying to figure out when my person and I could meet up again.

We had just had a really nice re-connecting after my lapse in being available over the past week with it being my last school weekend of classes.

I asked if we were going to go back to our regular schedule and that would have meant meeting up next Thursday.

Except.

HOLY SHIT.

Next Thursday I fly out to New York for some well deserved rest and relaxation and as much modern art as I can get my paws on.

The Whitney.

The Guggenheim.

The MOMA.

Walking the Highline.

Walking around Brooklyn.

Doing the deal, because it’s awesome fun to do that in other cities.

Sunshine on my face and spring/summer time dresses.

OMG.

I am almost there.

I still have so far yet to go though it feels ages away instead of just around the corner and maybe it’s time to unearth your carry on, except, well, I won’t because I know how to travel and I know how to pack.

I mean, come on, I went to Paris for six months with this same roll on luggage and my bicycle in a box, I can do New York packing for four days in a matter of minutes.

The packing will not be the issue.

It will be getting all my papers, posts, and final exams done.

I have no juice left in me today.

The affects of the weekend of school and two back to back slumber parties has me all tuckered out.

There wasn’t, um, heh, much sleep at my sleep over last night.

My.

Though.

There was fun.

And every once in a while I would catch myself walking around at work gob smacked and silly, with a grin splashed across my face.

I actually kept it pretty well together, all things considered.

The red eye from Trouble Coffee did not hurt, and it was fun to be in my neighborhood on a Tuesday and instead of doing my little morning routine, going out with my company and grabbing some coffee and then catching breakfast at the Sea Breeze Cafe up the street.

Totally felt like a tourist in my own hood.

It was awesome.

And.

Since I will be a tourist again soon, in a hood all the way across the country, I do need to take care of organizing my time.

Tomorrow I get up and do my morning routine and then I start sorting through my notes and my readings for the appropriate topics that I will be covering for my class The Clinical Relationship, wherein I will be writing a ten to twelve page paper on the topics of transference and countertransference in the dyads that I worked for the class–12 sessions, 12 pages.

I can do it.

I have done all the reading.

And I take great notes.

Ask any of my classmates.

I am a good little school girl.

I figure once I have my notes organized and the supporting reading references to back up my experience with theory the actual paper itself will take me about three hours to write.

Maybe four if I include working up the reference page and doing a couple run through edits.

I’ve got a half day Friday at work.

Thank God.

I have a doctors appointment at 4p.m.

I figure I’ll be out by 5p.m. back home in the hood before 6 p.m. and I’ll grab some Thai Cottage take out and start the writing.

Or.

Better yet.

Finish the writing.

Because I do actually plan on starting the paper on Thursday.

I, ahem, have another date tentatively scheduled for Friday and may well be, well, er, heh, occupied for the later part of the evening.

Happily so.

It will be my moment of celebrating having that paper written.

Saturday I’m pretty open, I’m assuming I’ll be a little sleep deprived for part of the day, but I will still be showing up to meet with my person as per our usual at Tart to Tart at 12:15p.m.

Then maybe a little nail spa action or something else, not sure what, don’t have to figure it out now.

There will be reviewing material for my Ethics class and prepping for the take home exam Saturday, who knows, maybe I knock it out and do it Saturday as well.

Sunday I’ve got a couple of ladies in the early part of the day and then my Psychodynamics paper if I still have any stuffing left in me.

If not.

A day of rest, an hour of doing the deal in the evening and I’ll knock out the last paper in the mornings before work next week.

I want to have it done by Wednesday.

No matter what.

I am not going to New York with a Psychodynamics paper on Lacanian theory still to do.

I am just not going to.

I want to be free and clear to travel and not have any papers.

I have one more big push.

I can do this.

I did it before going to Burning Man last year–what did I write, six papers?   Right after the 8 day long retreat, aka “bootcamp.”  And then I went to the event with a clear conscious and the ability to be fully present for the experience.

I did it before going to Paris at Christmas time as the first semester closed and wrote I think four big papers to finish out the coursework.

I will be able to do this last.

Especially since I am completely finished with all my readings.

Last semester I was still doing reading as the last weekend of classes came to a close and still had reading to do before being able to write those papers.

Plus.

And this is a big plus.

I really understand the material.

I had an “aha!” moment in Psychodynamics as the professor was giving her last lecture of the year on what I could write about and I scribbled down some ideas and approached the professor after class and got the thumbs up.

As for the big paper, again, just the showing up.

Just like everything else in my life.

Say yes.

Show up.

Watch the magic happen.

I am sure that I will feel some anxiety, I always work through a little as I prepare to write a paper, but having the promise of a date Friday night.

Well.

That helps.

Helps quite a lot.

I get to be a good school girl.

