Barely Legal

The most assiduous task of parenting is to divine the difference between boundaries and bondage. - Barbara Kingsolver

We’ve begun keeping a list of every time Zoe kicks me and we’re going to ground her for it later. I think we’re getting a good handle on bondage – we’ll have to work on boundaries no doubt.

We’re in week 21 now and although I promised some reflection on The Good Terrorist…. Well… there you have it – I’m not inspired.

It’s hot today, in the 90’s. I spent the morning doing chores before the heat of the day made it all feel too oppressive and then made the unfortunate decision to take the Honey Bee for a mid-day sojourn to the lake. Even though we relegated our activities to the shady side of the lake, it was still miserably and relentlessly hot. Only one room has a window air conditioning unit, so I lifted my skirt and let the cold air pour over my big sweaty belly before readying my things for a trip to the pool.

Getting to the pool later than I have to date gave me a taste of the family aspect of the club. Early in the day it’s open to adults only and not until afternoon does it open up to family swim activities. There were gazillions of kids and babies and moms – not so many dads. But even with the influx of young’ns most of the lanes were reserved for lap swim and people seemed to respect the lap swimmers.

I’ve been working up slowly (it’s only my 4th day in the pool) and currently I’m swimming 1100 yards – which is about 2/3 of a mile. I haven’t been in the water since the summer of ’01 and I’m way out of shape, but the water is so familiar and comforting to me – it’s like coming home. My body is so different and unfamiliar it’s an interesting contrast – feeling so invited and good in the environment and yet feeling so distant and uncomfortable in my body. The movements in the water are reflexive, however. I know how it’s supposed to feel to swim. I make little adjustments and compensate for my changing body shape, my more buoyant belly, my heavier hips and I try to get that feel. On some level, at least for a few weeks, I know that no matter what I do I’ll feel like I’m dragging my body through the water as I build up the right muscles and endurance to swim on top of (rather than under/in) the water. That’s just the normal road to getting there – nothing I can do about that except swim every day, push myself a little harder and have patience. I do wonder, however, as I’m dragging this bowling ball called Zoe with me, if I’m going to feel like I can swim on top of the water as long as she’s in tow.

After I’d finished my first 600 yards I paused and a man approached my lane and touched my shoulder. He asked if I was a competitive swimmer. Not for many, many, many years, I assured him. He said that he’d been coming to the pool for years and he’s seen no one swim as beautifully as me – how it looked so strong and effortless and like it was supposed to look. It felt nice to hear it, even knowing how weak and formless my stroke is given lack of practice. With each stroke in the water I’m correcting, coaching, reminding, adjusting – and yet to someone it looks beautiful and effortless. “No one else here swims like that,” he tells me.

When I was a little girl I remember watching Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympics on television. The colors of the pool and the grace with which he moved through the water entranced me. I wanted to do that. Even as a young girl, I was never dissuaded by my lack of abilities or natural talent.. heh. I like it that I’ve never been afraid to square off with failure and keep trying to understand, persevere, anyways. I hope I can give that to Zoe – the willingness to ignore failure, one’s own incompetence and insecurities and do it all anyways in the face of it because what really is there to lose at the end of the day?

A Pen

I am in the sixties now, T minus sixty seven. I am in that place where I am resigning posts and appointments and relinquishing responsibilities that are moot to carry if one does not intend to carry them forward with their full weight. I had thought to maintain certain activities as civic duties, but a wise friend has encouraged me to let as much go as possible so that I might see, more clearly, the world of possibilities. Sometimes that is difficult to do not because my ego is invested but because this has been so much a part of my identity, a large part of how I have defined myself, for such a long time.

I like this unraveling, however. It is a tremendously healthy process. Every morning, when I start my day, I switch on the lap top and I make coffee or tea. Firstly, I check my email, personal and then work, I peruse the blogs and sites I frequent and by then it’s about 9-ish, time to start the real work day.

Increasingly I find disdain for the way the computer is centerpiece to so many activities. When I go out with the camera, the computer is the receptacle, developer, editing tool and print server for the finished product. The first line of communication with most of those I stay in contact with is the machine. Even this journal is online. I do my finances on the computer. We watch DVD’s on the computer. We listen to music through the computer. These little boxes have replaced so many human moments. I resent them.

