Today I Ate

An entire book.

I mean.

I consumed it.

I chopped it up and snorted it down like it was some sort of happy drug.

I haven’t read fiction in so long it was an aphrodisiac.

I still feel a little high.

I did just like I said I would and I slept in this morning.

I woke up at 9:45 a.m.!

Holy Toledo.

I cannot remember the last time I slept that late.  I mean, maybe the ARTumnal Airpusher after party silent dance rave I went to in November, but even the day after coming home from a night of carousing and dancing I was still up by 8:30a.m.

I think.

So this morning was nuts.

I believe it was partially, at least this is my excuse, not that I need one, that it was so clouded over.

Dark and stormy.

Grey and misty and wet.

True San Francisco winter weather, not exactly rain, but mist and wind and rainy and all-pervasive.

San Francisco rain doesn’t really always come straight down, it seems to enwrap you and get everything soaked.

Without directly raining all that much.

So I slept in.

I might have even slept longer were it not for the siren song of my bladder yelling out about the big mug of tea I had before I went to bed last night.

I got up and was leisurely.

Like in a major way.

I think it was 11:30a.m. before I actually sat down for breakfast.

A phone call from my best friend was partially the reason, but mostly, I was just going slow and easy.

I enjoyed my late breakfast and wrote a ton.

A lot.

It was lovely.

And though I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, I did know I was going to need to make a run to the grocery store and maybe see what was playing at the Balboa Theater, which is just up the road from me.

Unfortunately I’d already seen one of the movies and the other I am planning on seeing tomorrow.

But.

La Promenade Cafe was open and so I took my book and settled into a big leather arm-chair by the front window and sank into my story.

I bought this book last summer, a few weeks before I was to start my fall intensive for school.

A day before I got my first text-book in the mail for said intensive.

I only read a few of the stories, it’s a collection of shorts from A.M. Holmes called Days of Awe.

I really like her work, I’ve only read her novels and was happy to find that the shorts were just as compelling and in a way very interwoven, so it felt like I was reading a novel in a way.

I read at the cafe and listened to music and people watched and thought how nice it was to actually be in a cafe in my new neighborhood.

The first time since I’ve moved here since mid-September that I actually did something other than laundry in the neighborhood.

It felt a little like getting settled.

I did another first today too, this one may surprise you, although it shouldn’t considering how busy I keep myself.

I went for a walk around my neighborhood!

Yeah.

I know.

I really haven’t done any walking, unless it was from my car to the house or from the house to my car.

I had gotten back from the cafe, unloaded my groceries, roasted a chicken, made a late lunch, sat on my couch, watched the rain, ate brown butter brussels sprouts and hot roast chicken and listened to Coleman Hawkins.

It was delicious.

The food.

The music.

The rain on the windows.

It felt outside of time, I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, Sunday, Monday, it all blended together.

My tree looked pretty, I lit candles, it was so cozy.

Then the sun burst out for a few minutes and I thought I should go for a sunset walk.

I quickly bundled up, there was only a few minutes before the sun was going to set, and I walked out the door on 48th and down Balboa towards the sea.

As I got closer, I realized that there was a path that I hadn’t seen before and what do you know, it’s actually a little park!

Sutro Dunes!

I had no idea.

Sweet little wood slat path along the base of the grass and flower covered dunes.

In the twilight it was deeply moving and full of divinity.

It felt really good to just do a little stretch around the neighborhood, to see the Cliff House hanging like an ornament over the ocean, to smell the fresh washed air, to just be.

I am pretty lucky when I think about it.

I live by the ocean.

It is literally a block away from my house.

Although I don’t get down to it as much as I would like, it is always a solace to me and I see it every day when I leave in the morning.

I always say hello.

I am in perpetual awe of its beauty.

And I am not often home at sunset to ponder it.

It was a really lovely little gift to me.

I got back to the house right before the rain began again and settled back on my couch, my first day of really sitting on my couch too!

My first day really using my coffee table like a coffee table.

I drank a second homemade cafe au lait, so decadent to have two in one day at my house, and I read more of the book until I left to go do the deal up at 7th and Irving.

Which was also just marvelous.

Ran into some much-loved fellows and heard exactly what I needed to hear.

Came home, heated up dinner.

And yes.

Yes I did.

I ate the rest of the book.

I read 288 pages today.

It was not a chore.

It was the best feeling.

And guess what?

One of my text books for the next semester did come in the mail today.

I did not read it.

I was tempted.

But I realized, did I want to leave the A.M. Holmes until next summer?

Or was it actually ok to let myself have Christmas Eve without homework?

It was ok.

And it was so lovely.

Exactly the kind of day off that will sustain me for many weeks as I marshal my way forward towards this next milestone of learning and life.

Gratitude this Christmas for all the gifts in my life.

There are so many.

The best, I dare say, may be my relationship with myself and the life I have been given.

Grace.

That’s what it is.

Grace.

I have been blessed.

And may you be as well.

Merry Christmas to all.

And to all.

A.

Very.

Good.

Night.

I’m Going To Try

And I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it.

But.

I am going to try to get up and go to a yoga class tomorrow morning at 7a.m.

Which means getting to bed really soon.

Like almost now.

I thought.

Maybe I won’t blog.

Haha.

Yeah.

Like I could even do that if I wanted to.

My day seems to hinge on my writing practice, in the morning and in the evening and it feels so integral to who I am that to not write feels to wierd.

Especially to not write so that I can get enough sleep to get up to go to yoga before I go to therapy before I go to work before I see two clients in the evening before I do the deal before I pass out from exhaustion just reading that sentence.

