When You Feel Heartbroken

And you don’t know what to do.

You write.

You cry a bit.

You put on Wooden Heart’s Listener album and sing along to torch songs.

About crows and whiskey and prayers that aren’t heard.

But God hears the prayers.

He just doesn’t always give you the answers you want to hear.

You think about dying.

But you don’t die.

You put on a brave face and tell yourself that the pain is alright.

That’s how you grow.

Isn’t it.

Pain.

And I don’t want to die.

I still have so much living to do.

Maybe I just want to crawl into bed and cry into my pillows.

Fall asleep with tears rolling down my face and stare at the dark ceiling.

And wonder about the next door neighbor and the piano jazz that sometimes seeps out the windows of the ramshackle house at odd hours.

And maybe while I’m crying I’ll think about integrity and honesty and pain.

Because maybe you forgot what the pain feels like.

Well.

Until you feel the pain again.

And the surprise of it.

As though the past haunting hurt was just a whisper of how it feels now.

And maybe I’m not supposed to remember how it hurts.

Because then maybe I wouldn’t dare to love again.

Or love now.

I know I’m alive.

I know because it hurts.

And every moment of silence sinks me deeper.

The deep blue of Halsman’s Marilyn Monroe.

The old faded blue Christmas tree lights.

The blue ribbon on the package under the boughs.

Sinking me down.

So I write.

To process it all.

To not sink and stay sunk.

And I cry, soft, wicked slow, tears melting and wet.

Crumpled up and bent over and crying.

And maybe that’s ok.

It’s not, not ok.

It’s just a feeling.

It will pass.

Right?

Every season of grief has a meaning.

I just wish it wasn’t at Christmas time.

The baffled cheeriness of my battered heart.

Listening to Charlie Brown Christmas during the afternoon.

Watching the high blue sky and thinking of you.

Driving in my car so alive, so bouyant, so happy, so grateful.

To end the day in tears and confused and forsook.

I forsake myself, haven’t I?

Haunted by the last kiss you placed on my mouth.

Did you really tell me to scotch guard my shoes?

Were those your last words?

Because there’s no more to say, nothing left to say?

We all have the same holes in our heart.

Maybe I’ll just walk down to the sea and watch the meteor shower.

The sea can wash away the pain.

The sea can have it.

I won’t die from a broken heart.

It just feels that way.

That’s all.

 

One of Those Weeks

And I just don’t care.

Things spill.

Pink hair dye in my purse.

Blueberries in my basket tonight, all over my liner bag on the back of my scooter, splashed blueberry juice all over my pink riding jacket.

Ugh.

Who cares?

I don’t.

I don’t give a fig.

I’m having a great fucking day.

Heh.

I just scored four tickets to Mike Doughty’s September 1st Living Room Tour here in San Francisco.

One night.

Someone’s living room.

27 people?

30 people?

Intimate like.

I messaged my three people who are Doughty fans and said, “save the date bitches.”

I don’t even give a fig that it’s the day before my first day of classes.

Fuck it.

I’ll be a little tired.

But I will be happy.

Oh so very happy.

Live music, getting to hear someone who I really like and respect, musically and from my own private personal view, we have a few things in common, a few friends, it feels special.

I’m really grateful and I didn’t blink at dropping the money on the tickets.

I love my people and I am super psyched to get to share the experience with them.

Now.

Not one of the bastards has responded to the wildly ecstatic message I just sent them, but I ain’t worried.

If, for some reason, any or all of them can’t go.

I am sure I will find three other Mike Doughty fans that would love to go.

I can actually think of a few that I should probably message and say, hey, there was 27 tickets available when I bought my four, which means 23 are left, and um, in San Francisco, that’s not going to last long.

I just had this pricking in my thumbs.

My blueberry stained thumbs.

To go check the website and see if the tickets were up.

And voila!

They were.

I whipped out the wallet.

Didn’t think twice.

The only thought I had was keeping it to myself until tomorrow when I see my ladybug at the cafe to do the deal, but I didn’t think I could keep it under my hat for that long.

I am not the best at keeping a surprise.

I mean.

I can.

