Types of Rain.

I feel awash in rain, as I'm sure Inuits do in snow. As I was thinking this, I remembered how (allegedly) they had a hundred names for snow...which is false, by the way. They have the rough equivalent as English does for names of snow, whereas the Sami people of Europe, a tribal people of Finland, Norway, parts of Russia..you know, the fuckin' cold parts, now THEY had hundreds of words for snow.

SO. You're welcome for that useless piece of knowledge. And on to my point: I was thinking how in the six months (yowzers, six months in a few weeks since I've left home!) I've observed more weather changes, types of rain, size and intensity of hail and gusts than in all of my 26 years spent in southern California.

Currently, we've been storming on and off for almost a month. The off's have lasted about a day, with the rain lasting an average of 5-8 days without breaking. Last night, the hail was so intense that I worried it would break my windshield. When I awoke, it was still so cold outside that the hail had survived the following onslaught of rain and was still present in piles along the corner of my back porch steps.

I walked to my car in a heavy, gentle rain. I want to name this type George. It was the consistency of what we in the south called a "sprinkle" but with fat, loaded drops. Not a drencher, to be sure. Not like the insistent, odd mist-like rain that, when sighted from a window seems relatively harmless, but you step into and are immediately soaked. Usually accompanied by wind, so that if you had the foolish inclination to label yourself a townie and use an umbrella, it would be useless anyway. I would name that rain Snookie for it's vileness.

I'm sure you're bored about reading my thoughts on weather. Too bad. If you are, skedaddle. Because now I'm on to telling you about my latest adventures, which is the good part (theoretically), so if you WERE bored and already left, you resilient ones get to hear the good stuff.

I went home recently to witness the birth of my second goddaughter. Unfortunately, she's a stubborn little mermaid and didn't want to come out while I was there, but did 2 weeks later :D Charlotte Faith (my choice, I know..it's lovely) was born a healthy 7 lbs 2 oz and her sister, my Evey, is a smitten kitten with her. Life for my little Arizona family is good..or will be once Jessica gets the damage done to her by the car accident fully understood and treated.

I was home with my parents for a few days after Phoenix, and I spent as much time with them as I could. I visited with my Italians, said toodles to my Aunt and Uncle before they vamanosed it to their retirement villa in Arizona (that damn state sucks up all of my people!), and saw Matt, Melanie, Sharky, Tarah, Kathleen and my Thompson family, and a few others <3 My heart aches the most whenever I leave my Mattie though, as silly as it sounds, and I think it's probably because in all the years of our friendship we've never spent significant time away from each other. Sharky and I survived her crappy relationship, Mel and I are all about phones ANYWAY, Kathleen ditched me for Africa for years, and my Milla and I are often apart but always soul-connected. Me and Matt though...it hurts to be far from him, and I don't like it. Whenever I consider moving back, it's usually because I miss him and my *many* parents the most.

I proposed to Matt for the umpteenth time, which he refused. Someday though, that sucker is going to accept!

While I was getting Lucy's shots updated and her microchipped at the Humane Society on Saturday, a nice couple from Muscoy (I know, when do those two phrases go together?) were looking for a home for a small puppy they had found in their neighborhood. Found in a litter of 3, they'd procured homes for the other two but were unsuccessful with her. There were interested parties, but the couple was worried they wanted to fight her (she's going to be huge). I told them that if they didn't find someone else to take her by the time I left, I would, and sure enough, there she was when I walked out. I named her Ethel. She's 11 weeks old now, and was determined by my vet to be a Rottweiler mix. She's a joy, and so smart, that when I get over my frustration all I feel at having Lucy and Ethel here in Crescent City with me is happiness and joy and thankfulness. They fill up the cup that was so easily one of loneliness.