I look forward to having this creepy black box sit idly on a shelf in the back study for several weeks on end. I will write with a fucking pen!

I'll Never Be Back

When seeing a new place I often think: I am going to come back here later – when I am rich, or when I have more time, or when I have a purpose, or when I am alone with someone I love – and do this right. But it is self-deception. More often than not, my feet lead me somewhere new rather than somewhere I have already been. And as I sat at that window watching the train bore through the heart of China, I had a different, more probable thought: I’d better remember what this place looks like. I will never be back. – Brad Newsham

If we could hold each day with a little more reverence – both the good and the bad – and realize we’ll never be back, I think we’d all be better off. Even bad days would take on a more precious quality. It’s never going to be bad precisely like this again. Which even makes bad a little special I think.

I went to see Tati with the magic hands this evening. It’s more than her hands that is magic. Something always reveals itself in her presence. Tonight, for example, I realize that I have an incredibly difficult time simply letting go. I hold on. I resist. And yet when I relax enough to let go, the truths of the universe seem to greet me – my answers find my questions. Tati has taken to using hot stones in her practice and they open me up and the muscles relax under their heat and weight – hastening the process. But tonight I resisted and resisted and resisted moving to that place where my body is left behind being whim to her magic and my mind is freed into other spaces far away. (Maybe the stones kept me there?)

I was freed up enough, however, to remember that it’s time to let go.

The Mayans believe that when you are born you forget who you are and it’s the role of the villagers to sing you back into remembrance. They sing you your name. I read a short missive recently that a parent wrote about her son. He speaks of what he learned in his other life. How when he was eleven he fell off a ladder and was killed. When his parents or grandparents go to teach him things, he tells them that the other boys parents taught him that too – and goes on to fill in more details. He forgot to forget before he was remembered back into being. Sometimes I think I feel glimpses – not of another life, but of some time before and those teachers whisper things to me through my dreams.

I like the weight of this flesh. I like the way it feels curled up cuddling the dog near the fire place and the taste of smoky tea and lavender soda. I’d better remember what this place looks like.

Where'd You Get Those Boobs?

The only thing standing between me and greatness is me. - Woody Allen

Every day we must point out the lucky things that happen that make this the most wonderful and luckiest of all years. The year started out quite grand with Pelosi being sworn in as Speaker of the House and the fortunate events have continued. The sun rose again this morning, despite so many decries that the End is near. The wild lavenders continue to bloom in the kill zone of my driveway median, despite the encroaching cold (it’s supposed to go into single digits later this week! Absurd!)

There is a man who lives down the street who has always struck me as odd. I’ve never liked him. He makes me feel uncomfortable and he’s a bit touched, a bit off. This morning Ed saw him and when he returned with the Honey Bee following their morning sojourn he said, “you know that kind of odd guy that you don’t care for? He had boobs today.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, “do you mean man boobs?”
“Oh no, definitely not man boobs.” He replies, “But also not boobs that make physiologic sense with his body.”
“What do you mean?” I press again.
“Well,” he continues, “they were more like big giggly saggy sixty year old woman boobs that hang rather low.” He explains as he gesticulates with his hands, as though he’s cupping low hanging boobs in his hands and wobbling them about.
“Weird,” I respond. “I don’t like that guy.”
“He was on the other side of the street and further up, other wise I would have asked him where he got the boobs.” He said flatly and then left for work.

The Fun's Just Started

The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun’s just started. - John Updike

I’ve recently discovered Eddie Izzard and I love him. Maybe this is like my discovery of the reality TV show, Survivor. Everyone rolls their eyes, and I can actually hear them thinking “that’s so last millennium.” I suppose the result of not having a television is that I’ll never be a hip trend setter in the glamorous world of pop culture. If you don’t know what’s happening until it comes out on DVD, it’s hard to even feign being bleeding edge about such things.

I do in fact feel a great deal of optimism about the aught seven. It’s going to be a good year.

It’s been a terrific day. I woke to morning coffee – soft and lazy, blog reading, internet perusing like some people read the newspaper (but without the crinkly pages or newsprint on my fingertips.) LB called and asked if I wanted to hike today, so I took a shower, did a few loads of laundry, emptied and filled the dishwasher and dressed for a sojourn with the Honey Bee. It was a brilliant crisp blue perfect day. I took my camera but I wasn’t inspired to take pictures. After all was hiked and done I walked to the post office (tubes on the way, Alison!) and then to the bank and then home. Secret loves these little tool about town things. She walks about like she owns the place, little captain of her band of grrrrrrl gang.

