I saw my sisters last weekend and as I was driving home, I felt a transcendent joy settle around my shoulders like the mink mantle my aunt just granted me that was my great grandmother’s. I was grateful to realize that it hadn’t been long since I’d felt such happiness, screaming songs and dancing rambunctiously with Milla in my car only two weeks ago on my birthday.
Then I realized, shoot! I never wrote about the awesome day that was my birthday.
So, Milla and I have been trying to see as much of each other as possible in this, her summer of freedom, before she moves to Colorado. I’m stoked every time we get to hang out because we have a really intense and unique connection that throughout the course of our friendship has been maintained at a distance, which makes getting to see her often a beautiful and intense and appreciated thing. Like a chocolate covered coffee bean. Yeah. Biting into one of those and feeling that shock of flavor and deep appreciation afterwards is as good an analogy as I can think of to describe my time with her.
Anyway, back to my birthday. She came down in the morning after telling me while we were in San Diego the week before that she put aside the entire Saturday for ME, no one else, and that she we were going to do whatever I wanted. So, we shenaniganed. Had an awesome lunch at Martha Green’s, a place I’ve been wanting her to try for awhile…got baby stuff for my cousin’s baby shower later that day…went to said baby shower…then boned out to get me a new tattoo. My artist, Aaron Funk at Tattoo Revolution in Redlands, is normally booked up about three months in advance and yet found the time to fit me in so I could get “so it goes.”, one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes, on my shoulder. We drive down the freeway, and suddenly “Home” by Edward Sharpe is on the stereo and Milla turns to me, massive smile lighting up her face, and says “It’s our song!”
We start singing, rocking our shoulders and leaning toward each other and loudly shouting that home is wherever I’m in love with you.
Florence and the Machine, “Dog Days are Over” comes on next, and immediately the sweet singing of the last song becomes a wild dancing ride, arms flailing and hands clapping and screaming at the top of our lungs that you’d better run for you mother, father, sisters and brothers…to leave all your loving behind because you can’t carry it with you if you want to survive. And there was a joy that I can’t fully describe. Something that hits when you have these moments with your best friends and sisters and foster mothers or are making jam with you ma, where you feel one with everything around you. Your soul expands and you know as surely as you know breath that this is what people work entire lives to feel, ache through trying relationships to know, tithe to churches to understand: you and the universe, you and love are not separate and divisible things. You’re one and the same, have always and will always be one and the same, and the only dividers that make you feel separate are the ones you put there yourself.
I don’t think I’d be able to feel such things if I were surrounded by anything less than the outstanding caliber of people that choose to love me, and damn, aren’t I lucky for it?
Gratitude. Yes, I’ll have a second helping. Thank you.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Fields.
Sometimes I want to drive into the middle of nowhere, sit in the middle of a field, and scream my brains out. Then cry my heart out. Then figure out where I'm going from there.
I wonder if the reason I feel so solitary is because my soul is almost done with this journey, and if I had a kid or a lover I'd be leaving them too early, and the damage done would make me come back again to learn my lesson.
I fake my happiness so much that I don't know when I truly feel it thrumming anymore. I never fake gratitude though. That's a perk.
I want to lie on the grass and look at the sky, all day if I wanted to. I want to go to the beach and put my feet in the ocean and remember why I'm here in the life I've chosen.
I feel a profound sense of guilt about Jim. He seems so sad about us, and I just wanted to go slow. When I saw him rushing and I had to be the one to constantly put on the brakes, a wall started to develop. Absolutes are a scary thing. I can't deal with "always" from the get-go. Unyielding devotion needs to be tempered, like steel, over time. You try to form it too quick and it'll snap in its development.
I think I'll spend the weekend lying in the grass somewhere.
Maybe it'll serve as a reminder on what the journey is about before you end up in the ground.
"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." –Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
I wonder if the reason I feel so solitary is because my soul is almost done with this journey, and if I had a kid or a lover I'd be leaving them too early, and the damage done would make me come back again to learn my lesson.
I fake my happiness so much that I don't know when I truly feel it thrumming anymore. I never fake gratitude though. That's a perk.
I want to lie on the grass and look at the sky, all day if I wanted to. I want to go to the beach and put my feet in the ocean and remember why I'm here in the life I've chosen.
