The Illusion of Perfection, part 1
I knew a couple once, in what was like another lifetime, that seemed like this absolutely RomCom reality. They were like perpetual honeymooners. It wasn’t just that they never fought, it was that they clearly, outwardly (and in every way) adored each other all the time. All.The.Time. It was as if they had somehow managed to capture that first week/month/(or so) thrill of infatuation and live within it.
It reminded me of a Disney movie.
Umm. She was asleep. Yeah, I know…
I spent quite a bit of time with this couple, and I will not say when or in what capacity because in this case confidentiality is really important, but the more important thing is to know how much I idealized these two. He was older and she was his second (younger) wife. And they fawned over each other, and they were ever considerate, he in the way the foppish guy in the RomCom always is, eliciting groans from the male audience, and ‘awwwww,’ from the girls. Even tough girls do it so don’t front. She was sometimes silly in that reborn nerd girl kind of way, and he always played the straight man, ever patient, never getting ruffled. They seemed to be a Perfect Couple.
The person I was with when I first met them had no time for them. He was not impressed at all. My next partner during this time – not always the sharpest tool in the shed – always said he thought something was off. [Sometimes those well-used tools shine bright.] My mom said the same thing of them, not that it was an act exactly , but that it certainly seemed to exact effort. Eventually, I knew their secrets. All of them. Well, all of hers, and the ones he had shared with her. I imagine with the number of secrets she had that he would never know, he must have had some doozies that she did not know. They were the kind of secrets that, even in a soap opera, would elicit incredulity. It was clichéd dirty laundry of the worst sort. And even when she told all my secrets, I never told hers because I knew that he would leave her if he found them out. Absolutely. As far as I know they are still together, but she must go to bed every night knowing the secrets she cannot tell. I think now that this is what contributes to her manic adoration. But I don’t really know. Anyhow, that was the Perfect Couple I knew.
I found myself thinking of this perfect couple not too long ago. The Neo-Honeymooners. I was living in that heady, intense, early onset adoration that develops – if you are lucky – in the initial stages of a relationship. While I was giddily (is that a word?) soaking it all up, I was amazed that it appeared I had stumbled upon that magic elixir of perpetual infatuation. This would never end! Huzzah! I win!
I forgot for a minute that every magic elixir I know of knocks you out and leaves you with a whopping hangover at best, or maybe just puts you into some comatose state of delusion [see exhibit Sleeping Beauty, above.]
And so when the moment came when I had to see this person as a real human and not some Disney character, I had to pause. Had I failed? Was I doomed to a perpetual cycle of up and down romance always culminating in some sort of dramatic downward spiral? Those were my first thoughts. Definitely. But then, I sat with myself and looked at those ideas more closely. It dawned on me that as reality emerged through the foggy illusion of [let's face it, one-dimensional] perfection, it was probably happening for him too in regard to me. And he did not seem all that troubled by it. When I fretted about my own reality poking through the rainbow haze, he didn’t do anything, he just stayed right there.
And that is something.
This whole living in reality thing seems very adult. And there are parts of it that also seem really uninspired. But, I do not go to bed harboring secrets. And I know that he is not bothered by the fact that I did not put away the clean laundry, or that everyday is not like a RomCom holiday. We are humans and [mostly] doing the best we can for each other all the time. I guess that means we really like each other. A lot.
Then I though about another “Perfect Couple” I know. And another. And another. What has made them all perfect is how they embrace the imperfections. [Or, at least manage them and deal with them...] I know this is not always easy. Or fun. But that is the magic of the real Honeymooners: One of these days, POW! Right in the kisser…!
The Kramden’s knew what a real honeymoon was.
I have – I’ve got an explanation. A perfect one. I’m a dope. Not a run-of-the-mill dope, the world’s champ. For years I’ve been taking for granted the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me – you. I’ve never shown you the appreciation you deserve, Alice. You could walk outta that door right now and I wouldn’t blame you. You deserve something better than me. There are a million guys who’d give you anything if they could have a girl like you.
Ralph, I don’t want a million. There’s just one guy I want: you.
Baby, you’re the greatest.
Words for a moment when there simply are none.
For there is nothing heavier than compassion.
Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone,
a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes. ~ Milan Kundera
There are some things that are so horrible and awful and terrible, that they don’t ever seem real. Until they are real. And even now when they are real, I find myself continuously being drawn back to a place of suspended animation and disbelief. That this reality cannot actually be real. But it is real. And it is horrible and awful and there are simply no words in any language that can impart the kind of raw, visceral sadness I am speaking of.