I suppose I could have written this blog about how despite prepping for the poetry podcast yesterday and feeling really excited about it, that the recording was cancelled.

I suppose.

I mean.

That was what I was going to write about.

Also that I didn’t find myself all that wrapped up in that either.

I was like.

Cool.

God’s got better plans for my time that day.

Yoga.

Doing the deal.

Sex.

Heh.

Who knows.

All three.

Although not all three at the same time.

Ok.

Anyway.

That signals to me that I am in a good place in my life in general, that when something unexpected happens, getting this cancellation, I can look at it and say, well, something else is supposed to happen and here’s to knowing that what ever that thing is, it’s the thing that is supposed to happen.

Just like getting blueberry juice on everything, I mean, shit everywhere, I didn’t really get upset, just pulled the stuff that needed cleaning and tossed it into the wash.

Came inside my little studio.

Hopped on line.

And, ayup, bought tickets to see a small, intimate little show of one of my favorite artists.

Luckiest girl in the world.

And.

Tomorrow’s Friday.

Yes.

Plus.

I’m listening to the Cars greatest hits and that puts me in a good mood too.

I mean.

That synthesizer.

So good.

You’d think that I would want to listen to Mike Doughty’s Stellar Motel, but this is what called and when I feel a call, I got to go with it.

“What is this,” my lover asked (which one, wouldn’t you like to know).

“Wooden Heart, Listener,” I replied.

I love the album, but have found that nope, not everybody does.

In fact, the disdain for which someone says something about the music I’m wanting to listen to can be off putting.

“What is this shit?” An ex-boyfriend, “can you change this?”

I might.

But I might have to dump you first.

I was listening to a jazz mix which had some old Soul Coughing songs from Ruby Vroom on it.

You know that band Mike Doughty was the lead singer for, the band my long time boyfriend took me to see at the Eagle’s Ballroom, the album that gave me goosebumps when I first heard it and I resonated so hard to it that I still can tell you all the sense memories that I get stirred up even writing about it.

Yeah.

That relationship didn’t last long.

“Do you like this,” I asked my lover, the asker of the Wooden Heart album, “do you want to listen to something else?”

“Anything but this,” he replied.

Fucker.

So I put on Thomas Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless.

Take that.

Ah music.

How I love thee.

I remember when I first came out to San Francisco and was reading through an SF Weekly and all the music shows that were listed and I was just like a little gluttonous piggie in heaven.

I probably do not take advantage as much as I thought I would.

But.

I still love a live show and I was telling a date last weekend about a pen ultimate San Francisco night I had with a friend many years back where we went to see Tron at the Castro Theater, then hopped on his scooter and burned rubber to get to the Fillmore and we rocked out like maniacs to Gary Numan.

So close I could see how angry the lead guitarist was, and jaded.

So close I could see the black eyeliner on Numan blurring underneath his eyes.

Magic.

Goldfrapp that same year on her tour for Supernature.

God damn that was a good show.

I really must be on a synthesizer kick, now that I am thinking of it.

Heh.

And I still haven’t heard back from any of my friends.

Oh.

Ha!

I just remembered one of them is out of town camping, well, hopefully he’ll be happy when he returns from being off the grid to the knowledge of another good show that we get to go to.

As for me.

Whelp.

I got the weekend relatively free.

What’s happening my people?

Let’s.

Shake it up.

Shake it up/make a scene.

That’s right, I said
Dance all night
Go go go
Dance all night
Get real low
Go all night
Get real hot
Well, shake it up now, all you’ve got.

Shall we?

Re-set Button

Has been re-set.

Sleep.

Sunshine.

Yoga.

Walks on the beach.

With the god damn entire city of San Francisco.

Well.

I suspect the other part of the city was probably congregating at Dolores Park, but my god there were a lot of people out at the beach.

So many intoxicated little bikini clad, festival be-decked, floppy hatted young things sprawled all over the sand wasted and sunburnt.

“Jesus fuck,” I said on the phone, as I crested the dune heading down toward the beach.

“What was that?” My person asked surprised by the sudden segue in the conversation.

“There are so many people here, it’s, it’s I don’t know, really too much,” I ended.

