The hobbit house is built in to the side of Laguna Canyon and for that reason at night with no heat it feels cozy and held by the earth herself. I have a space heater Annie and Tony gave me when I first moved in and that's all it takes to stay warm. With lots of soaking rain the soil is green and smells like life. Even the morning mist-gray feels right in an atmosphere like this, one that sings Allliiiiive!
Damnit even if the Gods themselves gave me a paintbrush I couldn't of hand-created a life more exactly specific to what I love. This I tell Serena to ensure her, this, this our hard fought independence, our always-there choice, to live. What Laguna Beach for us actually means. She has done it every step of the way as I have and I admire her fiercely and devotedly for this. We will always have this. I laugh then and say because they did! I took my brush right from the God's hands! Said gimme that I will choose the life I live! Serena laughs too, this our secret, what we treasure and hold dear in the other.
It has been a long road since she left the treehouse upstairs. Life, which in living gives us what we need. We are so blessed I also tell her, and yes, yes we are I know, she says back to me. I feel a gulp in my heart and for us both feel-say the silent prayer.
I am always so wrought through with home and the ties that bind. Spent two years studying the psyche of this, of these things, and am convinced more than ever of the continuum of earth, of how she uses her people to soul-speak for a place, and in this way keeps sacred the tides of the land. There is so much life outside any door. When I first got to California the best part was how new it was. I vowed never ever to take you for granted Holy California and even though sometimes I start to, in the end I never do. Or still haven't. And that's what life is. To keep waking up. Again.
I consider family, too. Back east, here. Derynne and Cam, the kids. We buried her brother in what for her I know was a long whir of endless sad. Pacifica family and blessing the sacred space for Eve and Kalen to wed. Visiting with Atticus, seeing clients again, waiting on Jasmine to get back for school. Through it all there are tacos at Feast, the hot counter in San Juan with the pounds of chilaquiles, the clerks at the market downtown who tell you they missed seeing you, there is mermaid beach and the other secret spots and burrito joints with surf boys covered in tattoos. It is amazing how our tiny rounds from day to day connect us in, make life, see us through the daily passings of grocery trips and recycling and take-out Chinese food. See us to the big ones. Death, marriage, birth, tears and laughter. The sighs in between where words can not fit.
So it life again. I come back to you. I let you in.
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
January 12, 2015
January 9, 2015
Upon the screen.
I want to speak with authority but maybe I'm wrong--though this is my third winter being here so I ought to, if it feels right, be able to believe my ability to judge the seasons of this place & speak the earth speak like I so often do.
This said, it is like springtime here, or how we learn spring by the tide of April back east. I love it, the earth awakes, it rises my heart like a flock of doves sit beneath which maybe that's because it's true. The buoyancy, the fat bird-singing songs infused in the ascending green. I am not more than this: the live song.
It is, and I hope that readers who read me one time before for the poetry, get this--a time of waking myths. Activating our mythology is the charge of the day--and I mean this as base and re-rythmic as allowing your thoughts to settle in to your conscious choice of brand new words. New stories. I am writing, clearly, precisely, my own. By being the words. It has been so long. I think, I see my Self, honor, bare witness seem to choke just a tidbit, and say Could it really? Have been this long? And more, Is it true I actually came out here--here California--on a hunt for them? And yes, just there, the echo--yes that is true. I did.
It HAS been that long. And there the perplexity, Could it really be sure, true and simple as THIS? And that is what's most devastating to say. That when it's been since July of 2012 that you've had word activation you actually forget what it means. You forgot what it is like--no, you forget that it's possible to cowrite song. Aghast, even as I write this I stare at the screen--how is it possible to so unwittingly forget what it means to come back to my self?
I have no questions though…the years that ask, the years that answer…And so it is. All answers.(Even though questions are how they seem, you forgot this though the double vision cross-eyed grace.)
Even sure as I see it finally, visited by my hands that place it up upon the screen.
This said, it is like springtime here, or how we learn spring by the tide of April back east. I love it, the earth awakes, it rises my heart like a flock of doves sit beneath which maybe that's because it's true. The buoyancy, the fat bird-singing songs infused in the ascending green. I am not more than this: the live song.