I heated up some perfect chicken vegetable soup. Have I mentioned what a soup kick I’ve been on since the weather turned? Each week I roast a chicken and after a fabulous feast of that I start deconstructing the bird for all its pieces, the good meat in this pile for the soup, the stuff we don’t like for the Monster Girl, the carcass in a pot with an onion, three chile d’arbole, celery scraps, garlic, parsley, a whole mess of seasoning for a three hour boil and simmer into stock. The house smells brilliant and alive. There’s something about using the whole thing that feels so graceful. When the time comes the next day to add the potatoes, celery, carrots, corn and onion (when I’m feeling frisky a daub of chipotle paste for a kick) it feels wholesome and good. Anyways, that was lunch, a small bowl – a late lunch, around four.

After this I hopped on my mountain bike (which is in bad need of biannual maintenance) and road for a good hour up the back side of the mountain to five corners, from Phoenix Lake, down through Deer Park and then back home. I’ve been rather lazy and I haven’t done this trek in a while (I could tell.) My back (ouch) felt it more than legs or lungs (yes, I’m even optimistic I’ll lose that weight I gained when I stopped smoking frill’n three years now…) So after the last mile or so, which is a lovely coast down hill the whole way, I pulled up to the house, tossed the bike aside, tossed the clothes aside and plopped in the hot tub with a shot of top shelf Captain Morgan’s spiced rum and wallowed in the warmth under a quickly setting sun. Stars illuminated in a deep indigo blue night sky behind the silhouette of the towering redwood trees.

Once the heat had found its way deep to my marrow, revitalizing a kernel of me that felt spent and done, I dressed and LB and I went to my favorite fondue restaurant for a seven oclock reservation from which we just returned, just a shy bit before ten (talk about slow food!) It was awesome (as always.) I just finished folding the laundry of which I spoke earlier and I’m cozied up to the fireplace with a good book, a tall cool glass of blood orange Italian soda and that electric throw (which mom contends will give me cancer, but three cheers for the deadly electric throw! Every home should have several!) You know, if sort of feels like the fun just started….

To Sleep Perchance To Dream

After my mid-day 20 miles bike ride - with the steepest grade you can think of going on for over a mile - I took a monster 5 mile hike to the second waterfall at Elliot last evening. I love the long shadows and golden light of late afternoonish.

I keep forgetting to mention a dream I had. I was about to die - and in the dream, when one died, they had to meet the executioner (or maybe it was a reeper - whatever the case... I remember him as an executioner of sorts.) It was love at first site. I swooned and lamented the thought that at this juncture I would meet the person of my dreams and that that person would by the executioner. On some level, however, it didn't matter - because I was immediately smitten, immediately in love and something about that, in the face of everything, was perfect and hopeful and completing.

The twist of the story is/was that the executioner fell in love with me too. And I became the only person, ever, to be spared the fate of the executioner as a result. And it is/was because of this it became known that while incredibly rare some people escaped the executioner's fate - and in a place there was little to no hope there was placed a glimmer. And the most humble and wisest would realize that hope was realized through love.

I know, it sounds corny - but that was the dream.

It was almost as good as last night's dream - in which Ed not only quit smoking, he cleaned up after himself. Wow.. what startlingly divergent expectations for fulfillment. heh.

Eat Your Greens

I’ve been so restless of late. Cassie says to focus on my questions before I sleep and seek answers in my dreams. I dreamt I needed to eat more vegetables. I’m game – so be it. Vegetables it is. I hope it’s all that easy.

I want to do something different. I’m tired of the same. I’m dissatisfied with the same. I’m not inspired by the same. I don’t think I’ve ever been so discontent. But perhaps all the world’s ennui can be solved with a simple carrot.

The Wonder

There are now nearly two clean rooms. I spent the day cleaning the study. Yes, the day. The entire day. I mean until 9 p.m. even. And it's not wholly done. There's one wall to wash down, two windows to Windex and a bookcase to shuffle through and dust - but then it will be done enough to call it a perfectly clean room. I hadn't wiped down those walls since I quit smoking and to be honest I feel like the amount of nicotine exposure I had washing the walls might just constitute a relapse in some circles. It was pretty ooogy. A little more tidying up in there tomorrow and I'll call that one a wrap.

