A Treasure Found at Home

five twenty in the morning
eyes open
ears open to the crash bash drive of trucks
in the fruit-packing district

mind still in the dream
the bad dream
the leaving me dream
the not caring dream
the stupid, what was i thinking dream
why even dream such a thing

next those girls come waltzing in
the screaming girls
the wall-building girls
the name calling girls
the speak another language girls
why did i try for so long

i kick them all out

in their place come taxes
the more than i though taxes
the didn’t plan right taxes
the have no money taxes
the grow up quick, here i am taxes
how did i screw up so badly

one thirty six in the afternoon
eyes open
ears open to the mumble whirr of the office
under the bridge

mind still in the dream

saturday was an all day meeting of my shambhala buddhism class. i haven’t written about it yet because i’m honestly not really sure what to say.

we met at drala’s house since the center was busy with a weekend retreat. we shared breakfast an played with the new puppy, kiki.

we went into the other room to meditate. drala had set out a low support cushion for kiki to sit on. i was doubtful, but she plopped right down on it after going to the other room for a chew toy. she was sitting quietly, gnawing away, when the smoke from the incense floated into the stream of sunlight pouring in the window just in front of her. her ears went up and she backed into me pretty quickly. i tried to comfort her a little by putting my hand on her back, but she was really curious about the smoke and more than a little nervous. she crept up to inspect but, being smoke, there was nothing solid to inspect. she ran back to drala and started barking and growling. drala put the incense out and kiki laid down next to him and went to sleep. she slept the whole rest of the hour and a half we meditated, raising her head only when we would switch from sitting to walking to sitting.

for lunch, we went to a great little indian place in the tenderloin. it was delicious, and conveniently located for the second part of our day. after lunch we walked slowly, in silence, around the tenderloin keeping particular slogans in mind. we practiced tonglen, we joined everything with meditation, and i noticed what a different experience it was from when i lived there.

granted, i lived on the edge and would not walk alone through the areas we walked through saturday but the difference was profound. i felt much more separate from the people on the street than i remember feeling when i lived there. not that i ever felt a strong kinship with the men offering me money for sex, but at least they were acknowledging me. i had the feeling that our slow walking and silence created a bubble around us. that they knew we were there to see their pain somehow, and they were ignoring us. (except for that one woman who asked a for a pipe.)

afterwards we drove to crissy field, which was also crowded but with a very different type of energy. we looked at a display of eggs for birds and sharks and other fish in the area, we got coffee, and sat on the seawall and watched a golden retriever do his thing with a tennis ball his owner threw repeatedly into the bay.

i still feel a bit off about the visit to the tenderloin, though. i sort of wish we had done something to interact with the people we were trying to be so open to - gone to glide and served lunch or something. as it was, i feel a little like we were taking advantage of their misfortune to move ourselves just a smidgen further on our spiritual path. drala asked if i though we were hurting them at all. no, it’s not so much that, but that by saying we were being open but by standing by and observing only we weren’t helping when we had a chance to.

i’m coming to understand that i don’t believe in impartial observance when it comes to human interaction. i’m reminded of this quote from desmond tutu:

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
-Desmond Tutu, clergyman (b. 1931)

today is not only a full moon and the andc (the quarterly celebration of my dance community) but a handful of other religious holidays as well. the theme for this andc is beginner’s mind.

i helped design the invites. this was my favourite, but it wasn’t the one we used. i really like the spaciousness involved. i’m really trying to go into this with an open mind, a beginner’s mind, since my attachment to the community has been tenuous, at best, over the last year. it was a year ago when i started to have significant issues outside of the community which prevented my full participation. for the march 2007 andc i had agreed to share a role with someone, but it became clear that because of stress and circumstances in my paying job, i needed to stay home. i asked for help, i asked for a replacement, but didn’t get any answer except a worried note from the other person i was sharing the role with… not worried about me, worried about the role.

no one stepped up to cover for me, so i went anyhow. i hadn’t slept much in the past couple weeks and i didn’t want to be there, so when i finally ran into my counterpart and she told me she’d planed to do the whole thing alone and that she was ok with that, i left. i think i may have been there for an hour total.

the next andc i had food poisoning and left after maybe two hours. the next andc was just after the end of some pretty wildly bizzare difficulties at work. let’s just sum that up by saying that even when i wasn’t on call and up for hours dealing with that stuff, i was a wreck. the andc was crowded and the energy was more ‘frat party’ and sexual than i understood our intention to be - some guy i don’t know stuck his tongue down my throat without asking if i wanted any sort of kiss from him. come december, i felt like i was really starting to get back to normal. that andc i stayed all night, slept in the chill space, but can’t really say there was much magical about the night for me.

so, now we’re back to march and i’m back to normal. probably more normal than i’ve felt in a long time. i’m realizing some compromises i made which don’t feel good to me and i’m interested in the world again - interested in taking chances and in finding that intersection between amazing and ordinary.

i opened my book of daily buddhist reminders. today’s is from pema chödrön.