There she was, the gorgeous blue Pacific, calling me forward, alluring and dappled in bright coins of sun, but between me and that ocean, so, so, so many people.

So much drinking, smoking, and silliness.

Not that I am upset about the imbibing, it’s just not my scene and my neighborhood has definitely become a scene, especially on the weekends and really especially when it is nice out.

God damn it was nice out today.

I got up and out early and off to yoga by 9 a.m.

I stripped the bed, threw the sheets in the laundry, made my bed, knelt down got some humble on and asked to have a good day, to have some fun, to show up for the women I was going to be working with, to show up for my recovery, to show up for the school work I needed to get done–really did it have to be so very nice when I need to do so very much reading?

I sipped some iced coffee and headed to Yoga Beach, just down the block, unfurled my yoga mat and left the outside world far, far, far behind.

For an hour and fifteen minutes I was nowhere else.

Except when I was startled by reverie during my practice.

I find that I get different things from different instructors, and this experience today had me overwhelmed with gratitude and light and joy and grief.

All in shades of grey.

Soft, cashmere, ombre, grey.

Fogged out.

Misted.

A tale of swathed heart beats, true North, meadows full of fireflies.

And.

A little girl in a white dress with bare feet and brown hair in braids, her face brown, the tops of her cheeks just sun kissed a dusty rose.

I recognized her.

She is me and I am her and I saw her a couple classes ago and wasn’t sure yet that I had wanted to write about her.

She beckons to a dazed innocence that I think, or wish, or  chose to bedevil and beguile myself with that I had at some point in my young life.

A naive and innocent joy and trust.

Then another woman.

Old, thin, the sharp line of her jaw still fierce, the bones in her face more prominent, but still a softening around the cheeks and long hair, again in braids, in a shift this time more grey than white ombre dipped black at the bottom.

And this is me and there I am, old, proud, soft, hard, braids, bright eyes, stretched hands, friends with sun in the sky, the moon in the meadow, the lark in the tree.

Finally.

The third woman.

The woman I am now or soon to be, joined in the circle, grey shift shimmering like pearls, floating about me, hair in braids, mouth lifted, smiling, cheeks sunburnt, heart full and open and I realized that I wanted her to be me and the feelings that were all there, the sadness and the grief and the shallow sorrow, a teaspoon of salt water in an ever expanding ocean of feelings.

I remembered an old image that I had before, years before, an old idea or photograph in my head, this picture of my heart, a map, an unfolding, hilled and steepled there and there, graded with arrows pointing up and down, flickering bulbs of light, smoked neon, the chasms and neighborhoods, the map pinned down on the board of my soul.

I had this perceptive feeling that my heart was always struggling to curl up in on itself, to protect itself, to not hurt or feel or grieve or say goodbye or lose or fall.

To be inert, to drift, to atrophy, rather than feel that pain.

That pain of being alive.

That beauty of being alive despite the pain and the glory of reveling in the beauty despite, nay because of that sorrow.

I avowed to myself that I would not let my heart curl up, I would not withdraw, I would not build up that wall and I would stake down my heart, keep it open, make it bigger, make it fuller, live it harder, bolder, fiercer, now, more than ever, I mean, bring it damn it.

Today.

Though.

The image, the map of my heart the ghosts of streets I didn’t go down, the choices I took and walked away from or ran away from, or huddled down, a small bunny tharn in the light throttling down the roadway, only to have it pass over me, a whirling wind, an engine screaming horror into the bloody dusk, I saw that mapped heart different.

I did not see a heart pinned down, I saw a heart anchored.

I felt it rooted there.

There were no pushpins or staples or nails.

No.

I saw flowers.

I saw daisies, white, sunny, innocent, strong, pure, roots intwined and laced, a border of light holding down my heart.

The dazzling circumference lit and rising toward the sun, unfurled, tender, delicate buttons of butter yellow surrounded by coronas of white petals and coarse green teethed leaves.

I know.

I know.

Yoga.

Sheesh.

But there again, in my meadow, dancing, in the circle, these three aspects of me, child, woman, crone.

I do not know what legacy I will leave.