I woke up today for the third time since a permanent shift occurred in the reality I inhabit. And the cats wanted food, and the sun came up, and the people went to work, me among them. As I sat on the train, knowing I would soon be riding the same train back to the City with 50 tenth graders, I read the news. I wanted to read about news really far away from me. From places where terrible, awful things happen all the time and so they don’t seem like such incomprehensible aberrations. And the first thing I read was about how this month is National Stalking Awareness Day. I am fairly certain in this context the focus is on internet stalking, but the connection between cyber-stalking and real stalking is too real for me. Especially now.
There are a litany of self-aggrandizing idiots on the internet who consider themselves “internet-famous” (a euphemism for being NOT famous…) and as such are constantly blubbering on and on about how they are “stalked.” These people post photos of their boobs all over the interwebs, try desperately hard to be titillating… and then cry, “Oh my! That person thinks I want to talk sexy with them!” Or, “God, that person is so obsessed with me!” In light of what it really means to be stalked, and what is on my mind today, these sad little people only add insult to the injury I am feeling right now. The things that lead a person to stalk another are probably impossible to be understood by any other, but when the outcome leads to tragedy, it points to a whole host of problems that have far-reaching effects. And when the tragedy touches you in a deeply personal way, you find yourself trying to make sense of things that make no sense and becoming enraged about pitiful people you don’t know or care about on the internet while you ride the train to work because to think about the pain that is really weighing on your heart and soul is so awful you cannot even breathe when it enters your mind.
I need to breathe.
We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others… Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”
~Pema Chödrön
Looking for explanations for the inexplicable is probably a road straight to insanity, but it is something I keep coming back to. It also leads to assigning false causality to minutia, and to conjecture, and to blame. I wanted to place this overwhelming grief onto someone else for the simple relief that anger might offer. For a moment I felt better.
But the relief was short-lived.
The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive. ~John Greene
The events that transpired in my hometown on Sunday afternoon, to people who I have known and loved for so many years, have left me and this small town adrift. That a family who I hold so dear in my heart and who have had a tremendous influence on my life are going through something so horrible is unconscionable. It is unfair. It is enough to engender feelings of anger that I was unprepared to deal with. But the worse I was feeling, and the more wound up in anger I became, I realized I was only adding to the horror of this situation. And compassion and forgiveness might be the only way I can regain some sort of balance in my mind. I do not have to forgive an individual who I have always struggled with for being who they were, but perhaps as the only way to quell the negativity within my mind, I would have to forgive them for this final act, if only as a small act of compassion towards such an injured person. This forgiveness actually felt quite selfish. I was doing it only for myself and simultaneously felt wracked with guilt for attempting to forgive.
But I kept thinking about it. In forgiving one person, I was not minimizing the other. Nor was I excusing the behavior of that individual, in recent times or further back. What I was trying to do was realign my energy to focus on the people for whom I am intensely grieving. And then, strangely, I started to feel a bit better.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato
As I look back on the life of my friend who has been taken away, the interconnectedness of all of us becomes so painfully clear, and not just because we come from a small town, but because the lives we live have far-reaching effects in wonderfully positive ways, as well as some that are terribly tragic. To try to understand why things happen after the fact is futile. There is no way to truly understand what you watch from any sort of distance, really you would be lucky to have a clear understanding of things you directly experience.
There are no words I can offer right now to a family I wish nothing more for than relief and peace. A family that has always welcomed me, and remembered me, and supported me no matter what. And to the friends I have on all sides of this tragedy, I feel equally helpless. Perhaps for these reasons I find myself here, writing in vagaries and tangents. Though it is little compensation I am sure, I turn now to another great mind:
To know even one life as breathed easier because you have lived… this is to have succeeded. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please give if you can: Conover & Sullivan Childeren
*photo: Curtis Stankalis
Family: The unfamiliar is so familiar.
my daddy was a bankrobber
but he never hurt nobody
he just loved to live that way
and he loved to steal your money
Everyone has their own narrative about their family. The story a person tells about their family really tells you very little about their family, but it opens the book on them. The idiosyncrasies one chooses to emphasize, to hide. The funny tales everyone can relate to that thinly veil the truths no one wants to admit they all understand.
Family is fraught.
Family is familiar.
Family is beautiful in dysfunction.
Family is tragically supportive.
Family is dynamic – though we tell the tales in stasis.
There is safety in a familiar narrative but it belies reality. And reality simply waits for you to show up so it can remind you of all that exists beyond your story. My narrative has always had a penchant for the dramatic, some might even say melodrama. My narrative has always had a tendency to over-emphasize the fragility of others and forget that the people from which I come are strong, in every way, even weakness. My narrative has created an anxiety that has no place in my reality. My reality has always been underscored by a complicated but beautiful fabric of love.
When you jump into your narrative you remember things like this.
Yesterday, I jumped.
