A Day Off

I think that’s what I actually had.

Oh sure.

I had some commitments, back to back ladies this afternoon and this evening doing my Sunday thing up at Most Holy Redeemer in the Castro.

But.

I actually had down time.

I also had a hankering for art.

I have a membership to the MOMA and it’s been on my mind to go and see the Magritte show.

I haven’t been to a museum in months and months and months.

In fact.

I realized today that the last time I had been to a museum was in February when I was in D.C. and I went to the Phillips House Collection, which is actually the oldest Modern Art museum in the United States.

Prior to that I couldn’t remember the last time I had been at the MOMA.

I have a fleeting idea that it was a pretty summer’ish day and I remember an installation or two.

Yes.

As a matter of fact, I remember texting my best friend about a show I had seen and saying that we should check it out together.

That did not happen.

Grad school happened.

But there’s no grad school right now.

And the MOMA was calling my name pretty hard.

I figured even if I just went in for an hour it would scratch the itch.

I have seen the permanent collection quite a few times so I just wanted to get my eyes on the Magritte and I figured if I couldn’t find parking, well, I’d take off and go do something else, but I was going to try.

I found parking!

I zipped into the MOMA with 50 minutes til closing time.

It was perfect.

The majority of people were leaving and the galleries were emptied out.

I got a ticket for the show and I didn’t have to pay extra for it.

Membership has its perks.

Aside from the fact that the ticket alone for the museum is $25 the show would have been an additional $12 I think.

I share a membership with a friend for $150, we both chip in $75 and I go three times it pays for itself.

I think I’ve gone twice this year, this year as in this year of my membership.

I do plan on hitting it up a few more times as I have time off upcoming.

But today, yeah, I just wanted a quick art snack.

And it was tasty.

I’m not a huge Magritte fan, but enough of one that I figured it was worth perusing.

I was right.

There were some fantastic pieces.

I got my art high on for sure.

I really found this one compelling.

Something about the light and the layers of color in the sky.

I just stood and drank it right on up.

It’s called La fin du monde.

The End of the World.

It was fantastic.

And Magritte wouldn’t be Magritte without the apple.

Of course, the painting that I most associate with Magritte I don’t like as much as I thought I would when I got a closer look.

I found this one more compelling.

La Chambre d’ecoute.

(I wish I could figure out how to put the accents on my French words! D’ecoute is missing an accent)

“The Listening Room”

I rather find the idea of listening to an apple quite appealing.

I wonder what stories it would tell.

About the bees and pollination and birds roosting in tree branches.

About the multiplicity of sunsets in its plush ripe skin.

About the honey of love and the secrets of the heart.

I bet an apple would have many stories to tell.

However.

My favorite was this:

My God this was so pretty.

My photograph does not do it justice.

But even as I type this I could see myself becoming lost in the reflections of the light on the water.

Such pretty light.

L’empire des lumieres.

(again the apologies for the missing accents here)

“The Dominion of Light.”

Glorious.

Full blown art high.

I was so happy to see this piece.

I love when I get lost in art.

I want to go back again and see it.

Maybe one of the days in between New York and Paris when I won’t be working except seeing clients in the evenings, and I can take a lazy mid-week stroll around the show again and really soak it up.

There was also something about the sky and the color of the sky, bright blue with those white clouds contrasted against the shadows of the house and the water, I could see that it was sunset, that time when there is still light, bright light, but the shadows of dusk are swallowing the houses up and then that light reflected from the lamp-post.

My God.

It was dreamy.

I had my happy art high and I wandered around a few other galleries and took in some photographs and did a little people watching and had some great gratitude for my life that I could just pop on down to the museum on a whim.

It was perfect.

I did errands after, grocery shopping at Rainbow and a little personal grooming-snuck in for a manicure right before my shop closed.

Then on to the Castro and the fellowship there.

It was such a sweet Sunday.

It started out so nice and just blossomed into a restful, artful, true day off.

I actually feel ready for the week!

 

I Made It

To my weekend!

Thank freaking God.

I have tomorrow and Tuesday off.

Eleven days in a row at work.

Three days in a row of school.

First day off tomorrow.

Who’s not setting an alarm?

Yes.

That’s right.

I am not setting an alarm.

Which makes two days in a row.

I woke up late this morning.

For the first time in forever, I forget to set my alarm.