It is, and I hope that readers who read me one time before for the poetry, get this--a time of waking myths. Activating our mythology is the charge of the day--and I mean this as base and re-rythmic as allowing your thoughts to settle in to your conscious choice of brand new words. New stories. I am writing, clearly, precisely, my own. By being the words. It has been so long. I think, I see my Self, honor, bare witness seem to choke just a tidbit, and say Could it really? Have been this long? And more, Is it true I actually came out here--here California--on a hunt for them? And yes, just there, the echo--yes that is true. I did.
It HAS been that long. And there the perplexity, Could it really be sure, true and simple as THIS? And that is what's most devastating to say. That when it's been since July of 2012 that you've had word activation you actually forget what it means. You forgot what it is like--no, you forget that it's possible to cowrite song. Aghast, even as I write this I stare at the screen--how is it possible to so unwittingly forget what it means to come back to my self?
I have no questions though…the years that ask, the years that answer…And so it is. All answers.(Even though questions are how they seem, you forgot this though the double vision cross-eyed grace.)
Even sure as I see it finally, visited by my hands that place it up upon the screen.
January 7, 2015
I was gone fifteen days.
Not really sure what happened other than I slept eight hours last night, almost to the exact minute, and felt clean and clear waking up in my bed in the loft in the canyon. In the California mythos of sunshine-wintertime.
I was gone fifteen days but the truth is it was way, way longer than that. On Friday Uncle Tim, who is my godfather by the soul way, called in the morning. It was Ocean Pines gray out which is its own special prison that keeps the winter folk away. The thing is with sock-in like that marsh gasses keep the soil tender-moist and smelling green. So we took a four mile tall tree walk on a path he tends for the Rec department and I cried those hot soul-cleanse tears that are meant only for God-ppl and wise women, which of course are the same thing. Helped me to take serious the karma I have between me and my own god-kids, too. Later I found out about Derynne's brother and couldn't see straight again.
So Konan came through winding us up at Cork Bar downtown which in a million different scenarios if I had to hand-pick that would be down towards 9 hundred ninety thousand on the list. But here's the thing, the Wild proclamation: you just never know you know? We wound up late night in WOC and that there was the only place in the world I needed to be, kicking it w his real home grls and seeing myself in them in a way I haven't seen me in Way. Too. Long a time.
The next day I stayed in pajamas til 7 pm and watched the Red Tent and ate the soup broth I'd made/been making since the first night at home. Witchy bitches make witchy brew. We watched the Ravens rock Pitt like we all knew was coming. WILD card that's Baltimore, that special Baltimore one-eyed medicine some mistake as bad (false-pride).
And that's what's up, tracking home, the special tendencies that run the soul of who you are cuz of the land peopled through of from-where-you-come. If you can read and track this, good for you. If you can't you need help dark-seeing which means between the lines. Linguistics. Can't be studied. Someone should tell Pacifica that.
Point is this all happened or started back the night I went to HB to meet Yasi and Konan started blowing me up--that's the thing about WILD, all cards eventually come a calling and that's the thing about one-eyed medicine. It's your duty to rise up when the reminder comes: you CAN see.
So now Humboldt makes sense, the long 101 journey home again to the earth and the tides that rise. I come living back to the canyon, no food in my hobbit dwelling just coffee and no phone charger to keep me tied to time and ties and all that hell. I write these words and The Light comes on which is Erin Mac back there in Baldamore making her next moves saying wutsup. She comes through as WILD does, like I useta say and always will, Poetry is my only religion.
That is what's up.
I know Who I am. I need little else than that.
Prayers that all ppl get right. Or Wild. Either or is the same. Go listen to some good music if you're dead!
I'm going for a swim.
I was gone fifteen days but the truth is it was way, way longer than that. On Friday Uncle Tim, who is my godfather by the soul way, called in the morning. It was Ocean Pines gray out which is its own special prison that keeps the winter folk away. The thing is with sock-in like that marsh gasses keep the soil tender-moist and smelling green. So we took a four mile tall tree walk on a path he tends for the Rec department and I cried those hot soul-cleanse tears that are meant only for God-ppl and wise women, which of course are the same thing. Helped me to take serious the karma I have between me and my own god-kids, too. Later I found out about Derynne's brother and couldn't see straight again.
