Date Weekend with Me, Ashland

Hey goodlookin, how bout a date weekend with me?
Sounds awesome!

downtown, Ashland

I have this ring that Katie surprised me with for my birthday. It is fabulous, strong, gorgeous. I. Love. It. It came from this store we were literally gaga over called Laila Rose, I got woozy and she had to lead me by my elbow out in to the mall. It was nothing but glorious sparkly girrrlie wear all over the place. They played vintage Madonna. They had bright pink knee-high rain boots and matching head-wraps. And the store was sparkle color-coded. Pinks, purples, yellows, light blue. Sections of ribbons and long dangling crystal earrings all the prevailing shade of that part of the store. Hand-painted bags, elbow-length ruffled gloves.The theme of turning 33 this year was The Jesus Year, or better in my friend Paul's words: the year of magical thinking. Truly, I believe I've lived ten lives already, and it's only been 2 months.

Ashland has been unreal. I followed a yearning to pay in advance for three nights here, thinking how great it would be to wake up and not have to go anywhere if I didn't feel like it. What I only sort of anticipated was how great it would be to just wake up, roll over, and decide for the rest of the day to stay in bed...until my evening date at the Shakespeare Festival. At about 3 or so that first day, laying here, writing, reading, watching tv, eating take-out, somewhere in between all of that it occurred to me: I put my resignation in the week before my birthday and then began the planning stages of ending that part of my life. Now I knew all of that as I walked through it, understood even as I was going through the motions that not only was I resigning from Chesapeake College, but too I was closing a chapter that for all basic summation began in 1998 when I moved to Chestertown, on the eastern shore, to go to school. 12 years, in other words, of living on the midshore was coming to an end. Age 21 to 33. 12 years of growing up.

I spent literally two months tying up those loose ends. Finishing what was obligatory at the job and packing. And in all, recognizing in slow pieces, as I recollected and reviewed it all, the woman I have become. I got sober in Chestertown, embraced my intelligence, accepted acadamia even as I stalwartly fought institution, I got a degree, then a profession. I fell in love. I started to grow up, and I started to grow away from myself. I fell out of love. I had to challenge myself to be a big girl and pull up my big girl pants. I moved out on my own. I got my heart broke. I became an adult. I learned that being an adult means being yourself, and learned that really learning to be true to you is a one day at a time loving and nurturing type of thing. A literal deeper and deeper experience of surrender to me, of saying yes to me by accepting how I am feeling and what I need each and every day. It was a hell of a lot to review in two months, and until Saturday, I literally did not have a single day off within that process.

So that yesterday, when I did finally just sit, propped against the pillows writing, reading, sighing, listening, breathing, easing in to me; it was just so simple, and so, so buoyantly sweet. The evening got here and I took my time showering and getting dressed, I listened to funk hop on my Shuga station on Pandora and danced slowly and smilingly all around this little suite, and decorated myself, and celebrated me. I am in Oregon, where I lived for a year with Brandon after we lived out of a truck in the National Forests all over the US for five months. I am here, on the road, on my own. I got seated in the front row of the outdoor theatre for Henry IV within two minutes of curtain. Let me say that again. The theatre, from the outside, looks like a normal theatre, but it has no roof: the ceiling is the sky. Can you even imagine the smile on my face when I discovered this? It was like 70 degrees out 8:30 pm and I could feel the breath coming off the top of the green mountains all around us. The riverwater has lithium in it here. I could here it sing. The sigh in my chest, as I settled in, I believe may have been the most contended moment of my life. I did it!!!!!!