I really can’t remember the last time I missed setting my alarm, I am a little compulsive about it, I usually set my alarm while I am eating breakfast in the morning and checking my e-mails.

Then I don’t think about it the rest of the day.

I spaced it.

I also typically check it before I go to bed, you know, just in case.

Obviously.

I did not check it and I woke up 45 minutes past my alarm.

Oops.

Fortunately the rain had cleared and I had more time in my morning for the commute in because I could take my scooter.

That and the morning commute is really pretty easy on a Sunday.

I didn’t get a chance to write my morning pages, but I figured, I really just needed that extra 45 minutes of sleep.

Yesterday was a hard day.

Today was easier, shorter, but I still had some frustrations.

Like thinking I had recorded the therapy dyad session I did in Couples Therapy, a half hour recording that I don’t know how, but I somehow deleted.

It was the weirdest thing and I was so over it, the weekend, the classes, the processing, not that any of it was bad, there was a lot of great stuff that happened, it’s just that I’m staring down a lot of work.

Three papers.

Three pretty big projects.

And needing to deal with setting up a new dyad, a fake couple, to practice on and record a new session so that I can write a paper for Couples Therapy, which is also due the week before the last weekend of classes, which I find to be bullshit, but there it is.

The last weekend of classes I have a Trauma paper and presentation due and my Community Mental Health paper due.

Both of them require me to listen to recordings as well.

I did an interview for Community Mental Health and I will need to sit and listen to it, a half hour of interview, and then I will have to listen over again to the podcast we listened to for this weekend of Trauma class, which is two hours long.

I feel a bit over having to do all so much work for these final projects.

But.

That’s what has to happen.

Plus, two weeks from tomorrow I start my supervision for school.

My plate is officially full for April.

I only have three weeks before the next weekend in May.

This means each weekend I need to write a paper.

Le sigh.

At least I had dinner and hang out plans tonight after class.

A lover came into town and we had a rendezvous.

It was lovely to catch up, I haven’t seen him since last semester, right after I had gotten out of school in December.

It was good to  get acquainted again.

Ahem.

It was nice to be in my body for a while instead of my brain.

Although the conversation at dinner was intellectual and thoughtful, he’s smart, I’m smart, we have smart conversation and yummy Thai food at Thai Cottage.

I am grateful for the “reunion” and it feels nice to have had some company.

Heh.

We even watched a video after and snuggled, which is not usually the case, he’s busy, I’m busy, we both live and work far away from each other and he had to get on the road back home, but it was good, so good, to be a human creature, get my atavistic needs met.

Which really are old needs, they are current needs.

But met needs.

I would like to cultivate a relationship that meets more than once every three or four months.

That would be nice.

I’m sure it’s happening though.

And in the mean time I am grateful for my lover and the time we did have.

A little sexy sexy is fun and it was good to feel wanted.

Who doesn’t want to feel wanted?

Anyway.

I don’t have any plans for tomorrow.

I could get up in do yoga, I might, I might not, I really am going to let myself sleep and purposefully not turn on the alarm.

If I’m up and awake in time for the 10 a.m. class I will go.

Even though the teacher is not one of my favorites, I find his classes exceptionally hard and challenging.

I usually spend my time in class wishing it were over or wondering when it will be done.

I don’t normally clock watch a class, but the few times I have had the teacher I do, and I don’t find it that enjoyable.

So maybe I will try for an evening class.

I don’t feel like making any plans.

I could go get a mani/pedi.

I might go to the MOMA.

I haven’t seen the Diane Arbus exhibit nor have I seen the Diebenkorn and Matisse retrospective.

I have not agenda besides sleeping as long as my body wants.

My brain may be a monkey and get me up early, but I suspect that after the romp in bed, the long weekend of classes and eleven days straight at work, I will sleep just fine.

Yeah.

Me and my bed head are pretty tuckered out.

Glad I got through.

Now it’s time for rest.

Night y’all.

Sweet dreams and all that jazz.

Cures For The Every Day

Emotional hang over.

Get eight hours of sleep.

Get up and drink cold brewed iced coffee from the last of the Mojo Coffee I brought back from New Orleans.

Go to yoga.

Cry on the mat.

A lot.

Then do the fucking pose.

Breathe.

Do it again.

Go home.

Shower.

Realize that it doesn’t matter that I am terrorized to have confrontation.

Will do it anyway.

