Boom-shaka-laka he says, and turns, keeps talking, good choice--more a mutter under his voice. He is responding to my breakfast sandwich order. The woman next to him with the hair and eyes we would've called hipster ten years ago but is just Youth now is wringing her body, a posture you have to be near enough her to feel or sense rather than see. Squirming. Trying to contain her energy. We used to call it wilen--trying to hold that feeling in. They are jolly, inside-skin-sweating, barista-caffeinated in that contagious way that saturates me so completely I have to sit down and write about it.
To write, to just say: I witness, I see. And also I guess, for some of us anyway: Yes, I also have been…
...A barista, a million 5 am mornings the slim shiver ice slap to the face brutal as breath in the morning coming in from the Bay. Get the lights on and newspapers out for the Pines retiree locals who'll be here by 8. Espresso grounds airborne or on your hands actually infuse your skin, that high-wired trigger volt there even if you don't drink, gotta go gotta go gotta move keeping going what to do nowwww. Brown-eyed hippie boy and his broad shoulder townie friends, Natalie's Comfort Food blueberry muffin smells, how smells actually fog your glasses, December mornings walking in to Play it Again Sam's, start the slow drip 7am, senioritus and early-caffeinated-sobriety thirteen years ago in my college town.
I have been…
...I leave the rehab early this morning. Two clients I used to work with, back. One strung out again, one almost half a year clean. The same jittery barista-body wringing-energy in them. One from tweak, one from the joy, the life force, the vitality that is wordless but throttles through you in a rush of yes I can.
Hope is a funny thing, its wavers and disappearing acts, its suddens rushes and returns.
There are so many people in this coffee shop that the line doubles itself in front of the door. Of all the things I have been hope is the most important of them all. Boom-shaka-laka guy never doesn't use his barista high to connect with me, and every other customer, to give them a smile. I remember that. Each moment, which could be…an act of love.
In most moments, a choice. In a million different things. HOPE--which most finally is a thing to be...
Showing posts with label coffee life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffee life. Show all posts
December 4, 2014
November 13, 2014
Love letters, from Laguna.
The coffee shop I like to go to is on PCH. When I first moved here from HB coffee shop was the very first thing I looked up. You can sit in the alley and see and speak with the sea. A corner away is the beach where at the top of the street an oak tree stands so great-big and enchanted I am certain you can get to Avalon through there. Seriously, there's even a random statue of Pan on that corner which always makes me think about the artists then hippies that mapped this town. Supposedly, Ken Kesey lived on my street decades ago when it was a commune. There is an unfinished, always under construction straw-bale sprawling mansion which is the first house on the right and most times when the man is up there under the tarp with the yellow light on slapping on some earthen adobe I think of that. The free love vibes that built all the funky houses, tucked away back in the canyon where I live. The folks in and around town comfy-clothed with the little lippy smiles that embody that, still.
Sometimes people in their frenzy get under my skin which is what happened yesterday. I was in the alley fusing creative writing with thesis research and had really dropped in to the flow. This hetero couple shows up, he was loud, she louder and that's one of the first things I learned to hate about Southern California. The obnoxious warm-up suit men with too white teeth, yoga pants women with fake tits fake face or at the least fake blonde hair. These people always talk too loud and are purposefully drawing attention to themselves. Often they have a little annoying fuckn dog.
Our coffee shop almost never gets these types, who in my experience don't take the time to meander and sip and stare at the sea. Anyhow I got up from the alley as soon as they sat down and went inside to the high top in the window. It had just cleared out and the man was there, beginning the afternoon ritual of roasting the beans. It's the only coffee shop I've ever been a regular at that roasts their own. The whir noise and knee-deep smell has become part of the atmosphere for me of love.
It was a little after four so the sun was muted by the horizon clouds. Hazy orange light came through the front window in a slant from the blind pulled half down. I was writing and thought I saw a guy I knew. It started me thinking about how many men I've dated since I've been here. A lot. Real, adult dating. I don't drink so not talking hook-up or first night sex followed by oh shit what next. But like, I meet men on the beach or out and about or for a while on the dating site and then the customary phone calls and get to know you dates.
A face from the past was on my radar yesterday, we talked for a few minutes about how much we have in common because of our beach lifestyle. He made me think about this. Specifically: I have dated a lot of good, just not right for me men. Since right around when I moved to Laguna two years ago it started with a lifeguard in Newport and pretty much since has not stopped except for last year when I took three months off. When a funny outspoken Brazilian guy who drank too much got me playing the bullshit hang-out games I was so good at in Ocean City before I came west.
I am actually single right now, not dating anyone. Enjoying the golden silence, considering the momentum of my life. My life, built by me, measured out in breaths I take in and out and choices I've made. Clear seeing, looking out on a life made by my own two hands! I have only four months left of school, including this month. I am not ready to talk about that yet, but it is there like a new part of my breath and I am tending it everyday. As a rule, since a gnarly gnarly break-up in 2008, I keep my love life tight and quiet on the internet. We broke up the same month I got on Facebook, so it's sorta been how I reinvented. Figured out who I was, separate from a man. That's six years behind me now though--and in the orange haze light, that sun that spilled over my hands like it was meant to feed the ink from finger tap to screen, this all amounted in my head yesterday. Thinking on the men that have showed up as I've walked this whole, wild way made me pause and see this whole, wild way:
My god, I have been in Laguna over two years now. That is longer than I have ever lived anywhere, ever! Since I first left my mom's when I was 18. I have stayed in one place. I stayed! Even at Philosopher's Terrace, where I had my name on the lease from 98 to spring in 02, I still left to go live twice with mom. Alcohol and drugs. They'll do that shit to you.
I almost left, last summer. I almost fell back, like a wise woman can slide a minute
into dumb girl hang out games, to my old style of cut and run.