I feel a profound sense of guilt about Jim. He seems so sad about us, and I just wanted to go slow. When I saw him rushing and I had to be the one to constantly put on the brakes, a wall started to develop. Absolutes are a scary thing. I can't deal with "always" from the get-go. Unyielding devotion needs to be tempered, like steel, over time. You try to form it too quick and it'll snap in its development.
I think I'll spend the weekend lying in the grass somewhere.
Maybe it'll serve as a reminder on what the journey is about before you end up in the ground.
"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." –Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Monday, August 15, 2011
My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love.
I am full of profound feelings and thoughts right now. I’m in my training to be a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, and am sitting on a bench next to tee-pees used for camp outs at a mansion in Redlands that is owned by a philanthropic oil entrepreneur dedicated to enriching the lives of underprivileged children.
In training this morning, a social worker who’s been on the job for 26 years, the span of my life (which, trust me, the insinuation was not lost on me) was explaining the sense of loss and mistrust the foster kids we’ll be advocating for are bound to feel, and why. How so few of them succeed in life, or continue in the same cyclical poverty and abuse they were raised in, passing the abuse to the next generation. How we, as CASAs, have the capability to be the factor that changes the course of that child’s life, by simply staying true to our word, by BEING THERE because we care to volunteer our time, not because we’re paid to be there.
As soon as we had a break, I went outside and called Jacque. I wandered up a grassy knoll to a shady spot under an orchid tree and asked her how her leg was doing, found out she went back into the hospital for an infection and deliberately didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to worry me, et cetera. Eventually, I couldn’t hold the fact that I was crying from her anymore, and she fretted. “What’s wrong baby? Why are you crying? You never cry.”
I thanked her. I told her how much I loved her, how people can only achieve as much as they are willing to risk, and I have always been so driven because I knew I always had people who have my back. Jacque, my foster mom, who was there on the nightly basis that the cops told me I had to find a place to sleep or they’d have to remove me from the home, and I knew I could always go there. My aunt, when it was time to take me out of my home for the sake of my own safety and well-being. She took care of me to the best of her abilities, handling a teenage girl, which she’d never raised firsthand, in all of my angst.
My mother was pivotal in loving me from the beginning and establishing the trust I needed to be able to trust the right people later and survive, but ultimately, it has been people who were not obligated to loving or raising me that have helped me be who I am today. Two bachelor degrees, with honors. On my way to grad school. Ambitions of becoming a published writer and a business owner and getting a doctorate.
I feel that becoming a CASA is one of the truest things I have ever done. When I took guardianship of Becca when I was 18 and she became my sister, my family didn’t know what to make of it. Who is this girl that calls herself your sister? Hm? But they grew to understand that my unorthodox upbringing freed me from the standard definition of family, and that I am blessed with the ability to love people like Becca, and Jay, and my Cataldo and Thompson and Foster families as if they’ve been with me since birth. This is one of my purest strengths, and being able to try and give the support that’s been given to me to a teenager that needs it is a calling to my innermost.
I feel a new drive. New goals developing. Becoming a foster parent isn’t an ambiguous goal that lives somewhere in my future. I will be a CASA until my life is together enough to foster a teen, but my goal is within the next five years.
I had a waiter tell me last night that I’m enigmatic. One of those perpetually unattainable women, that look lovely and engaging but always separate, unapproachable, because I am too far away. I smiled at him, laughing and asking if this was him trying to be slick and “attain” me. But he blushed and said, no, I just wanted to tell you. And I felt that a divine power had spoken afterward when I recounted it to Milla. Sometimes, driven people just need to be solo forces. I can’t imagine how a partner would enrich my life at this point. All of my relationships lately have been juvenile, wrought with miscommunication and ultimately wastes of my time and energy. I don’t have a lot of time in this life, and I have a lot I need to do, so staying focused on the goals ahead are quickly diminishing the societal standard of husband and marriage that have consumed so much of my last 2 years.
I feel pretty done with that chapter. I’m on to the new, the paying forward of what was so freely given to me my whole life, to living a life worth having, and fighting for, and being deeply satisfied with.
