I've been caught up in the minutae of my everyday life, and I'm not gonna lie: It's pretty blissful.
I moved out on my own at the beginning of the New Year. Talk about a fresh start. A gorgeous studio apartment above a church built in 1892 with . . . nothing in it. Luckily, this is a small town and I work with amazingly wonderful people who contributed to the "Let's Not Make Erin Live Like A BUM" project, and have furnished my apartment. My loveseat, coffee table, chairs, sewing table, my bed: all have been generously gifted to me and I'm looking forward to writing thank you notes this weekend.
After house-sitting for my Director for a week (who is an amazing woman and boss), I was ready to sleep in my own bed. They came and visited my place the morning after they came back and oh-so-elusively told me to come by later to pick up a gift. Por qua? So off I go, thinking it's a cool keychain or the like, but no. They outclass me by a mile.
It's a ukelele. A legit, for realsies, real-wood-this-ain't-the-plastic-one-in-sushi-bars tenor ukelele. To say I basically died is an understatement. I still can't get over my excitement. I practice my chords a little every night and can't wait till I'm good enough to strum a little tune to my godchildren. All three of them. That's right, THREE!
Jessica is due for her second daughter, and I got to name her! I suggested Charlotte and they agreed. I get a baby Charlie for St. Patty's Day! Woot. And Kathleen, my dear sweet world-traveling love, is due for her first. We don't know if it's a girl or boy yet, but she's due in July, and man oh man am I thrilled.
I get to work in place of rent. It's shaping up to be harder than I anticipated it would be, but I think it's because I'm not in the groove yet. Once I get there, I figure it'll be a dance just like everything else.
My hospital job is fantastic. I still marvel sometimes that I had the guts to uproot my entire life for a per diem job in the middle of nowhere, but I'll tell you what: BEST LIFE DECISION I COULD'VE MADE. I work with wonderful, REAL people doing a job that actually means something. It's a marvelous life, my friends, my loves. And I'm perpetually happy I've chosen it.
I just need to write more. That's where I'm epically failing. But that's life, I've learned. You always something to improve upon.
It's late. I just wanted to update you. The sum of the story is:
I am happy.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Home is where you are.
I went to Eugene this weekend to visit my foster family. It's four hours north east, but it speeds by with a swiftness I never feel when I drive from, say, San Bernardino to Phoenix. I think because it's so beautiful, my mind is free to wander and daydream and write little ditties in my head and suddenly, I'm there.
There is nothing more stunning than the fog rolling in on the hills upon hills of Redwoods that encase the Smith river as you're leaving Crescent City and heading toward the state line.
I've never lived in fog before. The residents here talk about it as a general oppressor, something you move inland to avoid. That hasn't sunk in for me yet, and I sincerely hope it never does. I've always been so fascinated by the languorous roll of the moisture wrapping over the cliffs abutting the sea or the ancient, giant trees. It is so reminiscent of a woman, rolling over in bed after lovemaking. When I drive through the mist, I feel as if I'm being caressed by a finger.
When I got to Jacque and Dale's, it was as it always is. Simple hugs, deep conversations, a few errands. Soaking in each others company, because there is never enough time. I feel so profoundly loved when I'm there with them. We talked about Jacque's dad, Daddy Dick (I know, right? It's funny. But it makes me think of the whale, and really, he was a force to be reckoned with) who's generosity with his children and their friends, along with his wife, set a lovely standard and foundation for Jacque to model her life afterwards. Hence her taking me in, with 51 other foster children during her youth.
Which has therefore deeply affected my own foundation, my own life model. It's why I took guardianship of my neighbor when I was 18 years old and she became my sister. It's why I plan on being a foster parent myself. Why my friends trust me to be the godmother to their children. It seems that everyone knows I can love people who, by societal standards, do not belong to me as if they came from my own womb.
I gave Daddy Dick a rock when he was sick and fading away. I was a rock thief, you know. If I saw a smooth stone in someone's landscaped front yard, I would grab the one that caught my eye the quickest. I had a small collection of them; stashed on my windowsill, in bowls next to my bed. He called it his Erin rock. When his dementia fully sank in and he forgot his wife of 67 years and the life they built and would wander away from home, he always had it with him in his pocket. Of all the possessions he would take in his confusion, my rock was always on his bedside table and if he went somewhere, it was where his hand could find it.