I should have done this months ago! I ran over my big toe with the vacuum cleaner, however. That is a lesson in why you should wear shoes when you vacuum. It hurt like a mother-fucker. (Do mother-fuckers hurt? If so, why?)

The guys working on my bathroom are in the home stretch. I can hardly wait until they're done. I love them, don't get me wrong, but we're hitting that stage in our relationship where I think it would be a good idea if we all had some alone-time.

I leave for London on Saturday evening. I already miss Secret Agent Dog, even though she's all cozied up here on the sofa with me. I think I'm becoming something of a curmudgeon. At one time in my life a week in London would have been the cat's meow. Now I simply dread the long flight, the terminal train ride from Heathrow, clamoring for a taxi at the station and all the whoopla of getting to the hotel, being jet lagged, blah, blah, blah. Now I just want to get home before I even start packing. I think I'm losing my sense of adventure and wonder. (Note to self, rediscover the wonder.) If there is someone in London who wants to help me rediscover the wonder, drop a line.

I Met A Boy Called....

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it….It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more. - Erica Jong

Have I mentioned that I love Warren Buffet? I think I might have mentioned that before. And if I haven’t, let me go on record and profess my adoration - I love Warren Buffet! Among my many hopes and dreams is to one day have lunch with Warren Buffet. In that cosmic six degrees of separation thing, if someone can help me out here, I’d be duly indebted.

Despite the fact that I have these little hairclips that I got at some five and ten in a variety of pastel colors – that I’ve not seen worn by another adult other than, recently, in a bad tabloid pic, Anna Nicole Smith, my adoration for Warren Buffet is not like that. It is true platonic love. I love that he doesn’t have a computer on his desk. I love that he reads. I love that he trusts people, importantly the people who work for him. I love his professed relationship to money (that is, he’s not emotionally tied to it.) And most recently I love that on the eve of retirement he gave away thirty-eight BILLION dollars to charitable causes. Sure there must be some tax incentive, but who the hell cares. That’s thirty eight billion. It makes me contemplate a move to Seattle to try for some sweet job giving away Gate’s money. But I like where I live and I’m not really willing to compromise on that. And while I’ve never been all too fond of Bill Gates, I do have a great deal of respect for his decision to step down from Microsoft and dedicate his time to the family foundation.

Have I mentioned I love Warren Buffet? Okay, I love my Argentinean plumber/electrician too. And my American rocker foreman. And his girlfriend’s father. And his friend the carpenter. And I adored the Portugal v. Netherlands match the other day (wasn’t that just like a school yard brawl!?!) And frankly, anyone who didn’t just fall smitten with the soul, spirit, sportsmanship of Ghana this morning in the Brazil v. Ghana match just wasn’t paying attention.

And I love the twins who are turning four next week. They pull me into their magic and forget who I am. I really love them. And of course, Secret Agent Dog. And there’s Ed too (does it mean something that he falls this low on the list, below Warren Buffet and the Ghana National team? Let’s just say this list isn’t in order of priority…for now… so we don’t have to explain things.. heh. Kidding.)

I love Cassie and LB and Mom.. and Hell’s Angels. (Okay.. I don’t actually love Hell’s Angels at all, but ten points to anyone who can name the reference.. here’s another hint: He’s got golden chains on his leather jacket and on the back are written the names…)

I have a question for my gentle readers… what, if anything, have you risked for love?

Romance Is Dead

Live to the point of tears. - Albert Camus

I’ve kept an 8x11, brown, hand addressed envelope to my old neighbor, in San Francisco, from a certain Lee Baker since the year 2000. My neighbor was lovers with a Lee Baker and they’d ended their relationship badly earlier on. This neighbor had long since moved away. I’d vaguely remembered the affair. The brown envelope was mistakenly delivered to me. In hopes of tracking down the neighbor, I’ve held onto the letter going on six years now – unopened – until today.

Somehow I thought it might be strangely romantic – that perhaps one day I’d figure out a way to deliver the letter and something old and painful might be resolved and forgiven – until today. A few times each year I look through the phone book, contact one or another mutual friend, try old email addresses and wait hopeful for a reply – until today.

