Did You Get Your Ticket

To Burning Man?

My friend asked me tonight.

“My what?” I asked.

“Your ticket to Burning Man, aren’t you going?” He replied, “I saw they went on sale today everybody was posting about it.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m going this year, I probably won’t be, if I get into the PhD program I applied to I won’t be able to, I hadn’t even really thought about it,” I said.

“But, I did get my ticket to Paris!”

Burnign Man, what’s that?

Heh.

But oh.

Paris.

Yes, Paris.

 

I bought my ticket last night after confirming times and dates with my dear friend who I’ll be staying with.

In the Marais.

The Marais!

My favorite part of Paris.

I am so lucky I get to stay with her.

She’ll be busy, I was told I’ll be pretty much on my own as she’s studying for her exams for school, and I, well, I have no problem with that at all.

I can entertain myself just fine in Paris.

I have before I certainly can again.

Long walks.

Window shopping.

Sitting outside at cafes and writing.

People watching.

Wandering through the museums.

Going to the markets.

Sitting on benches in parks and getting sun on my face.

It will be warm.

Sun dresses and sandals!

I booked my ticket to fly out Sunday July 15th.

It’s a direct flight, which is awesome sauce, and with the time change I will arrive in Paris around 4:30 pm in the afternoon.

I’ll hop the train from Charles de Gaulle and transfer onto a Metro Line, and take it all the way to the Temple Metro station and then walk with my luggage to my friend’s house.

Oh my fucking God.

I’m going back to Paris.

I am so excited.

I do love it so.

I will also be taking a three-day weekend with my friend to her family’s summer-house on L’il de Re (I haven’t yet figured out how to get the French accent marks over the words) which means swimming pool lounging and beaches and sunshine and my friend.

And a road trip!

In France.

It’s not a long road trip but it’s five hours.

I think that it will be a blast to drive outside of the periphery of Paris into the country side and then to the coast.

I’m so happy I got the ticket.

And I got a good, I mean, damn good price on it, I found a ticket for $788.

I was over the moon.

A round trip ticket from San Francisco to Paris for under $800 is fucking amazing.

I’m quite pleased to say the least.

It will be my graduation present to myself.

And.

Heh.

Speaking of graduation.

I also ordered my cap and gown.

Things are really coming together.

It’s been a busy time, though, I can assure you.

Today felt like a really big push and I was a bit beat by the end of it, but I accomplished quite a lot.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, my heart was beating so loudly in my ears it took a while to drift off.

Although, drift I finally did, despite the loud sound of my blood in my ears and the ruminations in my head, I did sleep.

I also got up pretty early and was at work by 7:45 a.m. and spent the majority of the day with the baby and doing a lot of laundry.

A five person family makes for a lot of laundry.

A lot.

The baby was also super fussy, he’s teething pretty bad, so much carrying and snuggling was had.

It was not a bad thing, but I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to be able to get to the work that I had brought with me.

Specifically getting the annotated bibliography written that I needed to do.

Fortunately for the second nap of the day facilitated me being able to do some work.

The only thing was the baby was in a carrier.

So.

Yes.

I did in fact write three-quarters of my paper with a baby strapped to my chest.

I felt a little like Wonder Woman to tell the truth.

Or something of that kind.

Super Nanny maybe.

Super Nanny also made a fucking fabulous meal–slow roasted ham that I studded with cloves and rubbed down with brown sugar, garlic smashed potatoes with butter, cream, sour cream, garlic, salt, pepper, and yes, I did, cream cheese; asparagus in a Meyer lemon brown butter sauce with shaved pecorino, and two salads: tomato and red bell pepper in olive oil and balsamic with parmesan and a fresh kale salad with chopped apples, carrots, red onions, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and an olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing.

Plus, three loads of laundry washed and folded and put away and all the general tidying and straightening up I tend to do anyhow.

In hindsight it’s obvious I had to do the homework, the paper writing, I was attending to so many other things, of course, I should note I was at work, and I like to do a good job.

I like my job stability and it was nice to have the baby, albeit a slight inconvenience to have him swaddled upon my chest, while I was doing my homework.

I also read an article.

Then I got home and cooked myself a quick simple dinner and finished my paper and read two more articles before heading out to do the deal.

Burning Man.

Well.

I’d forgotten clean about it.

But the truth is.

I wasn’t planning on going this year.

Too many other things to do.

Oh.