They buried it with him. I cry at the profoundness of it whenever I remember.
I was just a kid on the same street as his daughter that hung out at her house all the time, and I belonged to him like his own blood. Maybe even deeper. Who could question why I am the way I am when I had people like that as my archetypes?
This is something I wrote up there. And that's the end of this blog.
There is only a heart and bones in this body
One propelling the other forward
Foot by aching foot
Fiercely and frighteningly and fatefully.
I drive along the river
Letting the power of the curve whip me forward
Mile by mile
Waning and waxing and wondering.
The water is rushing the banks
Tears rolling over my mouth the night I came running
Swollen but raging
Savage and scared and sickened.
Your arms swallowed me up
Hills of redwoods surrounding the valley
Foggy and still
Silent and steady and sure.
If there’s one thing I’m sure of
The rivers of your love fill the sea of me
Fathomless and grateful
Living and loving and loved.
There is nothing more stunning than the fog rolling in on the hills upon hills of Redwoods that encase the Smith river as you're leaving Crescent City and heading toward the state line.
I've never lived in fog before. The residents here talk about it as a general oppressor, something you move inland to avoid. That hasn't sunk in for me yet, and I sincerely hope it never does. I've always been so fascinated by the languorous roll of the moisture wrapping over the cliffs abutting the sea or the ancient, giant trees. It is so reminiscent of a woman, rolling over in bed after lovemaking. When I drive through the mist, I feel as if I'm being caressed by a finger.
When I got to Jacque and Dale's, it was as it always is. Simple hugs, deep conversations, a few errands. Soaking in each others company, because there is never enough time. I feel so profoundly loved when I'm there with them. We talked about Jacque's dad, Daddy Dick (I know, right? It's funny. But it makes me think of the whale, and really, he was a force to be reckoned with) who's generosity with his children and their friends, along with his wife, set a lovely standard and foundation for Jacque to model her life afterwards. Hence her taking me in, with 51 other foster children during her youth.
Which has therefore deeply affected my own foundation, my own life model. It's why I took guardianship of my neighbor when I was 18 years old and she became my sister. It's why I plan on being a foster parent myself. Why my friends trust me to be the godmother to their children. It seems that everyone knows I can love people who, by societal standards, do not belong to me as if they came from my own womb.
I gave Daddy Dick a rock when he was sick and fading away. I was a rock thief, you know. If I saw a smooth stone in someone's landscaped front yard, I would grab the one that caught my eye the quickest. I had a small collection of them; stashed on my windowsill, in bowls next to my bed. He called it his Erin rock. When his dementia fully sank in and he forgot his wife of 67 years and the life they built and would wander away from home, he always had it with him in his pocket. Of all the possessions he would take in his confusion, my rock was always on his bedside table and if he went somewhere, it was where his hand could find it.
They buried it with him. I cry at the profoundness of it whenever I remember.
I was just a kid on the same street as his daughter that hung out at her house all the time, and I belonged to him like his own blood. Maybe even deeper. Who could question why I am the way I am when I had people like that as my archetypes?
This is something I wrote up there. And that's the end of this blog.
There is only a heart and bones in this body
One propelling the other forward
Foot by aching foot
Fiercely and frighteningly and fatefully.
I drive along the river
Letting the power of the curve whip me forward
Mile by mile
Waning and waxing and wondering.
The water is rushing the banks
Tears rolling over my mouth the night I came running
Swollen but raging
Savage and scared and sickened.
Your arms swallowed me up
Hills of redwoods surrounding the valley
Foggy and still
Silent and steady and sure.
If there’s one thing I’m sure of
The rivers of your love fill the sea of me
Fathomless and grateful
Living and loving and loved.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
I've never been so alone.
I feel like a switch has been turned on, and another turned off. I am so immensely free. It doesn’t matter that I’m poor, that I’m living on the kindness of others, that I’m dependent on their good graces for the very roof over my head. In the words of Third Eye Blind, I’ve never been so alone and I’ve never been so alive.
I am amazingly grateful every day for a myriad of big and little things that make my heart lift every time I acknowledge one of them. I realize that I smile at almost every person I see, and they smile back, usually slightly surprised. I feel prettier than I can remember in recent history, and not a single man has approached me in the weeks I’ve been in my new city. And even THAT I am thankful for.