It is never as hard as I think it will be.
<3 and sushi.
And very merry Christmas.
Back to the Future – or something.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I spent the night in a room I had not slept in since 1989, and not regularly inhabited since 1986. When I got up and walked out through the living room to the kitchen, my parents were sitting there chatting quietly. There was even a calico cat on one of the chairs. I was waiting for a phone call to formulate a plan to go meet a friend and did not feel especially garrulous, or even loquacious.
I looked around.
Maybe this was 1986.
No, the grey hair and improved vocabulary were both clear indicators that I was not re-inhabiting my teenage self – but little else seemed awry in this intensely personal Back to the Future moment. Somehow, I had gone home again.
It was a trip.
It is a pretty great house, in a pretty great neighborhood, in a town I swore I’d never go back to again. But, truth be told, most people agree it is a pretty great town. In fact, most of the folks that left, not wanting to be those people who never left Petaluma - you know – those people, are shaking their fists in the face of the Great Unfairness as it has now become pretty hard to get back. With kids, a sluggish economy and a no low growth community, the town holds quite a bit of appeal. Even when I go back now, I look at through a [mostly] different lens.
And through this rather altered state I headed out of the house (on foot) to go visit some friends I have known longer than my conscious memory serves. I was amazed at how quick the walk was – I swear it used to be longer; I am sure I would have never insisted my mom drive me such a short distance all those years. Would I have?
I went back again last night. It is a bit more settled-in, in terms of looking like a house my family would occupy, rather than a place they might just be passing through.
It was still a total trip.
I woke up and walked down to the corner where one of my regular mini-markets used to be which now sells gourmet wine, chocolate, cappuccino, and meats. Luckily they also still sell milk, because I definitely needed to tip Clo through my two lips with my morning coffee. Back at the house it was kind of a standard Sonoma County winter morning: cold, clear… retro.
I was in full retro-mode myself.
After years of being no closer than two hours (by air) from my family, it has taken no less than a month to revert right back to the old ways. Suddenly when I find myself with my parents after a 40-minute drive the urgency of milking every minute that I didn’t want to miss when I was staring down the belly of a 14-hour flight disappears. Though the old rotary dial phone has been replaced by the iPhone, I still catch myself tuning out of the parental orbit and trying to catch up with what Everyone else is doing. [I spent years in Petaluma keeping up with Everyone, it was an endless job, that Everyone is a busy dude.] But somehow, there is a kind of visceral comfort that I get just from being there – I guess it is the same comfort that I always got as a teenager who had the privilege of attentive parents I could ignore. Sometimes it takes 25 years to recognize that kind of privilege.
I decided I would head downtown to do a little Christmas shopping, or something. It seemed like the right thing to do. As I walked out of the house my mom said I looked like I was meant for somewhere bigger than Petaluma.
It is what I had always thought about Petaluma, too.
It was just one more irony making me feel right at home on this morning of Christmas Eve Eve. I walked down the street and felt completely at home at out of place simultaneously, and really, if I haven’t already defined what coming of age in Petaluma was like for me – this was it.
And so, what to do… I suddenly was facing a bit of pressure to be home at a certain time [awkward] and so my options were limited. I called MPFW. She was at our old 7-11. It seemed beyond coincidental. She picked me up, like it was 1986. We had a couple of things to do – different only in detail from the things we would have had to do in exchange for being out with the car 25 years ago. Then what? Coffee? Yeah, okay, that sounded good.
Or we could have a cocktail…
Yeah, we could, couldn’t we?
Yes. Yes, we could.
So, we did.
Just like we did back in 198- err…. nevermind.
Heading back to my house without even needing to ask where we were going, MPFW took out some gum.
Oh, yeah. Gum. Better get some of that before we get home… you know, because the grown-ups are there. Just like 1986.
And who doesn’t love a little anachronism for the holidays?
It is Petaluma. Do you know what year you’re in?
Rule #1: Be sure you are not placed on the end of any group photo.
My parents recently moved back to the area. Apparently the true 1%ers they have spent a lifetime trying not to be, they are now going to be snowbirds, (of a sort, still choosing rather atypical resting points.) As this move was getting closer everyone was asking me about it: Was I excited? Did I want to be closer to them? Was it going to be ‘too close’? I never really thought much about my answers. Of course I was glad, I have not lived within a reasonable driving distance of my parents since 1988 – at which point we were still living together. And after more than five years of a minimum of 18 hours of travel time to see them, I have been looking forward to easier parental access. Haven’t I?
Plus, if you know my parents, they are kind of The Shit.
Anyhow, along come the holidays… always an ass-kicking time at work and the days don’t just seem shorter because of the dark, I am convinced they really are shorter. Add to that, the family equation and life just gets busy. But it’s cool you know.