All the things.

All the things I get to do.

I am so very lucky.

Really.

Luckiest girl in the world.

Although sometimes I think I should just put busiest girl in the world.

I am, truly, lucky to get to do the things I do.

Or graced.

Probably that more so than luck.

Yes.

That.

Grace.

 

Date Night

Date Night* Written 4/20/17 WordPress site down

 

And Debussy.

I am listening to Clare de Lune and my heart feels full.

It is a good thing.

I just got back from a date and it was really quite lovely.

Lovely is not quite the right word, I am sure I will find the correct words, they elude in this moment.

But.

There is poetry here.

Sitting by the fire.

In a space full of recognition.

The doorway after the threshold.

The moment.

The moment when.

The moment, a monument of time, a granite faced creature to scale.

In that moment when.

I looked into the eyes of those across the table and did not feel shy about my history or my lineage or my drama, trauma and crazy, when I realized I had so many words, so much to say.

I could embarrass myself with a wealth of things to say, so many words.

All the words.

Piled on the table like small crudities, rare and delicate and delicious.

A smorgasboard of words.

They tumbled from my mouth and I could tell stories.

Oh.

The stories.

There are so very many.

I don’t often have the luxury of expressing myself the way that I expressed myself tonight, and all the words lined up in my mouth, a minuet of dancing syllables and vowels that bowed and courtesy and waltzed out across the table, into the air, fragmenting into poetics and poesies.

Chains of daisies, a small girl, yellow sun dress, the kind with the little elastic ribbing and the shoulder ties in string bows, sitting cross-legged in a field.

Clover.

There.

That smell.

The one field on the drive into work.

The rich, verdant, lush, overbearing sweetness of it.

Almost, but not quite a velvet purple crocus of sweetness, but deeper, with an edge, just a tiny peppery edge, that alleviates the sweetness to make the smell palatable.

All those things.

In the cross hatch of the tablecloth.

The tea bag, white Moroccan mint.

I don’t even like mint tea.

But there I am ordering it, as my mind is not concerned with the tea.

No.

Just the company.

The stories.

The tall tales.

The tall man across the way.

A waiter takes our order.

He has blood trickling from his right nostril.

I point it out to him, he walks to the bar, wipes his nose on a napkin, returns, takes our order and brings me mint tea.

The shimmering line between strings, either ecstatic in the exuberance of the violin-cello.

Or.

Discordant, the chop of a credit card breaking piles of cut cocaine in the employee bathroom.

The whisper in the hallway of the deeds done and remembered, recalled, and integrated now, the fire in the hearth.

The echo down the history.

The pub.

Harold Pinter plays.

Shakespearean sonnets with turns in the quatrain and the final couplet sings to me of the music of the spheres and the lifting of eyes toward heavens as yet only alluded to.

“Do you ever get up early in the morning and go down to the beach and drink coffee and watch the sunrise?”

No.

I never have.

The sunrise on the beach.

The mermaids they sing each to each.

The shells in a paper sack, mussels, indigo violet, malevolent blues studded with dried seaweed, the remnants of drift wood fire.

The sunrise.

The drive up the coast.

The view of the ocean from the red checked table-cloth booth, a vinyl booth my little girl legs stick to as I wait for pancakes and syrup to be set in front of me.

The sun.

The sun in my mother’s hair, reddish fired tinge, a halo of gold in the brown, mirroring the flecks of gold in her green eyes.

Undone by the beauty of my mother I dragged my fork through the buttery stickiness and surreptitiously lick the tines to catch-all the maple sugar in my mouth.

I think kissing you would be.

So sweet.

Yes.

Down to the ocean.

To the beach.

Let us go then you and I.

I shall wear my trousers rolled.

Or at least my bib overalls, and watch the foam-flecked waves throw themselves at my feet as the sun comes up again over the promises of urchins, spiny, but broke open, buttery cream orange uni, the soul, just there.

Just there.

You will kiss me in the dunes.

And all the words will come undone.

Tossed into the sand.

Where they will stay.

Like.

Scattered dropped magnetic poetry.

On the old fridge down the hall in the artist loft.

Rearranged once in a while by the hand of a passerby.

Blue scar pretty jealous skin.

 

 

Swim Suits

And sun hats.

I pretty much lived in those two things all day.

And my sundress.

And some flip-flops.

Pretty nice weather.

Beach weather.

Building sand castle weather.

