Turn On The Heat

It’s cold out there.

The rains are coming.

It’s November.

Hello.

The chill in the air, with the almost full moon rising, was spooky and intense, bright and crisp, fall is here, winter is coming.

I hopefully will be getting a car soon, as I noted that there is rain in the near forecast.

I don’t have the time to do it before the rains start and I have some homework yet to do, but I’m pretty decided and as soon as I have the down time I will be getting my butt to a dealership in the East Bay.

Soon.

Not soon enough to save me from some more cold scooter rides home, or wet rides home.

I am still debating riding in to work tomorrow on my scooter, even though there is some rain in the forecast–it’s off and on and not 100% rain all day.

There are windows of time when it’s not raining and they both fall around when I would be going into work and when I’d be coming home.

I get to come home early tomorrow, both of my clients cancelled and instead of trying to squeeze in a consult, like I did tonight when my client cancelled, I decided to take the night off and just come home.

Take a hot shower.

Wash the week off of me.

Cook myself a nice dinner.

Be cozy.

Reflect on my life and the last six months.

My God.

The last six months.

So much love.

So much change.

Some quiet and private.

Some big and public.

Lots of internal change.

Loads.

And just extraordinary amounts of gratitude for where I am in my life and the people I get to spend time with.

I am so lucky.

If the rain stays away and the cloud cover is not to bad, it might be a great night to go down to the beach for the full moon.

It will be full at midnight tomorrow, but I suspect that it will look full when it rises, I thought it was full tonight as it was coming up.

I had to check online to see when it was complete.

Tomorrow.

Midnight.

The witching hour.

Magic.

Love.

The ocean.

Dancing on the beach.

Wrapping myself up in love.

The full moon reminding me of you.

Of promise.

Of joy.

Of laughter that falls from my mouth.

How sustained I am and how loved.

My life is extraordinary, even when I am tired, like I was today and a little bit in H.A.L.T.

Hungry.

Angry.

Lonely.

Tired.

I was hungry since I didn’t have the best lunch, not a bad lunch, no not at all, just not the lunch I’d planned, as the container that my chicken soup was in broke in my scooter basket and I had chicken soup all over my school books, shoes, and paperwork.

Sigh.

Tired.

As I went to bed late.

Not horribly late, just later than normal and up a little earlier to help the mom out at work by coming in a half hour early.

Lonely.

Well.

Sometimes a girl gets lonely.

I was listening to Coleman Hawkins today, late afternoon, at work, the mom had all the kids and I was at the house waiting for an important delivery and doing food prep and cleaning and household stuff.

The music moved me.

The view moved me.

I danced by myself.

Dreamy and slow, folding the laundry, looking out the window towards downtown San Francisco, dreaming of being in another’s arms.

Angry.

Well.

It passed.

But it was there for a little bit.

I got boonswoggled into a playdate/babysitting gig, without compensation.

I felt manipulated, annoyed, angry, pissed off, victimized and aware that, in the passive aggressive text, I had been played.

Or so it felt.

And I knew that I was tired and I knew that I was lonely and I knew that I was hungry, so I prayed and asked for it to be removed and I asked myself what my fear was, and I asked if I needed to manipulate through withholding my honest response, and I asked myself to see the situation with perspective and wait for clarification before getting more pissed off.

Which I’m very happy for.

I also had a snack.

Which fucking helped.

And I took some ibuprofen, too much carrying the baby this week in the carrier, which is how I started out my day, so I was a bit sore and tender all day too, which helped.

Then I had a talk with the mom and we divided and conquered and, yes, I will, in a way be baby sitting–I’m just going to call it an extended play date, but it is for a charge I have already had, who I love so dearly that I am more than happy to help and that the mom is taking two of her three kids, so that I will just have two to take care of, instead of the four I thought I was going to be saddled with, and it doesn’t happen til next Wednesday and fuck if I’m going to be upset about it and carry it forward.

Thank God for spot check inventory.

Also.

Thank God for getting home and making myself a nice hot meal, pan-fried Japanese sweet potato with garlic and pulled meat from a roasted chicken with melted butter.

That along with turning up the heat in my studio and realizing it’s Friday tomorrow and I have wonderful plans for it and I’ll get a paycheck and my health insurance stipend and really, there are no problems.

None.

Just love.

Abundance.

Perspective.

Joy.

And the nearly, almost, not quite, but soon to be.

Full moon.

So Many Things

This Sunday.

Although I did not set foot out of the Sunset.

I almost didn’t get out of the Outer Sunset, but I did manage to scooter up to a lovely little church shrouded in the heavy fog this evening.