So Konan came through winding us up at Cork Bar downtown which in a million different scenarios if I had to hand-pick that would be down towards 9 hundred ninety thousand on the list. But here's the thing, the Wild proclamation: you just never know you know? We wound up late night in WOC and that there was the only place in the world I needed to be, kicking it w his real home grls and seeing myself in them in a way I haven't seen me in Way. Too. Long a time.
The next day I stayed in pajamas til 7 pm and watched the Red Tent and ate the soup broth I'd made/been making since the first night at home. Witchy bitches make witchy brew. We watched the Ravens rock Pitt like we all knew was coming. WILD card that's Baltimore, that special Baltimore one-eyed medicine some mistake as bad (false-pride).
And that's what's up, tracking home, the special tendencies that run the soul of who you are cuz of the land peopled through of from-where-you-come. If you can read and track this, good for you. If you can't you need help dark-seeing which means between the lines. Linguistics. Can't be studied. Someone should tell Pacifica that.
Point is this all happened or started back the night I went to HB to meet Yasi and Konan started blowing me up--that's the thing about WILD, all cards eventually come a calling and that's the thing about one-eyed medicine. It's your duty to rise up when the reminder comes: you CAN see.
So now Humboldt makes sense, the long 101 journey home again to the earth and the tides that rise. I come living back to the canyon, no food in my hobbit dwelling just coffee and no phone charger to keep me tied to time and ties and all that hell. I write these words and The Light comes on which is Erin Mac back there in Baldamore making her next moves saying wutsup. She comes through as WILD does, like I useta say and always will, Poetry is my only religion.
That is what's up.
I know Who I am. I need little else than that.
Prayers that all ppl get right. Or Wild. Either or is the same. Go listen to some good music if you're dead!
I'm going for a swim.
December 31, 2012
Love and thank yous
As soon as I saw on Facebook that Igor was sick I knew I was going to make him soup. But it didn't occur to me that I was doing for him what my wise women teachers taught me to do by doing it for me over all these years until later, standing in Derynne's kitchen tonight. Her friend, who I've never met til tonight, said 'that's really the best medicine, the vitamins and minerals cooked in from the whole foods.' Then she took a sip from a plastic red cup of wine that already had her lips joker purple. And she grinned and added 'and all that bright white light~'
It made me raise my brow with my own little grin because indeed as she said that I was adding the last little dash of flavor and also putting blessings of so much love and thank you all over that soup. This was the first thing she'd said to me directly all night. I don't know if she saw my smile. We'd been packing D's house for their move on January 2. They are going back to the dessert where Cam's tattoo shop is. Packing laundry boxing taping labeling drinking wine drinking wine making chicken soup. And dumplings. This gal's either got drunk second-sight or is wild-intuitive. Either one totally natural. One homemade pot was macaroni noodles with broth just like Judy taught me to make way back even before I lived on the farm. To that pot I also added kale and chard-pot like Teena used to make to heal me, when I lived in sabbatical with her those many long days at Chop. Also tons of oregano because Igor's sinus' are sick and for sick sinus', well that's one of the first things I ever learned working with herbs. Also back in the days that I used to salvage Judy's herb garden out on the side of her river house. And cloves and cloves of garlic. And other secret dashes and smiles. The other pot was homemade chicken dumplings, the way grandma taught me all those different times standing behind or beside her or out of her sight but her not out of mine. I didn't make hand-pressed noodles Pennsylvania-Dutch style though, but, with Grandma's recipe and a combo nod to Judy again, little butter dumplings that turned in the broth and before the roux to the warmest, fluffiest balls. That pot I made for Laura another student of mine, or rather as I don't teach them now, for Laura a woman I know who's far away from her mom's countryside home in Romania. My students, I mean my friends, so far away from family, during the holidays.
