Oakland

 These pictures are of memories, a fairy, & making friends.

In Oakland I sleep with the back door opened.  There is no screen just a second floor wood veranda that looks out to the right at Lake Merit and used to have green plants all over it but now just has Jon's tent, airing out.  The breeze is always light and cool, and steady.  It makes me think the music up the street or downstairs is a festival in the street.  Which means Oakland has carnival air.

Tonight after work we ate Italian food on a corner at a wrought iron table.  They drank wine.  I had a down feather in my hair that made me think of getting clean.  We are working a lot, which feels good.  At night I run next to the lake which smells like sweat, or fish, or salt.  Like home.  There are always tons of people, in the dark, walking their dogs, sitting in the grass, being romantic, holding hands. 

I love laughing, that is a theme of Oakland, that and the peace of being myself and having nights of quiet company.  I love how the air through the back door breezes me to sleep.  I am going through something very recently that makes me realize how much I've grown when it comes to intimacy.  Which is good, because back when I realized I needed it, growth seemed the hardest, most far off way.

I love Oakland, Jon wants to live here forever, to maybe never leave.  I get it.  I would feel the same, too, if I had a home with laughing and peaceful carnival air.

The Adventures of Charlotte Bliss. Which are non-stop.

It's amazing how no matter what, here is the blog, and I come back again.

The flowers in California are beautiful and I want know to every one by name.  I want to call them on the phone and find out what their favorite fruit is and where they'd go on vacation.  Did anyone ever think to say~hey, that flower belongs some place pretty, somewhere natural and fresh and alive, easy as she is~I would do that for you flowers, in the tree code ocean worshiping language that I speak.

What a world, what a life, what a barrelled tumble of its wind.   I got back here and there was some ill shit that happened to my car that had to get tended to, and it really bummed me out.  There is little that can be done for your heart when the world runs amok in its most intimate places.  My trust got rattled. I met a guy, he was amazing, the time we spent together was amazing.  He lives far away.  I live in my car which is everywhere and nowhere all at once.  Life keeps happening.  We moved Monique out basically overnight.  We went to San Jose in a posh posh swank hotel with the whole band.  Dancing and powerhouse women and the dirtiest mouth ever on Kristen.  I laughed so much I had to borrow from my laugh account, which hurts your stomach after a while and makes your heart better where maybe it had stopped remembering for a minute how to work. I can't get over the good luck in my life and amazing strong and sexy and gorgeous and funny, deep powerhouse women.  O did I say that once already?  It's true!  We were up til 5 Friday and 3:30 Saturday.  Dorthea took me to Berkeley yesterday.  Talking late night women's cycle talk in the kitchen with Aloe.  The hills here, the shores, the ocean.  The breeze.  We were back to the beach by the night and it was damp and cold in the street.  We used an Kristen's apps to name planets and look at the stars.  I am going to Oakland tomorrow, the mountains by the weekend, there is so much to show up to, so much to do.  Life!  I want to live you!  I want to know the names of all your flowers again.  To be an active lover of your land.

I want to be surrounded by the people who care if I do.

Fall Equinox. Season of bounty and light~Farewell

Yes it's the fall equinox tonight, overnight.  Making today the last day of the summer~

My heart's been terribly wistful.  I dipped down lower in fact than I've been in some time and damn do I not do well with that--unaccounted for fluxing in my mood.  Even though I am the one who knows and teaches Anicha, the wisdom of the emotional and mental life how it is fleeting and always will change, even that knowledge still didn't stop me from being really effing hard on myself in trying to figure out Whyyyy?  It started Monday, I walked the cliffside to the beach and lay in the yellow sun, light blue swells and diamond sparkles and Santa Cruz hippies and teenagers all around, so much smiles.  I sat a long, long time, just trying to be gentle with the discomfort of myself, in myself.

Here we are: the season of change. The wheel turns to the dark half of the year tonight, even if for now we are perfectly balanced.  And so at this state of in-between, it's time for reflection, gratitude, and above all listening deeply to your own soul's response.  I had the coolest, coolest fucking year.  My high time at the beach was ecstatic like little before I've known, the dancing, the sun, the surf, the good friends.  The immediate and consistent blessings of family all around.  This is not even to mention the time I've spent on the road, the harmony and serendipity and surprises that have come with all that.  I will spend the fall working in the mountains, and what comes then and after I can not know...

It was Erika, on Tuesday, who pointed out the birth of my niece and the outlying impact a baby always brings.  On the heel of that conversation it occurred to me, slowly, the deep grief I am feeling over moving forward.  Moving on from my life and times at the beach, back east, among the intimacy of the people who mean so much to me and a lifestyle I had whittled by choice.  There is little to do with this experience other than ride it, feel it, honor it.  And too, in quiet, dream more, dream forward, and trust in the power of my dreams and my heart to guide me towards the next harvest season to come.

In all things, we are right here, where we are meant to be.  Or like my brother Brooks has been known to say~She might come late, but she always on time...

...That's just what the mama wisdom has to teach us today.

