Losing a grip on the fog and the grip on the City skyline I forgot about my years in SF. Last weekend I was there again, basking in the gloriousness of music and City sounds. Cafe Du Nord has always been my favorite venue in San Francisco. Once a speakeasy in the 1920s, one descends a red-carpeted staircase to another world of opulent red walls and a deep mahogany bar. There was an amber warmth to the lighting and I felt a sense of homecoming. Everything seemed somehow smaller than it was in my imagination. It had been almost ten years since I was below the City street to see a band, and what a band to see!
The Ocean Blue have always held a place of nostalgic tenderness in my heart and seeing them once more after 12 years was truly sweet. Those fragile spider's web thick with dew-drop jewels of memories cling to my heart. For all its misty frailty, the memory pierces. It holds your heart. It warms your heart. Music that enchanted me as a younger girl entrances my mind and I feel a wholeness and a healing.
It is impossible to truly explain what home means, but San Francisco was such a place for many years. I saw not the times of loneliness and confusion. Or if I did, the loneliness and confusion took on a gleaming hue because feeling those things in your 20s is unlike any other time. As the plane drifted up I looked back through my window, touched my fingers to my lips and blew the City a kiss. I will always love you.
Back in the sun of Orange County, summer's easy embrace has opened her arms again. Our skin will be kissed by the gold of the sun. Our clothes slip off our skin with ease, muscles tighten and release in the thick, warm balm of night.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
It has to be summer.
When I meet the blank canvas I am faced with questions. I am faced with wondering if I am full of ideas or full of breath. Jack is at work right now and the house has a sense of quiet I will notice until he comes again. I loved his lips this morning. I love his eyes. He is so perfect. I know this sounds cheesy but I don't care. Being in love is a wonderful thing. I am not in love in the manic drunk way that it was when we first met, not it is such a part of my being I feel normal again. Not that the manic drunk feeling doesn't come again when I see him, when I hear his voice. It is just astounding to me how one can actually get used to being happy as much as they had gotten used to being sad. That is what amazes me, how for years pain was my food and now joy is breath and life. I told Jack once that every time I am around him I feel like I am on vacation. It's so true. He is everything I could ever want. I wish I could make a proper tribute. There are no fights, nothing to disagree on. Why should love be about fighting? Why should love be about getting the last word? It's not. It's about opening your soul to another and trusting them with your everything. Knowing Jack loves me, that he has given me his heart, why would I ever want to win a fight or get the last word?
I am so excited that it has been 2 years since I met him and that we are on the verge of another summer together. I feels so good sitting here in his room, looking at his shoes and the picture he has of us taped to the inside door of his closet. I think of his soft and gentle voice, his laugh and silly sayings. Love is so strong and real to me. Other things don't matter. Perceptions of self in unflattering lights are false illusions. They don't hold weight, they can't hold water. It is so difficult to break free from that false illusion I hold of myself, of feeling less than what others are. But I will be the master of contentment. I will be a warrior of light. Every day can be lived in bliss. Every day can be lived with so much light and so much warmth. I think of the happily ever after and I was googling pictures of ballerinas last night. I think that is how I want to look on my wedding day, like a springtime ballerina...
Joel will be moving soon and that is a point of transition I am facing soon. Things have fallen in place so much in these past two years I think I really am ready for it. I am ready to grow up after these seven years of healing. It is a wonderful thing to let go of being fragile and helpless. It is a great joy God has given me to be independent, to be strong and capable. I think I tend to sell myself short and think that somehow I can't get things done. I can see, though, how these past two years have been preparing me for what is to come. I just had to look back and let God enlighten me. I will always face times of doubt, when I think somehow I am not passing the test but that is when I need to continue to look at God. God gives me everything I need. I look at Jack's books and hats, his t-shirts hanging in the closet and I know he is all I ever did need.
This has been a great year of change. I lost my grandpa and have learned to reassess everything. I think I am finally free. It will continue to grow. The flower will still bloom, the years will still pass. I don't think I will age. I have let go of that thought. When the spirit is young we do not age. We are free from the heavy burdens of cynicism and doubt. Things can be as pure and lovely as they were when we were children. I feel a time of rebirth. It has to be the summer. It has to be summer...
I am so excited that it has been 2 years since I met him and that we are on the verge of another summer together. I feels so good sitting here in his room, looking at his shoes and the picture he has of us taped to the inside door of his closet. I think of his soft and gentle voice, his laugh and silly sayings. Love is so strong and real to me. Other things don't matter. Perceptions of self in unflattering lights are false illusions. They don't hold weight, they can't hold water. It is so difficult to break free from that false illusion I hold of myself, of feeling less than what others are. But I will be the master of contentment. I will be a warrior of light. Every day can be lived in bliss. Every day can be lived with so much light and so much warmth. I think of the happily ever after and I was googling pictures of ballerinas last night. I think that is how I want to look on my wedding day, like a springtime ballerina...
Joel will be moving soon and that is a point of transition I am facing soon. Things have fallen in place so much in these past two years I think I really am ready for it. I am ready to grow up after these seven years of healing. It is a wonderful thing to let go of being fragile and helpless. It is a great joy God has given me to be independent, to be strong and capable. I think I tend to sell myself short and think that somehow I can't get things done. I can see, though, how these past two years have been preparing me for what is to come. I just had to look back and let God enlighten me. I will always face times of doubt, when I think somehow I am not passing the test but that is when I need to continue to look at God. God gives me everything I need. I look at Jack's books and hats, his t-shirts hanging in the closet and I know he is all I ever did need.