It makes for good material.
Unfortunately mom has taken to proclaiming that I am not allowed to write about certain things. Like my family. I can’t always tell which family things will get the kibosh and which will be okay, it seems kind of random. Okay, that is not entirely true, but I have to say I was getting seriously censored for a while. But, the way I am looking at it, their locality puts them back on the front page. I was willing to let slide many an opportune tale while they were up North, but now their mountain hiatus has come to an end.
So.
I will make little mention of the navigational skill of the Ways-ie App, or my step-dad’s triple-protected new-new iPhone. I’m going to jump right into my Bridget Jones montage. [The Back to Future remake will be for a later installment.]
That pretty much sums it up. For the second time in two weeks, I was completely mal-attired and borrowing clothes in order to not be simply ridiculous – though as my aunt says, at least I did not show up in a bunny costume.
But barely. Visualize, if you will, my arrival: Jeans (7 for All Mankind, but still: JEANS) and motorcycle boots. And a cute black t-shirt. And I walk in and see my grandma all dressed up. For high tea in honor of her birthday with all of the ladies.
There were petit fours on the table for goodness sake.
I thought it was weird that my uncle wondered why I wasnt carrying anything with me when he picked me up at the train station. And my aunt asked me if I needed to hang anything up. I definitely did not get the memo. Suffice it to say that one more day would be spent in a state of awkward dress. [The irony that I spent years cultivating awkward style for family events is not lost on me. A particular outfit of blue and black plaid pants, blue suede boots, a fuchsia over-sized button down shirt over long-sleeved thermals and a fedora comes to mind.]
Back to now, the afternoon moved along into the evening… everyone else was dressed totally appropriately, not that I want to harp on this, or anything, but any thoughts that my Bridget moments were finished would be incorrect.
“So, do you have a love in your life?” I was asked.
“Umm, no, not at the moment.”
“Oh, the last time we saw each other I think you were with someone.”
“Yes, yes I was.” I say. [I want to say, 'Yes, #3. He was the one who went to jail and led to Rule #1. What is Rule #1? See that picture over there? You see how it looks like I have a hand growing out of my abdomen? Yes, that is the effect of Rule #1: never find yourself on the end of any group photo. Excising (or exorcising) of anyone is made far too easy if you are on the end. That is what happened to #3. And you should see us jockey for position in the group photos these days.']
I don’t say that.
“That can’t be the granddaughter?”
“Oh, no, this is A, not K…”
“Ahh, I see I knew it hadn’t been that long!”
In discussing my work with a really amazing couple they tell me they are in a Current Events Group, and that it is really fun “because everyone is a [whispers] Democrat.” I smile and explain that if it were not that way, “group” might not be the correct noun. “We probably shouldn’t talk about politics,” she whispers, shh-ing me.
Sitting down to eat, my step-dad and I get to talking. Somehow my (lack of a) love life comes up again. I am not bothered by this conversation, I know the discussion comes from a place of concern… or maybe that is the wrong word, but I am sure my parents just want for me what they’ve got. And truth be told, what they’ve got is awesome. But, still… I don’t really know why I why I don’t meet many people and etcetera and etcetera. [Not totally true: I don't meet people because I work all the time and because most people my age [who are not categorically dysfunctional or insane] are happily married to rad people, or gay.]
By the end of the evening, my clothes faux pas (and my neglect in remembering to bring my camera), my obvious singleness, and my concern over mom being angsty about all of the above had faded. Partaking in a marathon goodbye (the length of the goodbye seems directly proportional to proximity) none of it seemed to matter. I was getting a ride home from my parents and the weekend was still young. I made a call to see about going out.
Maybe some things really are meant to stay the same.
Just be sure to get to the middle when the group photos commence.
I Love L.A., Part Five: “We love it we love it we love it!”
Century Boulevard – We love it!
Victory Boulevard – We love it!
Santa Monica Boulevard – We love it!
Sixth Street – We love it, we love it, we love it!!
We love L.A!
I get up early now. I do not know how or when this change occurred, and I don’t mind that much, except for the part about how I still stay up really late. Anyhow, up early on this occasion was okay. I was getting a ride back to Hollywood in time for brunch. My aunt was totally cool to make the drive, especially since Carmageddon had been such a bunch of baloney, and Malibu takes a few hours to be beach ready anyhow. The Malibu surprise had been epic on many levels, and my work there was done. And I was going to be eating some brunch with a side of magic, apparently.