It is cold and clear the night before the last day of the year. Pon Pon walked me to where I was parked on Adams. He lives with Igor and Gustavo. And Bob, who I've met several times through them, and Leo too. Igor was in bed sniffling and laughing his wonderful Igor laugh. I made all of them take emergenC's and zincs the way Maria did back when I was first learning to teach and got so sick right after Christmas that year. Back when Judy first made me homemade chicken soup and showed me how. And her, and Maria my mentor teacher, how both those good women took turns stopping by to give me care. Pon Pon handed me a bag of Brazilian chocolates at my car and gave me a million kisses on my head. We could see our breath. I live in Southern California, it was almost midnight, I have a sweet artist's studio in the canyon that was calling me home. All these darling Brazilians. My sister D and her dear kids, moving away. I made soup or dumplings for everyone who took care of me this year, for all this precious family here who helped me find my way. My cherished friends. I am eating a bowl now. Thinking about the year that just passed. Sending cosmic soup with thanks to Mike, my dear friend, on vacay in the BVI. Remembering how in February in a panic I called him, then drove the Sonoma coast not sure what would be around the bend. Readying myself to leave and come here, all the way South. The hand-cut life I've glistened up down here since then. Crafted on nothing but pure love. Love and lots of help.
Love and thank yous. Which always work whenever you remember to cook them in.
It made me raise my brow with my own little grin because indeed as she said that I was adding the last little dash of flavor and also putting blessings of so much love and thank you all over that soup. This was the first thing she'd said to me directly all night. I don't know if she saw my smile. We'd been packing D's house for their move on January 2. They are going back to the dessert where Cam's tattoo shop is. Packing laundry boxing taping labeling drinking wine drinking wine making chicken soup. And dumplings. This gal's either got drunk second-sight or is wild-intuitive. Either one totally natural. One homemade pot was macaroni noodles with broth just like Judy taught me to make way back even before I lived on the farm. To that pot I also added kale and chard-pot like Teena used to make to heal me, when I lived in sabbatical with her those many long days at Chop. Also tons of oregano because Igor's sinus' are sick and for sick sinus', well that's one of the first things I ever learned working with herbs. Also back in the days that I used to salvage Judy's herb garden out on the side of her river house. And cloves and cloves of garlic. And other secret dashes and smiles. The other pot was homemade chicken dumplings, the way grandma taught me all those different times standing behind or beside her or out of her sight but her not out of mine. I didn't make hand-pressed noodles Pennsylvania-Dutch style though, but, with Grandma's recipe and a combo nod to Judy again, little butter dumplings that turned in the broth and before the roux to the warmest, fluffiest balls. That pot I made for Laura another student of mine, or rather as I don't teach them now, for Laura a woman I know who's far away from her mom's countryside home in Romania. My students, I mean my friends, so far away from family, during the holidays.
It is cold and clear the night before the last day of the year. Pon Pon walked me to where I was parked on Adams. He lives with Igor and Gustavo. And Bob, who I've met several times through them, and Leo too. Igor was in bed sniffling and laughing his wonderful Igor laugh. I made all of them take emergenC's and zincs the way Maria did back when I was first learning to teach and got so sick right after Christmas that year. Back when Judy first made me homemade chicken soup and showed me how. And her, and Maria my mentor teacher, how both those good women took turns stopping by to give me care. Pon Pon handed me a bag of Brazilian chocolates at my car and gave me a million kisses on my head. We could see our breath. I live in Southern California, it was almost midnight, I have a sweet artist's studio in the canyon that was calling me home. All these darling Brazilians. My sister D and her dear kids, moving away. I made soup or dumplings for everyone who took care of me this year, for all this precious family here who helped me find my way. My cherished friends. I am eating a bowl now. Thinking about the year that just passed. Sending cosmic soup with thanks to Mike, my dear friend, on vacay in the BVI. Remembering how in February in a panic I called him, then drove the Sonoma coast not sure what would be around the bend. Readying myself to leave and come here, all the way South. The hand-cut life I've glistened up down here since then. Crafted on nothing but pure love. Love and lots of help.
Love and thank yous. Which always work whenever you remember to cook them in.
September 25, 2012
Like we were fairy blue
I don't know why it happened here but an outbreath just left me feeling soaked in and comfortable, almost relaxed, for the first time in over a week. This is the coffee shop I used to ride my bike to all the time when I first moved here to Southern California back in February. I remember the first time I sat in this comfy chair, with a poem book in my lap to put the peacock light on inside me (to reference--for Erika--Millay.) Maybe that's why my soul nudged me here today. Because it feels like a home base. Where a keystone is set so that I can take pause. And try to...breathe.
That was the most intense several weeks I have lived in a really long time. Moving then Mary dying, getting accepted to school, then trying to prepare for school and beginning to teach at night, then school. School. Woaaaah school. What the hell just happened?