So, here’s a list of things that make my soul go Mmm with gratitude:
1. Every morning that my defroster is turned on and works is an amazing relief; this is the first car in 8 years of owning one that I can make that claim.
2. Anywhere I go in my small city, I can smell the salt of the sea.
3. That Brandon is such a good person, and that I get to live with him and learn about him, if only for a little while.
4. My sister calls me and I can tell her incessantly how much I love her and know that she knows, and that she feels the same.
5. My papa’s voice whenever I call him, saying, “’ey, Eddin-poo.”
6. Dancing around my house to Joy Formidable in my pajamas after all the guys have left for work.
7. My wonderful co-workers, who are wise and generous and fiercely intelligent.
8. That I know how to chop and season and make enough food to feed 4 people almost instinctively thanks to the training given generously my whole life from my Aunt ZZ and most recently from my Ma Linda.
9. My lack of plan. Which, before, would make me quake in panic, but somehow I’m calm. Somehow I’m rolling with the punches. I am thriving in the limitlessness.
10. That the culmination of these small graces is helping me write again, and since I feel like my soul is always in narration mode, not writing made me feel like half a person and now I am whole.
I hope you are joyous, and thankful, and graceful.
All my love,
Erin
I am amazingly grateful every day for a myriad of big and little things that make my heart lift every time I acknowledge one of them. I realize that I smile at almost every person I see, and they smile back, usually slightly surprised. I feel prettier than I can remember in recent history, and not a single man has approached me in the weeks I’ve been in my new city. And even THAT I am thankful for.
So, here’s a list of things that make my soul go Mmm with gratitude:
1. Every morning that my defroster is turned on and works is an amazing relief; this is the first car in 8 years of owning one that I can make that claim.
2. Anywhere I go in my small city, I can smell the salt of the sea.
3. That Brandon is such a good person, and that I get to live with him and learn about him, if only for a little while.
4. My sister calls me and I can tell her incessantly how much I love her and know that she knows, and that she feels the same.
5. My papa’s voice whenever I call him, saying, “’ey, Eddin-poo.”
6. Dancing around my house to Joy Formidable in my pajamas after all the guys have left for work.
7. My wonderful co-workers, who are wise and generous and fiercely intelligent.
8. That I know how to chop and season and make enough food to feed 4 people almost instinctively thanks to the training given generously my whole life from my Aunt ZZ and most recently from my Ma Linda.
9. My lack of plan. Which, before, would make me quake in panic, but somehow I’m calm. Somehow I’m rolling with the punches. I am thriving in the limitlessness.
10. That the culmination of these small graces is helping me write again, and since I feel like my soul is always in narration mode, not writing made me feel like half a person and now I am whole.
I hope you are joyous, and thankful, and graceful.
All my love,
Erin
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thoughts on Loneliness.
The universe has been sending me a lot of signals about loneliness lately. There is a clear distinction between loneliness and aloneness, and my new life path is including a lot of aloneness and I’m thankful for it.
I’m thankful for it because I can sit alone in a room with myself and not hate or resent what I see. At the end of the day, you’re all you’ve got, and it would be a waste if you expelled energy on trying to change the past and couldn’t just accept who you are, your wants, and accepting whether you’ll pursue them or not.
Two people that I used to have relationships with are with new people. One of them is stereotypically him; he can’t be alone at all, which is why things between us had to end, and he has continued on the hunt to find someone to fill the parts of him that he hasn’t found yet. The other is someone I had very deep feelings for, and we’ve maintained communication as friends, but it’s pretense, because whenever I’m in his town he blows off hanging out with me and if we DO hang, it’s awkward and he ends up being rude in his eagerness to avoid me.
He was always lonely. He could never be alone with himself, but didn’t feel like he was worthwhile to be with anyone. So yes, I hope that now he feels worthwhile and that’s why he’s in one. My roommate is going through a divorce with his wife, a woman who can never be alone, and she has already sprung into another rebound relationship only months after leaving him. All of these people; so normal, so average, and they can’t bear to be solo.
