Moving and Shaking

Things are happening.

When aren’t things happening?

Ha.

I have an appointment next Wednesday to speak with a local MFT (Marriage/Family/Therapist)/psychologist about being my off site ICC supervisor for school.

I must have two hours a week supervision as part of my internship process with a licenced therapist who works in a modality that I relate to and want to use while in practicum and who will sign off on my training for school and keep all the important people, like the BBS, Behavioral Board of Sciences, off my back.

I am not stoked about having to work more things into my schedule but I am resigned to it and I am finding that I am ok with what is slowly unfolding.

The never having a life outside of this career path.

I jest a little.  I will have some time, I will make sure I sleep, for instance, but I won’t be having any free time.

Less than I have now, that’s for sure.

Life.

Sometimes it moves so fast and that’s actually what I’m counting on, that the year will whip by and I’ll be graduating and although I will most likely stay at the Liberation Institute to accrue all my hours, I won’t have to be juggling so much.

Of course.

I get away with myself, but I’m just thinking ahead, and reflecting all at the same time, how life changes and things change, people change, I change, and how I feel a much different person than who I was when I started this school program.

I am grateful for this change.

More is on the horizon.

And it is a horizon littered with work and school, that’s for sure.

I’m going to be helping out next weekend for the family as the dad is out of town on a work gig overseas for a week.

The mom and I figured out what she needed to maintain three kids and not lose her mind and also that I not lose my mind either, because I will not have any days off next week and then I will transition right back into my regular hours and then my next weekend of classes.

Yeah.

Like that.

It’s a trade-off of sorts for me.

I will be helping them as they will be helping me.

I was granted my time off request for Burning Man, that’s one of the trade offs, and also, the family will still be paying me for time worked in July when they are on vacation in Europe.

I will not be able to do the traveling that I had hoped for, but I will be properly compensated for my time, I will help out at the house a couple of days and I will do my internship and supervision and, I suspect, a fuck load of yoga and catching up with any socializing that I will have missed the first few months of doing my internship.

I will also, I suspect, make hay while the sun shines and perhaps pick up some extra hours while I can at the internship.

I am feeling a little less nervous about the process and also super grateful for the family and specifically, the mom’s support.

We talked a lot today about what my needs were and whether I was being met with working 35 hours a week when the original deal was 40, for instance, and I was happy to report that after two months of working 35 hours a week I was maintaining my standard of living and did not feel that I needed to be working 40 hours.

And I don’t.

And.

I don’t want to.

Between school commitments and then gearing up for the internship, I won’t want to work more for them, and I expressed such to her.

She was 100% behind me.

We also talked about how I will need a hard leave of 6p.m.

Like I will have to be walking out the door.

She is going to make sure she’s headed back on those days a little early and I will make sure to get dinner on the table by 5:30 p.m. instead of right at 6 as I have been.

It felt so good and adult and co-created with all the family’s needs and my needs and I feel so happy to be with them.

It really is the perfect job for me to be in to support this push through school and I was very glad to express my gratitude to the mom and to let her know that I was very happy with them.

“And us too, we are so happy that you are with us,” she told me today over lunch.

A lunch I had the pleasure of making for her.

I find a lot of delight in cooking for people and that they are European and eat all the yummy stuff is wonderful for me.

I don’t imbibe, but there is jus something so satisfying about cooking with good quality ingredients.

I didn’t make her a fancy lunch, but I made her a nice lunch (nursing mama’s should always have nice lunches!) spinach salad with chopped organic tomatoes, baby mozzarella and a dressing I made accompanied by a thick slice of avocado toast with shaved Gruyère and butter and a sprinkle of sea salt.

She was happy.

I was happy.

It’s a joy.

And I had a really awesome time with the kids today too who didn’t want to see me leave and I got all sorts of amazing hugs and snuggles.

And.

Hey!

Tomorrow’s Friday!

Woot!

I was also reminded, rather harshly, giggles, that I was not there last Friday to pick them up from school since I was in school and since we normally do a special Friday treat, ice cream cones from BiRite after school pick up, that I had to make sure to not only pick them up, but that I should probably make up for my lapse in judgement by making them with sprinkles.