Needless to say, this whole week since my birthday has been a growing revelation. I feel very connected to my soul, which in turn makes me feel acutely connected to the ones I love, including God. I imagine heaven will be a swirling love-energy mass where what I feel for them is tangible and visible in the matter that makes up the universe.
My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love. But that’s okay. In my heart of hearts, they’re swirling with me all the time.
In training this morning, a social worker who’s been on the job for 26 years, the span of my life (which, trust me, the insinuation was not lost on me) was explaining the sense of loss and mistrust the foster kids we’ll be advocating for are bound to feel, and why. How so few of them succeed in life, or continue in the same cyclical poverty and abuse they were raised in, passing the abuse to the next generation. How we, as CASAs, have the capability to be the factor that changes the course of that child’s life, by simply staying true to our word, by BEING THERE because we care to volunteer our time, not because we’re paid to be there.
As soon as we had a break, I went outside and called Jacque. I wandered up a grassy knoll to a shady spot under an orchid tree and asked her how her leg was doing, found out she went back into the hospital for an infection and deliberately didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to worry me, et cetera. Eventually, I couldn’t hold the fact that I was crying from her anymore, and she fretted. “What’s wrong baby? Why are you crying? You never cry.”
I thanked her. I told her how much I loved her, how people can only achieve as much as they are willing to risk, and I have always been so driven because I knew I always had people who have my back. Jacque, my foster mom, who was there on the nightly basis that the cops told me I had to find a place to sleep or they’d have to remove me from the home, and I knew I could always go there. My aunt, when it was time to take me out of my home for the sake of my own safety and well-being. She took care of me to the best of her abilities, handling a teenage girl, which she’d never raised firsthand, in all of my angst.
My mother was pivotal in loving me from the beginning and establishing the trust I needed to be able to trust the right people later and survive, but ultimately, it has been people who were not obligated to loving or raising me that have helped me be who I am today. Two bachelor degrees, with honors. On my way to grad school. Ambitions of becoming a published writer and a business owner and getting a doctorate.
I feel that becoming a CASA is one of the truest things I have ever done. When I took guardianship of Becca when I was 18 and she became my sister, my family didn’t know what to make of it. Who is this girl that calls herself your sister? Hm? But they grew to understand that my unorthodox upbringing freed me from the standard definition of family, and that I am blessed with the ability to love people like Becca, and Jay, and my Cataldo and Thompson and Foster families as if they’ve been with me since birth. This is one of my purest strengths, and being able to try and give the support that’s been given to me to a teenager that needs it is a calling to my innermost.
I feel a new drive. New goals developing. Becoming a foster parent isn’t an ambiguous goal that lives somewhere in my future. I will be a CASA until my life is together enough to foster a teen, but my goal is within the next five years.
I had a waiter tell me last night that I’m enigmatic. One of those perpetually unattainable women, that look lovely and engaging but always separate, unapproachable, because I am too far away. I smiled at him, laughing and asking if this was him trying to be slick and “attain” me. But he blushed and said, no, I just wanted to tell you. And I felt that a divine power had spoken afterward when I recounted it to Milla. Sometimes, driven people just need to be solo forces. I can’t imagine how a partner would enrich my life at this point. All of my relationships lately have been juvenile, wrought with miscommunication and ultimately wastes of my time and energy. I don’t have a lot of time in this life, and I have a lot I need to do, so staying focused on the goals ahead are quickly diminishing the societal standard of husband and marriage that have consumed so much of my last 2 years.
I feel pretty done with that chapter. I’m on to the new, the paying forward of what was so freely given to me my whole life, to living a life worth having, and fighting for, and being deeply satisfied with.
Needless to say, this whole week since my birthday has been a growing revelation. I feel very connected to my soul, which in turn makes me feel acutely connected to the ones I love, including God. I imagine heaven will be a swirling love-energy mass where what I feel for them is tangible and visible in the matter that makes up the universe.
My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love. But that’s okay. In my heart of hearts, they’re swirling with me all the time.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Endure.
There has, as always been a lot happening lately.
I know that this constant upheaval is what defines a full life, but I keep hoping, in vain I might add, that there's going to be down time. To be honest, I'm sure I do have down time, but it's so precious and short lived that it gets forgotten between the big earthquakes that abut them.