When A first told me they were staying at The Magic Castle, I was nonplussed (and I mean this in the vein of the actual meaning of the word, not that I was unfazed, which apparently many people believe that word means.) Why not The Roosevelt? A explained that with the entire A-Team in tow, The Roosevelt wouldn’t be ideal. Fair enough. And, why I am at all surprised that anything A plans is not entirely thought out just shows my forgetful nature (this is the girl who shows up at music festivals with coded spreadsheets of the bands. For real.) The hotel was great. And by great I mean, generous, friendly, and insanely tolerant. I give them an excellent rating for customer service, location, and chillness. On Saturday morning, I was greeted by Dr. I (aka Mr. A) bearing a Bloody Mary. Nice start. Showers and outfits done and we were ready to get things going.
Come on, you know you want to go.
I Love L.A., Part Four: “Look at these women!”
Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He’s down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain’t nothin’ like em nowhere
I met my aunt at the Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. Let me just tell you, if you are in the greater LA area and you need a cake – of any kind – go here. Epic. The staff, the cakes and the whole vibe is just perfect. I sat and had a coffee while getting (slightly illegal) text updates from my aunt about how there was absolutely no traffic on the 405. #Winning. When she got there our excitement levels started to rise because my aunt generally increases the excitement level whenever and where ever she might be, and the bakery peeps were getting excited too, (I had told them what we were up to. That earned me a free cupcake. #Winning) The cake weighed a ton, but we managed to heft a couple of bottles of champagne along with it…
Where were we headed you ask? Well, let me tell you.
I Love L.A., Part Three: “Let’s leave Chicago to the Eskimos”
Hate New York City
It’s cold and it’s damp
And all the people dressed like monkeys
Let’s leave Chicago to the Eskimos
That town’s a little bit too rugged
For you and me, babe
The third installment of the LA-Carmageddon Tour de Force is actually more like the third, fourth, sixth and seventh. But that is how things are with A and her family. Full on, and trust me, Carmageddon wouldn’t have anything on these guys.
One time Dr. I (aka Mr. A) told me that he always has the most fun anywhere, no matter who is there and what is going on: He always has the most fun (though he takes the most joy in proclaiming it). I would have to agree. Further, I’d suggest that this is somewhat of a family motto. I am glad to be an honorary member of this family. But, as with all things of mad velocity, force and intensity, there are always a few miscues and timing is always… flexible, especially when they stipulate that it is not. On this sluggishly sunny day, this flexibility simply contributed to the amazing synchronicity of timing that had graced the previous day.
I woke up in Santa Monica in the company of one more of the growing army of amazing women that I am amassing. This person is someone I have known in that strangely familiar way that is engendered by the internet. We met as members of an online writing cohort that I have tried repeatedly to recall how I fell into. I have no idea how I got involved but it certainly was a watershed moment in my life, peripatetic even. Anyhow, meeting Ruth was like walking into my own Technicolor idea of exactly how it should be. It would be hard to explain this kind of connection to people who haven’t had something similar occur… so I won’t. We spent the morning catching up, which is hilarious to do the first time you ever meet someone. And it was lovely.
I had some time to kill enjoy before meeting up with the A-Team, so I parked myself in the sunshine in Century City and had a mojito. Or two.
And then it was off to Hollywood. To The Magic Castle to be precise. To say I was intrigued would be an understatement. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Hollywood since I was a little kid. I used to go down there and see movies at Grauman’s Chinese and shows at the Pantages… Then there was the later phase of discovering clubs and such… but this was something pretty different.
Ok, maybe not that different. Maybe pretty much exactly what you’d expect in this part of Hollywood. When the most junior member of the A-Team and I were walking back to the room from a recon mission to the restaurant above, she looked across Franklin Avenue and said:
“Hey, there’s Superman! And he has cupcakes!”
Well, if that just isn’t exactly what I would assign Superman in the Superhero world of domesticity.
Another holiday that serves to stir up some confusion, but in the end, it is about gratitude.
Father’s Day (more correctly meant to be written Fathers’ Day) lands squarely on the third Sunday in June every year. Today is that day. It should be a fairly uncomplicated concept: a reciprocal day to match Mother’s Day occurring a month or so prior, and honoring… Thy Father. But, it is not so simple. Not because I have uncertain parentage, or horrifying “Daddy Issues”, or because “it takes a village…” But more because I have been truly blessed with good parents, of the mother and father types. To specify a single day to recognize this seems like a very trite, and narrow, sentiment.
Still, for those of you who do know me, you may know why the day brings up issues for me that do not parallel the feelings I have surrounding Mother’s Day. [I have an alpha-momma, and I recognize and honor her everyday.] But I have two very different men who share responsibility for me. I hope they are okay with this… I have tried to make them both proud.
I have a dad. He reminds me of this song. I know him – really know him, and acknowledge him and appreciate him. I love him.