Run on sentences, no bueno.

Anyway.

The thing is I have been saying pretty much every week that I want to try to get to this morning yoga class.

It’s just super tight on my schedule.

But not so tight that it’s not doable.

It means a few things.

It means having to get my shit together really fast once the class is done, shower, dress, make up, hair, breakfast–which would probably be in the car on the way to therapy or after therapy.

It would mean no coffee.

I don’t have my coffee set up in a way that’s expeditious to make and drink and slam out of the house.

Sure.

I have cold brew in the fridge, but it’s not cold brew weather and it’s not my super yummy vanilla almond milk latte I make myself in the morning.

And breakfast would be cold too, probably a couple of apples or a green drink that I can whip up and throw in a Mason jar.

This is when I think to myself that it’s time to get a really good blender so that I can make a smoothie to take out the door with me.

I’ve had this thought before too, the blender smoothie thing.

Then I think about how I’ll miss writing my morning pages if I go to yoga.

Then I think.

But yoga.

And it feels good.

My brain argues, sleep in, rest, don’t get up.

Just take a nice morning like you usually do and do your routine.

That being said I have also told myself every damn time that I make a yoga class that I wish I was going at least one more time a week.

And what with my current schedule and the schedule at the studio I don’t have another option.

So.

Yeah.

The great Tuesday morning 7 a.m. yoga debate continues.

I really have had this discussion in my head every week for the past month or so.

Ever since I saw it pop up on the yoga studio schedule.

And.

It’s taught by my favorite teacher, so I know I’ll like it.

Ugh.

I should just compromise, write a short blog, drink some tea, eat an apple, watch a little tasted of Peaky Blinders and go to bed.

Sleep is also important to me.

All the things that I try to balance.

I don’t always succeed, but I do find that I am efficient with my time.

For instance.

Today I had some time between supervision and work so I drove to work and sat in my car parked on the street in front of the house and read from a text-book for a half hour.

I also read from that same text-book for the twenty minutes I had before my first client tonight.

I knocked out three-quarters of what I needed to read in that book.

If I keep that going I will be able to have a lot of my reading done for the next weekend of classes.

Just finding the little spaces and places where I can do that is important.

Especially since I have another paper assignment due next weekend.

Well.

Not exactly due next weekend, but by February 8th one part and by February 9th the other.

The thing is because of my work schedule and my internship schedule I find myself having to write my papers the weekend before they are due.

So I’ll be writing it this weekend.

And I also need to put together my application for the Transpersonal Inquiry PhD program.

I have one of my letters of recommendation and I can fill out the rest of the application.

I have started it, but not finished.

I need to also write-up a personal statement and put together a writing sample.

Prove I can write, you know.

I wish I could just send a link to this blog and say, “here you go, just read that.”

Not that it would necessarily be the kind of writing the department is looking for.

However, it would show that I have a strong writing practice.

At least I think so.

Anyway.

Grateful to be home, in front of my laptop with a nice dinner in my belly.

I had an upset stomach again today, the acid reflux is better some days and worse others and I’ve now gotten a second prescription filled and I’m just hoping that it stops soon.

If I have to refill the meds a third time I’m going to have to go back in and be seen again.

Fingers crossed.

I also know that it’s been a super emotional past ten days, to two weeks for me.

Two weeks, it’s been two weeks of super big emotions, mostly sad ones, so the tummy being upset is not unusual, not at all.

But I am grateful, again and again, to keep walking through this and doing the work.

I know what a gift this experience has been, painful as fuck, but beautiful in its own way too.

For there is no lack of love, there is in fact, so much love that I am constantly awed by it.

Awed.

The love is so big.

I am besotted and graced with that knowledge.

I am loved.

And.

I love.

To love and be loved.

It is.

Absolutely.

The best thing in the world.

Seriously.

Almost Over

The weekend that is.

But my God.

It was glorious.

Amazing.

Let me tell you.

And it’s not quite over, but at 8:40p.m. on a Sunday, it does have the feeling of being just about put to bed.

Granted.

I will be up a little bit later tonight as I’m going to go to the deal on the other side of town.

I am normally not a late night lady when it comes to that, I used to be, but enough early morning starts and going to do the deal after 8:30p.m. becomes a fantasy more so than any reality if recent memory.

However.

I don’t have supervision tomorrow!

My solo supervisor is on vacation this week and next.

Which means I have to find my supervision elsewhere, but whatever, I’ll figure that out.

I have one session booked for the Saturday after I have school, yeah, I have a school weekend next weekend, right after I attend my group supervision–my group supervisor agreed to stay an hour after and meet with me.

I will probably want to shoot myself in the head because my solo supervisor is amazing and I love working with him and I always leave feeling exhilarated and have pages and pages of notes to review and work through before meeting with my clients.

My group supervisor?

Not so much.

In fact, I realized this weekend that I stopped bringing in my notebook for group supervision.

I get so little out of it that I rarely take any notes.

Granted.

There is something about sitting and processing what is happening for me in the session with my clients and I have gotten some good feedback.

But not much.

I am just going to have to do it though, I am, as I need to carry a certain amount of supervision while I am carrying my client load.

I have eight clients now.

I see clients four times a week, after work, for two hours.

I must have a certain amount of supervision or the BBS won’t approve my hours of client sessions, and that’s fucked, as there are so many hours I have to accrue.

I understand the logistics of it, but it’s still a pain in the ass when my supervisor is gone.

Nevertheless I feel quite happy that I can sleep in tomorrow and thus go out a little later than I normally would on a Sunday to hang out with my fellows and get right with God.