I definitely miss intimacy, but my last few relationships have been so lacking that I don’t see the answer in another one unless I’m really confident they’re the right partner for me. The Naked and Famous say it best, in a lyric I can’t get out of my head:
The bittersweet between my teeth
trying to find the in-between
fall back in love eventually
yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Today, I woke up and made coffee and eggs for Brandon and I before he went to church and I wrote for a few hours. When he came back, we went to Pebble Beach and I was in rock hound heaven, picking up stones I want to tumble and make into jewelry. We walked the shore for a few hours, and my usually quiet friend talked a lot about how he’s been feeling, how he’s been dealing, what he hopes for. I tried to just listen, and let him know how supportive I am of him.
I walked around the city after they left for work. I found a house I would be able to buy for my own in my dreams. I feel hopes and plans budding in my chest, like Redwood roots twining down into my lungs. I breathe out wishes and optimisms and love.
I’m going to finish carving our pumpkin and make some dinner for my guys.
It's a golden life and I'm thankful for it.
I’m thankful for it because I can sit alone in a room with myself and not hate or resent what I see. At the end of the day, you’re all you’ve got, and it would be a waste if you expelled energy on trying to change the past and couldn’t just accept who you are, your wants, and accepting whether you’ll pursue them or not.
Two people that I used to have relationships with are with new people. One of them is stereotypically him; he can’t be alone at all, which is why things between us had to end, and he has continued on the hunt to find someone to fill the parts of him that he hasn’t found yet. The other is someone I had very deep feelings for, and we’ve maintained communication as friends, but it’s pretense, because whenever I’m in his town he blows off hanging out with me and if we DO hang, it’s awkward and he ends up being rude in his eagerness to avoid me.
He was always lonely. He could never be alone with himself, but didn’t feel like he was worthwhile to be with anyone. So yes, I hope that now he feels worthwhile and that’s why he’s in one. My roommate is going through a divorce with his wife, a woman who can never be alone, and she has already sprung into another rebound relationship only months after leaving him. All of these people; so normal, so average, and they can’t bear to be solo.
I definitely miss intimacy, but my last few relationships have been so lacking that I don’t see the answer in another one unless I’m really confident they’re the right partner for me. The Naked and Famous say it best, in a lyric I can’t get out of my head:
The bittersweet between my teeth
trying to find the in-between
fall back in love eventually
yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Today, I woke up and made coffee and eggs for Brandon and I before he went to church and I wrote for a few hours. When he came back, we went to Pebble Beach and I was in rock hound heaven, picking up stones I want to tumble and make into jewelry. We walked the shore for a few hours, and my usually quiet friend talked a lot about how he’s been feeling, how he’s been dealing, what he hopes for. I tried to just listen, and let him know how supportive I am of him.
I walked around the city after they left for work. I found a house I would be able to buy for my own in my dreams. I feel hopes and plans budding in my chest, like Redwood roots twining down into my lungs. I breathe out wishes and optimisms and love.
I’m going to finish carving our pumpkin and make some dinner for my guys.
It's a golden life and I'm thankful for it.
Monday, October 24, 2011
First impressions.
It's my second official day as a NorCal transplant. My first day here I walked down to Pebble Beach and looked out at the rocky outcroppings just a couple hundred yards in to the sea and I felt my heart peel open. Open towards the sun sinking low by the waves, the freezing wind whipping through my hair and undoing the two-minutes I'd put into styling it, the cows mooing behind me.
The Safeway lady already knows me by name. Everyone at my Orientation was amazingly kind, in a way that says it's normal to be like that here. Like every smile isn't hiding a conniving corporate plan to undermine you and make you look ill-equipped at the earliest opportunity.
I have to relearn how to breathe. Deeply, so the last dredges of smog can be rinsed out of my lungs. The way people who live in a slice of heaven breathe when they smile at each other in the aisles and laugh when it takes two heads to find the butter because one can't do it alone.
I'm one of those people now. I need to learn the simpler way of living.
The Safeway lady already knows me by name. Everyone at my Orientation was amazingly kind, in a way that says it's normal to be like that here. Like every smile isn't hiding a conniving corporate plan to undermine you and make you look ill-equipped at the earliest opportunity.
I have to relearn how to breathe. Deeply, so the last dredges of smog can be rinsed out of my lungs. The way people who live in a slice of heaven breathe when they smile at each other in the aisles and laugh when it takes two heads to find the butter because one can't do it alone.