This has been a great year of change. I lost my grandpa and have learned to reassess everything. I think I am finally free. It will continue to grow. The flower will still bloom, the years will still pass. I don't think I will age. I have let go of that thought. When the spirit is young we do not age. We are free from the heavy burdens of cynicism and doubt. Things can be as pure and lovely as they were when we were children. I feel a time of rebirth. It has to be the summer. It has to be summer...
Friday, May 10, 2013
I find it so hard...
I think the coffee is still coursing through my veins. Profundity entices me but nothing comes out. Squeezing words out of the anguish is easier than out of joy. So I will think of happy words.. bliss, felicity, joy, ecstasy. I will be met with the salt air, the fog, the sound of the ocean. I remember the sound of the fog horn at three in the morning and watching the orange clouds roll by over the pavement. That image on California and 8th will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Like November 3 1993, the first time I saw The Ocean Blue, or Stockton earlier that day. Long red hair and a black dress, opaque black tights and black patent leather mary jane shoes. I remember the way my boxy black patent leather purse with the silver snap smelled like the peppermint oil my grandma had given me that summer. It came in handy for early morning kisses after late hours of 15 year old drinking. The juxtaposition of alcohol and innocence is alarmingly amusing now. I remember wandering around the community college in Stockton that day. It was still warm in the valley and I was hoping the boy with the shoulder length hair and the trench coat would follow me and my friends.
Every min ute was like a song on an autumn leaf. Strains of warm sun on my hands and the soft swell of November wind. It was all like a floating dream, warm soft and tenuous. The smell of peppermint and brown lipstick haunt me know, the sounds my old friends haunts me, too... Girlish laghter light and low, knowing and yet unknowing. I twisted a magenta curl around a pale finger and simpered at a boy who sat next to me in the theater. Trying on his sunglasses at the community college field trip the theater was split into red and blue.
"This looks like what the world would be like if you were on acid. Not that I have ever done acid." I was quick to add. I might have told him I liked to drink. Maybe it made my 15 seem more like 17, or maybe it was blatant honesty. Wouldn't a boy in trench coat be the same?
I caught the eye of another boy on the stairs. He was talking to a statuesque strawberry blonde in a close fitting black shirt and black jeans. He kept looking over her shoulder and smiling at me. He was a boy I met in a vision when I was 12. Too young to understand the Eve of St. Agnes. I wasn't Catholic anyway...
Like November 3 1993, the first time I saw The Ocean Blue, or Stockton earlier that day. Long red hair and a black dress, opaque black tights and black patent leather mary jane shoes. I remember the way my boxy black patent leather purse with the silver snap smelled like the peppermint oil my grandma had given me that summer. It came in handy for early morning kisses after late hours of 15 year old drinking. The juxtaposition of alcohol and innocence is alarmingly amusing now. I remember wandering around the community college in Stockton that day. It was still warm in the valley and I was hoping the boy with the shoulder length hair and the trench coat would follow me and my friends.
Every min ute was like a song on an autumn leaf. Strains of warm sun on my hands and the soft swell of November wind. It was all like a floating dream, warm soft and tenuous. The smell of peppermint and brown lipstick haunt me know, the sounds my old friends haunts me, too... Girlish laghter light and low, knowing and yet unknowing. I twisted a magenta curl around a pale finger and simpered at a boy who sat next to me in the theater. Trying on his sunglasses at the community college field trip the theater was split into red and blue.
"This looks like what the world would be like if you were on acid. Not that I have ever done acid." I was quick to add. I might have told him I liked to drink. Maybe it made my 15 seem more like 17, or maybe it was blatant honesty. Wouldn't a boy in trench coat be the same?
I caught the eye of another boy on the stairs. He was talking to a statuesque strawberry blonde in a close fitting black shirt and black jeans. He kept looking over her shoulder and smiling at me. He was a boy I met in a vision when I was 12. Too young to understand the Eve of St. Agnes. I wasn't Catholic anyway...
I can't wait!!!!
High and dry are we?
Stinging sighs the salt airTaste it on your skinStomach's sense of flyingThe feeling of the wind
High and dryHigh and dry are we?
This I call my sailboatThese are all my friendsThat beyond's the shorelineAnd that is where it ends
High and dryHigh and dry are we?
The Coffee Cantata
Life, love and the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. What a marvelous afternoon it was at Paradise Perks. I have abandoned my blog for too long. I must remedy this. What's new world? It is a wonderful feeling to no longer worry about whether or not I am "seen". In the end I only want this from the All Seeing, All Knowing. I will be in San Francisco next week. The Ocean Blue is playing at Cafe Du Nord and I am going to be able to attend both sets. This is going to be like a miracle, a brilliant fantasy. The music means so much to me and I have not been to Cafe Du Nord in years. It was once a speakeasy in the 1920s. A staircase leads you down below the street level to a luscious lounge with red velvet hangings and baroque furniture. The is a small ball room with a black and white checkered floor that remind me of the final scene in Twin Peaks when Agent Dale Cooper see the backwards-talking ghost of Laura Palmer. This will be a great homecoming.
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