If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a longing, last real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop — everything.

this is the attitude i want for myself when i step into that church tonight, when i go to breakfast tomorrow, when i go to class after that, and when i drive to my cousins’ for easter on sunday. this weekend i will rest in the ground of gratitude. this weekend i’m going for beginner’s mind.

• tomato soup
• mac’s mac expertise
• moshing leprechauns
• chai
• twitter
• design your own duvet cover
• secret, the dog, played fetch with me at work
• meowers, aka galahad, cuddling with me in the morning
• distance, breathing room
• blue
• sunroof
• the ferry
• pretzels
• knowing i made the right choice
• kiki’s new home

The Five of Swords card suggests that my power today lies in the upper hand. I can outwit or outlast and I choose my battles wisely. This puts me in a superior position. I know when it’s time to hold, fold, or walk away. I am a survivor and am not easily defeated. I am empowered to gain the advantage by turnabout and my virtue fair play.

so i’m going to let mr. pants speak for me.

i had a dream last night that felt, upon waking, was a continuation of the dream from the other night. what i didn’t mention was that in that dream i thought about moving to another room in the dorm, but it was a much much smaller room and i would have to give up my private bathroom and large closet… in fact there wasn’t a closet in the smaller room at all, and there was barely room for a twin bed. the room i was in originally, and decided not to give up, had room for a queen sized bed and the closet was probably half the size of the bedroom.

when i was talking to my acupuncturist about the dream, she reminded me that house (including dorms) are representative of ourselves and our lives. by considering moving to the smaller room, and having the other girls tell me i should, was about feeling that they were trying to restrict who i am.

so last night i dreamed i was getting married. i have no idea who it was i was marrying, but i think he was fun and easy to be with and a good friend. anyhow, it was the day of the wedding and my bridesmaids were nowhere to be found. they just never showed up. there were two who showed up, i think one was hamster_grrl, and the rest just… nothing. no calls, nothing. they hadn’t backed out, they just weren’t there. they’d all bought dresses (which were bluish?) so they knew they were the bridesmaids and knew the day of the wedding. i was unhappy, but also had a feeling of something else. i’m not sure how to describe it. i wasn’t distraught. i guess it was a feeling of being very unimportant. of confirmation that they’d agreed for some other reason than because they really like me and who i am and want to support me.

last saturday my across the street neighbour had a get together at his place. i’ve been experiencing continued disillusionment and uncomfortableness in terms of where i fit into my community and if it’s really the right one for me, blah blah blah. i found out about the party last minute so my unpreparedness and my lack of confidence were working together to keep me from going.

however, i hadn’t seen flo in weeks (she was in ireland) and i really like my neighbour, so i figured i’d go for a little while. it’s not a huge commitment when i can retreat back across the street if i get too uncomfortable, right?

i was greeted at the door by someone thanking me for something i’d done. big happy hug, and a genuine thank you. i stumbled up the stairs in a daze of happiness. later i was dancy dancing about and another friend saw me from across the floor. she smiled brightly and pointed at me; i hadn’t seen her in a while so i thought she was just giving me a happy greeting. when she got to me, she also gave me a huge thank you for something i’d helped set in motion for her… i gave her someone’s name who i thought could help with something she’d asked about.

what a great night. on top of the wonderful music and usual catching up with people, it felt great to have people spontaneously express their gratitude to/for me.

today i’m still tired, but it was well worth it.

last night the moon was super bright as i went to sleep. the light came in through my skylight and cast shadows on my bed. with my glasses off it looked full, even though my calendar says that shouldn’t happen for another couple days. i fell asleep feeling happy and peaceful. i dreamed about exploring new places and these strange plants.

at 2:30 am i was woken up by a scream. not a playing around, calling friend, or angry argument scream — in other words it wasn’t yelling, it was Screaming. i wasn’t really sure if it was real but it didn’t seem to fit in my dream either.

then i heard her again. this time she said something. i think she said, ‘he has a gun’ or ‘he’s got a gun’. i heard a car horn, and a car driving off? driving by?

i called emergency.

they called back a while later. they found some people on the next block, but not on mine. now, in the morning, i wonder if the noise was really from the skylight — from the front of the building and not the back.

the police dispatcher said they had another call from my building, too. thank goodness! it makes me feel better about humanity in the face of something awful.

i can’t help wondering what happened. was she kidnapped? did the honking car interrupt something or was that a result of some struggle? i heard some other noises from her, but nothing from the “he” she was screaming about it. she got quieter, but she sounded so frightened.