In the last two months I've gone to my cousin's wedding in Monterrey, my friend Milla's graduation in Santa Cruz two weeks later, and then on 4th of July weekend I got the scared text from Mack, my foster mom's granddaughter, that she was having emergency surgery that Friday night. The outlook was bleak, because of medical conditions she has, so I decided to drive up Saturday morning and be there for whatever happened. Luckily, it was me sitting in a hospital room next to the woman I love with the ferocity of a child for four days, being a go-fer and making her take her medicine and watching the hole on her leg slowly close.
It took 20 hours to drive home. I stopped to see Jim in Merced on the way, to hold his hand and eat a meal and sleep, like the wanderer I felt like. He is my new beau, and I'm thinking he'll be my last one. Most adults don't date someone unless they feel like the other person is worthwhile and permanent though, but things happen, so I'm invested but not fully. It's so soon after Steve...after giving my heart so fully and, well, it wasn't crushed or crumpled...it was dismissed. When I look honestly at myself, being dismissed is probably the treatment that enrages and confuses me the most, pulling on scenarios from childhood and the resounding gong that you.don't.matter.enough.
Oh, that word. Enough. To be considered satisfactory or worthwhile is why we do everything. Get educated. Get pretty. Get witty. Get creative. Sure, rare people only need their inner voice to consider them "enough", which I am lucky that I can consider myself among them most of the time, but since a relationship is between TWO people, it's key that the other person agrees.
I remember listening to this song on a drive down from San Francisco while Steve and I were dating or ending...the two seem intertwined for most of our relationship. I was crying, and started replaying it, and was screaming the words as bitterly and sincerely as I was able.
And then here's Jim, all of the things described in this song. Who adores me for all the right reasons. Who doesn't dismiss me. Who cares so much that he drove 5 hours just to be with me when I was sick, when Steve couldn't drive 20 minutes. I am a priority with Jim, a concept I never knew was so important to me until the failure of my last relationship due mainly to it. So I am hopeful and hesitant. Jim is one of the rare men who loves to be committed and recently got out of a very long relationship, so it's important that we go slow, because I don't want to feel like the emotional rebound, the rubber band effect, a dis-genuine devotion.
My wages just got garnished at work. I'll be filing paperwork on Tuesday at the court when I'm there for Jury Duty, so hopefully I can get some relief. Working 50-60 hours a week for $6 an hour is one of the most devastating things that could happen right now...the timing is almost cosmic.
If I felt there was a design to the random chaotics spiraling around my life, I'd say that it's because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. God wouldn't put me through it if it didn't know I could survive. All of this emotional pain and anguish is just weakness leaving the body.
They all sound so empty though.
One word is screaming loud and clear. It's what my grandmother did, my foster mother, all the people who dealt with loss greater than mine and were more graceful than I.
Endure.
I know that this constant upheaval is what defines a full life, but I keep hoping, in vain I might add, that there's going to be down time. To be honest, I'm sure I do have down time, but it's so precious and short lived that it gets forgotten between the big earthquakes that abut them.
In the last two months I've gone to my cousin's wedding in Monterrey, my friend Milla's graduation in Santa Cruz two weeks later, and then on 4th of July weekend I got the scared text from Mack, my foster mom's granddaughter, that she was having emergency surgery that Friday night. The outlook was bleak, because of medical conditions she has, so I decided to drive up Saturday morning and be there for whatever happened. Luckily, it was me sitting in a hospital room next to the woman I love with the ferocity of a child for four days, being a go-fer and making her take her medicine and watching the hole on her leg slowly close.
It took 20 hours to drive home. I stopped to see Jim in Merced on the way, to hold his hand and eat a meal and sleep, like the wanderer I felt like. He is my new beau, and I'm thinking he'll be my last one. Most adults don't date someone unless they feel like the other person is worthwhile and permanent though, but things happen, so I'm invested but not fully. It's so soon after Steve...after giving my heart so fully and, well, it wasn't crushed or crumpled...it was dismissed. When I look honestly at myself, being dismissed is probably the treatment that enrages and confuses me the most, pulling on scenarios from childhood and the resounding gong that you.don't.matter.enough.