Last week I was picking out furniture for my sun deck, this little wooden alter built up out of the side of a Laguna Canyon wall. Underneath, my compost bin. Attached to post, my hammock swings. I just bought fins, snorkel gear, got my wetsuit out to live in my trunk for easy access. It would seem rather than making cut and run plans, my intent is to snuggle even further down and in.
What contentment, to nod at the coffee roaster, glance up from the orange-gold on my hands. It doesn't feel melodramatic anymore, like something I need to figure out. It just is, easy as how the same sun that rises will eventually go down. Love letters, from Laguna. From and to my heart, my soul. They are my own :)
Sometimes people in their frenzy get under my skin which is what happened yesterday. I was in the alley fusing creative writing with thesis research and had really dropped in to the flow. This hetero couple shows up, he was loud, she louder and that's one of the first things I learned to hate about Southern California. The obnoxious warm-up suit men with too white teeth, yoga pants women with fake tits fake face or at the least fake blonde hair. These people always talk too loud and are purposefully drawing attention to themselves. Often they have a little annoying fuckn dog.
Our coffee shop almost never gets these types, who in my experience don't take the time to meander and sip and stare at the sea. Anyhow I got up from the alley as soon as they sat down and went inside to the high top in the window. It had just cleared out and the man was there, beginning the afternoon ritual of roasting the beans. It's the only coffee shop I've ever been a regular at that roasts their own. The whir noise and knee-deep smell has become part of the atmosphere for me of love.
It was a little after four so the sun was muted by the horizon clouds. Hazy orange light came through the front window in a slant from the blind pulled half down. I was writing and thought I saw a guy I knew. It started me thinking about how many men I've dated since I've been here. A lot. Real, adult dating. I don't drink so not talking hook-up or first night sex followed by oh shit what next. But like, I meet men on the beach or out and about or for a while on the dating site and then the customary phone calls and get to know you dates.
A face from the past was on my radar yesterday, we talked for a few minutes about how much we have in common because of our beach lifestyle. He made me think about this. Specifically: I have dated a lot of good, just not right for me men. Since right around when I moved to Laguna two years ago it started with a lifeguard in Newport and pretty much since has not stopped except for last year when I took three months off. When a funny outspoken Brazilian guy who drank too much got me playing the bullshit hang-out games I was so good at in Ocean City before I came west.
I am actually single right now, not dating anyone. Enjoying the golden silence, considering the momentum of my life. My life, built by me, measured out in breaths I take in and out and choices I've made. Clear seeing, looking out on a life made by my own two hands! I have only four months left of school, including this month. I am not ready to talk about that yet, but it is there like a new part of my breath and I am tending it everyday. As a rule, since a gnarly gnarly break-up in 2008, I keep my love life tight and quiet on the internet. We broke up the same month I got on Facebook, so it's sorta been how I reinvented. Figured out who I was, separate from a man. That's six years behind me now though--and in the orange haze light, that sun that spilled over my hands like it was meant to feed the ink from finger tap to screen, this all amounted in my head yesterday. Thinking on the men that have showed up as I've walked this whole, wild way made me pause and see this whole, wild way:
My god, I have been in Laguna over two years now. That is longer than I have ever lived anywhere, ever! Since I first left my mom's when I was 18. I have stayed in one place. I stayed! Even at Philosopher's Terrace, where I had my name on the lease from 98 to spring in 02, I still left to go live twice with mom. Alcohol and drugs. They'll do that shit to you.
I almost left, last summer. I almost fell back, like a wise woman can slide a minute
Last week I was picking out furniture for my sun deck, this little wooden alter built up out of the side of a Laguna Canyon wall. Underneath, my compost bin. Attached to post, my hammock swings. I just bought fins, snorkel gear, got my wetsuit out to live in my trunk for easy access. It would seem rather than making cut and run plans, my intent is to snuggle even further down and in.
What contentment, to nod at the coffee roaster, glance up from the orange-gold on my hands. It doesn't feel melodramatic anymore, like something I need to figure out. It just is, easy as how the same sun that rises will eventually go down. Love letters, from Laguna. From and to my heart, my soul. They are my own :)
On their Facebook page! Me in the alley.
I put their sticker over the Starbucks logo on the plastic cup I reuse.
Which cracks people up. It goes everywhere I go.
February 15, 2011
The Return of Sweetie Cream Cheese?
Marla's a friend of mine who works in radio.
I write that and as I do streaming through on my I-tunes live feed is WTMD outta Baldamore and they are talking about this event at the Rutger tomorrow night featuring Charm City Rollergirls and Gilded Lilly Burlesque performances and all I can ironically think about the music here at the beach is not exactly my kind of radio...but whatever works...
Guess who's back I tease her yesterday morning at work. It is 6 am or so, maybe 6:15. The orange light in the coffee shop glowing warm. Peaceful. I may hate, hate getting up that early because of the thin metal tiredness accompanying me at all times, but it is quiet in the morning there, waiting for the sun. It is still.
WHO? she scampers around in a whirlwind til she's turned sharp and petite in my direction and three espressos in, looks at me all Marla-wild. I laugh I can't help myself, I love her so much and did immediately, she is one of those rare people who simply and unapologeticly is who she is. She thinks I am referring to someone from work, one of our bosses or board members or some thing I can tell by the frozen way she stops. Noooo no, no. That's not what I meant! I am smiling and full of ease.
She calls me Feeney, as in Shirley Feeney. Like from Laverne and Shirley because she is so brass and I am so often aiming for some unaimable tempering and calm. Without realizing how, I've learned working with her that this is nothing to strive for: it simply is who I am. My nature to be loving and accepting, overexuberant and full of praise for all living or loving things. It comes out so bubbly and innocent most of the time because I'm just being who I am.