In our group process session on Sunday I got all fidgety and couldn't sit still in my seat, next thing I was standing under the rafters out back of Pacifica where the whisper breeze lingers then stops with these two women in my group. Sobbing. This feels like a blood clot, all I could think, a little spot of purple rot stuck in my heart trying to get out my throat, and it went all the way back to when I left my job at Chesapeake, that deep and devastating burn out. We have to log 3000 hours of internship before we get licensed, meaning non-profits and the system all over again, and I could barely take it, the misery and reality of this. And like that I was on the phone with Gretchen in April 2010 fumbling on my words admitting with my fool heart to her all that time I believed I could change it. Feeling so embarrassed to say this out loud.
So that's in-depth, soul psychology. Recognizing all change happens only within. Woooooaaaah and here I go.
I swam Saturday night in the dark of the Equinox, the balance held. For the first time on the West Coast, a night swim! With my new friends from grad school. Covered in moonstruck phosphorescence like we were fairy blue. I am so grateful, already, for them.
Fly to Austin in less than two days. Cousin Kate, ohhh! Cousin Kate. Then on to Maryland to be in Mandy's wedding, to officially celebrate the union of her and Dave. I miss my family with a tremendous ache. Doing all this, this commitment and follow through, is taking all of me. My support system is back east and that's really hard. I don't know what else to say.
That was the most intense several weeks I have lived in a really long time. Moving then Mary dying, getting accepted to school, then trying to prepare for school and beginning to teach at night, then school. School. Woaaaah school. What the hell just happened?
In our group process session on Sunday I got all fidgety and couldn't sit still in my seat, next thing I was standing under the rafters out back of Pacifica where the whisper breeze lingers then stops with these two women in my group. Sobbing. This feels like a blood clot, all I could think, a little spot of purple rot stuck in my heart trying to get out my throat, and it went all the way back to when I left my job at Chesapeake, that deep and devastating burn out. We have to log 3000 hours of internship before we get licensed, meaning non-profits and the system all over again, and I could barely take it, the misery and reality of this. And like that I was on the phone with Gretchen in April 2010 fumbling on my words admitting with my fool heart to her all that time I believed I could change it. Feeling so embarrassed to say this out loud.
So that's in-depth, soul psychology. Recognizing all change happens only within. Woooooaaaah and here I go.
I swam Saturday night in the dark of the Equinox, the balance held. For the first time on the West Coast, a night swim! With my new friends from grad school. Covered in moonstruck phosphorescence like we were fairy blue. I am so grateful, already, for them.
Fly to Austin in less than two days. Cousin Kate, ohhh! Cousin Kate. Then on to Maryland to be in Mandy's wedding, to officially celebrate the union of her and Dave. I miss my family with a tremendous ache. Doing all this, this commitment and follow through, is taking all of me. My support system is back east and that's really hard. I don't know what else to say.
March 1, 2012
Laying in between
There are at least thirteen traffic lights between me and where I work, and that is a number randomly made up because unlike the side streets between me and the ocean (five), I haven't actually taken the time to count.
(Walnut; Olive; Orange; Pecan; Acaccia.) (And, at least three lemons trees, five different kinds of succulents, one JimmyBuffetHead, three chimneys that look like ornate brick columns--though that may be because everything in Southern California looks ornate somehow, more precise--and enough sidewalk-side veranda patios with bright or bold or soft or subtle arty tiles to know for sure: this is paradise. I have arrived.)
I love walking. I love driving, I love the stillness within that comes with motion. I especially love this part, the on foot or sunroof-down exploring of my-new-place to live. My favorite town to walk was Easton, I loved Easton, loved the quaint cottages and pretentious historical show-houses and the alleys and side streets in between, the magnolias I would climb at night in secret. The patches of violet and chickweed that I would harvest from stranger's lawns. My favorite place to drive, besides the redwood Avenue in Southern Humboldt, was in Maryland. Kent County's countryside.
I have lived since August me and my car. Me and my little happy car-home, since the week I left Ocean City southbound across and through the Chesapeake Bay tunnel it's been us, rolling together to wherever we could based on the whimsy of the road. The number one thing about living planless on the road is abandoning the need to know what's next in favor of just showing up, being present, open to whatever. Being open to whatever makes it really simple to enjoy. There is so much that we miss going day to day over and over again in our rounds....so much to pay attention to...