Rainbow sprinkles.

“And Carmen, LOTS OF THEM!”

I promise, kiddo, lots of them indeed.

Happy Friday eve!

I am so ready for the weekend.

Seriously.

 

 

Kindness

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

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

That’s Women’s Day for you.

But you know what I mean.

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

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

I found myself sharing as though she were my friend.

Cautiously.

Yes.

I mean I needn’t go into gory details.

But.

I did tell her a bit more about my family.

Specifically my dad.

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

They will be gone for three weeks.

And.

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

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

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

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

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

Granted.

I have had some amazing.

AMAZING.

Parents that I have gotten to work with.

Let me repeat that.

Amazing.

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

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

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

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

Which is not ego, but humility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now.

Well.

It may really be the best nanny gig I have.

Health insurance.

Paid vacation.

Sick leave.

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

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

I get to be out and about with my charges.

I have a credit card in my name.

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

I have the dream nanny job.

And.

I LOVE my boss.

I feel appreciated, understood, and we talk.

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

I mean.

I have shared a lot.

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

She got me.

In fact.

I felt like I was in the field with her.

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

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

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

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

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

Regardless

It happened.

We connected.

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

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

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

“Yes,” I do, F__________.”

“Ok.”

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

“I love you too.”

And I do.

Very.

Very.

Very much.

I am such a lucky girl.

Luckiest girl in the world.

And.

I’m also a school girl.

Tomorrow is my first day back to school.

So.

Off to bed I go.

See you on the flip.

Sweet dreams my loves.

Sweet dreams.

Yes! This Works

Best e-mail response ever.

I spoke with my boss yesterday about taking time off to go to Burning Man this year.

Yes.

I am aware that Burning Man isn’t until the last week of August.

I am one of those people who plan pretty far out in advance and it came down to needing to ask sooner rather than later as the family I nanny for is going to be in Europe for three weeks.

Without me.

In July.

So.

To take off a week of time in August was actually a great big request and I was shy to ask for it

I mean.

It’s Burning Man.

Folks have an idea of what that means.

Especially if they have never been.

And most folks might not be inclined to let go of their full time nanny so she could go romp around in the desert for a week when the kids are gearing up for their school semester and they have a baby and full-time work and um, yeah.

But.

She told me, the mom, that it could probably work, to e-mail her the dates and she would get back to me.

I did so last night.

And I actually sort of forgot that I had e-mailed her and then.

This morning.

Yes!

I got the best answer.

I got the “Yes! This works!” Response.

I just about fell out of my chair.

I haven’t gotten my ticket, I won’t know for eight weeks whether I have gotten the low-income ticket, but really, the biggest hurdles have been cleared.

First.

That I don’t have any school conflict with going to the event.

Second.

That my job is willing to let me go.

Huge hurdles.

The ticket will come.

I know too many people and should I get denied the low-income ticket, I do feel like I will be able to negotiate getting one at the full price.

Fingers crossed that won’t happen, I could use the cash for other things, but I will if I have to.

Have to is should be re-phrased, get to, if I need to I can.

The gift of the time off is the big deal.

“You need to have fun,” my employer said, “it can’t just be work and school, we want you to be able to go and play.”

My god.

What a gift this job is.

I am so grateful to have it.

Today was super chill.

Almost too chill.

I could have fallen asleep.

In fact, had my charge dropped off, I would have.

She never quite did though.

I had one little monkey home sick from school today and the mom and the baby and the grandma, who is visiting, were out and about.

I stayed back.

Tidied up the kitchen.

Drew pictures and colored with my charge.

Lots and lots and lots of music, reading stories, and snuggling.

“Carmen, scratch my back more please,” she said and collapsed over a big throw pillow on the couch.

Happy to oblige, I sat and rubbed her back and snuggled with her.

We had picnic on the floor, played foxes, rescue fire fighters, cops and robbers, and veterinarian.

We ran away from scary robots and ghosts.

My little girl charge is a fierce lady and it’s really quite fun to be with her high-spirited energy, even when she’s sick, we had just a sweet day, no getting out to the park, no riding the train to grab my other charge, my first shift there since I started where I didn’t go outside at all.