i wanted to come down and get my computer to see if anyone was online, but i waited till i saw the officer’s search lights (which were confirmed by the call back from emergency) before i felt safe enough to come down the stairs.

i didn’t get back to sleep for an hour. i lay there trying to do tonglen for the woman, and just couldn’t. i couldn’t. for the first time in a long, long time i wished i had a boyfriend. i wanted someone who’s “job” it was to wake up if i called in the middle of the night if i just needed to talk.

i want this to have been a personal thing so i can feel safe walking in my neighbourhood. but i want it to be random so she can have gotten away and he didn’t follow her.

i want to know that woman is ok. i want to know she made it home, to a safe home, where no one hits her or pulls weapons on her.

i want us all to be ok.

today is one of those days when i clearly just can’t win. i was going to write an entry about the girl behind the register who just looked at me the whole time, smiling and nodding. i know she could hear me because she was able to copy down my drink order. the rest she just … turned off for? how going for coffee makes me feel like i’m talking to myself.

but then i got to work and got an email from a chick who i’d apparently deeply offended by asking her to whip up some eggs and make eggnog with me at the party last weekend.

one of the reasons i didn’t write much about the winter warming party is that it was pretty frustrating experience for me. that the original plan called for a group of us to have a walk around the lake in the middle of town before going to the party at around 2ish. by 1, i still hadn’t heard from any of the people i was supposed to meet up with for all this (who live together). so i called them and was told they were running behind, we’d obviously have to skip the lake, and they’d leave the house by 2 and would call then so i’d know when to pick them all up at the bart station.

at 3, i called again; they were leaving soon.

when they finally made it to the station and i picked them all up and drove them all to the party, stopping at the grocery store for the last of the ingredients for the nog, i apparently pissed one of them off by asking her to grab the eggs which i forgot while i stood in line. then deeply offended the same girl by asking her to beat the egg whites when we were at the party.

she said yes, then disappeared.

then today she sent me an email saying i didn’t need to like her but i had to stop being so disrespectful.

er?

i was on the phone with hamster_grrl last night. since she lives so far away we frequently have hour to hour and a half phone conversations about once a week. we invariably are doing other things in addition to talking on the phone, cause sitting on the couch for an hour an a half isn’t our style. i’m not talking about reading a novel, but we muck about on the interweb or put away groceries; last night hamster_grrl was buying her ticket to come visit. (hoo rah!)

however, when doing something other than just talking on the phone, sometimes the phone tends to slip and the person on the other end might miss a syllable or two.

last night i heard, “he just looks so b@y area… hippy gay.”

me, “…  ? did you say hippy gay?”

hamster_grrl, “what? no: could. be. gay.”

me, “hippy gay certainly makes sense here.”

• marching drum corps
• thoughtful, beautiful birthday gifts
• flo helped clean up after
• flo and ham helped set up, clean the place, and make the food
• the plumbing is not stopped up
• yummy kisses
• fondue!
• champagne!
• great conversations
• snorgling mr. pants
• mid party wheelbarrow
• reading amusing post party reflections
• easy sunday morning
• sh took photos during the shindig
• surprise candles and singing
• the electricity did NOT go out in the middle of the party… *blush*

• dancy dancy
• free bluegrass in the park
• warm days
• good book
• matcha chai
• soft warm green sheets
• yummy sidecar
• spins on the dance floor
• catching up with friends, however brief
• hugs
• kisses
• unprompted agreement
• leftover faux duck sammich
• new friend

i had a bit of insomnia last night. my sleep was all out of whack due to a wonky sleep and food schedule (loved the dancy dancy, didn’t love being paged). i lay in bed reading a bonus book when i was buying a collection of short stories that had been recommended on one of the blogs i read.

‘the perks of being a wallflower’ is written as a collection of letters from charlie to someone we don’t know, who doesn’t know charlie. i loved this format. the reader really gets a chance to see inside the character’s mind in a way i’m not used to. not only do we see what he figures out and what he’s thinking, but we see *as* he figures it out sometimes. what he discovers about himself, about his past and the way he relates to the world, about ‘participating’… the story completely sucked me in.

usually i picture high school stories as taking place in my high school, and this one was pretty easy to do since it takes place during what was my senior year. it reminded me of what it felt like back then. the airiness of being in high school. everything felt different, somehow, than it feels now.

and as i lay in bed considering that feeling of high school i also felt the nagging guilt of not having cleaned the house in a long time. and it seemed strange, but i began to wonder if there was a connection there. the empty (even though that’s not quite the right word), big, airy feeling of being that age. was it really just high school? was it not having real responsibilities like a mortgage or even rent? sometimes i wonder if i just didn’t believe that decisions i made then, day to day what class to take and who to date sort of decision, could make a lasting impact on my life.