I am also happy to say I had a super productive day so I’m ok going out too.

I have gotten a lot of reading done.

I just finished writing a paper for my CBT class and I turned it in three days early.

Granted.

I had to do the fucker tonight, it doesn’t really matter to me that it wasn’t due until the 11th.

I’m going to be working and seeing clients today and tomorrow.

I will be going to therapy before work on Tuesday.

I will have to do my group supervision this week on Wednesday and I have a commitment after that.

I wouldn’t have had time to do it any other time.

I do have another paper to write, but I’m not quite ready to write it and since I had a client cancel for my Thursday slot at 6:30 p.m. I will probably take that hour in my office to write the paper.

I have to go in Thursday despite the cancellation, I still have a client at 7:30p.m.

So anything that I don’t get done by Thursday I can address in that time.

Yeah, an hour is not much time to write a paper, but I can write a 1500 word blog in less than an hour, I can certainly crank out a paper for my Jungian Dream Work class.

I didn’t attend to that today as I had other reading to do that had to happen and also I haven’t really had any dreams that I have remembered.

I have had some snippets but nothing worth writing about.

I did have one a few nights back that was pretty interesting, but it was happening as I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and I was super tired and fell right back into bed.

I am not going to pick up my dream journal and write down a dream at 4 a.m.

No I am not.

So.

I remember bits of the dream, but not the bulk of it, and I suppose I could have sussed something out that morning after I got up, but I had other stuff happening and I forgot.

I don’t as of yet really have fodder for the paper.

Oh.

I suppose I could use a dream I have had before.

I have a very vivid recollection of many dreams.

But.

I’m waiting for something fresh.

Speaking of fresh.

My house is looking tidy.

Did more laundry.

Did a bit of cooking, I’ve got food all prepped up for the week and for the weekend of classes.

I also met with a ladybug and did some work with her.

I love how I find myself telling the women I work with the exact, and I do mean, exact thing that I need to hear myself do.

So.

After she left I had a phone check in with my person and then I did my accounting for the month of September, which I usually do within a day of the beginning of the month, but um, ha, it’s the 8th and I finally got to it.

And I did my spending plan for October.

Then.

I got my health insurance stuff sussed out.

My coverage through Healthy SF ends on October 16th.

I applied for health insurance through school and it was pulled, the money to cover the plan, from my financial aid.

But I hadn’t really finished setting it all up.

I did that today.

I also called and contacted my new ophthalmology doctor.

Which was fantastic, I have insurance now that will cover my eye doctor appointments, I was paying out-of-pocket and that has gotten pretty expensive over the last few years as my prescription as changed.

Thanks “old age” and reading a fuck load of books and articles for grad school.

I have been wearing “progressives” for a few years now.

Bifocals.

Thank you very much.

And they are not cheap and I suspect my prescription has started to change enough so that I need a new pair of glasses.

I’ll be making an appointment tomorrow.

Very happy I got that taken care of.

Hell.

I even got to yoga today too.

I wasn’t sure I was going to, I was feeling a bit of anxiety about getting enough homework completed, but then as I was reading for my Transpersonal Psychology class I just realized, you know, I’ll feel so much better if I go exercise.

I looked at my watch it was 4:10 p.m. and yes, there, on the schedule at my studio, a 4:30p.m. class.

I got so worked.

But it was worth it and I felt so much better and I was able to focus on the rest of the homework that I needed to do.

Not bad Sunday.

And you’ve still got surprises in mind for me, I can tell.

Thanks for an amazing weekend.

I actually feel really on top of my game right now.

It’s a good fucking feeling.

Really, really good.

Homework

What homework?

Fuck me.

I am not ready for it yet, but I know I have to get my good girl study habits into action.

Especially since I ran into one of my professors today at my internship.

At least she could sympathize with me about my “plight.”

Full time work, full-time grad school, practicum 10-15 hours a week.

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t expect my paper to not be on time.

I got a message from her about it and also, thank God, a question from one of my fellows in the cohort asking about a test that I had not registered in my brain that um, I have to take tomorrow.

FUCK.

Doesn’t my school know I have a life?

I mean.

Seriously.

Ugh.

And I do have a plan, of course I do and I will get my homework done and I’m not so worried about it.

I always get it done and I am very aware of how efficiently I am able to read and write.

Thank God, again and again and again, for my daily writing practice.

I have two papers to write tomorrow and the test to take for my CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) class.

Plus.

A fuck ton of reading.

I had thought I might get to some of my reading today, but between just some general housekeeping that I really needed to do, laundry and letting myself take it relatively easy this morning, relatively is a relative statement, I did a 80 minute yoga class, took a shower, made breakfast, wrote for thirty minutes, put fresh sheets on the bed, did two loads of laundry, took out trash and recycling, e-mailed clients, paid bills, juggled schedules, I didn’t have quite as much time this morning to attend to reading and I didn’t really want to push it.

I threw my reading in my bag along with lunch and hit up my internship.

Two hours of group supervision and then a couples consult and then I had nothing left in me.

I didn’t want to do homework, I just wanted to get the fuck out of Dodge.

I thought I might have stayed an hour or so at my office and just knock out some reading, but I decided that what I really needed was a little personal down time and I went and got a manicure.

It was perfect.

A phone call with my best friend.

A flip through a trashy magazine.

And some electric blue fingernails.

And well.

Now.

Now I feel ready to tackle the homework.

But.

Not tonight.

Nope.

I am going to continue to let myself enjoy my evening and have a relaxing night.

No homework, no anxiety.

A little care taking of me.

A little slowing down.

I have plenty to do tomorrow.