Today I needed an 8 by 11 envelope to mail a few magazines to Ed’s brother – magazines I’d said I’d send on several months back but for lack of an envelope they’ve sat on the floor in my study. I spied the letter from Lee Baker and set forth on another journey to find this long lost friend of mine. The journey ended today. I didn’t find him, but I needed the envelope. I carefully, ever so carefully lifted the corners and the old glue relented with a suspicious ease. It’s like letting go and opening up is easier once time passes. I slowly slid the letter out of the envelope – a typed cover letter accompanied the twelve stapled pages.

Whether or not this Lee Baker was the Lee Baker is somewhat dubious. This Lee Baker explains that he retrieved my friends street address by doing an internet search for Jewish-sounding (??) names. It was a ramblings of a total lunatic – some bipolar Jesus freak of sorts – a magnificent essay which culminates in a reprint of a newspaper clipping of a successful in-vitro fertilization, showing that man has finally emulated the virgin birth first pioneered by God. How it only took a mere 2000 years to catch up. We’ll all be happy to note with the advent of fertility clinics and advances in science to help couples having trouble conceiving, we’ve obfuscated the need for God and religion. We’ve finally replaced God with science. (It’s about time, eh?)

Never again will I sit wondering at the 8 by 11 brown, hand-addressed envelope. I liked it better how it was in my mind. Pandora’s box and all that rot. I’ve loosed evil on the world by opening that one and let slip all the romantic mystery of the unknown. It’s very sad now that the deed is done.

((My toes are metallic copper.))

That Girl

I had an amazing experience yesterday. I went to see the lovely and amazing Tati for a two fucking hour massage. Yes two.. I said two. Seeing her is always magical and amazing. Two hours of seeing her was no different – just more. More on that later.

So Cassie came by weekend before last, or maybe even weekend before that. We talked out possible strategies and supplements that might help my poor, aching feet and chatted, etc. Some things resonate, other things don’t. I like her approach. She puts forward a menu of ideas and encourages me to move toward those that resonate for me. I mull things over for longer than the average bird. My ways are so odd. I don’t discuss my processes often because they work even if they don’t make sense to the average onlooker.

For months (years?) she brings up the whole yoga thing. My neighbor has asked me to go with her for months (years?) So I approach said neighbor last weekend and she’s taking me along with her this Saturday morning. She was so excited – it was sweet. I’m really looking forward to it. Now I have to buy a yoga matt.

Anyways, back to Tati. I realize that one of the things I really get from Tati, besides a kick ass massage and wonderful intentional healing – is time. Time to think, reflect, not think, meditate, let myself go, stop myself. It’s really valuable time that I don’t give myself enough.

I had a reminiscence of traveling through the Italian Alps with a man on a train. It was cold. We were holding hands. It was dark. We were whispering. But I kept thinking that I’d never been to Europe with a man, never traveled there with someone I was so cozy and intimate with. Or have I? I kept finding these memories. I was with someone, getting off a train in Rome when a swarm of children surrounded us, begging, trying to pilfer our pockets for whatever they could. I grabbed the hand of a young boy from my pocket – I looked at his eyes, defiant and rebellious. I’ll never forget those eyes. He was missing teeth. His fingernails were painted blue. I was with this same man. Where was this coming from. And suddenly I remembered.

He flew from San Francisco and joined me in London. I think we were in Paris on Christmas and it was snowing. It was all beautiful and I remember feeling very, very tired. There was a time this boy thought I was something. He was a sculptor and a playwright. Conversation was indeed scintillating. I’m not sure what happened. After several years – four maybe – we said goodbye as easily as saying, pass the salt. And that was that. How was it that I had forgotten all this? Misplaced these nocturnal train rides, Paris, even? But I remember New York with this boy, almost like it was yesterday.

This comes back ‘round. One thing he mentioned is that he held in a certain awe that I would do what I say. I would make a plan and I would do it. It would feel big, a pipedream, out of reach – but I would mention it and then I would make it happen. This mystified him. The thing is, I wouldn’t bother mentioning the really out of reach, the real pipedreams, the things I feel are too big. If I’m taking about it, surely it’s eventually going to happen – when I’m ready. He’d see me drawing out an idea on a sketch pad in a train and talking to him about an idea. I’d stuff the scrap of paper in a bag. A few days later I’d have it etched out on canvass and be filling it in with acrylics – asking him how he thought I could get an affect I was striving for. He didn’t know how to make his ideas happen. I don’t know how to not let mine have life.