Oh, that word. Enough. To be considered satisfactory or worthwhile is why we do everything. Get educated. Get pretty. Get witty. Get creative. Sure, rare people only need their inner voice to consider them "enough", which I am lucky that I can consider myself among them most of the time, but since a relationship is between TWO people, it's key that the other person agrees.
I remember listening to this song on a drive down from San Francisco while Steve and I were dating or ending...the two seem intertwined for most of our relationship. I was crying, and started replaying it, and was screaming the words as bitterly and sincerely as I was able.
And then here's Jim, all of the things described in this song. Who adores me for all the right reasons. Who doesn't dismiss me. Who cares so much that he drove 5 hours just to be with me when I was sick, when Steve couldn't drive 20 minutes. I am a priority with Jim, a concept I never knew was so important to me until the failure of my last relationship due mainly to it. So I am hopeful and hesitant. Jim is one of the rare men who loves to be committed and recently got out of a very long relationship, so it's important that we go slow, because I don't want to feel like the emotional rebound, the rubber band effect, a dis-genuine devotion.
My wages just got garnished at work. I'll be filing paperwork on Tuesday at the court when I'm there for Jury Duty, so hopefully I can get some relief. Working 50-60 hours a week for $6 an hour is one of the most devastating things that could happen right now...the timing is almost cosmic.
If I felt there was a design to the random chaotics spiraling around my life, I'd say that it's because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. God wouldn't put me through it if it didn't know I could survive. All of this emotional pain and anguish is just weakness leaving the body.
They all sound so empty though.
One word is screaming loud and clear. It's what my grandmother did, my foster mother, all the people who dealt with loss greater than mine and were more graceful than I.
Endure.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Perpetual shift.
I am happiest when I write, and I find it disturbing deep down that the world makes it the bottom of my priority list. I allow that to happen. My will is weakest when it comes to enforcing my own happiness. I wonder if that's the norm with everyone?
I talked to Cat last week about heartbreak. She had one of the most devastated heartbreaks I've ever seen someone survive without slitting something and I never understood anywhere near the depth of it. I know now why a beautiful, vibrant young person would swear off anything remotely romantic for over a year.
I empathized but never fully grasped it until now. I hope my recoup time is less than that.
We have to move soon. A home nearby, I'm sure, and we should be hearing soon if it's the house my mom really wants. I'm pretty apathetic about it all. I hate moving, I hate having an empty bed, I hate packing up my precious things and hoping I'll find them again. My grandfather's World War II dog tags. His photo album from Germany and the girl he loved before my grandmother. Her butterfly pin. Trying to make sure I don't misplace them is part of all the stress that makes moving so intolerable.
I want my own house so badly. The bad plumbing, cracking walls, shitty floors of them all. I want to come home and sweat and work and make a house my home.
With a magnolia tree in the yard.
I feel like the only way to reach transcendence, even if it's temporary, is through working aggressively at making my happiness a top priority. Even if it's alone. Solace in solitude.
I talked to Cat last week about heartbreak. She had one of the most devastated heartbreaks I've ever seen someone survive without slitting something and I never understood anywhere near the depth of it. I know now why a beautiful, vibrant young person would swear off anything remotely romantic for over a year.
I empathized but never fully grasped it until now. I hope my recoup time is less than that.
We have to move soon. A home nearby, I'm sure, and we should be hearing soon if it's the house my mom really wants. I'm pretty apathetic about it all. I hate moving, I hate having an empty bed, I hate packing up my precious things and hoping I'll find them again. My grandfather's World War II dog tags. His photo album from Germany and the girl he loved before my grandmother. Her butterfly pin. Trying to make sure I don't misplace them is part of all the stress that makes moving so intolerable.
I want my own house so badly. The bad plumbing, cracking walls, shitty floors of them all. I want to come home and sweat and work and make a house my home.
With a magnolia tree in the yard.
I feel like the only way to reach transcendence, even if it's temporary, is through working aggressively at making my happiness a top priority. Even if it's alone. Solace in solitude.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
The scars of your love leave me breathless.