I did feel a little sleepy from the lack of outside stimulation, but I got through it and it was really just nice to have a day playing with my charge.

And tomorrow is Friday.

Oh.

Glorious weekend.

How I do love thee.

Let me count the ways.

Yoga.

Doing the deal.

Meeting with my person.

Getting my tattoo touched up.

And?

Who knows what else.

Yes.

Most likely there will be homework and reading and stuff and things, meal prep and grocery and what have you.

But.

I do want to let myself have fun, to relax a little to not be too serious or overcommitment to making all the things happen.

The weather today, no rain when it had been forecasted, was a boon, I was able to ride my scooter to and from work and I got to do a little speaking engagement and get some grocery shopping done.

The rain comes back tomorrow.

Which always changes my plans a little.

The not riding my scooter sort of deal.

I suspect that whatever happens it will be fine.

I’m so happy to have a couple of days off.

One more day of work.

One more.

Oof.

Hella grateful for that.

And.

Yeah.

Burning Man.

I am so very thrilled.

I am.

I am.

I have time to do some bicycle research.

Sadly.

My playa steed did not make it back from the event last year.

I was upset when I found out, but then, grateful after I had time to do some work around it and yes, some grieving too, that bike meant a lot to me, but now I get to have a new experience out there.

A new bike.

A new camp.

Not working.

Just going to participate and have fun.

Fun.

EEK.

I hope I can handle not doing any work for a week.

Ha.

As if going isn’t a hell of a lot of work.

I always have work to do to get to go.

But.

It’s a labor of love.

Dusty love, but love nevertheless.

Ah.

It’s been a good week.

Grateful it’s almost done.

I need a break.

But.

You know that already.

And some fun.

I don’t have to wait for Burning Man before I have fun.

Hell no.

So.

Bring on the fun.

I am ready.

Primed, in fact.

Seriously.

Bring it.

Home

Sweet home.

I’m not there yet.

Even though I am home.

That’s not the home I am talking about.

“Welcome home,” he shouted into the dusty air, “ring the bell.”

I rang the bell.

I skipped the rolling around in the dust though.

Fuck that shit.

It’s dusty enough up in this mess.

Yup.

I’m planning my return trip to the playa.

It’s a little early, I suppose, but I am going to get my little early ducks in a row.

I’ve decided that I am not working this year.

I am going to go and just have fun.

I am going to stay with a different camp than I have before, I’ve been a member of the camp since it’s inception and have spent time there, and have friends there, and one of them mentioned to me that it was time to come out and camp with them this year and not work and really enjoy the festival.

The art.

The joy.

The get about and the get around.

I found out my when my first weekend of classes will be for the fall semester.

Last year they fell on the same weekend of the event and I was not able to go for the full amount of time.

I went up early and left early.

I was only there four days.

It was lovely and I’m super glad I went, but it was not enough and I didn’t get to see any of the burns because I left Wednesday morning of the event.

By plane.

There is that.

It was one hell of an amazing experience to fly out of Burning Man.

I don’t know if that is necessarily happening, but I’m going to let it all fall together.

I decided in my heart to go last Sunday and then I did some research and discovered that the low-income ticket application will open in a few days.

I need to update my profile and the minute it opens, February 15th, I will be applying for it.

One of the big reasons that have always worked the event is to get into the event.

But.

I don’t want to work it this year.

I want to actually go and not be tied down and when I researched a little I discovered I could definitely afford the low-income ticket and I will apply to it.

Then yesterday I discovered that the first weekend of the fall semester for my cohort will be the weekend before the event.

Thank God.

I can go!

Well.

I won’t quite say that yet.

I still have to clear it with work.

I will ask on Monday if it’s a possibility.

I already have a lot of my vacation time tied up to my trip to Paris in May, but I do have some days that are not accounted for and I want to use them for the event.

I may have to do some negotiation with the family in regards to it, but I think that they will be amenable to me going.

I sure do hope so.