Today I woke up late, called Beth, received a call from Amy. The three of us have been trying to talk since Wednesday. We talked about different things, we talked about the same things. Becoming women. Being ourselves, striving for authenticity, for integrity in this. We talked about sisterhood. They are both married, they are both mom's. I admitted to them each my fear, the one I am allowing to pass away now, that I couldn't be both. That somehow it wasn't possible to be true to myself, to be an independent woman and be in love. I understand now that all I ever really wanted was the faith, and the experience to back it up, of being me. It wasn't about being independant so much as just being given the time, and the room, to grow in to and get to know the true me inside. Sober me, out of school me, me with out man and seperate from job and identity shared with friends. And while I needed to own my Independence to do that, it's not something that I could ever have done alone. Being me is something I have the courage for, and have explored in powerful, feminine ways that I never gave myself permission for before. And as result I will feel the familiarity of knowing how to maintain, in any circumstance, from now on, even if I lose my grasp here and there. But I am redefining now just what "independant" means, maybe getting used to new ideas of it... I was hesitant to say all this until now, I guess because of that one fear of not being able to maintain this way of being and also being able to eventually fall in love again: of having the capacity for both. Being afraid was blocking my acknowledgment of the reality of how simple and peaceful a place I am in today, made it seem to good to be true. But really, there's nothing to have to do or be or try to figure out... I dont even know when or where or how exactly it happened... I am on the verge of my whole life, of anything I want to do when I get back home and recognizing that gave me clear, and almost staggering perspective, on where I just came from...I lived on my own in retreat out in nature for a full year, I lived on my own in a sweet apartment just my size where I could walk to work or to town any time of the day or night. I helped a small handfull of people undertake and innovate a large fantastic program for the community college. I became a strong woman on my own, and the relationships with the other strong women in my life is the number one thing I have likewise grown. I am so, so proud.

I've long said that Sex and the City, the series and subsequent movies, gave permission to women beyond 30 to be more than what convention painted for them. More than just soccer moms or career women or harried modernists stretched between both. That Sex and the City gave value back to the grrrly parts we love the most, and did so specifically by emphasizing our sex. Our sex, as gender~us as women among women and planting that in Western consciousness as a real and valued and tender and important experience~and us as sexual beings, too. Sensuous beings. Not body sex, that colt-like perky curvy thing of giggles and high shrill of the late teens and early twenties, but intuitive, full-bodied, embodied sexuality, alive from within. Sex and the City gave women in common society permission for both. Today I saw a 2 o'clock matinee performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and wept. I mean wept. For people, for women and for men, for how twisted we are, how imperfect. Then I went out in the sun and glistened, and remembered, I have this moment, and I am, if I so choose, alive in it. I delighted in my power ring from Katie, one of my fabulous sister and best friends. I meandered around Ahsland, bought myself a gorgeous power necklace and laughed aloud when the woman read to me what kyanite the stone in it was, I smiled a lot at the sun and green mountains, treated myself to a ridiculously delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant reading a new book, then had an evening date with me, my gorgeous aliveness, and Carrie Bradshaw and the girls.

I am here, on my own, just with me~glorious me!!~and loving each and every moment of it!!! It isn't too good to be true at all, it's better than that!

What does a girl do when she gets to the top of Crater Lake? Well that's easy, she goes back down again. What does a girl do when she embraces herself, and then finds herself fabulously in love with the her that she embraced? Well that's easy, she just keeps showing up....No matter where she is, where she goes, no matter what happens. There she still is, in love. And with a cast of fabulous women all around, reflecting that new found love back at her again again and again from every glowing, precious direction. Wow, how cool is this? Who am I to doubt that whatever coming next could be anything less than totally, and wholly, blessed.

I followed the sea to the river all the way to the snow

Sunset over the valley, Ashland.























Out back of my little suite.

Coming down the mountain, Crater Lake.

Crater Lake

North Umpqua River

Headwaters of the Umpqua

Winchester Bay, where the Umpqua empties

Winchester Bay

Oregon Dunes Monument

This is Banana Dog, he is my travel companion. Follows his adventures here

travelling down coast, between Yachats and Florence

I am way way south in Oregon, about 80 miles from California in a place called Ashland.

I love Ashland. It's like a bigger, happier Easton. And surrounded by green mountains. And a really big sky. And air that I am certain looks like rainbows.

I got here today and spent too much money on a little suite outside of town for the whole weekend. Dinner tonight was with a totally indulgent novel and a fine bartender who flirted with me just enough but not too much, in a dark corner at a high bartable with mosaic art and some latin influenced tapas. Little girls with painted faces dined across from me and kept getting giggled at or shussshed by their ma's. The air was so fresh and full it felt like it could bounce and the sky was orange and seriously, hot pink, when I left and I couldn't stop smiling. On grinbeam alone I am sure I was gliding, I glided along to downtown, to the river walk, to the park. I glided in to the chocolate shop. It was getting dark. I looked East Coast. I got several compliments on my bag. I bought a single piece of homemade dark chocolate with peanut butter and eating it took like three hours. Everyone kept smiling at each other. Even the punk rock kids, the blackeyeliner and metal faces, the dready hippies on the street. Especially the smiley little families everywhere. I love the houses, the cottages, all over the sidestreets of downtown. The flowers and little twinkling white lights. Ahhhhh god I am blissful, this reminds me of California.