So as Tati is working her magic, I come to see these moments. They surface – scribbling in a sketch pad and then the canvass laying on the floor of the apartment in the Western Addition. And it seems strangely attached to telling my walking companion that we should rise early and go to such and such a place to try to take photographs of birds. And it seems related to telling Cassie, over coffee one day, that I’m exploring the possibility of buying a house. And it seems related to bad art nights and water color painting. And suddenly this is related to decreasing my hours to four days. And I know I need to work four days a week and I realize I’m afraid like I’ve never been afraid before. I’m afraid and I’ve been letting the fear stop me instead of trusting – just trusting – and doing – just making it happen.

So I went to The City today with this feeling left lingering and I sat down with the new Administrative Director and explained how I was going to work four days a week. He asks me when. June first, I say. We’ll work out the details, but let’s start there. And then I unravel a tail that needs telling – one best saved for telling here at another time. But this is another beginning. And I’m left with the feeling that there’s a scrap of paper in a satchel somewhere that needs transposing on a fresh canvass with all different shades of green.

I wonder what became of that boy. But not so much, I suppose, as I wonder what became of that girl.

Watch This Space

It’s nearly noon and I should be hard at work. Instead I’m drinking coffee and blogging (well, not just blogging… thinking and blogging.) I’ve finished one of those deadlines that has been hanging over my head and it’s released me to some degree such that from now until the end of the year my days should be focused on contemplating each day and creating the foundation of a job that I’ll do for a few years and love. A job that will make a difference and I’ll look forward to each morning. It’s hard to explain the journey to here and why it is the way it is.

I read a good article about Warren Buffett on the front page of the Wall Street Journal weekend edition. I’m tempted to get in touch with him, ask him perhaps if we could chat for an hour or so over coffee. What would Warren Buffett and I have to talk about? He doesn’t have a computer on his desk. He spends most of his time thinking – he doesn’t ruminate for hours over decisions, he takes a very liaises faire approach to management, his phone doesn’t ring constantly. It just seems like I might have a good deal to learn from this guy despite how disparate our vocational callings might be. What he does that I like is he reads - I assume voraciously – but I’d love to just witness it and ask questions and seek a little inspiration. Not a phone call. I just want to sit down and have coffee in his office and chat.

I’ve been thinking about children lately. I’d like to have more children in my life so I’m trying to convince my friends to start having babies. ((Lawyer Babe says to me, maybe you should have a baby. But the thing is I enjoy sleep, career options, a degree of financial freedom, personal freedom, choices…)) I think I would feel imprisoned by a child – at least for the first several years. These would be bad years of my life to feel imprisoned. Maybe if I could figure a few things out – find a good path in my career, then maybe.. but I’m not certain and it seems if I’m not certain it’s a pretty big commitment to walk half-ass into. Yes, I know… if I went there I’d be blinded and persuaded by love. I don’t even want to go there.

There have been times in my life where accidents could have happened – the anonymous Peruvian soccer player with the lickable hips, or even that first dysfunctional boy I loved. Isn’t it interesting that I really only see myself as a single mother? I just so fundamentally understand that that would be mine, regardless the context. It’s not a question. But see, I want Cassie to have a baby – she’d be such an amazing mom – and we could have such fun showing that baby the world.

(I call her Cassie, by the way, because of a teenage coming-of-age novel I read when I was twelve or so. It was called Me, Cassie and the character Cassie lost her virginity to a foreign exchange student from like Zaire or something… And my Cassie is so NOT like that Cassie that it’s funny to call her that.)

Anyways… why am I waxing this way? Perhaps because I’m evaluating life and choices (not in a maudlin or regretful way, but a good way… questioning whether or not these feet are touching the planet rightly, walking in the right direction, seeking boldly inward and outward with integrity and honesty.)

We learn from one another if we open our eyes to the lessons we need. The people I learn from aren’t even aware of the lessons they remind me of.