But I also have a step-dad. I hate that term, it is so… secondary. And my step-dad is not. He reminds me of this song. Don’t ask, somethings just are what they are. (T, I resisted using Edith Piaf, you can thank me later.) Though I put him through the paces that all (or maybe not all, but at least the strong-willed among us) six-year olds would, he stuck around. Always. In every possible way. And I know him and acknowledge him and appreciate him. I love him.
There is no way that I could have, or would have ever, in a million incarnations or efforts, become the person I am today without either of these men, though obviously through completely different contributions and means.
And so here I sit. Amidst a slew of cards that have never ever reflected any bit of what I have seen as “fatherly.” Ties? The Home/Office Depot™? Golf? Beer with the dudes? Who has these kinds of dads? Hallmark™, WTF are you even talking about?
Word to your Mother.
Word(s) to my mother:
strength, bravery, compassion, wisdom, love, support, creativity, generosity, optimism, humor
When I was a young(er) and (more) cantankerous girl, I made a proclamation: I don’t want to have kids. Frankly, I was like 13, so really, in terms of what I “wanted” I did not know shit, but I made the assertion. With vehemence and regularity. When I try to recall the inspirations behind my younger thoughts I am often met with a sort of hazy familiarity that suggests with deeper concentration I could pull myself back to that earlier consciousness, but I think that is probably pretty unlikely. Sometimes I wonder if I was just saying it to be “alternative” or if it was a response to my understanding of what a pain in the ass I might be… or if really, I sort of knew that I was honestly not compelled to breed. Make no mistake, I adore kids. I am constantly blown away by the amazing little people who my friends have created and encouraged and allowed me to be a part of in myriad ways. But try as I might, I can never muster up some sense of absence or lack or an incompleteness when I think about the fact that I do not have my own children.
Perhaps I was a smarter 13-year-old than I thought and I just used the wrong verb, saying ‘want’ when I meant ‘need’. [However, I also do not think that (everyone) has kids because they feel a need or compulsion to do so.] Regardless of my own maternal status, on Mother’s Day I am always very grateful for all the mother’s I know, especially my own.
On Mother’s Day, I remember how lucky I have been to have the mother I do, the grandmother’s I have, and the other mom’s who have been there for me over the years. I look at my friends with immeasurable admiration and love for the wonderful parents they are. I recall the lessons these women have shared with me about all the ways we can be a woman, a mother, a sister, an auntie, whether we have children or not.
Mother’s Day reminds me to grateful, but most of all it makes me very proud to be a woman and somehow a part of this sisterhood without which, we’d have nothing.
Thank you, mom.
I love you.
This is dedicated to my momma, my grandmas, my aunties and, among many others, Marcia J., Carol C., Cynthia, Jill M-K., Rennie, Anna M., Erica P., Mara, Kerry, Adele, Amy Z., Kelly C-W, Joan, Nickie A., and a new generation of moms, my students: Celia C., Danielle W., Tamie T., Liz A., Danielle A., Laura A.
In gratitude…
Last weekend a large part of my family got together to honor my grandma who passed away this past January. At what could have been a completely somber event I found myself surrounded by a family – immeidate and extended – that resonated everything that my grandmother always had.
I am so grateful for her. For everything that she brought to my life: the people, the wisdom, the love, the compassion, the smiles.
And for a sunny day in LA, the exact kind that drew her west from Detroit, we remembered her.
And we thanked her – we thank her – for everything.
Love you, grandma.
and happy birthday mom, this one is for you. xoxo
A Return to the Mothership. With Cake.
Having your CAKE and Eating it Too, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco: 15 February 2011
Some people have to pay a lot of money to big-time shrinks to get back to the womb –> return to their mothership. Some of those same people call this “regression therapy”, which seems rather counterintuitive, but a therapist I am not. Either way, for me, it doesn’t require a fancy doctor or some strange therapeutic behavior (other than beer) or a deep-seated need to regress.
I just need a ticket.
What takes me right back to my mothership is going to the Fillmore. Who knows how much time I spent there in utero (well, mom probably has a little bit of an idea) but as a result, the place is in my blood.
And I am so Grateful for that.
Still providing free apples.
Still giving out free posters.
Still the same beautiful chandeliers.
Still one of the best places to see a live show.
Still just like home.
Thanks mom, felt like you were there tonight: Going the Distance!
Do you realize??
Do you realize
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize
We’re floating in space?
I couldn’t help looking across the aisle at the two UMs. They were not traveling together, but because they were UMs they were, of course, set right next to each other. I wondered if they were going from one parent to another parent. Or maybe they were going home from their grandparents’ house. I looked at their quiet faces and the big, awkward UM tags the airlines still hang around their necks. It seemed somehow perfect that I was flying from LAX to SFO, still Unattended, though no longer a Minor, going home from my Grandma’s house for the last time.