Earlier today I was actually on the top west rim of Crater Lake. In the Umpqua National Forest, after following the Umpqua River in from the coast since Thursday morning. By the time I got up to about 4500 feet, about an hour and half from the top, there was snow all over the ground. I was so happy I think I might have been delirious.

It's weird. My friend died Tuesday night, and the poetry light's been crazy on inside me ever since. What's weird is that I woke up in Winchester Bay, at the headwaters of the Umpqua, on Thursday morning after 36 hours of on and off vigil for her and therefor crazy open consciousness, or at least a well-lit opening to the other side, and I went down to the harbour because like Sam said more than once she was a sailor, our friend, so it seemed appropriate, and I cried. And cried and cried, then wandered in to the dunes through the knobby sea pines and down to the rock slats built up against the coast for the fisherman to make safe passing through the harbor. I had handfulls of flowers and ribbons and a little boat I made out of a random piece of driftwood that I wrote prayers and poems all over in black sharpie. I put her candle on it and added an empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cap then scrambled down to the lowest rock I could balance on with the scratchy muscles bracing me and then me and her had our little goodbye. The rest of the tribe is gathering at Ben's on Sunday to say goodbye I get the feeling it's going to be pretty huge, this is where I used to go regularly, Ben's with the old crew, this is when I was in Chestertown. And even though I've been out of that crew for over a year now there was no question about it in spirit we are all together, I am with them and they are all with her. It's all a little surreal and yet just part of the experience of being out here. I finished crying and goodbying then went up to where the harbour meets the ocean and just breathed and took a ton of pictures of the driftwood and the sand. Then I got in the car which is actually an old chevy pickup truck with classic Oregon Coast rust, and decided I had to see where the water that fed the bay that surged to the harbour and out to the sea, where it all began.

So I headed east. Up the Umpqua, and it started to rain. I drove all day, but stopped alot to talk to the earth or the trees or the river or the rain. Which I guess is one of the main ways I pray. Outside Roseburg it was like 5ish, I stopped at a brandname hotel and got her down 25 off the original price but then something in me casted out just slightly, so I said no thanks and on I went. I decided I'd take the mountain road east out of Roseburg then south towards Crater Lake, mostly because I wanted to keep following the Umpqua, we had a special thing going now. And the river led me to the sweetest motel, the Dogwood, in a place I am sure without a zipcode called Idleyld Park I am sure it was the river who told me to go. I'd just been singing and talking to her and then it was like she waved the gold air inside me after I drove by and so without thinking at all I turned right around and they had one room left and it was for me. A log cabin with kitchen and the best little well-lit table where I could, and did and did, write...

Today I started out again next to her, the North Umpqua, looking forward to a good long hike. There were two stops with hotsprings to hike in to along the way, and at least one with pictographs from anasazi and several paths with Old Growth. But the rain fell and fell so much it was hard to tell the sky from the air. So I changed my plans and settled for sure on Crater Lake, and by the time the elevation and the truck met high enough so that there was snow on the ground, the sun came out, too, and the sky went blue. I had no idea, NONE, that I would be in high mountain land today surrounded by snow. It made me so, so happy.

And now I am here. In all I imagine I covered at least 200 miles today, maybe more, and mostly on high mountain roads. The Winema Forest, The Umpqua, The Rogue, The Klamath. This little pickup Gretchen lent me runs like a dream. It's a manual, he grumbles and groans and spouts a lot but then really gets going and loves to go. I dont listen to music, most of the time, except for the tunneled classic and hair rock stations, or country which is my guilty indulgence, so popular out here. It's a...Nice Day for a...White Weddin....Yea rock out rock out scratchy tunneled pick up truck mountain rock!

This is the best thing I've ever done for myself. Life is good. I am blessed. Can you imagine, I dont have a fucking clue what I'm doing with my life when I get back home! He he it makes me giddy to think about it, if it is anything near like the journey I'm having so far I say bring it on.... <>