I meditate, and have for years. I practice several different techniques, from occultist trance to prayerful christian exaltion to tantric-mantra chanting to simple pranayama or minimalist buddhist watching. The point is to go within, to be unfearful in confronting me. The wisdom of Anicha, which is a sanskrit word I learned at a 10-day silent meditation retreat using the technique of Vipassana, means changing. Change is the ego's, or self-talk always on rev and going going up there, way. When our minds are full only of ego than the state of our consciousness is pliable, easy to be swayed. AND, Anicha teaches that the state of our emotions and reactions are always in a state of flux. So meditation helps us watch them but not BE them. Hence, this too shall change, or pass...and therein: peace.
Sweetie Cream Cheese I tell her. Sweetie Cream Cheese is back! Sweetie is the name I gave myself when she explained why I was Shirley to her Laverne, and the only reason I was even aware of Sweetie when Marla pulled out youtube clips and laughingly started calling me Feeney is because that particular day, after many that felt just like it, I was full of the dry, tired irreverence that is the underside of having Feeney-nature. So I could see the fluffy cream cheese Shirley Sunshine part that day really, really well.
And that's the thing. Changing. I was driving along yesterday listening to Marla's radio station. A hair-rock, one-hit wonder band was on it reminded me of Skid Row and Sebastian Bach (my first long-haired 1980's crush, followed by Slash of GnR ha!) My ipod's battery was dead, my hair smelled that fabulous ripe smell of hormony sunshine because I was laying on the beach in 60 degree weather for an hour, I was on my way to cook dinner for Valentine's dinner with a girlfriend. The sun was low in the sky and yellow in that burnt way that makes the clouds edges look bluer than they really are. I had one of those moments--I've been exhausted lately, run down with the wintertime, and waiting for this phase of my life to pass. But after several experiences that I had to make happen of quiet, of meditation and devotion to my own sacred-ordinary life, my perspective is centered again...until changing changing it isn't once more...! Today I have the peace that is under it all, though. The watcher's peace, the quiet ok. It's all always changing, passing on by.
Sweetie Cream Cheese, while maybe not so enthusiastic as she naturally is, always helps remind me that none of this, not one part of my funny random life do I ever want to miss. It's precisely this cold, tired shit, these miserable 80's bands and me and Marla rolling our eyes at the watching eyes of bosses and board members and us sharing too much sugar and coffee amplifying our natures in the mornings that make me laugh. And makes me get quiet, appreciative of it all. Appreciating the burnt sun blue edges of all of it. Sweetie Cream Cheese!? Marla screams in that loud funny way. She slams her low-carb sugar-free but with one Splenda double shot 20oz drink she is not paying attention to me it is coffee and not smoking cigarettes on her mind. Then she says I missed you Shirley Feeney and I am laughing again, life's not passing me by I am with it, with her and all the people I love and we are changing and trying to keep up or be still or work on moving on.
February 12, 2011
Catch up. February.
I am so, so thankful for my mom and dad. I came home this week there were roses waiting for me from dad. He's lost 25 pounds. He is my friend we text everyday. Mom and I took him to Valentine's dinner to thank him so much for so much love, for being such a provider: the free place to live, the warm home, the soft bed, the heat bills that could otherwise feed a small village somewhere. Somewhere where there's lots of sun but no food.
I talked to Beth said this is it, I said it last year but this is really it I will never, ever do this again. I was talking about winter on the east coast. She knows I'm serious, last night I finally told mom and dad. I was flat out on the phone with her before I fell hard and deep to sleep at 9pm: I fucking hate February. I am so disconnected to myself, I cant even feel my body any more and it's totally seasonal and I know it and it doesn't help. She totally understood but defended the sun: it's gorgeous in Oregon on the coast right now, unseasonably so. So much yellow light and warm breeze. And yet still it's killing her too. The February every year blues. So what's the answer? I know for me it's the option of being outside. The year I lived on the beach in Oregon it was 60 and sunny through February, too. And I never got blue. In California there's always sun.
I've been writing, the book was stalled but came back to me this week but otherwise the cycle that brings the poems out got all screwed up from being sick. I am still with the sniffles but the fever aches thankfully are gone. So poetry time came and went and that pisses me off when I dont get my way to follow the words. I am selfish? Maybe. I have nothing else to be...
I look over my shoulder right now the sun is sparkling white over the bay. The water is moving in a way it hasn't been all week, all different directions classic fast moving river sway. It was still and flat and rounded as a cup it just sat and didn't move except in the far corner near the marsh grass where the ducks bathe and play. And that was just the ducks moving the water not the water on top of water moving the water in one great array. They chase after one another there is always lots of splashing and quacking and on Saturdays especially, why Saturdays I do not know, I go out there and they make me happy seeing them and hearing them in their silly duck language parade all around and quack out Hoooray!
Which I did this morning before it got all white out and gold. I am on here to write and for no other reason than that, because even the weather didn't fill me with life. Just hope, which sometimes is actually the most important thing. And actually is life just not the filling kind but the thin line slight kind, like the words, perpetually right there Anicha Anicha one after the other in all its changing many same same forms stringing together in to long long day after days after days the ever continuous row.
January 24, 2011
Spon Down. Glorious Day.
In the sunshine the coffee steam is the same as light rays and reminds me how I used to sit on the bed in the corner of Dave Williams' room the guys on guitar or drums and I'd watch the incense play. Complete, totally absorbed. Total absorption. I used to sneak in at night through the window in to his room. The metal feeling of rail scrape when I'd hoist my self over and through. That one time his mom waiting for me. That pic of Weibe with the beast in his hand, but it's from the mirror and the lights way down so the room looks yellow or orange. The instruction of smoke and still and wavering and blending and one becoming another becoming only one.