How many times had I made this flight, back in the day on PSA, with my UM tags? There would be no way to count. Every summer practically from birth I found myself in The Valley with my grandparents. I think I started making the trip on my own when I was five or six. I continued to go throughout my college career and beyond. But this weekend I had not flown down to The Valley, I had gone to Santa Fe. And this was a different kind of visit. I did everything I could to try to get to Santa Fe to see my Grandma Joan. But I was too late. Or maybe I wasn’t. It is so hard to tell sometimes.
Do you realize
That happiness makes you cry?
The entire weekend was temporally elastic, rubbery, vague, anachronistic… much like the entire experience of Alzheimer’s in many ways. Not all bad. But sad. Sitting in the airport in Albuquerque with my Uncle Patrick and my Aunt Kay today we could not even remember what day it was. When had we arrived? When had we heard? How long had we been here? It was all so surreal.
Only January 17. Just seventeen days into the new year and so much has happened.
A Playlist for Joanie
These songs were the ones that came up, in order, while I listened to my iPod as I flew to New Mexico to say goodbye to my Grandma. Random? Eerie? Perfect.
Happy New Year!
It seems impossible to believe that 2010 has come to an end. I remember Gust Proutsos, back in my first year at Procter Hug High School in Reno, told me that I was going to be absolutely blown away at how fast the years would speed by. I was unsure if this was a comment on age, perception, or working in a profession that is so totally locked into a temporal relativity. Regardless, Mr. Proutsos knew what was up. I cannot believe that I started this year in Bali, still a Hong Kong resident, then meandered through Burma and India, then found myself Stateside again in the exact circumstances I had abstractly described as a goal in September of 2009.
It is nothing short of fascinating.
Everywhere I look I am hearing people talk about how they cannot wait for this year to end. They are so over 2010. 2010 was so bad/hard/unfair/miserable… I guess, again, I am an anomaly. Sitting at the Latin American Club last week enjoying a cold beer on a rainy night with a very cute and inappropriate compadre, I was considering things, my life and the like. He looked at me and said, “You are such a positive person. I mean, you love your job, your house, your family. You really love your life.” He kind of chuckled and I smiled.
Yes. Yes, I do.
it came upon a midnight clear…
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. ~William Blake, 1790
Christmas Eve, Sandpoint, Idaho -
Last year I said I would be home for Christmas. And here I am. Though I have my moments of missing Hong Kong, this would not be one of them. I am knee-deep in Americana up in the North Woods. For real. There is a big old moon (just past full for that impressive lunar eclipse caught so wonderfully in the Petaluma sky by my friend Gabe) and snow on the ground. It is sparkly inside and out. It is warm inside. And I am with the core of my family – the epicenter as it were: the nuclear group.
Things are as they should be.
And what of Christmas Eve? A walk down the snowy road returning to alpenglow and meeting a friend lighting ice lanterns [luminaria in the Norwegian tradition, imagine his dismay to realize his discovery a centuries old tradition, though none the less spectacular for its prior existence] at the end of the lane. These lanterns are so beautiful and fragile and temporary. This must be what makes them so spectacular.
True Stor- CENSORED!!
Anonymous, but suggestive of... what?
So, maybe there is some benefit to being anonymous in that you can really write whatever you want – consequences be damned. The downside of anonymity is that you don’t get the legit acknowledgment that you are probably after in the first place (and it seems to me that anonymous attention seekers really have no boundaries in terms of the desperate levels to which they go to for attention, so the theory that all of this is a plea for attention seems substantiated.)
The thing is I love to tell stories, about me about adventures, about whatever. I enjoy this simply for the opportunity to be a rocking raconteur. The other thing is, even if you harbor a rom-com inspired fantasy that you may write something and somehow the one person on the planet who is supposed to read it does, and then somehow you live happily ever after because s/he understood/had an epiphany/realized they had been right (or wrong)/saw the light/determined they could not live without you (or would finally live without you)/offered you a movie-book-tv deal… the reality is that the people who “read” you generally have a personal reason to do so; they found you through a friend or friend of a friend, they are your family or your actual friends, they have a common interest that brought them to you (sorry hot stuff, it was your kitty not your pussy that brought them around…) [Note: I am excluding stalkers here, because those people are not reading your shit anyhow, they are tracking you, which is really different; like I have this ugly group from Akron, OH and San Antonio, TX who are constantly tracking me, as well as a very strange individual from KNX, TN, but it is not because they want to read my blog it is because they are freakishly jealous of my life creeps.]