There is one young woman who reminds me that we make drama and trouble when we fail to take responsibility for finding and realizing our destiny. Yes, I believe in destiny – but I don’t believe everyone finds theirs – probably most people don’t. Some people run from it like wildfire, going to clubs, on vacation, creating drama with friends, lovers, family – as though emotional rollercoasters constitute doing something. Humans create drama with their loved ones by picking fights, betraying one another, lamenting irretrievable moments from the past, when they need to escape from the boredom that they wrap themselves in as an excuse not to look into those deep dark truthful mirrors, to not do the hard stuff of living - of following and realizing dreams, destinies, purposes.

I’ve been guilty a bit of this lately too. It was a lesson I learned many, many years ago while laying in a meadow in Heidelberg, Germany. I was so sick - feverish, distraught – my head spinning, my body ached. I prayed for death. I didn’t know anyone. I was alone in a strange land and I felt miserable – I was done with living. After several hours, death did not come. I only got up and moved because I was bored and suddenly some bit of wisdom sharpened into focus. Moving about just because we’re bored of waiting for death does not constitute living. Distracting ourselves from the boredom doesn’t constitute living either. There was this flash of a moment when I understood the difference between actions and reactions that were about distracting myself from the boredom and actions and reactions that were truly about living. Words fail me.. there is a difference between these types of actions. It’s qualitatively different - it leads to entirely different places.

I’m guilty of reverting to living in the boredom again – to some degree. Partly this is because I’ve needed to rest, or I’ve convinced myself that I’ve needed a rest. Living is hard work – despite how fulfilling it is. But here I am, resting on my figurative hillside – and out of boredom, once again, I am inspired to move on. When boredom is the underlying inspiration – well, no good can come of this. It’s time to take responsibility, recognize the boredom and, frankly, start living again.

I feel like I’m always writing here about how it’s time for a change, or I’m changing, or things are about to change – blah, blah, blah. This isn’t about change. It’s just about living – and I know how to do that. Watch this space…

Oh Look, A Clown!

Can you frill’n believe that someone visited my journal as a result of an MSN search engine inquiry on Ioganson!? This restores my faith that there are indeed Russian art connoisseurs out there and perhaps, indeed, the people will one day prevail.

Given the changes in my job status, I’ve been catapulted (in a good way) into a place of introspection. I realize I’m kinder than the world has allowed me to be these past several years. I realize I’m more intelligent, thoughtful, thorough and engaged then I’ve been allowed to be. I realize I’ve been increasingly pushed into a box that is so the wrong size, doesn’t fit, isn’t even the right shape. I realize I have had some (a good deal of?) culpability in walking into that box and slowly adjusting overtime until I’m wholly uncomfortable. Isn’t that the way it invariably is in situations like this? At the end of the day there’s a funhouse mirror of our own making.

Thief!

Speaking of driving… Did someone mention driving? Well, I just got home from another trek to Elliot – a brilliant morning sojourn to the waterfall. I stole a rock from the riverbed to replace the one Ed stubbed his toe on last night and catapulted into the neighbor’s yard. He was kind of being a dickhead. Sometimes he just doesn’t get it. The riverbed is not filing charges for the theft – the neighbor’s may, however.

I rode the mountain bike up the back side, from Phoenix Lake to Five Corners last night. It’s the first time I’ve made that hill without dismounting and pushing for the last leg or two or three. If I do it a few more times, I’m going to try going up the steep way – though it’s a brutal cruel climb.

Today, the Deep End!

I have news AS exciting, as big as 2003 UB313! Hey, is that 2003 UB313 in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Okay, okay. I DID IT!!! I DID IT!! I DID IT!! I DID IT! I drove to Bolinas yesterday with the Honey Bee. ME. I DID IT. From here to eternity. I DROVE to Bolinas. I drove to Bolinas!!!

For the average onlooker this is no feat. Anyone who understands my paralyzing fear of driving will recognize the magnitude of this endeavor and sit in awe and wonder (and a bit of relief that you either weren’t on the road yesterday or weren’t aware of the monster threat on the road that was me. What you don’t know can indeed hurt you total your Mercedes McLaren.)

Me. I did it. Me!

Tick Tock

To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it – this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed.” - Sir Walter Scott

I found a big monster tick - swollen, engorged on a feast of blood – dead on the living room floor this morning. It had to be attached to one of us. I’m certain it didn’t just wander in like that and die.