Finding over the course of the day as I focus less and less on the “problem” and more and more on the solution, that it will work itself out.

Even though I am afraid.

That’s ok.

Be afraid.

Just don’t not take any action.

Today’s actions also included meeting with two ladies back to back and doing some reading and sharing experience, hope, strength, faith versus fear, and lots of letting go.

I had a nice breakfast too.

More coffee as well.

Did some writing.

Wrote a really long gratitude list in which I also expressed being grateful for the challenges in my life as I get to grow from them and through them.

Get my ducks in a row and then headed out to the MOMA to visit with a couple of friends and get a dual membership.

Seriously.

This is the way to go.

My friend and I split the dual membership which is $150 for the year.

So, $75 a piece and I can go any time I want for the next year.

Considering that a one time ticket to the museum is $25 I’ll pay it off in two more visits.

Plus.

I get to bring in 2 people with me as visitors.

So.

You want to get your MOMA on.

Let me know.

Even if I just go down and get you in and do a gallery or two, I figure that may happen once in a while, pop in, just see a few things and pop out.

Plus.

The place is huge.

They really added onto it and it’s now 7 floors of art.

So much scrumptious, delicious, devastating art.

I was so happy.

I got to see some of my favorites from the permanent collection that I always love to see–Warhol’s Triple Elvis, of course the various Marilyn’s, the Dolly Parton’s too, so good.

Rothko.

Gerhard Richter.

Hopper.

All the Calder pieces, so many!

Diane Arbus photographs.

And the Oculus bridge!

I was so happy to see that they kept that part of the museum.

It is one of my favorite bits and I walked across it happy in the moment and also softly aware of the moments prior when I walked it first.

That being back in 2000.

Wow.

Sixteen years of going to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

I have always had a membership since I moved here in 2002.

Excepting while it was closed for the renovation.

My information was still in their system and it was a lovely little trip down memory lane layered with so much gratitude.

See.

I used to work down town, at Hawthorne Lane, which is now Benu I believe, and I used to go to the MOMA cafe on my way into work and sit in front of the museum and smoke cigarettes and drink lattes and people watch.

A lot of times I was also recovering from a hang over.

Or I was still high from the night before.

I used the bathrooms all the time.

But.

I never used in them.

I couldn’t ever bring myself to.

It was sacrilegious.

It was my church.

Art still is my church.

Museums are where I go to commune with God.

Get high on art.

I just couldn’t do it.

I don’t recall a single time being able to allow myself to do it.

I didn’t have a problem using the bathrooms at the park across the street, or at Starbucks on 3rd and Howard, or at the Metreon.

Fuck.

I could get high all over the city.

The W Hotel bar right there on the corner.

Or.

Dave’s sports Bar on 3rd at Market.

But the MOMA?

Fuck no.

I just couldn’t do it.

And I was so grateful to know that my bastion of art and love was never tainted with that.

Granted I don’t have a problem going places I have used before, but I am quite grateful that I never did there.

It was sort of like how I felt about music.

When I first was in the club scene here in the city I was all about the ecstasy and the cocaine and the dancing and the getting out.

But.

Eventually I didn’t enjoy it anymore.

Spending too much time in the bathrooms and not enough time on the dance floor.

Or.

Just wanting, desperately to be home in my room before the sun came up so that I could use the way I wanted to use without anyone bearing witness to it.

It was not a good scene.

And.

Eventually I couldn’t even use at home with the music on.

It got real quiet.

And.

Real uncomfortable.

Real fucking fast.

All the small reminders as I was downtown, which is a different downtown than it was eleven and a half years ago, but still, plenty of sense memories to recall and remember and to get to be at the MOMA.

A place, one of the first places, I went to when I first came to SF in 2000, that I revered and loved and still do.

So much.

It was an honor and a privilege to buy my membership.

Despite my fears of financial insecurity.

Despite my over magnifying mind trying to blow up a simple boundary request at work into a scenario where I am homeless and alone living with a feral cat in the park.

I got to amend my behavior.

I got to drop a few bucks and make good on my promise to live this day fully, with love and presence and the gift of being there with friends and running into my sweet Parisian friend from school and her husband.

I am so graced.

And.

I don’t have an emotional hang over at all.

It dissipated in the groundswell of gratitude flooding my heart.

Happy.

Joyous.

And oh.

So.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Free.