It’s true.

I’ll go to yoga and do breakfast and write here at the house.

I have a lady coming over at 1pm to do some work and doing of the deal.

Then a coffee date with a friend.

Then the homework.

And I bet I will get my CBT homework done between my breakfast and meeting with my first person at 1 p.m.

I also have to do a little grocery shopping and I will need to do food prep.

I am also banking on having some extra time at work to do the reading that I need to do.

The mom is out-of-town with the baby, I won’t have my normal morning routine with my youngest charge.

Oh.

There will still be plenty to do and in some instances some extra work, but I won’t have active charges until 2:15p.m. every day.

I’ll be at the house and make wicked fast work of whatever household things I need to deal with and then give myself at least an hour if not two of reading.

I’ll get it done.

I always do.

I know how full my life can get and it may seem untenable and challenging and too much, but it won’t be like this always.

And I have winnowed out some things, for instance I was unregistered over the weekend for the ALC ride, my bicycle rep still tried to talk me into doing it, but I gracefully turned it down and that’s one less thing on my plate.

I am going to acknowledge that yes, my calendar is still hella full, but I know time will coalesce and things will happen that allow me to have fun and not take myself or my situation so damn serious.

A client will cancel, I’ll get out of work early, some circumstance will arise and I will have a surprise gift of time.

It always happens.

I’m super grateful for that too.

I’ll get through this year.

I’ll get my Masters degree.

I’ve always wanted one.

I’ll have achieved one more step toward my career goal.

I don’t have to do it all tomorrow.

Or tonight for that matter.

I did enough today.

I am enough.

I am lovable and worthy of love.

I affirm myself.

I am capable and strong and I have such lovely people in my life.

I do.

I do.

I am blessed beyond words.

So very blessed.

 

And It’s Here

Holy shit.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my first day of classes in my third, and last, year of my Masters in Counseling Psychology program.

Fuck.

How did it get to be time already.

It feels hyper surreal.

On one hand I feel like I was just in class last weekend.

On the other it feels like years and ages.

I also have a better sense of what I’m walking into with my schedule as I have spent some time tonight doing more reading for class and looking over my syllabi for the classes I have tomorrow.

I only have two.

Which is a change from previous years when I had three classes a day on Fridays.

Of course.

I have practicum, which is the difference.

And beginning in September, basically after I get back from Burning Man, I will be seeing clients on Fridays.

And.

Sigh.

Saturdays too.

I have a few clients scheduled for my first weekend back from playa.

Mostly to make up for the sessions I will have missed by being out-of-town.

I was pleased and flattered when two of my clients asked me to make up sessions with them, they didn’t want to go two weeks without seeing me.

That was nice to hear.

I am doing a good job.

Not the best, I am far from the best, but I’m doing a decent job and I know that I am making headway with my clients and that they are getting something out of the relationship, enough so that they want to continue seeing me and wanting to make up for the lost sessions.

I am grateful for the work.

It is work.

Don’t get me wrong, but it is also such rewarding work.

And I am also happy that I am continuing to learn and make connections and see things, that the work generates constant learning is amazing.

I am not in a cookie cutter job, I am getting to constantly and consistently learn.

No better thing that.

I shall spend my whole life learning and still feel that there is so much more to know and learn and so much growth yet to be had.

Perhaps on this plane.

Perhaps in another.

I don’t know what or where any of this is going.

I just know that I want, with sincerest passion and longing, to be true to this moment, the one I am in, that in this moment there is constant love, consistency and self-awareness.

I am the best person I know how to be.

In this moment.

It will change.

I will have my failings.

I will freak out.

I will get scared.

I did today when I inadvertently flipped open Facebook, which I am less and less on, I just don’t have the time or bandwidth for it, to see a response to a post I had put up about having found a ride to Burning Man and how I was happy for it.

The response was from the woman I am going with.

And it should have been a direct message to me.

But.

Nope.

Of course it wasn’t, it was a post displayed for the entire forum to see, hundreds of folks.

I didn’t respond because it wasn’t the right thing to do and I felt instant, I mean, instant resentment.

Don’t fucking change things up on me now!

I am inflexible when I am in fear.

I want what I want and I want it the way that I want it.

Got that?

Good.

So, basically, do it my way.

Damn it.

But no.

My ride has some ideas, some thoughts, some desires to do it her way.

And as such.

Wanted to know if I would be open to renting a mini van.

Oh.

Well.

Fuck my life.

I had a fucking reservation made on my own to rent a god damn vehicle, a reservation I cancelled after securing the ride with the woman whom I am going with.

If I wanted to pay for a fucking rental I would have gone up on my god damn own.

This is my thinking walking down the hill on Chenery, on the way to go get my charge some snacks at the Glen Canyon Market and then go to the park at the rec center.

I almost said it out loud.

And no four-year old needs to hear my profanity.

I was, when I am in resentment it usually stems from fear–I’m not getting what I want or I am afraid I’m going to lose something–full of angry profanity and resentment.

I took a deep breath.

I did not respond on Facebook.

I paused.

I breathed some more.

I swore in my head some more.

Then I just got into, this is what’s happening and this is what is going on and I can accept the situation or I can rant like a maniac.

Do I want to be happy?

Or.

Right.

Right!

Just kidding.

Sigh.

I wish.

No.

I want to be happy.

And if my elderly lady stateswoman wants to rent a mini van, well so be it.

I let a lot of time go and I said some prayers and I did some spot check inventory in my mind and I realized a bunch of stuff.

I have a job to attend to.

I am with my charge and I have to go get my other charge across town.