but when i think of it more, the big airiness of it all seems to center around my house. sure, we lived literally on the edge of the neighbourhood so that all i saw from my window were empty fields. really empty fields cut through with alleys and streets. ‘they’ had prepared the lots for housing already so it was mostly all dirt until you got to the next town north. i could see the next town from my window, and the border was marked by a row of trees along a street where my now current, then future boyfriend would race cars on the weekends. but i’ll keep the story of falling asleep to the sound of his squealing tires for another day.

i started to wonder if it wasn’t the big, empty, airiness of my parent’s house that helped set the tone for my high school years. our house had high ceilings, 24 ft ceilings in some places, and rooms we almost never used, sofas no one ever sat on. it was a lot of empty. my friends didn’t always like to come to my house and it was hard to explain to my parents why we didn’t ever want to hang out there. it wasn’t comfortable. my friends called it ‘the museum’ and it reminded us of the showrooms in furniture stores where you’re afraid to touch anything.

this is not what i want for my home. i want a cozy, warm, easy, yet clean, home. i need to learn how to strike that balance. i need to remember that not all empty space feels white and intimidating. i need to clear out a bunch of stuff and feng shui more people into my living room. i want to ‘participate’ more and be less of a wallflower.

from storypeople.com.

this one is dead on.

Known Future THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE FUTURE It doesn’t have to look any particular way, but around here, if it doesn’t, a lot of people will never speak to you again.

a handful of us went on a full moon hike yesterday after work. i’d asked for suggestions. as this used to be a more ritualistic experience i figured someone knew something about where to go.

i got a few replies, all asking me to tell them where it would be.

oh…

i picked a trail that said, “The path descends into a mature bay forest, follows the contour for about half a mile, and then ascends to the botanically rich upper trail.” sounds good, yes? i thought so. some trees, but an upper trail where we could see the moon.

well, turns out by “botanically rich” they also mean tree-covered. we hardly saw the moon at all, but when we did it was beautimous. hiking in the dark, though was really fun.

i scared some small animal, i think, at some point, and it scared me back. i heard some small growling from the bush next to me when i stopped. boy, did i jump! everyone else (there were five of us total) asked what happened and encouraged me to come on over just a little closer when i said i thought i heard growling. then i had to explain that it really was sort of more like chipmunk growling. whatever, man! those buggers probably have really sharp claws! and rabies!

there are, of course, no pictures. it was too dark. i tried to take one of the absolutely beautiful sunset and backlit trees, but they all came out blurry. instead you’ll all just have to start your own moonlight hikes.

• acupuncture!
• bakeries
• “a room of one’s own”
• the beach boys
• paycheck
• dvr
• shuttle to work
• anti-motion sickness bands
• car songs
• amazon mp3s

my goodness, it’s just like 6th grade here in my headphones today. if only trent turner were here to dance with to “in my room”. *sigh* i’ve stepped out of the way-back machine onto jenny lipman’s back deck in boca. man, sometimes i miss that.

i seem to have completely and totally lost the ability to communicate with other humans.

i’m quite sure there was a point at which i was told that asking a question such as,  “do we have guidelines regarding ___________?” would indeed illicit an answer more like one of the following:

• yes
• yes, here they are
• here they are
• no
• not yet
• sort of

instead i have been called prudish, have a bunch of people defending behaviours they thought i was offended by (without me having said if i was offended or not, or what caused me specifically to ask the question) , and told i could just leave if i didn’t like what was happening.

even after i clarified that i am just trying to find out what the guidelines are so i can adjust my expectations, people are *still* talking about how no one did anything offensive. no mention of the existence of guidelines or not.

how else does one ask about such a thing… i mean, how does one ask in order to get a rational yes or no answer?

and good lord don’t i wish this were the first time i’d asked about purpose or guidelines and people got all defensive instead of just answering the question. is it really that uncommon for people to ask discrete questions?

yes, there MAY be a follow up question, but i have asked the first question for a reason. i’m looking for it’s answer!

• hiking
• abandoned WWII military sites
• side trails
• deer
• picnic
• green hat guy noticed me but didn’t push it
• waves
• getting back before we got trapped by the water
• i have a job — but i wasn’t on call
• dancin’
• chatting with friends
• chatting with new people (like i promised myself i would)
• my soft soft bed at 5am
• sleeping as long as i felt like it
• **i found my remote!!!!**

I haven’t seen or heard a lot of coverage on this, but the mayor of San Diego quite suddenly and unexpectedly changed his position on same sex marraige and signed a resolution he’d previously said he would veto.

watch this video to hear his explanation in his own words. but be forwarned, it’s not for watching in public if you don’t like people seeing you tear up.
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