As in all things in this life, shit is tenuous. Short lived. Connections are quick grips at a rope that will keep us tied to something stable. Biggest lesson is that the something stable is always (or at least, SHOULD be) ourselves, and those lifelines back serve as reminders of who we are. Who we want to be. Who we feel is hidden beneath the six feet of dirt that daily life is trying to shovel onto us.
I offered Aaron an apology..I was told, repeatedly, that my standards for fortitude are unrealistic and I agreed when I had cooled down. He, however, lacked the grace to respond, and by extending that final apology and getting nothing back gave me a wonderful sense of closure towards him.
I am not, however, in the same boat in my feelings for Steve. I know that we broke up for all the right reasons, that at this point in our lives we're not at the same level or pace to be happy with each other, but I distinctly miss the beginning and not the end. When we would meet up and walk around Victoria Gardens and hold hands, smiling and laughing and sharing a shake at Johnny Rockets. I miss being his moonpie.
I feel like I did (and, to be honest, am still continually doing) anything to ignore the pain of that ending. I lunged headfirst into a renewed friendship with Aaron, I drove to Monterey/Santa Cruz/SF (and am going again this weekend), I'm doing massive orders for my side business and buying a new car and thinking about a new house and planning grad school options, etc. All to ignore that my heart is scarred.
I don't think I could ever give it as freely again as I did to Steve. It was so easy, so natural, to hand it to him, and him not loving me, him not making me a priority, and yet me loving him anyway is what makes me feel like my pumper went through a blender.
I had a customer call me today and ask me out on a date. Apparently he'd really liked me and was hoping to get to know me better. I never even considered it. Never thought, "oh, he could be a nice guy, maybe I should grab lunch some weekend." Nope. Nada. I bluffed it off and said I was dating someone and that, while I was flattered, no, please don't continue to call me at work because I would consider that a level of dishonest I don't want to be a part of.
I don't want to date anyone. I'm far from looking. Steve and I will probably never talk again and thinking about what a failure the relationship I had so much glowing hope invested in makes me never want to touch another.
Despite my puppy love heartbreaks, I've never recoiled like this from the prospect of future ones. The vastness of it makes me breathless. I wonder if souls can have scars where hope once lived.
I offered Aaron an apology..I was told, repeatedly, that my standards for fortitude are unrealistic and I agreed when I had cooled down. He, however, lacked the grace to respond, and by extending that final apology and getting nothing back gave me a wonderful sense of closure towards him.
I am not, however, in the same boat in my feelings for Steve. I know that we broke up for all the right reasons, that at this point in our lives we're not at the same level or pace to be happy with each other, but I distinctly miss the beginning and not the end. When we would meet up and walk around Victoria Gardens and hold hands, smiling and laughing and sharing a shake at Johnny Rockets. I miss being his moonpie.
I feel like I did (and, to be honest, am still continually doing) anything to ignore the pain of that ending. I lunged headfirst into a renewed friendship with Aaron, I drove to Monterey/Santa Cruz/SF (and am going again this weekend), I'm doing massive orders for my side business and buying a new car and thinking about a new house and planning grad school options, etc. All to ignore that my heart is scarred.
I don't think I could ever give it as freely again as I did to Steve. It was so easy, so natural, to hand it to him, and him not loving me, him not making me a priority, and yet me loving him anyway is what makes me feel like my pumper went through a blender.
I had a customer call me today and ask me out on a date. Apparently he'd really liked me and was hoping to get to know me better. I never even considered it. Never thought, "oh, he could be a nice guy, maybe I should grab lunch some weekend." Nope. Nada. I bluffed it off and said I was dating someone and that, while I was flattered, no, please don't continue to call me at work because I would consider that a level of dishonest I don't want to be a part of.
I don't want to date anyone. I'm far from looking. Steve and I will probably never talk again and thinking about what a failure the relationship I had so much glowing hope invested in makes me never want to touch another.
Despite my puppy love heartbreaks, I've never recoiled like this from the prospect of future ones. The vastness of it makes me breathless. I wonder if souls can have scars where hope once lived.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get married...
I'm sitting in a Santa Cruz hospital with my Milla and her dad, my papa san. He's reading the contents of his jello cup because after he offered her some, she said she doesn't eat it because it has pig hooves in it and after we read the ingredients realized that it's vegan.