Wow.

The fog tonight was no joke.

It was super spooky riding home and the visibility was little to none.

I went very slow.

Grateful to be in a neighborhood that was quiet and sleepy and muffled.

The few cars I did pass basically blinded me with their headlights refracting in the fog.

So careful.

So slow.

I don’t want to die.

I say that with and without tongue in cheek.

There has been a lot of death around lately.

I joked, in a rather morbid way, the other night, the God must like taking folks in July.

“What is under that fear,” I asked her today.

“Well…..” she said somethings and got closer and closer and then, “I’ll drink and then I’ll die.”

“So, you’re afraid to die,” I said softly.

I am too.

I remember the first time someone spelled that out to me.

I hadn’t made the correlation from the resentment I was holding onto to the point that I was ultimately afraid that I was going to die, that so many of my fears stem from that oh so basic fear of death.

Oh.

There’s littler fears, smaller fears, the classic ones that come to my mind are always the same, fear of being unlovable, fear of being abandoned and alone.

Always they come up.

But tonight.

Well.

It was just plain old fear of getting hit by a car on my scooter because the visibility was so bad.

I was very glad I had my scooter jacket on.

Aside from the fact that it’s a great windbreaker and it has padded elbows, shoulders, and a back piece, it is also pink and has reflective fabric sewn into it.

I’m pretty visible.

I mean, nothing is 100%, but I would say that I have more visibility than someone who is riding in a black jacket, that’s for sure.

I’m running around in loops.

Get to the point.

Today another person died.

Taken off life support.

I knew her a little while after I got into recovery, she’d been around, on and off, for at least ten years, maybe eleven of my time doing the deal.

Always a bright light, always a lovable woman.

She came in and out a lot, there were many times I saw her after a relapse and they were not pretty.

But.

She got out and she was doing well and had relocated back to the Midwest and was doing it, she had two years when she died, had gotten married, had a great job, she was a step mom and happy, and you could see it in her photographs and in her cute little quips and fuck, she just recently recommended to someone in our community who recently had a baby that they reach out to me as she knew I was a “great nanny.”

She’d been a nanny too.

We often times would commiserate about our families, and more often swap pictures of the babies we worked with, our charges, and we would share stories of endearment about them and our nanny adventures.

It takes a special kind of person to love unconditionally children that way that she did.

That’s what she was doing.

Swimming.

Teaching a child how to swim.

If I understand the story correctly.

And she drowned.

She was pulled out and they tried to resuscitate her and she spent some time in the ER, but she never came back.

She passed this morning and once again I find myself taking a big break from social media and trying to titrate how much I take in.

I did reach out to a dear friend of mine and offer some support.

He’d dated her and though the relationship hadn’t lasted, I know how very important she was to him and how much they still stayed in touch.

He was devastated.

He’s got a great support system though.

And I think of the community and support system I get to be involved with, all the gratitude I have for my fellowship.

And.

Yes.

Sigh.

I think about Shadrach.

He would have run the marathon today.

He was supposed to ten years ago today.

But that was not what happened.

Ten years ago he was hit on his scooter and though not outright killed, he was in the ICU on life support for a week, he was killed that night.

He just hung around long enough for us all to say goodbye.

And sometimes it feels like there was never enough time to say goodbye or never will be and I keep going on living and when I used to feel guilty I just feel graced now that I get to be so exuberantly alive.

I bitch about going to yoga.

But fuck.

I get to go to yoga.

I get to do so many things.

All the things that he didn’t get to do.

And I wonder about this woman too, what things did she not get to do.

I am grateful that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was at the best place she’d ever been in her life and that God took her at the peak of her experiences.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not sad.

God damn it’s sad.

She was so freaking young.

I’m forty-four.

I think she was about to turn 40 this year.

I just recall that we were close in age.

Sigh.

Shadrach would be 42.

I don’t feel the sads the way I did a week or so ago when I was walloped with emotion, but it is there, soft, and slow, and muffled, like the fog, creeping in and nestling down in my heart.

So.

I lit some candles and I will have a moment and I have looked at his handsome face today in the photographs I have on the wall.

And I will say thank you friend for showing me how important it is to live to my fucking fullest every damn day.

Sometimes it’s tiring.

But.

Fuck.

I get to be tired.

I am so lucky to be here.

If life was fair I would be dead.

I am not.

I am here and I promise.

YOU.

I will keep loving with all my heart.

Loving so damn hard.

Regardless of how much it can hurt to live.

The pain is worth it.

I get to live.

I get to love.

I get to.

I am so, so graced.