The Adventures of Charlotte Bliss. California, poetry & tidbits.

~Sebastopol, 9/18/11

In California everyone knows what an Americano is, the light still slants the same dark yellow in the fall, and asada always comes with cilantro and lime.

~

I told you help me remember this the body has a body all its own
The poems are back again, little do you know this is truth about us
already written
how timelessness aches to find someone
willing to come to life
the song

~
I love spontaneous shuffled-ipod moments that sum it up.  that cant be planned.

12 song round-up, driving out Ukiah down the 101.

1. Home.  Edward Sharp...
2. Sweetest Thing.  The Waifs
3. Tree.  Blitzen Trapper
4. Below the Hurricane.  Blizten Trapper
5. Lie Detector Test.  Sage Francis
6. No Dough.  The Mamas and Papas
7. Wasted.  Brandi Carlile
8. Dreams.  Brandi Carlile
9. Oh Dear.  Brandi Carlile
10. Speed Law. Mos Def
11. That Hump.  Erykah Badu 
12. Tiny Cities Made of Ashes.  Modest Mouse

ahhh, poems~
masquerading as mere sound

~
Nobody wants you when you're old and gray, they'll be some changes made
~

Bodega Hwy, The Russian River...
so what i dont have money.  i also dont give a damn.
~

"In San Francisco, everything is more bohemian, and a good deal like Paris." --Alfred Hertz, 1910

~

9/20/11

You met me, I want to tell him, when I had my at-home body.  Might as well of been my winter-weight.  Comforting, taking of food and tv.  Low light of evening, settling sounds of night in the comfort of mom's home.  It falls so easy in to flopping. In to not taking care of myself.  I ran yesterday for 45 minutes, the whole time next to the sea.  I walked around town twice, once before that to the market and once later, in the afternoon, to the beach.  California is the active high-bodied vitality.  Of how to live.

~ 

It's not cryptic!  Some things I just keep private on here

~

the girl w the pendant of her grandmother's also has genuine, kind eyes. 

~

maybe she is a student?  probably.  i want to tell her.  hold tight to this freshness.  the vitality will try to disappear.  the maintenance of which will be all that matters in your times to come.

this is not california.  just, soul.  that which can not be taught.  but practiced.  well-practiced in to a disciplined gold.

~

i love coffee shops.

it's hot in Central California,

& who cares the boys club

I may never get in?

~

Sebastopol, finally~these are my ppl.

groovy as they come.

TAoCB. Baby Grace.

It was a long trip off the mountain.

Through the redwoods, alongside the river trained against the sand and stone shores.  The sun beams literally were vibrating the air so you could see them.  More than once Yalle and I were holding hands, high up towards the ceiling of the car for no reason other than radiant joy.  She is a hero to me, in just one night I watched her hustle pool change a tire in heeled boots and skinny jeans and chug whiskey out the bottle.  Once the 101 turned to the freeway outside Oakland she took over behind the wheel because she's better at "stepping on it".  She got me to the airport Monday night in San Jose with enough time to get searched in security, by a ponytailed woman with an accent and rubber blue gloves.  My bra set off the buzzer more than once. I took it in stride, what else did I have to do?  When it was over I talked to Gretchen, wrote some on the travel piece I've been keeping and right before I boarded, texted the boy I'd see him when I got back.

There were four people I wanted to surprise the most, of course the number one was my brother the new dad.  It was 9:20 am when I flew in to BWI Tuesday morning and almost 10 when I texted my brother could he talk in 15 minutes.  When 15 minutes was up I was standing outside the door to the room of the hospital where my sister-in-law was in the bed with her baby on her chest both of them glowing the most tender new momma-baby glow.  I texted him Could he talk in person then dad opened the door and I walked in.

My brother and I, emotional as we are and hard as we've worked to learn how to communicate and be adults, were capable of nothing at that moment other than tears.  Tears and sobbing and smiling and laughing and hugging, and most of all breathless utter still staring at tiny baby Grace.

Tim and Mary showed up my godparents and they were number two and three to be surprised and there they were, the tears again.  Family, my family surrounding me.  My brother's closest friends, watching the hearts melt right inside these grown men.  I stayed at Erin's that night and spent the next day with Kelly in Catonsville then Brooks in the city and reveled in how very much I love where I am from.  Brian and I drove to my sister-in-laws house the day after that and the best part was the cuddle nest of all of us, the lights out and the baby hiding under blankets snuggled sleeping on my chest.  That night I drove to the beach with Erin who is my sister, we were dirty Burnie as we get when we're together eating junk food from the Wawa in Easton and making merciless fun of each other til we finally got to Ocean Pines.  We cuddled most the night when we did get there, settled in the house with my sleeping mom. 

Yesterday I went to the Yacht Club where I lastly surprised Jott.  She screamed like in a horror movie and then my trip finally felt done.  I came home after that and rested, talked to the boy a while and have been peaceful, smiling a lot, and enjoying my blessings.  September is my favorite time ever to be in the sun by the beach. 

Welcome to this precious ordinary world, my darling baby niece.