How very Santa Cruz. And aren't I happy to be here?
My cousin Tamara just got married to her now-husband Aaron yesterday. It was lovely. They tied the knot at an estate at Monterey between two trees, a field with horses splayed out behind them. There was artwork everywhere; maps with the word "hope" torn and spread over the DJ booth. Donut cake and lace wedding dress, mad-hatter tea party meets Victorian grace. It was probably the most beautiful and low-key nuptials I've ever been to, and it was nice because if I never get married, I saw elements of what I've always wanted in this one and I was able to experience it and know what it would have been like.
They danced down the aisle to my favorite song, Dog Days are Over, by Florence and the Machine, for heaven's sake. That's my life soundtrack on a daily basis.
Milla's dad had to have emergency gall bladder surgery; he was admitted on Thursday morning and I was happy that the wedding was this weekend anyway because if it hadn't been I would've been coming up here to support papa san and my Milla anyway. He's doing so much better now that the traitorous organ has since been removed.
It's been a tumultous week. My writing mentor, Aaron Race, passed away after a long battle with lymphoma, and he was the person who ultimately honed the inclinations I had as a young person into the passions I feel today. What is the purpose of living if you don't do it passionately? Before him I was just an occasional writer, but after him I was someone devoted to the word and to being the one writing it.
Aaron and I had another falling out, like the one that so efficiently tore us asunder a few years ago. Basically, my theory is that we got too close to fast, and Mr. No-Attachments-All-Partying Aaron got scared and ran away. It's stereotypically male, and stereotypically him, so I'm not really surprised. He backed out of coming on this trip with me last minute, saying that he didn't feel like spending a weekend that far out of his comfort zone, with garnered a response from me of, "San Fran..6 hours...is out of your comfort zone?!" Because that's pretty pathetic and I couldn't believe an adult would actually say that. This of course comes after a weekend spent partying with his friend and a Wednesday spent all day at Disneyland, during which time I'm sure a party this weekend came up and he thought, oh, I'd rather go to that then a wedding I have to ride in the car too, I can just cancel on Erin.
Which was the problem. I don't like people to back out on their word. I don't care if it's going to the movies or going up north. If I tell you I'm going with you, I am, even if it's uncomfortable. Was it easy to be at a wedding that was practically what I had hoped for myself 2 weeks after I broke up with the man I had hoped to marry? No. Could I have gotten out of it with no fingers pointed in blame at me? Of course I could have. Did I? No. Because I gave my word I'd be there. I'm not especially close to my cousin Tamara, but I believe deeply that your character is based on your convictions and your strength of bond, and I do not break those lightly. Aaron simply proved for the second time that his word is baseless and he only holds true to it when it's convenient for him. Granted, in his defense that's the societal standard, but I try to love and invest in people that are exceptional and above the norm. I love people who are true, and now Aaron is not on that list, all the sadder for him.
Milla went with me to the wedding. Before we went though, I was wearing my pretty coral dress and there was a old Chevy truck in a field on the road to her house, and we decided to have an impromptu photo shoot. I feel like MillaFoto had it's first client. We had so much fun, and she shot over 200 photos in less than an hour. I'm going to be posting them on Facebook soon. For the first time in my life, I want to be photographed because I feel that I am never going to be prettier than I am now, and as much as I love looking at photos of my mom and grandmother and family when they were young, I expect my children and grandchildren will want the same. So, for posterity's sake, I'm gong to be documented when it's possible.
Having her with me at the wedding was wonderful. The Universe knew what it was doing when it pulled Aaron out of these plans and let me enjoy it fully with her. She melded with my family like she'd always been there and when my cousin Danny and Ron made me laugh so hard I had to crouch down so that the swaying of my laughter wouldn't topple me in my heels, she was laughing too. I am joyous and thankful.
Tonight we're going to wander downtown Santa Cruz, and tomorrow I'm going to spend the day with Carl and Queenie and enjoy the baby Carnivale that's going on around their streets. We'll walk and laugh and hug and I will be continually reminded about why I have the standards of association that I do: I don't want to muddy the perfectly clear waters I've been able to collect around myself.
Holy shitballs, I am so lucky.