I do not foresee where my life will go or who I will affect or who will affect me.

I do, however, know, this reconciliation of love and tenderness, these stars, fallen kisses from God, as they rise above the ocean, calling to me to feel it all, and continue forward.

To keep dancing to that spiritual bluegrass of burnt dragonfly wings and dandelion seed pods blown through and scattered, the worn out passport of my childhood still in my pocket.

I am the legacy of love to myself.

I will continue on.

Love, loving, a house on fire, burn me down.

I arise again, sparks flying toward the heavens.

I will meet the stars and they me and we will fly together.

Over the meadow.

Into my soul.

Into the laughing mouth of God.

Which is just love.

Love.

Always.

That.

Always there.

Love.

 

Say the word and I’ll take a hatchet to your heart too.

 

You Look Great!

Did you lose weight?

Just the weight of having made it through the school weekend.

It is a heavy weight to carry sometimes, and as my TA in The Clinical Relationship said to my group this afternoon as we were parting, “you did really hard work this weekend, I just want to acknowledge that.”

Thanks man.

It was big, big, big work.

And.

Ah.

Yes.

I am almost done with the work.

I still have a paper to write, a paper that the professor actually gave us some more time to address.

So.

If I don’t want to write it tomorrow at work, I don’t have to.

Although, it’s probably for the best to bring my laptop and my reader, my notes, and just kick it out and deal with it.

Sometimes more time does not actually help me in the process of writing.

Ooh.

Look.

I can procrastinate this a little longer.

Frankly.

Um.

No.

Get it done.

Then relax.

“God, I open my big mouth sometimes,” she said to me afterward, “I just blurted out what I was seeing,” she said with apology.

“It’s ok, it’s nice to hear, I don’t own a scale, so I actually couldn’t tell you if I had lost weight,” I replied.

“Your face, it just looks amazing, maybe it’s because your hair’s down, I don’t know that I have ever seen it down.”  She gazed at my face, puzzled, “it’s just, it’s beautiful, your face, you look so, so light.”

I smiled.

And I do feel light.

I was happy today at school.

I got up with a decent amount of sleep.

I had a great first class of the day.

I connected with my two favorite ladies in the cohort and made plans with both of them for future time to spend together.

Slumber party next school weekend!

That will be such a blast.

I also participated and felt really good with what I contributed to class.

And.

Ahem.

I got a text message from my Tuesday evening date asking how I was.

Lovely, sir.

I am just lovely.

He’s out of town, but shall be returning this week.

Perfect.

I’ll be well rested.

Ahem.

I may also have another date this week, I’m just playing it by ear and letting whatever happens happen and enjoy the fact that I don’t have to focus on any one man.

I am having fun, remember?

Yes.

Fun.

I am happy.

I am tired.

It was a long weekend.

But I feel good.

Really good.

I feel loved and blessed and held.

I have friends.

I have a home.

I have school.

I get to do these amazing things and have these deep, effective, moving, my God, how emotionally moving some of this is, experiences.

I got my last assignments for the final weekend of classes.

I got papers to write people.

But.

I also have time.

And there is reading.

And there is time.

There is abundance.

There is lightness.

And purpose and magic.

Music.

I’m listening to The Listener’s album again, “Wooden Heart.”

It is so good.

So good.

Oh, my clamoring heart.

I am such a fucking lucky girl.

I almost took a nap today after I got back from class, I was pretty darn wiped out, but I stayed awake, went over to Thai Cottage and got myself some pumpkin curry and brown rice, came back here and read for a while.

No.

I did not read for school!

So proud of allowing myself a nice forty-five minute chunk of leisure reading, , John Irving.

A book I started last summer.

Last fucking summer.

I started it in Sonoma, at the house in Glen Ellen where the family I work for rent a place for a few weeks and have their summer vacation in some weather that actually acts like summer.

I can’t remember the last time I started a book and didn’t finish it.

However.

I started that piece of literature on a study break from school work and then, well, I just went straight to Burning Man and then straight back to school and then straight back to work and repeat, well, take out the going to Burning Man part, but I have just been reading and writing and doing school.