I am in a pretty park with a sparkling water in my hand, I am outside, the grass is green, the pollinating plants smell intoxicating, the clover especially, and I am alive to have all these feelings.

I have the opportunity to accept what is going on and I prayed for guidance to take the next action in front of me.

So when the text came in from my ride I was able to respond, not react, and take a phone call.

Oh.

I still got flustered on the phone.

I had an idea of what I was going to spend on getting to the damn event and now I was facing having to pay more and I felt a bit in a bind, a bit out of control, like, I don’t have any other way at this time to get myself out there and I have a three-day weekend of school and the rest of the work day to get through.

I can’t fathom trying figure out other means of transport.

I told her I was willing to consider it.

I asked what she wanted by way of compensation.

She gave me, what I considered a vague, cop-out response, but, ultimately, the freedom to decide what I felt comfortable contributing.

I had a number in my head.

I paused for a while after getting off the phone.

I know I can afford it.

I am willing to pay more.

I don’t want to think about it.

I have other things happening before it.

I want to show up alive and present and enjoy every beautiful moment of my weekend.

So.

Whatever vehicle shows up for me on Sunday.

Well.

That’s the one I’m going in.

And whatever the cost.

Well.

That’s what I will be paying.

I’m just surrendering to what’s happening and letting God have it.

God always does in the end anyway.

I get to have this experience.

And like so many others.

I am sure there will be spiritual growth.

And.

Love.

I am certain of that.

There will be love.

There always is.

Sneaky Work

It’s Monday.

The alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m.

I bounce out of bed, turn on the lights, run to the loo.

Brush teeth, wash face, wander naked to the kitchen, I sleep in the nude, yes, indeed the first ten minutes of my morning are bare ass, drink a glass of water, take three vitamin supplements–iron, glucosamine chondrotin, Flax seed oil, then I go make my bed.

After that I get dressed, put on my shoes, watch, and pull out the layers I plan on wearing.

Hello.

It’s August in San Francisco.

Best to have at least three layers.

Cardigan, sweatshirt, scooter riding jacket.

I lay them out on the bed and then go do my morning reading and say some prayers and ask for some direction and then.

Breakfast!

Today was oatmeal with banana and figs, cinnamon, nutmeg, raw cocoa and unsweetened coconut/almond milk; 1 hard-boiled egg and an unsweetened almond milk latte.

While said food items are busy boiling, cooking, and frothing, I pack my lunch for work and whatever homework and internship paperwork, texts, and syllabi I need for the day.

Today it was solo supervision, so definitely needed my pink glitter notebook.

Who says grad school has to be all seriousness.

Glitter makes it better.

Trust me.

I also packed my Jungian dream book, even though my brain said, what’s the point?

There’s not a spare minute to do reading today.

But, from experience, this is not true.

Times when I think I am going to have hours of reading, I don’t and days when I think, I couldn’t possibly spare thirty seconds to look at a paragraph, I suddenly have unexpected time.

Life happens.

All the time.

That’s what life does.

But.

I find these weird, sweet, odd pockets of time and that’s when I use Stephen King’s advice.

And if you don’t think reading Stephen King is a highly psychological endeavor you’re not reading his works very well.

Anyway.

He wrote this awesome little book a while back, non-fiction, called “On Writing” and it gives his basic formula for what he does and his routine.

First.

He reads.

A lot.

And not his stuff, but everyone else.

His biggest suggestion and one that I took very much to heart, especially after starting grad school, is, carry a book with you at all times.

You never know when you may get stuck in a line or your appointment gets pushed back, or you’re riding the train or the bus or the subway.

I notice most folks these days are looking at their phones.

I read my homework for school if I have down time.

And like I said, I often have a snatch of it when I least expect it.

Today it happened at supervision.

My supervisor lost his keys and had to run home to get the replacement set.

So, my session was cut a little short but, hey!

I have my Jungian Dream Work class text-book.

Whip it out!

I knocked out another couple of pages.

And very glad for it.

I got another text-book in the mail today and I have it already packed in my travel bag for tomorrow, along with the Jungian book, I doubt very much I’ll actually have time to read the two chapters for the class I still need to kick through and have time to get into the next text I have assigned myself.

But.

Well.

You never know.

I just don’t anyway.

Another thing King recommends is that you write everyday.

Yup.

I do that too.

Before I head out.

And when I get home in the evening.

Sometimes I am still not sure how that all happens.

I do the morning writing in one of my Claire Fontaine notebooks from Paris, or whatever notebook I have handy.  I of course have a preference, but I will write on anything.

Although I hate recycled notebooks, the quality of the paper is ass.

I write three pages long hand.

I write about what I’m doing, the things that happened the day before that I don’t write about in my blog

Oh.

Haha.

There’s a few things that I do not write about here.

That all gets covered and rehashed and processed in the morning writing.

The evening, this, my blog, I am also pretty damn consistent.

I used to be super anal about it and I couldn’t not write every day.

That’s eased up a little in recent years.

Years, I say, I have been writing this blog for so long.

Seven, eight years.

I have over 2,200 blogs posted.

And that’s after two different scrubbing sessions where I probably deleted a couple hundred blogs just to make sure I wasn’t leaving a thumbprint or, yes, I had said something unkind about someone in my life.

Typically a boss.

Occasionally a bad date.

Ooh, man I had some bad date blogs.

Which I stopped doing when a blind date stumbled on a blog I wrote, I’m thinking he probably stalked me a bit, let’s be real, and sent me a text which said, “I read your blog.”

Ack.

I had to delete it and make an amends.