It’s important that I remind myself, more than once it seems, that living life differently isn’t pinned to decisions about work. Decisions like this just don’t wander in like that – they’re rather attached and sucking the life out of you before they fall off and happen. They’re greedy.

The Saddest Proof

To be interested in the changing season is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. - George Santayana

Just yesterday (or was it the day before?) I was saying how much I love this time of year – mistaking it for springtime. I pointed at the first wildflowers – little purple buttons of color - as proof. It was barely the winter solstice and there I was prattling on about spring. Some cultures don’t have a way to express a journey away from home. You are always either home or returning home. Your first step on a long journey is your first step toward home. This is how I feel about springtime. We’re either there or returning. I suppose this makes me hopelessly in love. Ah, Springtime - in my world the earth circles the sun for Her.

Sometimes I imagine him rifling though my things, looking for some evidence of my infidelities and instead coming across mysterious things that he simply cannot understand – scrawlings that intimate something he feels just not right about – but ultimately he can’t decipher as proof of well, frankly, anything. One day his heart will break (like mine), “I gave her everything and all she wanted was the Springtime.”

I’m no writer, no poet, no artist, no seamstress – all these creative things I wish I sometimes were – I am not. Perhaps the most glaring evidence that I am not these things is the very fact that I wish to be them. Wanting to be something is the saddest proof that that thing is something you certainly and definitely are not. When we are something, we rarely wish to be it, we simply are it.

The three of us, Ed, Secret Agent Dog and I, snuggled on the day bed and brought in the New Year together. I made us all focus on how much we loved each other as the seconds counted down on the old year and unfolded on the new. We closed and opened the year loving one another intensely. Ed and I toasted with chambord spiked champagne and spoke on our hopes for ought five. Among a laundry list of rather practical things, I said I wanted to figure out, this year, what I want to be.

I know who I have been. In that regard I have a leg up on most people. I also know who I am. It’s who I want to be that’s been somewhat of an allusive beast. I think half the time I’m hiding in front of myself – being exactly who it is I want to be. If that’s true, then half the work’s done. I guess the trick is figuring out which half, eh?

I mean, we already all know that I’m leaving Ed for the Spring.

Turning 40

Oh bother. I’m remiss in my lament of turning forty. Now, suddenly, I feel rushed – like there’s just not the time to honor and regret this momentous occasion. There’s not time to write the tome that chronicles four decades of kisses, the touch that never saved me, the stories unwritten, songs unsung and futures unexplored. Now, suddenly, I feel rushed.

It seems no matter how much time I set aside, no matter how much preparation on my spiritual mountains, I’m not prepared for what comes and what goes. I just need time to think. Time to sort all this out. I’m sure the answer is in here somewhere if I just had time to reflect on this all. And I’m certain, perhaps tomorrow, there will be time and there will be time. Now, suddenly, I feel rushed.

I will perhaps regret not finding the time to lament this day fully but it feels there’s so little time left and it seems such a silly waste to spend it on such futile labours.

Ante Up

I’ll be turning forty soon. Sigh. It’s been leaving me introspective. As silly as it may seem it’s also been inspiring me to go through my armoire. “Forty year old women don’t wear shorts that look like this,” I’ll say to myself as I toss another this or that in a Goodwill bag. I’ve decided that forty year old women don’t wear unmatched socks, socks that are stretched out, underwear with threadbare elastic waste bands and shorts with unpatched holes. As I near the closet I’m certain I’ll discover other things that forty year old women don’t wear. I hope this will lead to an examination of what forty year old women do and don’t do, what inspires their happiness and sense of adventure. I hope turning forty isn’t merely marked by a purging clothes.

Perfect Stranger

The phrase perfect stranger keeps crossing through my mind. In my head it’s said by Holly Golightly. And it got me wondering what exactly a perfect stranger is. As I was taking the laundry off the line, I thought a perfect stranger would pay off my mortgage… that would be terrifically perfect. A perfect stranger would be honest, kind, gracious, pay random compliments, and, of course, my mortgage. In essence, a perfect stranger would be an extremely generous friend – generous in heart, spirit and, well, capital. No wonder Holly Golightly was saying it. I’m in the market for a perfect stranger.