I pulled it off the shelf nestled into my chaise lounge, sipped on a cup of tea and read.

It was delicious.

But I was getting too sleepy and almost nodded off.

Instead.

I put on some music and danced around and got my blood up.

Then.

OH.

I pumped up the tires on my dear, beloved, and not much ridden bicycle.

Yup.

I took the whip out for a ride.

It felt so good to be in the saddle, to be in my body, and not in my head, not thinking, not processing emotions, not in a therapy dyad with a new therapist learning how to do her deal practicing on my emotional playing field.

From the moment I wheeled her out of the garage, it was like I hadn’t been off her at all, but the truth is, I have.

It’s been a month?

After I go the parking permit for work, I’ve been taking my scooter and my bike, well, she’s gotten a little dusty.

My body did not forget the motions, my legs pistons, my hands light on the handle bars, the wind soft, caressing on my face, lifting the curls up off my neck, and I am one with the bicycle and flying down 46th Avenue.

Flying.

Floating.

Magic.

The sunset at Moraga and 46th, the smell of beach bonfire drifting upwards, the salt, the ocean, the light of the bouncing off the pearlescent clouds.

The joy in my heart.

That’s what the woman saw.

The joy in my heart writ large on my face.

I cannot tell what part or the work informs the whole the most, I just keep moving believing that it is all love, brightness, light.

Rapturous with love.

And.

Perhaps hallucinatory with needing to sleep.

But let me just stick to the love part.

That’s the best anyway.

Love me, my love.

As I love you.

The raven with the moon in its mouth.

The song on my sleeve.

The music of the spheres.

Here.

There.

Everywhere.

Love.

 

 

Locked And Loaded

I made it through the work week.

Now to make it through the school weekend.

Three days of showing up and participating and being the best little student I can be.

Yeah.

I’m a teacher’s pet.

What of it?

I’m also ready.

Food is prepped, lunches and dinners.

I went to the grocery store after work, got a few extra things to have on hand so I don’t have to think about getting groceries or dealing with food stuff.

I also got myself a nice bouquet of flowers.

Because.

Hello.

Buy your own damn flowers.

And.

I’m done with my papers, my readings, and laundry–celebrate with something pretty just for me.

I am on point.

So that I don’t have to do anything but use my brain.

It does get a good work out when I’m in school.

And  have enough to think about then to worry about laundry or cleaning or groceries or bills or any of it.

Phone bill paid, rent paid, fuck, I paid it weeks ago, scooter insurance paid.

I just wish I was able to use it this weekend.

But the weather don’t look good.

So I gassed up my scooter and covered her up.

Fingers crossed I may be able to use it on Sunday, but tomorrow and Saturday, it’s looking like rain.

So.

I’ll take cars.

I was trying to talk myself into using MUNI but it’s doubtful.

I’ll want the extra time for sleeping.

I feel pretty rested, but it was a stressful day at work, hell it’s been a stressful couple of weeks, the family is doing a big spring break travel and there were a lot of extra things to juggle.

But.

As of today I won’t see the boys for a week.

I snuggled them both for a little while tonight before I left.

“I love you and I’m going to miss you and I just want you to know that even though I can’t see you, you are here, right here in my heart,” I told each of the boys.

I got kisses blown to me from the little guy, but the six year old and I had a longer conversation about the trip and the traveling and what was I going to be doing.

I told him that I would be in school and then I would be helping out the family and doing some things at the house to make sure it was prepared for them when they came home next week.

He also asked me to go down to the beach, he knows the whales are migrating, and try and see some whales and take some pictures for him.

“I will, and how about I bring you a souvenir?”  I asked him.  “What about a sand dollar?”

“Oh yes! I would love a sand dollar,” he hugged me and patted my hand and then scurried out of my lap to go play rescue helicopter pilot eskimo pirate santa t-rex trains.

Don’t ask.

Suffice to say, I felt my heart very tugged.

I won’t miss the stress of getting them ready for the trip, but I will miss the boys.

The oldest came running up to me before I headed down the stairs and out the door, and threw himself at me and clambered up into my arms and kissed my face.

My heart broke and then grew bigger and more love, more love, more love.