It was me doing a happy dance today when I told my friend before class that I found out the weekend dates for the fall and that there was not a conflict with school, it set my day, I was super pumped.

Granted that feeling dissipated, class work was challenging and showing up for it and being present for the material made me completely forget about the event, about travel times and dates and plans and things and stuff and more things.

But.

When I got home and said “hello house,” I smiled, my eyes drawn to the print on the wall, a photo shot from above, from an airplane above the event and I remembered quickly.

Home.

And it will be the ten-year anniversary of my best friends passing and me taking his ashes out to the Temple.

It will be my 11th burn in a row.

It is a part and parcel of me.

There are experiences that I have had there that I cannot rationalize or explain.

Love and light and dirt and dust and spiritual transmogrification.

So many times.

Not just once, but time and time and time again.

Dancing the tango with a beautiful 24-year-old man from Norway who was tall and blonde and yes, heh, Nordic, with a gorgeous sweet accent and the bliss of being kissed under the stars, bent backward and kissed as though every song of the stars above depended upon the breath in and out of our bodies as we melted into the dust.

Riding out to the trash fence at sunrise on the art car “A Horse With No Name” and seeing the shots of fire thrown out against the playa, piercing and bright and bathing the dust with golden smote, softening the blue smoke bathed mountains with flames of light.

Running into a friend unexpectedly in a church pew by an organ and telling him a fairy tale in the mid afternoon heat and swelter.

Reciting poetry underneath the upraised arms of the Man and the face of the man when I looked into his eyes.

“Do you know how easy it is to fall in love with you when you recite poetry,” he said.

Why do you think I recite poetry?

I want you to love me.

And somehow.

I don’t know how.

I don’t need to know how.

I find myself easier in my person, able to let that love in, to be scaffold with it, to allow myself to be exactly who I am, hair bedecked with flowers, standing tall in cowboy boots with polka dot socks and my crinoline blowing in the breeze, my umbrella of poesy flowers opened to shelter me from the sun, face bedecked with smiles.

I am somehow more me and entirely at peace with who I am and how I am and it’s not so weird, it’s just me, and I’m not that unique, I mean, did you see what she was wearing?

Or not wearing.

Of course I want to go home.

It’s home.

Anchored in between the Black Rock Mountains and the Calico’s, underneath the rising moon and the setting sun, the howl of love that whisper whips across the playa until we are all crying out of our aloneness a coming together, a community, an expression of magic, yes.

That.

Magic.

May I always be a part of that kind of love and mystery.

And.

Yeah.

Fingers crossed.

I’ve cleared the first hurdle, school conflict, now to ask off from work for event.

Then.

I’ll get a ticket after that.

And.

Soon.

I’ll see you in the dust.

I’ll be there to welcome you home.

I promise.

 

I Am The Problem

And I am the solution.

I am also not nearly as mad as I was when I had the conversation tonight at the dinner table with the family I work for regarding my time off for Burning Man.

Oh.

Yeah.

I got the extra two days off and they are unpaid and that is just cool.

I am really excited to get to go up earlier than I was expecting and the excitement for going is palbable.

Oh.

And.

I’m not getting paid.

I was taken aback and had to take a moment before asking what the mom was talking about.  I said I was confused I had asked off the time way in advance, I thought that last week with the retreat and then the week of Burning Man were my holiday requested vacation paid time off and huh?

What do you mean I’m not getting paid?

Oh.  I see.  You and I weren’t in agreement about my sick days.

I thought that days I had taken off for some travel, to see my Grandmother in San Diego, for some appointments, interview at the graduate school program, etc.  I had thought I was taking sick days.

Apparently not.

Apparently the contract was not in regards to PTO, paid time off, but strictly negated to sick time, like you’re sick, you call in and you get paid.

Oh, so you mean, the time I was sick and came into work and fucking slogged through it because I was banking those sick days toward my Burning Man and graduate school retreat, I should have just fucking called in sick?

God damn it.

I have wondered more than once about calling in sick the entire time I’m at Burning Man.

Hey.  Sorry, I’m sick.  Yeah, it’s uh, been really dusty in my house and I’m experiencing some altitude sickness and mild euphoria, mind if I take the day off?