So that when, just like that, a home shows up, well then you have an object lesson. Practicable, applicable. When the changes come, when life comes with a time to buckle in or down, it can still be the same thing. Just show up, try not to miss anything. Thirteen traffic lights between me and my ESL students, or is it eleven, or maybe fifteen?
There is so much to learn, laying in between.
February 14, 2012
ALL those varied moments
In August I didn't think I liked Newport Beach. Maybe I knew there was more on the path ahead I had yet to see, and if I liked it too much then I wouldn't leave? Who knows. The point is, when I parked my car this morning on 31st street to go to the coffee shop I had to call Beth first to get her to tell me it was all real.
Seriously, it feels surreal to be here. One morning in 1995, it was pink and yellow-glowy on the beach from the first strikes of sun, and this always shirtless guy called Ferucio came walking down to the three or four of us laying there on our backs looking at the sky. What is this, Miami out here? he asked, his red Animal afro, his fierce eyes. I never remember any moment on the beach that felt more alive. That's how visceral today has been for me, that's how much on the verge of my life I feel. It feels like I shouldn't let that much happiness in... That much glee.
I had to remind myself that the bottom doesn't need to drop out, that doesn't have to happen. When I totaled my car in October I was terrified, and went through this whole spiral of emotions including the intense ideas that somehow crashing my car was connected to following my heart to move out here. It's crazy as it sounds, I know, all the same it never fails to amaze me the extent to which we humans go to sabotage ourselves. And I saw my brain trying to set that up--with why bother and poor me thinking when I lost my car. Those last two or so days in NorCal those fears were there again, I saw them, let them pass and linger as needed, and still pushed my way through. It's amazing that right on the other side of this really real feeling right now there still sit my fears, barely veiled. That somehow no, no this isn't real. This wont work out and then what, back with my drooping tail I will run home.
I write my process out here on this blog, I share what it is to feel and live and devote the heart to being truly alive. Experiencing it all. It feels right for me to share this part, too, with you readers. So that you know the heart, its wide and funny many different ins and outs. The hopes and haunts, ALL those varied moments, it's what we all have in common. It's what draws us to each other, to keep sharing, to keep at this wanting to live. It Valentines Day, a day to celebrate the heart. Silly and huge and gleeful and frightened as it is.
I love myself completely, the blessed and brave and authentic, the enthusiastic and reverent, the dirty-mouthed and wild, and even the scary, threatening parts too. I'm whole. And doing this thing.
This is it!
December 28, 2011
Who needs to go places
There's an enormous amount on my mind.
I went to see Liz for her intuition and to get a tarot reading. Her shop is closing, in the morning I have a reiki client there and then that is the last I will ever see of Ancient Arts. I was staggered by what came out in the cards, sitting there open-jawed it felt like Liz had me cornered under a bright white light. It was true, afterall, what I saw laid out there between her and me. Hard to admit, plain out in the daytime like that, but even harder under Liz's wise eyes to deny.
Amy is driving me all the way to Conneticut tomorrow and then to get home Sunday I will take the train. Bebe has offered to let me stay in her cabin back in Cali for a caretaking exchange for up to seven months. I am stunned by the kindness of the people that I love and can not help feeling that these are things I do not deserve. So I will write... I spent most the day and even time after going out tonight sorting through my old room here at the beach. Trying to decide what of my writing materials needs to come back to California with me, what I can live without. Journals, notes, folders and folders. What I can fit. I feel horrible for long moments about leaving mom. And worse than that about leaving my niece. I'm confused about the reading I got, it was counter to all the work I felt like I've been doing. I am talking here about men specifically. Suddenly it was three years ago and I couldn't trust because I didn't know myself, all over again, and that was all before I got on the phone tonight with Josh.
Thank god for Jott, and a high-backed booth at our local bar. I haven't had a drink in 11 years but that has yet to change the fact that I'm the kinda girl who needs to go places, to drive in the dark when it starts to turn late at night to meet friends in the hush dead of winter with our faces lit by neon lights. That camaraderie, the magic of shiver-bones and tires on a cold street and then people who are warm, will always be medicine for me.
We drank club soda and red bull and ate chicken wings until our bellies hurt and there was nothing more to say. Thankfully that's when Tara turned up so the laughter started.