I swallowed that pride, deleted the blog, called him, he answered, and apologized.

That was an uncomfortable conversation.

But.

Better than the alternative.

It still was an awful date, but I had said some pretty not so nice things.

I learned my lesson, words can cut deep and it’s not my business to malign.

I stopped writing anything about other people and really tried from that point forward to keep the focus on myself.

I have plenty of flaws I can poke fun at, I don’t need to point out anyone else’s.

So.

That’s the writing routine for the day.

The rest of today looked like work, cooking for the family, doing the baby’s laundry, lots of bouncing around with the baby–he’s teething horribly–playing race cars with the oldest boy and letting the little lady watch Frozen, since she wasn’t feeling well.

I was supposed to go to my internship today and see a client.

But.

She cancelled.

So.

After work I zoomed to the grocery store and picked up some staples and then zipped over the hill to 7th and Irving and hit up the spot, got right with God and got home.

Garbage, recycling, compost out to the curb as a favor to the landlady who is traveling, check the mail, another text-book from school!

I know, it’s exciting, right?

Reviewed my calendar, personal, work, and internship, printed off some forms–I have a new client consult at the internship tomorrow, and ate some dinner.

Checked e-mails, popped over to my “Track My Hours” my BBS (Behavioral Board of Science) approved MFT hours tracker, and added in my hour of supervision from the morning.

And um.

That’s the day.

Not exactly exciting.

But really full.

Hell I even snuck in a trip to the bank and the post office to return a package in between supervision and work, and a run to Walgreens for some more school supplies–two packs of my favorite pens and a new pink folder.

Because.

Pink.

It’s a lot.

But.

It’s a gift.

This life, my life, getting to be this person who is busy and of service, getting to learn how to be a better therapist, advocating for my self-care, taking time to do my own writing, eating well, being kind, just living.

Life is going to happen and I can choose to look at it as a grind.

Or.

Fuck.

I can say, look at my amazing life!

I live in San Francisco for fuck sake.

I have such a bounty of gratitude for what I have.

It awes me every day.

I am.

Yes.

The luckiest girl in the world.

Really.

I am.

All The Books

I got rid of almost all of my books today.

Parting was sweet and not too sorrowful.

Although I am always astounded by how little I get back, get back something I did.

I got back enough for lunch.

And.

A mani/pedi.

Plus.

I made room for more books.

I received my first textbook for school in the mail today.

Which is great.

Since I want to have as much read for school as soon as I can.

Because.

Well.

Fuck.

I roll like that.

I like to be prepared I like to take the time to do my readings and though I have been told by quite a few people who have done the grad school grind before, nobody reads everything, I do try to read it all.

I don’t always succeed.

Especially in my first year and my first semester.

I was caught off guard by having to have so much reading done before the first weekend of classes.

Now.

Well.

I get it.

The classes are so condensed, we cover so much information, we only have so much time and the weekend cohort has to do in one weekend what the regular cohort covers in one month.

That’s a lot.

So.

I have to do the readings sooner.

And.

It helps me.

It helps me because I have a way of writing and doing my papers that depends on me having done the reading.

I get it all done and I live a full life, I have my recovery, my personal life, my work life, my internship, and soon.

I will have this next semester of school.

Three of my syllabi are now up.

I found out that I have a conflict with one of my days at the internship and an evening class on Fridays.

I either will only be able to do consults on Fridays during the fall semester or once a month my clients won’t get to see me.

I can offer them three meetings a month.

And of course that will change as each semester unfolds.

I am officially a third year student.

I will graduate with my Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology in May of 2018.

I will have a Master’s degree!

It is not the Master’s degree I had always thought I would get.

That one is an MFA.

A Master of Fine Art.

I always thought I would get a Masters for Creative Writing.

Nope.

As it turns out.

I am supposed to be a therapist and that means a Masters in Psychology.

Which is great and by no means negates my undergraduate degree in English Literature.

I used to think that it would, but language is so important in therapy.

What is said.

What is not said.

The psychology of words of body language, or what and how things are said and being able to articulate and name things and be aware of what is happening for a client.

This is huge.

I have a tremendous vocabulary and a way with words.

And yes.

Sometimes I am.

Well.

Ha.

Wayward.

There is a difference though, and also that is beneficial too.

I mean.

I have lived a full life with many, many experiences.

Good and bad and all varieties of the spectrum.

I have a wealth of life experiences to draw on and that makes me a better therapist too.

It is a gift.

I never knew how much my experiences would play out into what I am doing now and it is extraordinary when I let myself see it.

Language.

Narrative.

Story.

Words.

Writing.

Poetry.

All of it plays into the therapeutic field.

I mean.

Before I was in school I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as narrative therapy.

Fuck.

I can do that.

I probably do that every damn time I sit down to write this blog.

I am telling a story.

It may only be the story of my day.

It may only be about me selling books to Dog Eared Books on Valencia Street.

But.

It may also be something else.

There are layers here.

Dog Eared Books was the first bookstore in San Francisco that I went into.

It was the first place I bought a book.

It was also the first place I sold books to.

It was and is a store that I can spend a lot of time wandering around and just smelling the books and looking at the tables resplendent with words, the magazine rack can enthrall me for great gobs of time, I can get lost in the stacks.

Dog Ear also has a great free box.

I mean.

After hauling the books clear across town, the nearest book store to me Green Apple on the Park, doesn’t buy back at that location, I didn’t much feel like hauling away the books that Dog Eared didn’t buy.

However.

I had an inkling that I could still sell a few.

I left nothing in the free box.

I took the $45 I got for the books they accepted and was happy to know that I had earned a lunch out and would be able to pay for my mani/pedi.