I mean fuck.

And I created this.  I did this.  I did it and I can see it and I am in a forgiveness place with myself that I was not in a few hours ago.

But it still sucks.

And.

I don’t give a fuck.

I’m still going.

I took an honest look at wanting to do the experience and doing it in the way that I am doing it with the people who I am doing it with and how I want to be with this group, I love them, they mean the world to me, they are a community and family I don’t have elsewhere and the fact that I am getting a ticket (in exchange for services rendered) and the transportation to and from and the camp infrastructure is set up and I don’t have to think about it, plus early arrival pass, well, fuck I’m suppose to go and be there.

I am so tired of living in a self-imposed model of I can’t have the experience unless I am getting paid and working my ass off to be there.

It obviously stopped working for me last year.

That was a shit show.

But.

I was supposed to have the experience, I really was, I see that now, I see that it gave me the impetus to get out of a job that wasn’t working for me, to a job that has worked pretty well for me most of the time.

Even now.

As I said, I’m not mad at the mom for what she said, it feels uncomfortable, but she was clear and direct and had obviously a opinon about it and it was said and I am so glad I didn’t react.  I paused, I responded, I sought clarification.

Oh!

Hahahahaha.

The god damn T-Group model worked!

Too fucking funny.

I also hereby acknowledge, which I did this morning in my morning pages, that my current family may not be the best situation for me to stay in while in graduate school.

It may well work for me to go back to getting paid under the table, I’ll make more and work less, and also, go back to working with babies, who nap.  So that I can accomplish more reading in my work environment.  I did manage to read for 45 minutes of my break today and I was hella happy about that, but there won’t be breaks moving forward with my current family.

I’m going down to part-time and wouldn’t start work until 2:30p.m. when the boys get done with school

Yes, I would have time to read before work, but working fewer hours to support myself is not going to work unless I get paid a lot more.

And yes.

I do deserve a raise from the family, it is time, it’s been almost a year and being the best they’ve ever had out of five previous nannies means something.  It means, you want to keep me on your employ you pay my worth.

And that was also lovely for me to see.

My worth.

I know what my worth is.

So moving forward I will probably toss a soft ball out to the Universe–find another job?

Stick with the current one?

Make more money has to happen no matter what.

My goal is to work and sustain my standard of living while in graduate school, that means making more money and working less.

It doesn’t have to be a lot less, but it will have to be a little less.

I know the solution, I know how to communicate, I know my needs, I have a lot of data.

So, moving forward.

Perhaps with a little less money than I thought I would have for this month, but whatever.

I am supposed to be there, I know it in my bones and I am supposed to be at CIIS for graduate school and I am supposed to be a strong recovered woman in my community and I am supposed to be in San Francisco.

What does it take to be those things?

I have the solution, it’s spiritual, and I can apply it to the problem.

Myself.

There is a spiritual axiom that whenever I am disturbed with a person, place, or thing, I am the one with the problem.

And I believe that.

My job is not the problem.

How I communicated my needs in my job is the problem.

I can choose to harbor a needless, selfish, self-seeking resentment, or I can communicate what I need.

And if the job can’t fulfill those needs.

Well, hello.

I have seen it demonstrated over and over and over these last 10 1/2 years, I am completely taken care of and I am alright.

I always have been.

I always will.

As long as I maintain a few simple things.

Nothings wrong.

I’m going to Burning Man!

And.

I might be available for a new job and a new experience.

Just saying.

Take A Moment

And bask in this.

“Have you done that yet,” she asked me over the phone, “when did this conversation happen?”

“About a half hour ago,” I replied, under the partial sunny skies, blue streaking out behind the lengths of clouds.

I was on the basketball court at Mission Pool and Playground with the boys kicking around a soccer ball and corralling them, to the best of my abilities, in a fenced in spot while I made the phone call.

“I hear the boys,” she said, “they sound like they are having a good time.”

They were.

And so was I.

I had just had my “review,” a process that was really quite short and very, very sweet.

The mom had actually said, “can we do this next week? There’s just so much happening today for me.”