I'm one of those people now. I need to learn the simpler way of living.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
I have arrived.
I pulled in right before 12:30am on Sunday morning, with Brando there to welcome me with a hug. It was just the two of us for awhile, which I think was the best possible arrival; we talked for almost an hour and a half about life, what I’m hoping to find here, how I’m okay with absolutely any schedule the guys might hold as long as I can stay here while finances are figuring themselves out. We talked about his marriage, about his heartbreak, and I’m happy I’m here so that we can adventure together and find our respective paths to happiness.
I’m going to go make a copy of the key today, and walk down to Pebble Beach since it’s so lovely and not yet raining and take stock on where I’ve transplanted myself.
I’m excited.
I’m ready.
I’m going to go make a copy of the key today, and walk down to Pebble Beach since it’s so lovely and not yet raining and take stock on where I’ve transplanted myself.
I’m excited.
I’m ready.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile; it's been a very busy time.
I got the job in Crescent City, making significantly more than I'm making now. So, without hesitation, I accepted the offer and knew that in the three weeks before my start date I would need to resign from my current position, pack up everything I couldn't live without into my tiny Mini Cooper, and start somewhere new.
That's a big concept you know. Starting somewhere new. For someone like me who was born sixty miles from where I currently live and has only lived within that 60 miles their entire life, up and moving 800 miles on a whim and some hopeful grace has a lot of apprehension associated with it.
I am surprisingly calm. Mainly because I have this loving, bright, inexorable force of support from my friends and family. No one has whined about me moving. Everyone is smiling, and glowing, and squeezing my shoulders and saying "Good LUCK." Be the one that gets out of San Bernardino. Be the one that lights the way so we can leave too.
My friend Star gave me a lovely note that did, in fact, reaffirm everything I needed to hear, which was exactly her intention. She put one of my favorite poems with it, which is Our Greatest Fear by Marianne Williamson.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
And the last part punched me in the gut as I read, tears welling from my eyes. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. My loved ones see that and push me forward so that I can be that example, and I am beyond grateful.
It is because I am loved that I am able to dream so big. It is because I am loved that I have been able to accomplish what I have in this life and hope for more. As I have said before, everything I am and everything great I try to do is nothing but one huge living testament to the people who give so much to me.
Today I'm packing. I've done so little traveling that I only have three small duffel bags, so I'm running over to Goodwill to see if they have any cheap luggage. Of all the things I'm feeling though, fear isn't one of them. Neither is anxiety, really.
I am open and loving and joyous and grateful. I have enough gas money to get there and that's all that matters.
Ready. Set. GO.
I got the job in Crescent City, making significantly more than I'm making now. So, without hesitation, I accepted the offer and knew that in the three weeks before my start date I would need to resign from my current position, pack up everything I couldn't live without into my tiny Mini Cooper, and start somewhere new.
That's a big concept you know. Starting somewhere new. For someone like me who was born sixty miles from where I currently live and has only lived within that 60 miles their entire life, up and moving 800 miles on a whim and some hopeful grace has a lot of apprehension associated with it.
I am surprisingly calm. Mainly because I have this loving, bright, inexorable force of support from my friends and family. No one has whined about me moving. Everyone is smiling, and glowing, and squeezing my shoulders and saying "Good LUCK." Be the one that gets out of San Bernardino. Be the one that lights the way so we can leave too.
My friend Star gave me a lovely note that did, in fact, reaffirm everything I needed to hear, which was exactly her intention. She put one of my favorite poems with it, which is Our Greatest Fear by Marianne Williamson.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
And the last part punched me in the gut as I read, tears welling from my eyes. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. My loved ones see that and push me forward so that I can be that example, and I am beyond grateful.
It is because I am loved that I am able to dream so big. It is because I am loved that I have been able to accomplish what I have in this life and hope for more. As I have said before, everything I am and everything great I try to do is nothing but one huge living testament to the people who give so much to me.
Today I'm packing. I've done so little traveling that I only have three small duffel bags, so I'm running over to Goodwill to see if they have any cheap luggage. Of all the things I'm feeling though, fear isn't one of them. Neither is anxiety, really.
I am open and loving and joyous and grateful. I have enough gas money to get there and that's all that matters.
Ready. Set. GO.
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