The enormity of quiet gratitude

The keys for my studio in Laguna were in my hand like a talisman, some octagonal  proof of all I'd been running towards, all I left behind.  When did it change from that to this, to heading towards from leaving behind...Every throttle and instinct that propelled me dangling on a quarter-sized metal ring.  Two little keys pushed me out of Anngar Farm, out from my six year love affair with the boy with the honey eyes, pushed Josh out the door that sickening Sunday at Choptank, pushed me and Brooks to leave the Talbot County Employment Center because we knew, we insisted, convinced the other even when we didn't believe it ourselves that it had to be the Muse holding tight to those two keys.  Pushed me around Oregon in Gretchen's beater pick-up, pushed then paused, sighed deep in me, nestled me under conifers big as cities, tucked me in the mists of the Cascades, bathed me naked with Beth as I vowed, as we vowed yet again start again.  Held me tight as it cooked me clean the year and a half I moved back to Ocean Pines.  I stopped with Jayden at Rudy's Shake Shop where it looks out over the Pacific just south of Crystal Cove those keys still in my hand like a dreamscape whose designer I'd finally, finally finally! just met. Arrival!  All I could think.   That's when I got the message I was accepted to gradschool. I have done it, I have finally, finally arrived! I just kept thinking you did it Kel, you finally got here.  You have finally made those dreams come true.  It was the oddest feeling, so plain but also still.  It was right about then, that very day, when aunt Mary went in the hospital.

It switched then, my voice in my head.  Would only say this too, this too, this too.  Which is from Dani Shapiro.  I called my mom and sobbed then my dad and uncle Tim and did the same.  Then I talked to Aunt Mary, I wanted to be strong for her, I really did.  I wasn't.  It was bad I couldn't breathe.  My greatest fear about being so far from home, come true.  What happened from then to the end isn't so much private as it is a blur.  By Thursday I had a ticket home by Friday I was on the plane.  I never got to see her though, in our last conversation I was selfish and told her this sucks, exactly what I said was this effing sucks but I used the real word.  She was honest with me and direct about her pain and every little thing going on, which she knew I needed to hear because for so long she just lifted up from love and made me laugh on the phone or wanted to know about my life.  She knew I needed to hear where she was at though, to be able to have peace with her letting go.  At home it was my amazing cousins her kids who are stronger than I will ever be.  Erin my amazing sis.  Ed and Tim.  They are heroes and inspirations and I am honored they are my blood,  a testament, fully, to their mom. The pit bull in me wants to pummel something, some big shadow portion of life, for doing this to them.  I want to take them up like the puppies they are to my heart, I want to shield and shelter and take this all from them.  I am selfish and had to tell myself if they can do this so can you.  We all of us fell in line behind my uncle this amazing gentle man, we followed my dad,  they moved us gracefully through it all, we let the strength of  family lead us on.  What we've always done.  The Irish twins, eleven months between dad and uncle Tim they're calling themselves the Odd Couple since Mary's passed and it's only them in the house now, the Uncle Dad's.  Uncle dad!    All of my cousins and aunts and uncles every single one and every person ever touched by the enormity of love that comes from the combined McMullen heart.  It was homage to Aunt Mary's quiet steadiness, there and painting our edges with softness all those years, we could still feel her glow in the air.  The whole family together, all but Bernd who was unable to come from Germany.  It was the only family event since the 80's where everyone was there.  I am just so, so proud to see so clearly who I am, who I come from.  It's a hard way to come by it, but here, now, keys to Laguna and future in hand: it helps me so honestly and gratefully see where I will aim to go.

My aunt Mary was sick for three years and suffered silently until the very end.  She was an angel, the kind of person whose each day is a  triumph because she added to it the best of who she was.   She made manifest, daily, parts of the infinity of spirit within.  Irreverent but with the loving patience of a natural teacher's heart. So few rise up to that, few even try.  She did it her whole life, but especially at the end.  She raised me and my brother with her peace and easiness all those summers in Ocean Pines and those quiet nights at Shady Hill Lane.  The unconditionality of her and Uncle Tim.  She raised three awe-inspiring kids.  The safety.  They, she inspired in me absolutely some of the finest parts of who I, if I choose to step up to it, can be.  I can not take a step since she passed without seeing the footfalls left I feel now so compelled to trippingly try and fill.  When I got back here, used those keys to let myself in at midnight on Sunday, the boxes and bags packed but half-opened all around, I could do nothing but sit and soak in the shock.  Brooks said she was a Matriarch of the tribe and he told me you are, too, and when he said that it finally felt like someone got it the enormity of responsibility, the enormity of quiet gratitude at hand.  The loss.  I finally let out the twists of pain and shatter all stuck inside.