Wading in the waves with bright yellow plastic buckets to scoop cold salty water for building more sand castles.

I worked today and it did feel a little strange, but I rolled with it, to have my family come out to me.

The mom wanted a day at the beach and was super kind to suggest that we just meet in my neighborhood instead of having me commute in and then we could all head to Ocean Beach together.

Again my start today was later than the noon start we had talked about.

And that was fine.

I got some more homework done.

I couldn’t go to yoga.

I tried.

I signed up online.

I set my alarm.

But.

When it went off there was just no way, I was exhausted.

Exhausted.

I gave myself another hour of sleep on my alarm and rolled back over, I was out, there was no brain activity, no rumbling early morning ruminating, I was dead to the world.

Even an hour later I could have slept more.

I figured I was just tired from the long week, even though my days weren’t full days this weekend, it’s still work on the weekend and not much rest for the wicked.

Not that I’ve been wicked.

Maybe a tiny bit naughty.

In my thoughts, people, not in my actions.

I wouldn’t mind being a little naughty in my actions it just wasn’t on the menu today.

Fortunately I had enough time this morning to wake up slow, to enjoy my breakfast, to have a big creamy unsweetened vanilla almond milk latte and take some time to write my morning pages and sort out my day.

I did some homework, some grocery shopping, and a little food organization and prep before the family got to me.

We met at my house and I suggested where they could park, down on La Playa and Judah, and I walked down to Java Beach Cafe to meet with them and help them carry all the goodies to the beach.

It was very sweet to be with them.

We had a picnic in the dunes.

We dug holes, collected shells and sticks, and dashed in and out of the water.

I was super grateful for the straw fedora I had grabbed at Other Avenues when I had grabbed some groceries earlier in the day.

And the sunblock.

It was a sunblock kind of day at the beach.

It isn’t often that the weather at the beach cooperates.

There was a moment when a bit of fog and mist rolled in, but it didn’t stick and it was really a nice day for being at the beach, sunny, but not too hot.

I was with the family until about 5 p.m.

Then I came back here, roasted a chicken, made some soup, and decided I needed to get right with God.

Hopped on my scooter and took a ride up to Quintara and 20th and got some recovery on.

Back home, hot tea, my fedora hung up in the closet, grateful for the day and the service and yes, grateful that tomorrow is Monday, I made it through the work weekend.

My schedule will go back to its regular hours tomorrow and I’m good with that, I want to get back into my routine before school gets going next weekend.

Four days of work, three days of school.

Then two days off.

I’m going to hang out with a friend on Monday and I have a therapy session on Tuesday, but other than that, nothing.

I’ll get to yoga, make up for this weekend.

I just couldn’t do it, my body was really sore from yesterday’s class and I have a stress injury in my left shoulder that flared up, I’m going to not beat myself up for not getting in today, the fact that I went and did the deal is enough.

Fuck.

The fact that I worked is enough.

I did enough today.

The days are a bit of a blur, I will admit that, they keep rolling along into each other.

The sunrise.

The sunset.

The routine of my days measured out in cups of tea, words scrawled into notebooks with black ink pens, the shift of my heart as I hear the birds sing in the morning and the spill of golden sunlight through the back door of my studio.

I felt like I was moving through honey soften time this afternoon when I got back.

Just to sit outside, shaded up under my fedora, the sun freckling through the straw brim when I tilted my head back, still in sun warmed air, ravens perched on chimney tops, silhouetted against the bluer than blue California sky, my feet up on the wrought iron chair, to be still, I got my break, I got my refresh and though I worked today I was able to have a measure of quiet in my own skin time too.

I need these breaks.

I need to sit still and watch the sky.

To feel the big heavy imprint of azure press itself into my heart, to be glossed in sun, it is glorious beyond my reckoning.

I’ll change out of my swim suit and sundress soon.

My fedora has been hung up for another day.

But.

I may give myself a few more moments in my garb to appreciate the beautiful place that I live, Outer Sunset, Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California.

My home sweet home.

Luckiest girl in the world.

So.

Damn.

Lucky.

Happy

I just said it out loud a lot today.

“Happy.”

And I was.

Nothing special.

Nothing new to report.

Unless you count the fact that I wore a sundress in San Francisco.

I was pushing my luck, two days of heat and the third usually means cooling off and heading into foglandia.  But I risked it and though I did have to don my sweatshirt for the evenings bike ride home, I was able to go through the entire day with a summer dress on.