And.

Have fun.

Yes sir.

Let’s get this party started.

Giddy Like A School Girl

It’s how he makes me feel.

Then I laughed to myself, as I shut the gate to the house, catching one last glimpse of him as he sauntered down the street.

I am a schoolgirl.

Ha.

And like a good school girl I am here writing.

Yeah.

I know, this is not home work.

But I do my best work when I am able to also do this, this sitting, this coming to the page, this writing it all out, all down, falling down that dirty little hole of word lust and wanderlust and rumpled and tossed on my bed kissed with heat and desire and shake it off girl, you got papers to write.

I do have papers to write.

But I still have reading to do.

So.

The reading runs a pace.

I got in more today and I am happy to announce I have a plan.

(God laughs at my plans)

I will read as much as I can and then outline my paper on Saturday afternoon, writing it in the afternoon completely on Sunday.

I have a few ladybugs that I am meeting with, then doing the paper writing deal.

My week is actually pretty damn full up.

When isn’t it?

Tomorrow I meet with my person after work at Church St. Cafe.

Friday I meet with a ladybug at the same cafe, again after work.

Saturday I meet with another one of my people.

Yeah.

Like that.

It takes a village to keep me straight, as in not bent.

Then.

A speaking engagement at 7th and Irving.

After.

I will treat myself to my small indulgence and go out to a solo lady lunch and then go to my mani/pedi/waxing spot and get my girl on.

Why?

Because I like to pamper myself and this is one of the few things I allow myself, once a month I get the full deal and it’s so nice.

I would actually be getting my nails done more frequently, but between juggling work and school, well, I just don’t have the time.

I looked at my nails today and cringed, it’s been too long, but, it’s going to wait until Saturday, there just is no time otherwise.

After I do the girl’ing out, back to my house, a shower, a shave, shake out my hair, curl it up (like I have anything to do with that, it will just do it all on its own) pull out a crinoline and put on a pretty dress.

I gots a date.

Super stoked to be going to a restaurant I have never been to and heard lots of good things about.

Range in the Mission.

In fact, the dad who I work for, it’s his favorite restaurant.

The mom’s is Michael Minna’s.

I have never been to either, although, ha, I have known people who have worked in both places.

Even after a decade of being out of the service industry (I was in it for 21 years) I still know lots of people in it.

I like this dating thing.

I am having fun.

The going slow is good too.

Although, on one hand there is no going slow.

The intimacy, emotional, has been deep and intense and also relaxed and easy.

I’m not going anywhere.

I’m in school, giddy like a school girl, remember, for the next three years.

I was working this morning on my three pages of journal writing, my morning pages, and acknowledging the slight bit of anxiety about getting my Human Development paper done and getting my date on and doing the deal with the ladies, I’m meeting with three of them this weekend plus my two people–it’s like having another job, of course the most important job when it gets right down to it as it allows me to do everything else that there is to do, and I do mean everything–but I know it will happen.

I just have to sit down and do it.

I am also working on the sonnets for the Burning Man collaboration with an artist I met at the burn and I am happy, nay, excited, thrilled, over the moon, that they are going well, they make me tingle when I am writing them and I had to put them down today after I wrote the fourth one in full.

I actually spoke to myself out loud.

“Ok, now, read, put down the poetry, Martines, pick up your reader.”

And I did.

I read for a while before getting on my bicycle and going to work.

Work.

Adventures in nannying.

Adventures in asking for what I need.

I am taking a day off in November to go over to Corte Madera and do a little speaking engagement that I was asked to do before I had started school or even headed off to Burning Man.

I realized when I asked for the day, that I obviously couldn’t take it as a sick day, but the family and I haven’t sussed out whether or not I get vacation days or pay or time off or sick days or, shit, a lot of things have yet to be discussed.

So.

I must to send them an e-mail tonight requesting it off officially, so they have a reminder and I need to ask for clarity.

Such a small thing.

I thought I would feel some anxiety, but I don’t.

I just need to clear it up so that I don’t have it on my head running around in circles, just being present is the hardest thing to be and it is an absolute must when I am nannying.

Being completely present for the boys and for myself.

Knowing how I best can take care of myself is a part of that.

Knowing that I can balance it all out is good to know too.

I am.

I will continue to do so.

Moment to moment.

Taking a minute.

Once in a while.

To get giddy like the proverbial girl and let my hormones, just for a minute, tumble me about.

Then back to the grind.

Back to the books.

Back to the page.

And.

Back to work.

There’s always something to do.

Grateful.

Grateful for it all.

At the end of the day.

I am happy.

I am happy today.

No regrets.

No cause for worry.

Not in my wonderful.

Full.

Loved.

Creative.

Poetic.

Enchanted.

School girl life.