The days are passing now, will.  Life goes on.  Yesterday driving down Irvine on my way to the beach between my classes, I looked up and realized oh my gosh this feels like home to me.  Like in that merciless, taken for granted way.  This is my home, now.  I haven't said that about a place as an adult, not once, except for in Ocean Pines.  But that's what happens I guess when you walk through the open door.

Like I always do

Laguna.  It's like a whole new experience of being in California for the first time. A whole new bottomless new, all over again.  It felt impending as it got closer, full of locked dark fear, now I know why.  Paul came with Jill, Derynn helped me all day Friday, I try to concentrate on the grace of alignment and the little pleasures and joys and peace of place...and home?  I can walk to a world-known artfest.  There are trees out the window of my loft I can touch because in California no windows have screens.  There are private beaches and hippies and long-dressed ladies, rolling hills that remind me of Sonoma and nightime canyon air.   The arcs of earth twinkle like sighs or breath.  There is a friendliness here that I haven't found any place else on the West Coast.  Last night at a Mexican restaurant a man name Pete talked to me for an hour about Laguna's what what and all the where's.  I was grateful for the contact but left before I got teary because gay and emotional as Pete was proud to be it still would've been too much for him.  Since he was a stranger I'd just laughed a lot with over carnitas, afterall.

I got my keys for this place on Wednesday, got accepted to grad school that day, it was also my year anniversary of arriving to Cali.  I was riding glee and high.  Mike and I went out which was planned as a catch up not a celebration so it turned timely and perfect.  I am glad I have him right now--I needed Sean my brother all weekend and Mike who lives just north of me here was the best man in his wedding and just knowing he is here continues to anchor me.  And this weekend which has shown me again how quick it is that the spheres of earth can move...it is impossible to not feel isolated which is wickedly different than the cleanly feeling of alone.

Finally Sean and I spoke this morning.  I was sleepless at 5, could think only of surfing because I guess the flat surfaces and quiet slants of nighttime color where I sleep felt a lot in my mind like the ocean in the early morning, when all colors seem to emanate from and back to the same shade.  My brother and I who are psychic our whole lives with each other it was true came to each other today at dawn with things we only could understand together.  He was trying to communicate to Jamie and I to Mike it turned out the same stuff, though it was something he and I barely needed words with one another to get.

I don't want to teach today.  I want to be headed east.  I'm going to need a boyfriend I think I need someone who's just there.  I had five dates with a guy who disappeared after I wouldn't have sex.  I had two dates with a different guy who disappeared entirely the day after telling me he wanted to really get to know me and try to "do this thing."  I am tired.  I am thinking of my family and of my strength and how weak I feel and how sometimes what makes us who we are is not the beautiful part, but the pain.  How these so often line up with seemingly no reason.  Sean sent me a picture of a butterfly that landed on his brother-in-laws finger after they'd talked heart to heart about the mysteries in life.  I will choose the mystery, gratefully, which is what I always do.

It will take a while for my soul and heart tho.  Mysteries can hurt like hell.

Let the earth find them whole again

Full moon mama in me all spirals of nag champa hippie oils lavender and sage...The sun was out yesterday morning in yellow single beams only for an hour.  It cut between the steel hanging of the marine layer the sky the color of dolphins,  the dolphins so close to Nici and I on our surfboards that I could see the shine and divots of their skin.  I could not contain my sounds of glee.  I got pummeled when I tried to catch a wave and came up smiling with some crazy headless determination.  I say headless because the white waves aren't good enough I want to ride real waves and it has nothing to do with fixated mentality, it's a total body thing.

Just like the draw to the ocean always is, my whole life.  It's a peace that satiates me from a wordless place inside but that I can feel run through as real as I can feel the tides of the moon.  And I am living in it now, like that feeling is one big orb I have stepped into, or am born out of.  From deep inside.

Today's the first harvest, holy holy sacred life blessed be.  Me and my religiousity.  My contempt for it, too.  I taught a private english lesson last night that had me jazzed way after it was done.  I watched Kelly Slater surf the men's heat at the Open and stood it awe, I listened to Best Coast on my phone last night, laying in bed.  We are taking our students to the Fair.  I live on the beach in California like I always saw and felt only this is real not the inside bliss feeling that was only a dream.  This morning it strummed in me, my book again, and I told it ok I am coming thanks for letting me know.  I want to worship this earth and her rounds on my knees, I want this majesty of gratitude to pour out in dusted gold ribbons and magnify the love of all the people that I know.  Let their love light the way around the hearts of those they love let the whole world kindle on that flame.  Let the earth find them whole again finding her let them have reason to be grateful under sky.