I volunteered on Sunday at the Marine Mammal Center. They save local seals that have been abandoned by the mother or moved by onlookers or attacked. Yeah, attacked. By PEOPLE. Apparently, since this area has a lot of fisherman and crabbers, they hate seals for the competition they pose and if they see pups on the beach, will often let their dogs attack them, etc. It's pretty gnarly. I helped feed and bathe two 10-day old Harbor seal pups and hope to continue the practice whenever I'm in town on Sundays. I love the volunteering spirit that's so prevalent here. Everyone seems to contribute to the whole in some way...except for the meth addicts and moochers, of course, but you never count them.

I should be meeting my CASA kid this week. He seems like a really awesome guy from what's written about him on paper, so I'm really excited to help him plan his future in any way I can. If I can be a factor that facilitates him taking steps to success, then I'll feel like I'm paying back a part of this weightless, sacred debt that I'm carrying.

You know the one. Give back what you were given. Pay it forward. Do something that leaves people with a good taste in their mouth. Be as divine as your soul allows.

Check.

The odd things you learn in a small town...

1. Everyone has a gun. EVERYONE. They may not talk about them, you may never see them, but trust me: everyone has the power to kill you with a firearm in 15 seconds flat like you're a buck and it's huntin' season.

2. Walt, the RN triaging me last week, advised me to always park with my car facing east. If the horns that croon to me every night start blaring consistently and not in short blares, I need to be able to drive away from the shore (i.e. due east) because a tsunami is coming. 26 sq blocks was wiped out in 68' (I think?) and it was the biggest thing that's ever happened to this town.

3. There are often bears sighted in people's backyards. And people shoot them. And then make bear sausage. No, I am not joking.

4. I have only seen two black people in this city. In four months of living here.

5. Most women here are grandmothers by 40. It's eerie. Women in their mid-50's are great grandmother's. I've seen four generations having a casual lunch in the hospital cafeteria like it was nothing. I couldn't even conceive of having over 3 generations in one picture for most of my life, and here, 5 is standard. 6 if granny is hardy.

6. Crabbing is huge here. Almost everyone knows someone who has a boat and brings them a weekly haul of crab; they then have a "crab bake" and invite the whole family and do nothing but EAT for an entire Sunday.

7. No one uses umbrellas. The wind is so powerful, it would blow that pretty little rain shield inside-out in a minute. Hoods, hats, gloves=locals. Umbrellas=townies.

8. Feed stores are a poor man's pharmacy. I knew this from my fish amoxicillin days when my mom had a tooth abscess and needed antibiotics, but horse liniment works for sore joints and arthritis too. Huh.

9. People get married shortly after high school. Period. If they're 28 and single, they're divorced with an average of 3 children.

10. Everything in my apartment was given to me. There is an innate level of community and generosity in this tiny town than anywhere I've ever experienced.

Realizations.

I've been holed up in my apartment all weekend due to a dual knee injury. It sucks. Thursday morning I gracefully fell out of my bed and twisted both knees; it kept me from work on Friday because I could barely walk and I committed to bed rest all weekend so I could go back on Monday.

But as I lie here though, I realize that I'm in a truly scary place. There's no one here to notice if I eat shit on my steps and break my neck (which I've almost done twice). I'm now the person who, if someone called the cops to do a welfare check on me, would only be noticed gone by my co-workers. Not even my sweet surfing hippie Christian neighbors would notice, since they see me so irregularly already.

It's difficult. The thought of having to climb into the shower, into clothes, down my precarious stairs, into the car and into the store for necessary groceries and a second knee brace was so daunting it took me hours to build up to it. I don't have my mom, other ma, brother, friends to call and help me out so I can avoid all the strain and drama.

Most people without the incredibly strong spiderweb of familial and friend connections as I do resort to the next best thing: a romantic relationship. Who better to ask, "Babe, could you grab me a knee brace and possibly a shamrock shake?" then your boo? But alas, since I don't want to be barefoot and pregnant OR a bro ho, I am pleasantly single.

Shit man. I am totally isolated.

Which makes me think of Joy Division's "Isolation"...


Conclusion: I need to bring Lucy asap to bark at my injured broken body should I wipe out at the bottom of the stairs to alert the neighbors, Lassie-status.