I acquiesced, “of course, there’s really no hurry, I just really wanted to talk about dates proceeding forward, I don’t have any thing other than that to bring up.”

“Let’s do it next week, then,” she said, as the dad came into the kitchen.

“Really, we don’t need to, unless there’s something wrong, is there something wrong?” The mom and dad stopped in their tracks.

“No, no, not at all, I, well, I just was offered a ticket to Burning Man and I really want to go and it doesn’t coincide with the holiday time that you are taking,” I said.

I might have blushed.

And may I just say, how nice it is to nanny in San Francisco, where for the most part, the population knows what Burning Man is.

Of course, most of that comes down to a profound relief to be able to find a parking spot during Labor Day weekend in San Francisco, but you know.

“You have absolutely earned that vacation time,” the mom said as she was gathering up the snacks I had prepped for pre-school pick up and grabbing the milk container in the fridge, tossing it all into a cloth Mission Farmer’s Market maroon bag.

“Well, the other thing is that I got my graduate school schedule and I will need to take a week off for the retreat that is a part of the program, adding that to the two days off I’m heading to Chula Vista to see my grandmother, I will have gone over my vacation time.”  I said, “I just wanted to make sure that…”

The mom cut me off, “you have nothing to worry about, we can take the time out of your personal days off for your grandmother, I’m sure you need to talk things through about your dad and we want you to be able to do that.”

I think I might have felt my heart swell two sizes bigger with gratitude.

“I wanted to let you know I can make up the hours, or help out a little more in Sonoma,” I replied.

The family will be going to Sonoma for two weeks in July and another week in August.

Serendipitously, neither Burning Man or my graduate school retreat happen to coincide with the week in August that the family will take in Sonoma before school starts up for the boys.

The youngest will be starting pre-school and the oldest, kindergarten.

“You don’t have to worry about that, we can play that by ear, we will have extra help in Sonoma,” the mom said, adjusting her purse and digging out her car keys, “besides, we don’t want to burn you out, we really like how you are when you are at full energy with the boys.”

“We’ve had four nannies,” the dad interjected, “and you are by far, the best nanny we have ever had.”

“Hands down.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said, “I adore the boys, I really do, I just wanted to make sure that all the scheduling was ok with you.”

“It’s great, we can talk more next week,” the mom rushed out to grab the eldest from school.

“Do you have your dates for school,” the dad asked.

“I do, I can e-mail you the full set of dates, Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 just went up on the site,” I explained the timing.

Three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

About every three weeks I’ll be in class.

Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m.

Sundays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Woof.

The retreat is August 9th through 16th in Petaluma.

The first weekend of school is September 11th-13th.

I’ll have two weekends in October, one in November, one in December, one weekend each in January, February, March, April, and May.

There is no school June and July.

I’ll have “summer vacation.”

Which means I’ll work a lot, but let me to not jump too far ahead.

Pull back.

Bask.

“You’re HP is really working for you, graduate school, Burning Man, the job review, really, take a minute and appreciate what they told you.” She admonished me on the phone.

I am not good at recognizing or accepting this, but as I stay at the work of taking suggestions I have gotten better and it would not be in the spirit of humility to not acknowledge the compliments.

I do a good job.

I do a really good job.

I do.

And as the boys chased a red soccer ball around the court at the playground, stopping once in a while to run up and grab me and tug my hand and engage, I could feel the sun on my face and accept that I am a good nanny.

Doing a good job.

Being of service.

How many nannies pray to be of service before going into work?

Not sure that there are a lot.

Not sure that there aren’t others who don’t, but I really do wish to be of service when I go to work and the pay off is great.

I am loved and I get to love.

I mean I sat under the table in the kitchen today with the littlest guy after his nap before mom got back with his big brother and had a total conversation about his stuffed cat Meow Meow and we sang songs and cuddled and had snacks, well, he had snacks, I wiped snacks off his face, and to have such a tender (though wildly rambunctious at times) little boy crawl into my lap and kiss my face with his cat makes me tear the fuck up.

To not put to fine a point on it.

I get paid to love.

How lucky am I?

And I get to go to Burning Man?

Shut the front door.