A total treat and a splurge.

I like being girly you know.

I scootered over to Aardvark at Church and Market and they took nothing!

But.

I also was by Jade Chinese, so I treated myself to yummy Chinese food and then took my scooter to the Castro and sold up there to the new Dog Eared on Castro Street.

They didn’t buy anything.

But.

When I said, well, I’ll just put them in the free box, the buyer looked at me and said, “how about I give you some store credit and throw these in the sale bin, I bet we will sell a few.”

It was such a sweet gesture.

I took him up on it and now I have a little credit at the store.

Good for when I buy postcards for sending to my friends and loved ones when I go to Burning Man.

That is one thing I always do, send a postcard with a Black Rock City postmark on it.

A girlfriend whose birthday always falls the weekend of the event, my mom, me, I know, I like sending myself postcards, hush, it’s my joy.

I got to let go of the books.

I got to come home to a clean, tidy house, with fewer stacks of livres and!

I got a new book in the mail.

See.

I just needed to make space for what was being sent to me.

I am a very happy girl.

And.

Although I’m not quite ready for all the school reading.

I am a head of the game.

For that I am hella grateful.

Seriously.

Yes.

I used “hella.”

Shut up.

I’m Done!

I finished all the reading for my next weekend of classes.

One weekend ahead of time.

I am absurdly pleased.

I just closed my Ethics and Family Law textbook and shelved it along with everything else that I read this weekend.

I do have a proposal that I did not get to, but whatever.

I have all week to do it and it’s a proposal, not a formal paper.

I have had some time to think about what I want to accomplish with it and I do believe I am going to do the meditative coloring.

I also thought about doing a guided meditation, I haven’t done a lot of sitting meditation, enough to know I can comfortably sit for fifteen minutes without bother.

I remember the first time I sat for three minutes.

I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin.

I thought I might leap out of my chair or rip my own hair out.

I was that uncomfortable sitting still in my body, in my own space, with my own thoughts to occupy me.

I thought my brain might actually eat me alive.

I have come a long way baby.

I can sit for up to an hour and have done so on a few occasions.

I have had years where I did a sitting meditation, in addition to my writing meditation, but I have to be upfront about that, it wasn’t more than a ten minute sit, often times just five minutes and I did it because the person I was working with insisted I do it as a requirement to work with her.

I wasn’t opposed.

I am not now.

But.

I think the coloring is a nice way to go about it.

I tried some last night to get the hang of it and it was nice.

I actually got some freedom from the rapidity of my brain and it was nice to get lost in between the lines and let go and play with color and just enjoy doing something that didn’t require me to think.

I plan on being up front with my professor and outlining what I currently do.

I thought, briefly about with holding some aspects of my spiritual practice so that I could “implement” it back in and go from there.

Some might call this efficient.

However, it felt a little like cheating for me and I couldn’t quite square the principle of honesty behind that action.

I prefer to be honest with my professor, to even go so far as to say that I have had resentments and needed to work them out, that, already, is spiritual progress for me.

I recognized that it was with myself that lay the problem, not with my professor, he’s not doing it wrong, he’s just not doing it the way I think, or better, thought, it should be done.

Anyway.

That’s all I have to do.

Write and send a one page proposal, outlining what I am going to do to deepen my spiritual practice.

Due by this Friday.

I’ll probably ruminate on it a little bit more then type something up before work tomorrow.

Just to have it out of the way.

I don’t have to start the actual practice of it until February 12th.

Which is also when my first paper is due.

I plan on working on that next weekend.  I will probably review the readings for the class, it was dense, really dense and not well written.  If the author used “implicit” one more time in a chapter to give gravitas to what he was writing I was going to look him up and suggest some creative writing workshops for him to expand his vocabulary.

It really is a pleasant feeling, though, to have all the reading done.

I also got to see my girl friend from my cohort.

She rode her bicycle out and I was grateful to get to show her my home space and we went for coffee and toast at Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club and then down for a walk on the beach.

It was deliriously windy out and the beach was fairly deserted.

It was like being sandblasted.

We did not stay long, but she got a taste of the glory of the beach and vowed to come back soon, although by a better bicycle route than the one Google Maps gave her.

Oof.

Any other city it probably makes sense, but in San Francisco, negotiating the hillier parts of the city, there really is a way to get from here to there and it does not involve riding the coastline.

When she told me her route I got sympathetic leg pain just thinking about it.

I have done some similar things when I was newly on my bicycle and found out the hard way how to navigate around the hillier districts.

The SFBC (San Francisco Bicycle Coalition) map is probably the best one to use for navigation, as it shows grades of streets on hills.

One block over can really make a huge difference.

Going up Polk to the Marina is a lot easier than going up Van Ness.

And probably much safer too.

I digress.

We had a great time.

No homework was really accomplished, although we did go over a couple of things on the syllabus for the next weekend and talked about the school, the program, and of course, our other classmates.

But mostly.

About ourselves.

It was sweet and I feel a strong connection and bond to her.

Partially because she really does see me and also sees me in a way, that although I don’t find flattering and sometimes I get upset with myself, I do have a vast amount of acceptance about, that being that I am in desperate need to control my environment.

“It’s a safety thing for you,” she said in her sweet, lilting, French accent, “I totally get it, and I see how often you do it, with everything in your environment.”

I have had lovers mess up the pillows on my bed to make me squirm or a friend purposely mess up a section of literature I have just set out on a table.

I have seen it, consciously, more and more as I accept myself more and more and learn, not always gracefully, to let go of the reigns and have new experiences.