I am thinking about California and the sun. I am thinking about Paul in snow up to his knees. I am thinking what it would be like to study Anusara at Beth's feet for weeks. I am thinking about Kiva Rose and We'moon and poetry. I am thinking about the moon. My Pandora reset itself or for the first time ever I had to sign back in and my station La Luna, la mama de las estrellas was the only one left. It was just right for the morning, walking dad to the car still cold earth yawning. My blue soft bathrobe three sizes too big. Kissing him goodbye his two big bags of health food cooked up for the week. I felt like his wife and am happy to be how did we get so close, when, awww to grow up. I pick up my pen.
Did Erika get on here I think? There is now a piano station on my Pandora it was prompted a gift given I say yes. This is how she writes. Piano she told me once at one of our meetings at her house. She is my hero. I let the piano music play it is what I used to listen to on my alarm, classical, when I was a very very little girl. In the room in the old neighborhood with the two kinds of pink on the walls. Where we lived with Brian and Little Sean. Janice. When we had hamsters and Sean and I would fight and also cuddle every morning. My toychest with the red painted hearts. The cabinet that kept writings and stickers not dishes or dolls.
I love coffee and bring some home from the coffee shop for the days that I dont work. When I do the real work the writing work the showing up the poetry and play only work that counts. Days like today fingers clicking in the light from the window the light the plants get first then me the gold light the light catching all the steam. I am happy. I will call grandma later when I sit in the driveway in my beachchair like I did all summer I will wear my long johns and sweatshirt and jeans and a beanie and gloves and sit under a blanket when I go out there today. My neighbor what will he think he takes cardio walks everyday smokes his cigars sometimes if he's really happy he even waves. He's known me I him since he first retired me in 8th grade tiny cutoff jeans perm in my hair and later that summer, sneaking out. He knows a lot more than he's ever let on, and far as I know never said word one to grammy back then to Tim or Mary or mom or dad. All the all the all the cars in the driveway over ohsomany years, the late night back porch noise sometimes music sometimes fights. Pungent smells ha the smell of weeds. When I see him today I'll wave maybe he will or wont maybe like me he's sun effective and will wave so much he raises a little from the earth enough like me to light up from within just as the moon.
The new song I discovered on my new reset-Pandora with the one station the same The Moon, mother of the stars is what I will today on my other blog. It is a theme song resplendent oneness, oneness of me here you there song separate but together us as one. Oh what a day, glorious...
I am thinking about California and the sun. I am thinking about Paul in snow up to his knees. I am thinking what it would be like to study Anusara at Beth's feet for weeks. I am thinking about Kiva Rose and We'moon and poetry. I am thinking about the moon. My Pandora reset itself or for the first time ever I had to sign back in and my station La Luna, la mama de las estrellas was the only one left. It was just right for the morning, walking dad to the car still cold earth yawning. My blue soft bathrobe three sizes too big. Kissing him goodbye his two big bags of health food cooked up for the week. I felt like his wife and am happy to be how did we get so close, when, awww to grow up. I pick up my pen.
Did Erika get on here I think? There is now a piano station on my Pandora it was prompted a gift given I say yes. This is how she writes. Piano she told me once at one of our meetings at her house. She is my hero. I let the piano music play it is what I used to listen to on my alarm, classical, when I was a very very little girl. In the room in the old neighborhood with the two kinds of pink on the walls. Where we lived with Brian and Little Sean. Janice. When we had hamsters and Sean and I would fight and also cuddle every morning. My toychest with the red painted hearts. The cabinet that kept writings and stickers not dishes or dolls.
I love coffee and bring some home from the coffee shop for the days that I dont work. When I do the real work the writing work the showing up the poetry and play only work that counts. Days like today fingers clicking in the light from the window the light the plants get first then me the gold light the light catching all the steam. I am happy. I will call grandma later when I sit in the driveway in my beachchair like I did all summer I will wear my long johns and sweatshirt and jeans and a beanie and gloves and sit under a blanket when I go out there today. My neighbor what will he think he takes cardio walks everyday smokes his cigars sometimes if he's really happy he even waves. He's known me I him since he first retired me in 8th grade tiny cutoff jeans perm in my hair and later that summer, sneaking out. He knows a lot more than he's ever let on, and far as I know never said word one to grammy back then to Tim or Mary or mom or dad. All the all the all the cars in the driveway over ohsomany years, the late night back porch noise sometimes music sometimes fights. Pungent smells ha the smell of weeds. When I see him today I'll wave maybe he will or wont maybe like me he's sun effective and will wave so much he raises a little from the earth enough like me to light up from within just as the moon.
The new song I discovered on my new reset-Pandora with the one station the same The Moon, mother of the stars is what I will today on my other blog. It is a theme song resplendent oneness, oneness of me here you there song separate but together us as one. Oh what a day, glorious...
December 2, 2010
I loved him. And he still helps me love me.
I've had three long, or longish term relationships as an adult woman. Each helped define me, term, label and mark the consistency of otherwise un-named or recognized parts of me. I otherwise took for granted: Oh, this reminds me of camping with Brandon, wow he really, really brought out the nature-lover in me....or Oh, there I go again setting aside my decision making power just like I always did with Grimaldi, how I wanted him to be my dad....etc etc... Dynamics of ourselves are deeply rooted, so much so that it's easy for them to remain just part of our natural landscape and not even notice. Even more interesting is how I will learn something about myself, inspect that newly recognized aspect, then watch as it gets reintegrated back in to the whole of who I am anyway... Life is funny--changing but subtle in its evolution most of the time and most often how it all circles back around--which is why I guess that it means so much when someone comes along and really helps me flesh some new understanding or experience of me out.