Happy.

Happiness is a state of contentment for me.

I used to believe that happy meant excitement, expectation, exhalation, high highs, roller coaster emotions, drama.

Not so much anymore.

Happy.

Sitting on a fresh painted green picnic table in Alamo Park Square just below the tennis court surrounded by old trees, rose bushes growing profuse and decadent, with my little girl Thursday in my lap as we watched the butterflies flitting about the sun.

Happy.

Riding my bike to work in a sundress.

Make that really happy.

I did joke earlier that I was tempting fate, that it would probably snow since I had decided I could rock out a summer time frock.

Practice for the trip to Wisconsin.

Practice for the music festival I am going to over Memorial Day weekend.

Need to get my ducks in a row for that, camping equipment, arrangements, and details.

My friend is out-of-town in Canada on a family matter and I have not heard back from her yet as to when we will be leaving and what I need to do to prep for the festival, but having been to Burning Man a few times I am certain I will be able to piece together what I need.

Happy that I am allowing myself to go out-of-town on Memorial Day weekend for a girl road trip with one of my dear friends.

I get to listen to music outdoors for four days in a row.

That is really happy.

Very happy with my hair cut.

Calvin must have taken four inches off and I was a touch sad at the loss of length, but man, it looks so much better and prettier.

So much so that I ended up giving a Solid Gold business card to one of the mom’s after today’s music class.

We have similar hair and she loved my cut.

Happy to get a hug from the Music Together teacher.

It’s nice when your presence is acknowledged by the person running the class and it’s nice to have mom’s that treat me well and it’s so lovely to have little children crawl into my lap and share with me their joy too.

Happy.

Pushing the stroller in the sunshine through the Pan Handle park to and from the music class, walking through dappled shadows, smelling fresh-cut grass, which always reminds me of summer.

Happy to have brewed extra coffee this morning so that  I could bring some in a glass Mason jar, with my tea cozy wrapped around it, and make iced coffee at work, to sip on the way to music class.

Happy.

Today’s music destination?

France.

We sang lullabies in French and the free dance was to Edith Piaf.

Lovely.

Happy.

The smile of the barista at The Mill who took my order and made my iced coffee for the walk back to my charges house.

Happy.

To hold the door open for the disabled man coming up the stairs and to be patient.

With myself and grateful to wait, to know that there is nowhere to rush off to, nowhere that I needed to be except right there feeling fine.

Happy.

That I am not going to get up early tomorrow and try to start the scooter to take it to work and rush about if I can’t get it started to ride my bicycle to work in the Castro.

Nope.

I am going to wait until Saturday to deal with it.

I don’t have to get up and try to force a solution when I have all day Saturday.

I really mean all day.

My early afternoon commitment was cancelled, she’s off to New York for the weekend and I don’t have to be anywhere until 7p.m. on Saturday.

I will take the time to address the scooter when I am not feeling rushed.

Happy.

To hear the laughter in my life.

Happy.

To laugh at myself.

Please show me who I should be with, popped out of my mouth this morning in my meditation and prayer time.

You know what I heard, which caused me to burst out laughing.

“You’ll know when he asks you on a date.”

Oh Jesus.

Duh.

And moving on.

Happy.

To not care right now I am so relaxed and softened and pretty exactly where I am with who I am.

I don’t know when I have felt this free and easy in myself.

I suppose it’s the culmination of a lot of different things, a lot of work, a lot of surrender, a lot of following other folks suggestions and ideas and a lot of taking action and not living in fantasy.

Happy.

I don’t have to figure it out.

Happy.

I am getting myself to embrace my authentic self further and have some fun.

Yes.

I am getting my hair colored soon.

Hehe.

But I am not going to do the big reveal yet.

I did, however, share with a dear angel of mine what I was going to do.

“Oh my God, that is going to be amazing,” she exclaimed, eyes wide.

Yes.

I think so too.

Happy.

Butterflies, blue skies, begonias, bright eyes, big hearts, robin’s eggs in the grass, beauty all about me, love, beachy skies, overblown rose bushes, pig tails and sparkles in my hair, summer dress, and travel plans, Burning Man in three months, friends going to Burning Man for the first time, getting to live in San Francisco, faith, godliness, trees, the smell of cut grass in the hot sun.

Hot sun in San Francisco.

Happy.

Happy.

Joy.

Joy.

Repeat.