I really do want them and I recognize, I must recognize, how brave I am.

I didn’t fold up, I didn’t collapse, I kept trying.

Sometimes doing things that I didn’t know better, stratagems that I learned growing up, self-defense mechanisms that worked really well at the time and then stopped, even though I continued to employ them.

I see things with a lot more clarity.

The writing daily has helped, the praying, the spiritual practices I employ.

My recovery.

Oh, all the wonderful things I get to do in the act of getting back to that place where I am allowed to be vulnerable, soft, sweet, and not in control.

Tender.

I opened the door.

I let in my friend.

I experienced intimacy.

And I got my reading done for school.

Winning.

Get Used To It

Yeah.

I know.

Get used to the busy.

Get used to the overwhelmed.

Get used to it, kid.

You’re in graduate school.

And.

You have seven hours of T-Group tomorrow.

Ugh.

But.

Yippee!

I mean.

REALLY?

T-group is great, it’s just a lot of work, constant emotional work, I am working, let me tell you.

Working.

And hella grateful that this morning I reminded myself to not wear eyeliner and to make sure I was wearing waterproof mascara.

Done and done.

Because, this lady cried a lot today–T-Group brings it out.

The tears.

They flowed.

And.

The catharsis happened and I got insight and I felt better.

Had the catharsis happened without the insight, I think I might not have felt the way I did by the end of the group, but I got a load of insight and a lot of self-awareness around how I put up walls and where I need to work on being vulnerable.

And also how to process emotions that clients are going to bring up in me that are not pertinent to the client experience.

In other words, I am learning to deal with conflict in a calm manner.

I still am emotional and I cry easily, but I am coming to terms with that and also seeing that I consistently show up for the work and I do a lot of it.

I carry my weight in the group.

Perhaps a little more.

But then I am a greedy girl, I want to get every last drop out of it, I want to wring out the learning, I am paying an arm and a leg, yes I am, for the experience–I want to get every dollar out of it that I can, I am after all borrowing a lot of money to be there.

In that spirit I am grateful too for my Psychodynamic course and how the professor is teaching it and how she wants us to learn.

I was expressing to a fellow in my cohort at lunch what it was like, the experience of learning Freudian analytics, with this professor and how she reminded me of a professor I had in undergrad who taught graduate level TS Eliot.

I learned more than I could ever have believed.

Whenever I wrote a paper or took an exam I found that I had absorbed and rearranged the material in my head in a way that was new and interesting and I did not even know it until I was challenged to react to the work and respond.

This professor is like that, I like how she teaches, she uses everything, she is dramatic and smart and amiable, and quick-witted and a character and she makes learning exciting.

I find myself answering her rhetorical questions out loud in the class and interacting with her and the lecture and having a dialogue about the material.

It’s fucking fascinating.

That doesn’t mean it’s not exhausting.

My brain could use a little break from Freud.

I mean I spent three hours tonight, 5p.m.-8p.m., going over theories on hysteria, mourning, and melancholia.

It was a lot to take on after having a really raucous start to the day with some poorly handled treatment of a touchy subject in my Human Development class and then three hours previous in an emotionally charged T-Group.

By the time I was in the Freud class I was pretty kaput.

Then.

We wrap up the case of the infamous Dora and her notorious relationship with Freud and hysteria and move into Melancholia and Mourning.

Grief and depression.

Two things I have had plenty of experience in.

And yet.

I learned more.

The learning.

It just keeps happening.

I’m not caught up on all the reading either, but I am so much further ahead with it that I am able to keep up with my classes, and in the Freud class I am entirely caught up (in fact, I got into one of the vignettes in the reader and realized that I was actually reading ahead of the assigned class work.  It was so fascinating that I contemplated continuing to read it, but realized that I needed to focus on my T-Group reading and get my butt going on the Therapeutics of Group Dynamics–say that ten times fast).

The class I am least caught up with is my Human Development class and I just don’t care.

The professor is not a bad person, but she is a poor teacher and in the over reliance upon the work assignments and regurgitation of ideas, really with little to compel me towards further learning, I am loath to spend any extra time or resources on her class.

Of course.

Her class is the one with the highest work load and amount of reading.

Five response and reaction papers, one group project, on solo final project, a reader–a gigantic reader (bigger than any of my other classes, additional videos online, extra handouts (outside of the enormous reader) and the biggest text-book I have ever carted around in my entire academic career.

It’s not that I can’t do the work or won’t do the work, it’s just that when the work is so uninspiring and there is so much material to parrot back that I feel lost in the muck of it.  Overwhelmed by the sheer volume and what feels like frankly, the most boring of my classes.

C’est la vie.

There will be classes like this.

There have always been classes like this.

I am going to show up and do the work and let go of the results and not care too much about the content, that feels the worst somehow, as a writer, to be writing so much volume but to not have an emotional or even intellectual resonance with the work.

That is the work.

That is the exhaustion.

That is the rub.

But.

I know it and though it is a slog, it is a slog I can do.

And tomorrow I won’t have to slog through her class.

I will have to work on her paper over next weekend, there is no getting around it.

I have done one response paper and my chapter outline project, the group project, for the class.

Which leaves four more papers to write and one final project–I’m going to write about using sign language with babies and toddlers and language development and emotional response to communication thereof.

Scintillating.

I promise.

Ah.

It’s been a day.

I am in school.

I had no clue it was Saturday or where the day went.

It just went.

I am grateful to keep showing up and that I feel better and more prepared for the work then I did the last weekend of classes.

Here’s to showing up one more day, amongst many, tomorrow.

And.

Getting used to it.