Last week I was on a roll writing, literally delving bravely forward into subject matter that once evoked usually puts me in a testy place. It was Tuesday, I was on the back porch of the Pines just me and my laptop and the forest breathing. Late hanging red and brown leaves still leaf-talking their funny crinkly leaf-talk ways. The ground all rich and moist and aerobic in how it expands on the air. One of those amazing fall days warm and full that backsteps all fast to the summer again, so that it's full life and full death all at once. I stood to take a coffee break and then a message come through from facebook on my phone: my first real love and first real relationship, the guy I was with after highschool died. I met Joe right around age 20 and was with him for a year and a half and got my heart broken by him in the end, which was the reason I decided to apply to college on the Eastern Shore to just get away...
God damn did that news turn me on my head. I was kind of a ravaged wreck, but as I said I'd literally just finished writing about some painful subject matter involving my own battles with drugs and alcohol and loss and without meaning to I slipped on that slippery crevice, that place where, it's been said, we dance on the rim with the duende hand-to-hand in combat in hopes of not falling. Well, I. Fell. In. Thank god thank god thank god I am older now and have learned to reach out and scream HELP, to be honest, to pick up the phone and be a fucking hysterical mess, thank god I have good friends.
I went to the funeral and Mandy came too and it was awkward and also beautiful and we were in the back against the wall because as customary when someone dies too young there was only standing room. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the day after I had to be back in the Pines to start my new job. And I am here now, working which equals writing not Java-ing, on the most beautiful spot by the Bay on my day off. Happy to be alive and happy for Joe and sad as hell for his family and grateful as hell for awareness and just the little things that mean fuck yea, I am living and therefor going to enjoy this my precious precious miracle life.
Last week I was on a roll writing, literally delving bravely forward into subject matter that once evoked usually puts me in a testy place. It was Tuesday, I was on the back porch of the Pines just me and my laptop and the forest breathing. Late hanging red and brown leaves still leaf-talking their funny crinkly leaf-talk ways. The ground all rich and moist and aerobic in how it expands on the air. One of those amazing fall days warm and full that backsteps all fast to the summer again, so that it's full life and full death all at once. I stood to take a coffee break and then a message come through from facebook on my phone: my first real love and first real relationship, the guy I was with after highschool died. I met Joe right around age 20 and was with him for a year and a half and got my heart broken by him in the end, which was the reason I decided to apply to college on the Eastern Shore to just get away...
God damn did that news turn me on my head. I was kind of a ravaged wreck, but as I said I'd literally just finished writing about some painful subject matter involving my own battles with drugs and alcohol and loss and without meaning to I slipped on that slippery crevice, that place where, it's been said, we dance on the rim with the duende hand-to-hand in combat in hopes of not falling. Well, I. Fell. In. Thank god thank god thank god I am older now and have learned to reach out and scream HELP, to be honest, to pick up the phone and be a fucking hysterical mess, thank god I have good friends.
I went to the funeral and Mandy came too and it was awkward and also beautiful and we were in the back against the wall because as customary when someone dies too young there was only standing room. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the day after I had to be back in the Pines to start my new job. And I am here now, working which equals writing not Java-ing, on the most beautiful spot by the Bay on my day off. Happy to be alive and happy for Joe and sad as hell for his family and grateful as hell for awareness and just the little things that mean fuck yea, I am living and therefor going to enjoy this my precious precious miracle life.
August 22, 2009
"And maybe that's why I love you-
...you notice those things and you believe me when I make them mythical." ~Davka
i just came through this weird nebulous sometimes friendship sometimes love affair and the whole thing is that he made me believe in me, made me believe in the story of me. the things that i hold most dear. which is wild because the reality of me and him was always mostly just a story in my head, one that i told myself. one that he, too, sometimes told me or we together tried to tell each other. there wasn't a whole lot of reality, just a whole lot of what both of us tried hard to want to see.
storytelling is so important. life is nothing if not mythology, and all us, all us broken broken people are just doing what we can to cling to some kind of, or shape what we can of, a meaning. something to hold it all, to string it all together like so many little twinkling, barely there decorative lights that you branch over the cedar tree next to the garden outside in the night in summertime. and sometimes it rains, and sometimes the lights get lost in the dark green, and sometimes you just forget to turn them on.
i was with my homey prandy the other day it's the first time i saw or talked to him since six years ago the day of his wedding, in that time since we've both been in and lost our own hard, hard love. i fell crazy in love with him when i was just 16. we've had a sometimes trippy, often simple, beautiful road together since and i am happy he is still my friend. and he talked a long long while and then it was my turn and when we were both done i told him, i was coming through the dining room this morning and saw myself in the mirror on the wall and thought, i look so old. we laughed cuz the truth was i had just finished talking about spending so much time with cuzin erin and how youthful and good for my summer soulnheart that's been. but the truth also was that it was true--and i said that next. prandy, how? how did we get here, to now, how did it happen that i am suddenly 32?
and that is mythology, and what matters, and also why my truest gift is my story-teller soul. because here, him and we, we spent the four hours we were able to make for the other totally handing the other our bones: the stories of our lives, the important pieces that we hold dear. not the answers, just the steps. the steps we've taken on our paths, which, without neccesarily saying so, held the marks of how much heart in each place we actually laid down. and that is what counts, our own journey. the hero's journey is our own, every one. and how beautiful to me are the people that keep track with us, that help us see the march we're on, every so often, for the bigger version of what it is. no matter the lies or the details that we are busy trying to tell ourselves, no matter the pain of the reality: my heart is beating and bleeding but sharing our bones reminds me, i can feel! I AM Alive!! and this is what counts...our stories are what we own, are all we have...and there is relief in the little bit of medicine of this.