I squeezed him tight, “I love you bug, have fun.”

Now one ever told her to guard her heart.

I put him down and scurried down the stairs before I could get wrangled into any more last minute work projects or get caught up in saying any more good byes to the boys.

Free!

I rode off into the waning of the day and the encroaching fog and rain clouds.

I see you.

But I still may have time to enjoy a few moments of Doctor Seuss sky before the night falls complete.

The quiet crash of the night, the shimmer of neon on the 76 gas station sign at La Playa and Lincoln and I had a moment, a memory, a shimmering of tender nostalgia flare up inside my chest.

The sea side, the old gas station logo, the smell of wood burning at the fire pits on Ocean Beach.

Did I ever tell you how my favorite smell is woodsmoke?

Bonfires on the edge of the ocean, the dark water, somber and shiny, the smell of salt water drenched driftwood drenched and bleached under the sun, then gathered up in bundles to throw on the bundle of wood bought the market with the styrofoam cooler and the six packs of beer.

My mother and her boyfriend.

My sister, asleep in the back seat of the car.

I didn’t last much longer myself.

But I do remember the fire and the way it smelled and my mother, barefoot, jeans rolled, hair in her eyes, her gulping laugh of intoxication and joy, shimming around the fire.

Then.

I woke up and the sea was calm and I was alone in the morning air and fog and cool sand.

We ate breakfast at some sea side diner with red checked table cloths and booths, a long room with wood floors and un-ironic rope art and wooden ship steering wheels.

I had pancakes.

Thin, round, silver dollars.

They sat smeared with butter and soaked up the syrup that fell from the glass container, the sticky spot on the black handle where the syrup leaked out.

I remember watching the syrup soak into my pancakes.

My sister ate sausages dipped in the syrup and repeatedly stuck her finger in the pool of syrup.

Smart girl, she doused her pancakes and waited until all the syrup had soaked through and then poured even more on top, the crumbs of pancake so super saturated with sweetness they crumbled into balls and stuck to the tines of the thin silver fork.

My egg yolk ran into the syrup and I watched the yellow river snake over the plate.

My mom dipped her toast in the yolk and ate it, she smiled and she was so beautiful.

I forget that sometimes how beautiful my mother, bohemian and wild, was, is really, her white cotton button shirt rolled up at the sleeves, her long neck a gazelle, her green eyes grey and soft with the overhead clouds.

All this.

In just a moment.

The acceleration of my scooter from the stop sign at 45th to the turn at La Playa to get gas in my scooter.

“You’re a native!” he said in the message.

I am and I forget that sometimes in the ellipses of time that happened from years five to twenty-nine when I moved back here, but it will be those moments, the red neon sign, the wind on my face, the smell of bonfires on the beach.

And I am home.

In my heart.

In my person.

In this world.

I belong.

Here.

Now.

Always.

 

 

And We Have A Winner

Finally.

Thanks Tinder.

That took a hot minute.

But fuck me.

Ha.

It was worth the wait.

Oh my.

Was it ever worth the wait.

And.

Whelp.

I’m for sure ready for the school weekend now.

I  printed off my last paper this morning and did my references and took a hot shower, cleaned up the house, did some laundry, ate a nice breakfast and had a lot of coffee.

Not much sleep you know.

Mwahahahaha.

“I told you, you got to go younger, that’s the way,” my friend, a bit smug, even via text, I could tell he was being a bit smug, having been the younger one to my older once upon a time in a land far, far away, the Mission District, before I moved to Paris and all that jazz.

It was fun.

I’ll just leave it at that and delicious and completely made up for the other three bad Tinder dates and the one that cancelled–who still once in a while sends me some weirdo message.

Time to block that shit.

I see it and just delete, but really, why even accept any incoming message?

(Side bar, he just messaged and I just blocked)

That is where I am beginning to see how this app works a little bit.

Oh.

And my paramour gave me the best new word.

“Techtard.”

I am a total techtard!

I was trying to put my address into his phone as we stood next to my scooter after having just had a really, really, really good kiss, and well I couldn’t figure it out.  Could have been the kiss, could have been I’m a “techtard.”