Happy Weekend, mon chers.

Love on.

I got sworn in as a CASA today. It's a big deal to me, and I had really internalized the process to reflecting a lot of personal goals: I'm giving back, I'm investing in my community, in youth, in someone who is perpetually at a crossroads and could be so much like me, where one act of graciousness and empathy can stick with you forever and affect so many future decisions in the best kind of way.

I like to give of myself. I do it in friendships, but now I'm so far away from them. I don't have romantic relationships (and really, even in those, I rarely give more than I clearly discern). Giving some guidance to kids seems really the best route.

I've been thinking about my youth. They ask some really deep questions throughout the screening and interview process of this. What are your best and worst memories of your childhood? The best and worst things about your mom? Dad? Who influenced you the most? Who disappointed you the most and why?

I remember so many nights of screaming and fighting and loud thumps against walls in the dark, never knowing if it was a fist or a head or a vase being thrown. Sleeping in my clothes when they started early, knowing I'd have to call the cops and run to Jacque's before they got to the house and would threaten to call CPS and have me removed. Being taken by my aunt, who didn't understand the bond between a single child and their mother in an abusive house; that criticizing her in
front of me did nothing but evoke a deeply defensive response and made me resent anyone attacking her, physically or otherwise. It was hard for all of us, but we made it work, because we're family, and that's what you do when you're a unit.

I remember Jacque and Dale, Daddy Dick and Gram, Audrey, the Poons. A woman with a fake well in her front yard who always gave me an ice cream sandwich when she saw me sitting on my bike by her house. My grandmothers soft arms when she hugged me. My cousin Danny always letting me watch movies with him. My cousin Naomi reading Grimm's Fairy Tales to me. Kites in fields with my Aunt ZZ and Uncle Mike, every holiday nestled in their home.

I have been blessed. The negative I learned from. The positive I enshrined. There are few things I would rather do in life that didn't revolve around those two principles: absorb and cherish.

Be grateful.

So many things could've gone differently. One less person could've altered everything, forever changing the course of my life. The ability to be the stone that ripples a pond is a calling, a burden-less debt, that I have witnessed in hundreds of people and try to emulate every day.

My life is a gift, and I want to make it reflect the investment of so much love and time.

Love on.

Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

The last week has been non-stop rain. I'm sure it'll get exhausting, but as of right now, it's just a nuisance and interesting to watch.

The rain is combined with rain in excess of 40 mph, and up to 60 by the shore. The water is usually falling at a 45 degree angle...it's so intense. I've never seen anything like it. No one here uses umbrellas, because they'll just get blown inside out and, really, how do you protect your ribs from water?

At night, I wake up to a slight sway. Instinctively, I think that it's an earthquake (previously living so close to the San Andreas fault and all). Then, I realize it's the wind pushing my old church side to side. Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea, house of mine. And please don't crumble around me.

I started going to the gym again this week. I'm pretty happy with my fitness level; I'm not as atrophied as I thought I'd be after a year of no concentrated training. A side perk is that there's a Biggest Loser competition at work that I'd love to win, but just losing these last 20 lbs would be a monumental success for me. It's going to span three months, so hopefully I'll be able to gain the speed and get it done.

I'm exhausted today. I barely slept last night; one of my best friend's, Jessica, who's pregnant with my goddaughter in Phoenix, was t-boned at an intersection last night when someone decided to not notice the red light. Her and Evey are okay, thank God, but it induced contractions and they had to rush her to an OB Trauma hospital downtown to make sure she was okay. I was so freaked and stressed, and still am. It's glaringly staring me in the face that I went from being 4 hours away to 16 hours away, and I'm so scared that I won't be able to be there for the birth or to support her before she has to undergo whatever comes.

I'm emotionally exhausted and physically drained. I'm going to watch a movie and sleep.

We'll catch up again soon. If I'm not flooded out of my house.

So this is life change.

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.

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.