i am so thankful for dear friends. for sharing on their paths. and so, so grateful for what they do to illuminate my own....and today what i honor most is my own right, my own right to my own story and the understanding that i am capable, and most of all responsible to that. that my story truly is mine and the steps i take are up to only me, and my own mthology up to no one else but me to own, how i see things, how and if i choose to look....i loved someone a long time for his ability to see the life in me and that sort of got in the way of me being able to do the same.
hmmm. good medicine doesn't come easy sometimes. that doesn't mean it isn't worth it, tho
i just came through this weird nebulous sometimes friendship sometimes love affair and the whole thing is that he made me believe in me, made me believe in the story of me. the things that i hold most dear. which is wild because the reality of me and him was always mostly just a story in my head, one that i told myself. one that he, too, sometimes told me or we together tried to tell each other. there wasn't a whole lot of reality, just a whole lot of what both of us tried hard to want to see.
storytelling is so important. life is nothing if not mythology, and all us, all us broken broken people are just doing what we can to cling to some kind of, or shape what we can of, a meaning. something to hold it all, to string it all together like so many little twinkling, barely there decorative lights that you branch over the cedar tree next to the garden outside in the night in summertime. and sometimes it rains, and sometimes the lights get lost in the dark green, and sometimes you just forget to turn them on.
i was with my homey prandy the other day it's the first time i saw or talked to him since six years ago the day of his wedding, in that time since we've both been in and lost our own hard, hard love. i fell crazy in love with him when i was just 16. we've had a sometimes trippy, often simple, beautiful road together since and i am happy he is still my friend. and he talked a long long while and then it was my turn and when we were both done i told him, i was coming through the dining room this morning and saw myself in the mirror on the wall and thought, i look so old. we laughed cuz the truth was i had just finished talking about spending so much time with cuzin erin and how youthful and good for my summer soulnheart that's been. but the truth also was that it was true--and i said that next. prandy, how? how did we get here, to now, how did it happen that i am suddenly 32?
and that is mythology, and what matters, and also why my truest gift is my story-teller soul. because here, him and we, we spent the four hours we were able to make for the other totally handing the other our bones: the stories of our lives, the important pieces that we hold dear. not the answers, just the steps. the steps we've taken on our paths, which, without neccesarily saying so, held the marks of how much heart in each place we actually laid down. and that is what counts, our own journey. the hero's journey is our own, every one. and how beautiful to me are the people that keep track with us, that help us see the march we're on, every so often, for the bigger version of what it is. no matter the lies or the details that we are busy trying to tell ourselves, no matter the pain of the reality: my heart is beating and bleeding but sharing our bones reminds me, i can feel! I AM Alive!! and this is what counts...our stories are what we own, are all we have...and there is relief in the little bit of medicine of this.
i am so thankful for dear friends. for sharing on their paths. and so, so grateful for what they do to illuminate my own....and today what i honor most is my own right, my own right to my own story and the understanding that i am capable, and most of all responsible to that. that my story truly is mine and the steps i take are up to only me, and my own mthology up to no one else but me to own, how i see things, how and if i choose to look....i loved someone a long time for his ability to see the life in me and that sort of got in the way of me being able to do the same.
hmmm. good medicine doesn't come easy sometimes. that doesn't mean it isn't worth it, tho
August 19, 2009
Dont read this if you're not up for a little Fire
o my god, i soooo dont get life. i am having this weird thing happen right now and i dont get it. i mean as i speak, or anyhow as i write tap tap tap go the keys here i am trying really hard to flow with it and experience it and not close my self and my full-bodied, full-feelinged life off from it. IT'S HARD. without boring you dear reader, because indeed it is quite detailed, i can only say that i had an experience on sunday that sort of, no, that resolutely made the past not year (which has been the most hectic and full-of-change-and-challenge year that i have EVER, EVER had) but actually 3 YEARS all come together. and that moment of understanding opened up in me like a chasm i've since been readily trying and trying to ignore.
there are two men sitting behind me, directly behind me, at this very moment, in an otherwise empty coffee shop. they are christian. devotedly so. they continue to reference the son and the almighty christ. ok, no prob there, to each his own. but one is talking about the davinci code and how threatening it was to the word of christ. and the other laughs it easily off, reminding his friend it is fiction.
ok, so my digression: sunday started off as normal a day as any. well, that is if you can make room for the fact that my normal at times does mean waking up on a floor where at least seven or eight other people are still passed out, sleeping. it was morning after at my bro's house, day after he and his fiance brought together their wedding party to get to know one another and celebrate. and celebrate we did, until the wee hours, and every late night dancing laughing wild cell of me was fully satiated as result. i went to bed smiling like a worn out but totally satisfied queen of the ball. i awoke with peace and calm and also full of sunday light. i drove my date home. i called two other pals with whom i'd mentioned perhaps having breakfast with, and neither were down to meet so i, noting the gloriously fabulous glow of blue sky day chose instead to drive straight to the beach.
i found parking on 24th, changed in the street, and made my way down the boards and across the hot sand to the waters edge. i took my jewels and adornments off and dove in. i floated and swam a long, long while, washing out the late night no sleep tabacco lunged worn feet and tired legs funk. then i settled down to do what i've spent most of summer doing: staring at, listening to, and breathing the sea.
after a long while of this, when my soul was settled and my spirit at full peace, i picked up the book i recently bought. by an author i like, it's actually a memoir, and i thought i'd read it at erika's suggestion in order to "research" memoirs written by writer's i admire. you know, since i'm writing my own right now. turns out sue monk kidd's memoir, "the dance of the dissident daughter, a woman's journey from christian tradition to the sacred feminine" was all too near to this past three years for me.