I may go with it was the kiss.

Whew.

That was the best make out.

We had met a cafe I felt comfortable with.

I held firm to meeting where I wanted to meet.

No bars.

I’m not dating anyone, at least not yet, just out there having fun.

Though, truth be told, said gentleman from last night wants to hang out again I am on it.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Um yeah.

Any way.

I had suggested a cafe close to where I work, but it had closed early and he suggested a bar and I said no, I’m sober, I’m not interested in meeting in a bar, even if I have a good reason to be there.

Somehow a Tinder date does not seem like a good idea for me to go to a bar.

Um, yeah, not so much.

First rule.

Go where I want to go.

Second.

The ball is always in my court.

Always.

I’m not feeling it.

Leave.

There’s no chemistry.

Get the fuck out.

Schedule only on my time frame.

Remember.

I’m not dating.

I don’t have to be flexible, I mean, really, though, I was totally.

I couldn’t do a thing this weekend, school and all, and we seemed to hit it off, via text anyway, so it was worth the investment in time.

Plus.

I had finished the bulk of the paper yesterday morning before I went to work, I didn’t feel any kind of bad about taking the evening off to meet and connect with someone.

Whatever happens it’s an experience.

I am living.

I am not crying my tea cup alone wondering why I’m not out there grooving and shaking.

And.

Hey.

Lest you think this is easy, I had to talk myself into the date.

The man was hot.

HOT.

Ten years younger than me and by the end of my nanny shift, hello, what is that on my shirt?  Don’t think, just brush it off.  I was pretty wiped out.

You know, I only wrote a five page paper before work, then worked a long shift, then yeah, I’m going to go out on a date with someone I have never met before and the last three in person Tinder dates I had were ass, so yeah, you’re tired.

Go home.

Except.

Well.

I knew that resistance feeling.

I recognized it.

There’s a big difference between I need to practice some self care and go home and chill and read and write.

It’s another to self-isolate.

And this, the nagging thought, to cancel the date, was self-isolation.

I could feel it.

So.

I showed up.

Holy shit when he walked in the cafe.

I almost left anyhow.

This guy is not going to see anything in me.

And he’s tall?

Jesus God, thank you, I have been a very good girl, I promise.

Heh.

While he was getting a cup of tea I snagged the two front leather chairs in the front of the cafe and snuggled in.

I was tempted to text a girl friend.

But.

I kept my phone in my purse and promised myself I would stay present.

It was a little awkward at first.

First dates always are.

Then something shifted.

He shifted, I shifted, the conversation deepened.

We talked a lot.

Shoes and ships and sealing wax.

Cabbages and kings.

Family, work, school, Albert Einstein, intelligence, travel, life, experiences, Burning Man.

He shared some music with me.

I pulled out headphones from my bag and plugged into the song, watching the video on the screen, Listener–Wooden Heart.

Holy shit.

I was mesmerized.

I got the tears standing in my eyes.

Then one slipped down my face.

I think I was pretty hidden in my hair, it had fallen across my eyes as I listened to the music and I was just spellbound, heart open and beating and kaboom, kaboom, kaboom.

I remember thinking, well if nothing else, I learned about this incredible new music and I am happy girl for new music to put into my heart.

“I cried too, the first time I heard it,” he said and smiled when I handed back his phone.

“I sort of wear my heart on my sleeve,” I said and wiped my eyes.

Sort of.

Understatement of the fucking year.

The conversation continued.

I don’t even recall what we were talking about but suddenly there was this completely goofy conversation about Muppets and I am laughing so hard in my chair I am snorting and tearing up.

Complete belly laugh.

Now that’s been a while for a first date.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said.

We got up, used the loo, and walked around the Mission taking photographs and talking this and that until we got back to my scooter.

And how we got the topic of the last Pee Wee Herman movie and bicycles I have no idea.

But suddenly.

He was there, leaning into me.

“Shhh,” he said, taking my face into his hands.

He kissed me.

And um.

Yeah.

The rest is my history to relish privately.

Suffice to say.

I’m a happy lady.

And I have new music to listen to.

#Winning.