Lunar Lammas again, we turn we turn, these are my thanks. I'm Amazed~

How amazingly rad.

It felt good to take a breath--my roommates did a 48-hour crusade to Chicago and back and having a house to myself was just that.  A big long breath out.  Steel Pulse was so fun. Major surprises there, too.  Barefeet on the lawn dancing and the moon.  At 6:30am Saturday my phone started buzzing Nici wanted to surf and Derynn wanted to know if I was going to the Open with her boys.  It went on like that for an hour me laughing all the way.  There was nothing like cruising across PCH at the pier that morning.  I had that sense about my life, of fresh and at-one-ness at once and this is really happening.  That hasn't happened in a while.  We got to the Open and the boys had to stand on line for an hour to get their passes to swipe so they can win prizes all week.  Last year Jayden won hundreds of dollars worth of stuff.  Just in the first ten minutes we'd gotten hats for free.

After a while we went to Tower 8 and Nici was in the water and after another while she convinced me to go out.  I was like no way not a chance am I surfing California for the first day at the kick-off of the US Surf Open.  I felt like a big kook but she forced me and turns out she's an awesome teacher.  I was up in the white water in an instant and like that my whole pulse for it was back.  I rode white waves for a good bit til she forced me to paddle all the way out and in the line up she was teaching me all kinds of little great tips, confirming my original instinct all the way back to last year that I needed a woman to teach me.  After an hour I was whipped and was like I'm going in and started to paddle and next thing I knew I was right inside the wave and it moved me right and then I was up and rode it all the way to when it reformed and still was up and going, and it felt like yoga, that union, and I saw how to be in control and let it happen at once.  It was RADICAL.  I hope to start going with her in the morning before school.


 Der and I tried to go to the movies later but that didn't work out so instead I made us dinner.  We wound up at Barnes and Noble on the floor of the poetry section reading the little hymns out loud. I slept well then was up early again and got all the errandy house things out of the way which always makes me feel at peace.  Today I spent the day with a cutie which was rad.  Finally talked to Erin too so I feel connected again. Erika tagged me on Instagram with a picture of a Crow on the beach in NC.  Fannon's anniversary just passed and  this is the final loop before the season begins to round out.  Meaning Crow made good sense. My interview at Pacifica is Friday.  I am going to jam out at the Open all week.  I have a date tonight.  I want to write an essay on being a woman for Holly.  Book, no worries, I'll soon be back.  


My life is becoming what I always saw in my heart.  Part of this is because I was willing to let go of a lot of ideas jammed up in my head. 


How amazingly rad.

And dance

Three weeks ago I decided it's time for me to see more live music again.  I was hanging out with this cutie lifeguard watching some surf punk band with a horrible drunk wannabe Morrison lead.  My company was far better than the band.  Since then I've seen Matisyahu and tomorrow Steel Pulse.  Steel Pulse!!!  Haven't seen good reggae since the old Sunsplash days.  Next week at the Surf Open Best Coast, Toro y Moi and TV on the Radio. Free Best Coast on the beach!  Tonight I'm going with Annie and like 10 girls to see a No Doubt cover band.  I am looking forward to a deep-fried avocado since we'll be at the fair.

To the hell yea.  I rode my bike forever today.   The headwind on the way back was hilarious. So much resistance that's the first time a  bike ride on the beach path made me sweat.  Like always I get a big smile when I ride, which makes everyone smile too.  Which makes me happy.  And smile more.  The Open started today, meaning even more than normal little skaters everywhere and all the registers now accepting money at every concession stand.  I don't think surf events happen til Saturday.  Jayden and I have plans to be down there at like 6am...I'm going to watch a lot of surfing and not move much other than bike to beach to water to sand.  Back to bike again.


Talked to Josh last night forever and it made me feel whole and clean.  That's been happening more often with him.  And so things move on.  The admissions counselor at Pacifica emailed me today, they presented my application to the board, I am freaked out.  And happy.  Sometimes there's nothing else than Wait.  This feels really good to me.  


A prayer now for Derynne, for what is to come.  What is to come, what has been, and the sacred in-between.  Which is a great time to go get Stefani on, dance and dance and dance...and be.