i actually had a moment, sitting there feet in the sand slouched way down in my blue beach chair, that i was shaking from the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. it's like i'd forgotten, and indeed i did, how all this, all this: choptank, my job, leaving brandon, all of my Life, got here to what it currently looks like in the first place. see, i'd gotten caught up in the details, the relationships and struggles, the job, the where i live and what i am going to do stuff. and forgot about that day, not last fall, or even the one before, but three whole years ago, when in a moment of absolute desperation i beseeched whatever higher power was out there to put me on the path where i belonged, because i knew i was living the wrong one. one that was flat, without depth or quality of authenticity. and so these years later, this past sunday, sitting there, reading this woman tell my story, i understood in a seamless way how all that's happened since has simply been a deeper and deeper experience of my own grasping for, giving name to, and ultimately claiming my inner-spirit and my own unique humanity insofar as i am a women.
and it is the most vital and true part of my experience, and the hardest thing for which i've ever had to fight, or give words to. and too, it is where i continue to falter when it comes to writing- through in my own memoir. so here i sit today, in the coffee shop, reading monk kidd's memoir again, taking notes and voraciously scribbling my own random confirmations all over the sides of her pages in much the same way an avid researcher would o yes, aha, aha aha...when finally my own juices start to move and twirl and ticktock across my tongue and what do you know in come these two assholes right next to me with their very opinionated ideals. and NOT to say the davinci code was some kind of well written book or that it was even based in fact. no i am not arguing that at all. the symbology of that book to me is what matters, the uncoding so to speak, in our culture of the oppression of, and thus permission for a relevant female mythology is to me the significance of that story. a mythology not to temper or even balance but to complete the dominant male psychological underpinnings of the religous contexts of our society. the tale of patriarchy that exists and how it is only half the experience of this life but one so wholly validated by judeochristian themes.
so here i am, all stoked to get in to my own journey, in to this deep and complex experience of female spirituality and authenticity, and here come these two guys!!!!! as if to manifest my own very real cultural demons. that the value of a very real, very unconscious but powerful feminine archtypal equivalent within our human spirits is FICTION
LIFE
I
DONT
GET
YOU
needless to say, i've gotten no memoir writing done, but at least now i've blown off some clearly pent up steam........which i suppose is what that chasms been all about, anyway.
thanks, assholes
when i'm talking to the great all and giving thanks to Life tonight, i'll be sure to give jesus a big what's up for you~~
there are two men sitting behind me, directly behind me, at this very moment, in an otherwise empty coffee shop. they are christian. devotedly so. they continue to reference the son and the almighty christ. ok, no prob there, to each his own. but one is talking about the davinci code and how threatening it was to the word of christ. and the other laughs it easily off, reminding his friend it is fiction.
ok, so my digression: sunday started off as normal a day as any. well, that is if you can make room for the fact that my normal at times does mean waking up on a floor where at least seven or eight other people are still passed out, sleeping. it was morning after at my bro's house, day after he and his fiance brought together their wedding party to get to know one another and celebrate. and celebrate we did, until the wee hours, and every late night dancing laughing wild cell of me was fully satiated as result. i went to bed smiling like a worn out but totally satisfied queen of the ball. i awoke with peace and calm and also full of sunday light. i drove my date home. i called two other pals with whom i'd mentioned perhaps having breakfast with, and neither were down to meet so i, noting the gloriously fabulous glow of blue sky day chose instead to drive straight to the beach.
i found parking on 24th, changed in the street, and made my way down the boards and across the hot sand to the waters edge. i took my jewels and adornments off and dove in. i floated and swam a long, long while, washing out the late night no sleep tabacco lunged worn feet and tired legs funk. then i settled down to do what i've spent most of summer doing: staring at, listening to, and breathing the sea.
after a long while of this, when my soul was settled and my spirit at full peace, i picked up the book i recently bought. by an author i like, it's actually a memoir, and i thought i'd read it at erika's suggestion in order to "research" memoirs written by writer's i admire. you know, since i'm writing my own right now. turns out sue monk kidd's memoir, "the dance of the dissident daughter, a woman's journey from christian tradition to the sacred feminine" was all too near to this past three years for me.
i actually had a moment, sitting there feet in the sand slouched way down in my blue beach chair, that i was shaking from the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. it's like i'd forgotten, and indeed i did, how all this, all this: choptank, my job, leaving brandon, all of my Life, got here to what it currently looks like in the first place. see, i'd gotten caught up in the details, the relationships and struggles, the job, the where i live and what i am going to do stuff. and forgot about that day, not last fall, or even the one before, but three whole years ago, when in a moment of absolute desperation i beseeched whatever higher power was out there to put me on the path where i belonged, because i knew i was living the wrong one. one that was flat, without depth or quality of authenticity. and so these years later, this past sunday, sitting there, reading this woman tell my story, i understood in a seamless way how all that's happened since has simply been a deeper and deeper experience of my own grasping for, giving name to, and ultimately claiming my inner-spirit and my own unique humanity insofar as i am a women.
and it is the most vital and true part of my experience, and the hardest thing for which i've ever had to fight, or give words to. and too, it is where i continue to falter when it comes to writing- through in my own memoir. so here i sit today, in the coffee shop, reading monk kidd's memoir again, taking notes and voraciously scribbling my own random confirmations all over the sides of her pages in much the same way an avid researcher would o yes, aha, aha aha...when finally my own juices start to move and twirl and ticktock across my tongue and what do you know in come these two assholes right next to me with their very opinionated ideals. and NOT to say the davinci code was some kind of well written book or that it was even based in fact. no i am not arguing that at all. the symbology of that book to me is what matters, the uncoding so to speak, in our culture of the oppression of, and thus permission for a relevant female mythology is to me the significance of that story. a mythology not to temper or even balance but to complete the dominant male psychological underpinnings of the religous contexts of our society. the tale of patriarchy that exists and how it is only half the experience of this life but one so wholly validated by judeochristian themes.
so here i am, all stoked to get in to my own journey, in to this deep and complex experience of female spirituality and authenticity, and here come these two guys!!!!! as if to manifest my own very real cultural demons. that the value of a very real, very unconscious but powerful feminine archtypal equivalent within our human spirits is FICTION
LIFE
I
DONT
GET
YOU
needless to say, i've gotten no memoir writing done, but at least now i've blown off some clearly pent up steam........which i suppose is what that chasms been all about, anyway.
thanks, assholes
when i'm talking to the great all and giving thanks to Life tonight, i'll be sure to give jesus a big what's up for you~~
August 18, 2009
"You think you can't write....