I love you.
How very Santa Cruz. And aren't I happy to be here?
My cousin Tamara just got married to her now-husband Aaron yesterday. It was lovely. They tied the knot at an estate at Monterey between two trees, a field with horses splayed out behind them. There was artwork everywhere; maps with the word "hope" torn and spread over the DJ booth. Donut cake and lace wedding dress, mad-hatter tea party meets Victorian grace. It was probably the most beautiful and low-key nuptials I've ever been to, and it was nice because if I never get married, I saw elements of what I've always wanted in this one and I was able to experience it and know what it would have been like.
They danced down the aisle to my favorite song, Dog Days are Over, by Florence and the Machine, for heaven's sake. That's my life soundtrack on a daily basis.
Milla's dad had to have emergency gall bladder surgery; he was admitted on Thursday morning and I was happy that the wedding was this weekend anyway because if it hadn't been I would've been coming up here to support papa san and my Milla anyway. He's doing so much better now that the traitorous organ has since been removed.
It's been a tumultous week. My writing mentor, Aaron Race, passed away after a long battle with lymphoma, and he was the person who ultimately honed the inclinations I had as a young person into the passions I feel today. What is the purpose of living if you don't do it passionately? Before him I was just an occasional writer, but after him I was someone devoted to the word and to being the one writing it.
Aaron and I had another falling out, like the one that so efficiently tore us asunder a few years ago. Basically, my theory is that we got too close to fast, and Mr. No-Attachments-All-Partying Aaron got scared and ran away. It's stereotypically male, and stereotypically him, so I'm not really surprised. He backed out of coming on this trip with me last minute, saying that he didn't feel like spending a weekend that far out of his comfort zone, with garnered a response from me of, "San Fran..6 hours...is out of your comfort zone?!" Because that's pretty pathetic and I couldn't believe an adult would actually say that. This of course comes after a weekend spent partying with his friend and a Wednesday spent all day at Disneyland, during which time I'm sure a party this weekend came up and he thought, oh, I'd rather go to that then a wedding I have to ride in the car too, I can just cancel on Erin.
Which was the problem. I don't like people to back out on their word. I don't care if it's going to the movies or going up north. If I tell you I'm going with you, I am, even if it's uncomfortable. Was it easy to be at a wedding that was practically what I had hoped for myself 2 weeks after I broke up with the man I had hoped to marry? No. Could I have gotten out of it with no fingers pointed in blame at me? Of course I could have. Did I? No. Because I gave my word I'd be there. I'm not especially close to my cousin Tamara, but I believe deeply that your character is based on your convictions and your strength of bond, and I do not break those lightly. Aaron simply proved for the second time that his word is baseless and he only holds true to it when it's convenient for him. Granted, in his defense that's the societal standard, but I try to love and invest in people that are exceptional and above the norm. I love people who are true, and now Aaron is not on that list, all the sadder for him.
Milla went with me to the wedding. Before we went though, I was wearing my pretty coral dress and there was a old Chevy truck in a field on the road to her house, and we decided to have an impromptu photo shoot. I feel like MillaFoto had it's first client. We had so much fun, and she shot over 200 photos in less than an hour. I'm going to be posting them on Facebook soon. For the first time in my life, I want to be photographed because I feel that I am never going to be prettier than I am now, and as much as I love looking at photos of my mom and grandmother and family when they were young, I expect my children and grandchildren will want the same. So, for posterity's sake, I'm gong to be documented when it's possible.
Having her with me at the wedding was wonderful. The Universe knew what it was doing when it pulled Aaron out of these plans and let me enjoy it fully with her. She melded with my family like she'd always been there and when my cousin Danny and Ron made me laugh so hard I had to crouch down so that the swaying of my laughter wouldn't topple me in my heels, she was laughing too. I am joyous and thankful.
Tonight we're going to wander downtown Santa Cruz, and tomorrow I'm going to spend the day with Carl and Queenie and enjoy the baby Carnivale that's going on around their streets. We'll walk and laugh and hug and I will be continually reminded about why I have the standards of association that I do: I don't want to muddy the perfectly clear waters I've been able to collect around myself.
Holy shitballs, I am so lucky.
I love you.
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