Thankfully life goes on.
I went to see Liz for her intuition and to get a tarot reading. Her shop is closing, in the morning I have a reiki client there and then that is the last I will ever see of Ancient Arts. I was staggered by what came out in the cards, sitting there open-jawed it felt like Liz had me cornered under a bright white light. It was true, afterall, what I saw laid out there between her and me. Hard to admit, plain out in the daytime like that, but even harder under Liz's wise eyes to deny.
Amy is driving me all the way to Conneticut tomorrow and then to get home Sunday I will take the train. Bebe has offered to let me stay in her cabin back in Cali for a caretaking exchange for up to seven months. I am stunned by the kindness of the people that I love and can not help feeling that these are things I do not deserve. So I will write... I spent most the day and even time after going out tonight sorting through my old room here at the beach. Trying to decide what of my writing materials needs to come back to California with me, what I can live without. Journals, notes, folders and folders. What I can fit. I feel horrible for long moments about leaving mom. And worse than that about leaving my niece. I'm confused about the reading I got, it was counter to all the work I felt like I've been doing. I am talking here about men specifically. Suddenly it was three years ago and I couldn't trust because I didn't know myself, all over again, and that was all before I got on the phone tonight with Josh.
Thank god for Jott, and a high-backed booth at our local bar. I haven't had a drink in 11 years but that has yet to change the fact that I'm the kinda girl who needs to go places, to drive in the dark when it starts to turn late at night to meet friends in the hush dead of winter with our faces lit by neon lights. That camaraderie, the magic of shiver-bones and tires on a cold street and then people who are warm, will always be medicine for me.
We drank club soda and red bull and ate chicken wings until our bellies hurt and there was nothing more to say. Thankfully that's when Tara turned up so the laughter started.
Thankfully life goes on.
December 6, 2011
Little grey car and ocean air.
Yesterday at work I was listening to this song by The Phoenix Foundation called Buffalo. Every time I hear it I see myself in my car driving down the coast highway, next to the diamond filtering dark blue respirating sea. Big rocks, knee-high grasses and the cliff side. Sharp colors, green, yellow, blue, brown. Sonoma County where the Russian River pours out.
When I flew back to California in September, after my brother's baby was born and when I still had my Versa to live in, I took an exit off the 101 one day that on my map led to the coast. I discovered Sebastopol that way, ate carnitas for $2.00 from a parking lot taco stand, found a deal on Red Bulls and iced espresso drinks in the same place and then landed at a bright farmers market in the center of downtown. I love the flowers in California. The happy space on the sidewalks. All the magic in the stores. I love the hippies in Mendicino, too. After that was all done I took the Russian River Highway all jagged and twisted to the coast. That's when I found the sea again, me and the sea, always us together, always the rolling crawls then crashes that lead me on. It was the perfect, perfect spontaneous road trip kind of day.
I keep seeing myself in that bliss. Window down, sunglasses, little grey car and ocean air, rocks big as castles, water and yellowed grass. It's so real. I dont know what's coming next. I just hang on to this, this sense, this vision, because of the way it's so clear in my heart . Me heading south again, maybe camping, near the coast where I belong. I hang on because of how happy and natural it feels.
When I flew back to California in September, after my brother's baby was born and when I still had my Versa to live in, I took an exit off the 101 one day that on my map led to the coast. I discovered Sebastopol that way, ate carnitas for $2.00 from a parking lot taco stand, found a deal on Red Bulls and iced espresso drinks in the same place and then landed at a bright farmers market in the center of downtown. I love the flowers in California. The happy space on the sidewalks. All the magic in the stores. I love the hippies in Mendicino, too. After that was all done I took the Russian River Highway all jagged and twisted to the coast. That's when I found the sea again, me and the sea, always us together, always the rolling crawls then crashes that lead me on. It was the perfect, perfect spontaneous road trip kind of day.
I keep seeing myself in that bliss. Window down, sunglasses, little grey car and ocean air, rocks big as castles, water and yellowed grass. It's so real. I dont know what's coming next. I just hang on to this, this sense, this vision, because of the way it's so clear in my heart . Me heading south again, maybe camping, near the coast where I belong. I hang on because of how happy and natural it feels.
August 14, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)