...but the truth is, you can't tell. the problem is, no one likes a snitch." ~betsy lerner
so, i'm writing a book.
it's fun, and also very weird. i've written two other ones, both were for college and back then in the face of institution the facts were that i never really gave a fluck. which means i've got in my catalouge one memoir from community college (responsible, simultaneous to a guy who used to drive a red chevy truck and broke my heart, for my very impulsive choice to go to washington college and Write--o love, o sacred music, o one who hears those bells and cries and cries and draws sweet meaning by and by.) that memoir was a virtual tell all of suburban funk and foolery in the eyes of a just barely finished teenager, one who by all definitions partied down and clearly was armed with the arrogance of honesty that a young one without knowledge intuitively calls upon. i had NO inhibitions and for the purpose it served me well. the second was fiction, was my thesis at wac, a novella written a year in to my sobriety and full with the demons and pain of addiction and most particularly the loss of my good friend and homie fannon to the lifestyle. my advisor back then just kept saying how it was very raw it was.
it was, those wounds were fresh and beaming as gold.
it's been seven years since then, almost eight if you count the fall that i first gave vision to my advisor of that fiction. lately i keep thinking about a quote i read by salinger, back when i used to teach in the jail. "there will be a story you want to tell for no better reason than because it matters to you more than any other. you'll stop looking over your shoulder to make sure you're keeping everyone happy, and you'll simply write what's real and true...one day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say to about you. that's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of."
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
i've been locked-up, put-out, broke-up, raving-mad contemptously sad a wise crazee earth womyn lost a hella bunch angry as a wasp and at times sharp as hell. i've made and kept and also lost some phenomenal fucking friends. i've run around in circles where i've actually been known as "spiritual kel". i mean, cmon. when it finally comes down to telling the truth, the real truth is there's not a damn thing you can do to keep your soul from practically forcing it all the way out...
for a person like me in fact, it's the only way to make it through
my friend lara once wrote this excellent piece about how just a few moments of writing after a self-imposed dry spell and she can actually feel her muscles melt loose away from her bones. now, that's it, isn't it? that's fine, fine showing and that for me is just the way it is.
which DOESN'T make it easy, not at all. it just proves my point about how some of us, no matter what, are at the end of the day simply compelled by the Call. and should we refuse it, take no note of that inner longing or worse work to deny our most divine, most sacred hunger? well i know, this i know for certain: there is no misery more severe.
so. tell the truth tell the truth tell the truth.
i will flesh out my experiences now, or shall continue. shall flesh out the Me i hold most dear...
what i'm listening to now, cuz i woke up with it playing in my head:
dylan's ring them bells
so, i'm writing a book.
it's fun, and also very weird. i've written two other ones, both were for college and back then in the face of institution the facts were that i never really gave a fluck. which means i've got in my catalouge one memoir from community college (responsible, simultaneous to a guy who used to drive a red chevy truck and broke my heart, for my very impulsive choice to go to washington college and Write--o love, o sacred music, o one who hears those bells and cries and cries and draws sweet meaning by and by.) that memoir was a virtual tell all of suburban funk and foolery in the eyes of a just barely finished teenager, one who by all definitions partied down and clearly was armed with the arrogance of honesty that a young one without knowledge intuitively calls upon. i had NO inhibitions and for the purpose it served me well. the second was fiction, was my thesis at wac, a novella written a year in to my sobriety and full with the demons and pain of addiction and most particularly the loss of my good friend and homie fannon to the lifestyle. my advisor back then just kept saying how it was very raw it was.
it was, those wounds were fresh and beaming as gold.
it's been seven years since then, almost eight if you count the fall that i first gave vision to my advisor of that fiction. lately i keep thinking about a quote i read by salinger, back when i used to teach in the jail. "there will be a story you want to tell for no better reason than because it matters to you more than any other. you'll stop looking over your shoulder to make sure you're keeping everyone happy, and you'll simply write what's real and true...one day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say to about you. that's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of."
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
i've been locked-up, put-out, broke-up, raving-mad contemptously sad a wise crazee earth womyn lost a hella bunch angry as a wasp and at times sharp as hell. i've made and kept and also lost some phenomenal fucking friends. i've run around in circles where i've actually been known as "spiritual kel". i mean, cmon. when it finally comes down to telling the truth, the real truth is there's not a damn thing you can do to keep your soul from practically forcing it all the way out...
for a person like me in fact, it's the only way to make it through
my friend lara once wrote this excellent piece about how just a few moments of writing after a self-imposed dry spell and she can actually feel her muscles melt loose away from her bones. now, that's it, isn't it? that's fine, fine showing and that for me is just the way it is.
which DOESN'T make it easy, not at all. it just proves my point about how some of us, no matter what, are at the end of the day simply compelled by the Call. and should we refuse it, take no note of that inner longing or worse work to deny our most divine, most sacred hunger? well i know, this i know for certain: there is no misery more severe.
so. tell the truth tell the truth tell the truth.
i will flesh out my experiences now, or shall continue. shall flesh out the Me i hold most dear...
what i'm listening to now, cuz i woke up with it playing in my head:
dylan's ring them bells
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