The way I have conducted my on-line life is as simple as my real life is, which of course is not simple. It is, however, authentic and not some fantastical version of what I might wish my life was. I have chosen to write about real shit that happens to me (sometimes pretty fucking embarrassing shit), real shit that happens to people I know (sometimes pretty unbelievable shit) and real people (sometimes seemingly unreal)… because I am real.
This has led to some interesting consequences and outcomes.
Thank you very very much.
Last year a friend from home suggested posting something on your chosen social media outlet, for which you were thankful everyday in November up until Thanksgiving. I took the bait. I was going to be working through my fifth Turkey-free holiday in Hong Kong. Literally. Working. Straight. Through. In fact, the week of Thanksgiving tended to generate some of my busiest work days. It sucked. But the act of consciously contemplating what I was thankful for was really cool.
This year everything has shifted for me. And even though I did not do daily posts about what I am grateful for, I certainly have been aware of my gratitude. The way 2010 shook down for me was nothing short of amazing. Do not make the foolish assumption that this means it was easy; but phenomenal shit doesn’t really seem like it should come easy, now does it?
This year I am so thankful that I get to spend the holidays with my family for the first time since 2004 – or maybe even 2003. That is too long to go without a family holiday, no matter how crazy (wonderful) or unpredictable (interesting) your family might be. We have had some doozies too. Some high/low-lights include:
- Wisdom teeth removal over Senior year Christmas and looking like a total chipmunk, and my last with Willy.
- Santa Fe, 1989 – “The Driest Christmas I’ve Ever Had” [Thank you Frances] add to that the vomit, drugs and Gramma ordering eggs it was pure holiday bliss.
- Every Thanksgiving my dad’s ex-wife cooked for: NO ONE LIKED YOUR OYSTER STUFFING. DEAL WITH IT.
- Tofurky at Bodega Harbour.
- And many many more – but in the interest of protecting the semi-innocent…
This year I am so glad that I will not be working through the day and calling my family from 15,000 miles away and a day late to play pass the receiver and wistfully dream of the food.
And how did I get here? Most of you know the story. I wanted it all to happen. And it did. I keep hearing all these people bitch about everything from the gigantic things totally out of their control to the minutia that they have created for themselves and I wonder, have they never taken the words of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama who tells us in no uncertain terms: “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” And when they say they are not worried they are just pointing out how lame everything is, you gotta wonder why there is nothing better going on up there. At least you could be Alfred E. Newman about it and STFU.
The other day at the beginning of my yoga practice the instructor asked us to identify and share something that we love in our life. One person said cappuccino. Another said her job. I thought for a minute and the only answer I could think of just came out:
“Everything.”
I love everything about my life.
Again, I would reassure you that I am not some daft Pollyanna about this and I do not think that my life is perfect, but at the same time, there is not one part of it that I do not love. I really could not think of one thing. And the more gratitude I acknowledged the more obviously rad my life appeared.
Through a rather pragmatic lens, one has to ask, what is the alternative: bitching? To what end? My BFF quit Twitter this year because she said that she was just sick to death of the negativity and the bitching. I was a little surprised. When my mom began to share more of her spiritual practice with me, I remember being very concerned that she was no longer going to be funny (a key element of her multi-faceted personality) if she was all concerned about being so bloody nice. I understand both of them now. When I look around and see how everyone is just so bent on waiting for the next week, month, year, job, boyfriend, girlfriend, carping on every situation, circumstance, potentiality… they are missing not only the point, they are missing the opportunity to live. And really? They are not that witty either. Just redundant. Plus, I have it on good authority, when shit goes wonky… it’s hard to know who to blame.
And so, yeah, that sounds totally all hyperbolic and syrupy sweet. But really, I am not worried about it. I am just acknowledging.
- I am thankful for my family and being able to spend time with them
- I am thankful that I have a job that I love
- I am thankful that I have a place to live that I adore in a city I love even more
- I am thankful for the ability to afford to do the things I want to do
- I am thankful for the teachers in my life who manifest in very surprising forms
- I am thankful for my friends right here and around the world
- I am thankful for the love of my small, bossy cat
- I am thankful for plenty of good food
- I am thankful for a body that does all the things I want it to
- I am thankful for 40 years of a life so interesting
- I am thankful for the shit which has made me stronger, but not bitter
- I am thankful for the opportunities that I have had and then ones that will come
Happy Thanksgiving.
Matil has acculturated. [The Repatriate Papers, Vol. 6]
Matilda likes being an American. She has fallen in love with the dryer and is getting a sweet little belly. So much for her jungle-cat lifestyle. Talk about going soft. Still, tormenting of wiener dogs brings her much joy.
Belly up and out on the dryer... so relaxed.
I am sure I saw a cat... now where is she...?
If only I could see what is up there, I am sure....
Amanda
