Why My Landlord Needs Therapy

Hi! Welcome to Apartment 2. Today we're going to take a close look at my mini-dwelling, from the inside out, to see if we can find all the reasons my landlord needs therapy. Come, peer with me!




Someone got a label maker for Christmas! (was it a re-gift, I wonder?)



how many locks does it take to get into apartment 2? count with us! 1... 2... 3... 4 (don't forget your 'secret code'/phone #!)... 5.. 6...



More helpful reminders! YAY!


Let's not forget the old bathroom wallpaper, the chicken-incubator-styled heat lamp, and the motion sensory hallway lighting that sensors about 50% of motions. Never a dull moment.

Well, that concludes today's episode of Why My Landlord Needs Therapy. Tune in next time, when we'll discover Bruce's fake security camera system and his overwhelming love for orange scented air fresheners. Then we can take a look at why his wife goes by a different last name... See you soon!

oh

Home home home hom hom om om om om om om om om om?

This is a thoroughly thistle filled thirst inducing Thursday. It is Thursday, right? Today I'm losing track and touch and mind, and ironically the fog has lifted over my half of the city, letting a miraculous light into my apartment... where I sit with clouds and confusion pouring out my eyes. I can't see a darned thing in this thick weather!

I've got an uncle with a brain tumor in Minnesota, a friend who just passed away in a car accident in Michigan, and a new job to wrestle in California.

Am I supposed to see something that I'm not? Is there an enlightening vision I've missed the memo on? What the heck? I thought home was supposed to be with me everywhere and everytime. I thought once I was reborn that things would get easier, and I would feel ingrained in my west-coast environment despite long distance parents and siblings and ancient friendships. "Home" is HERE! That's what I thought! That's what I've been preaching with my insides out! But this is a thistling Thursday that's thieved my heart and throbs thrashingly in its place, leaving me to think so thoughtlessly: Oh Thursday, why did you cut my ties to the big picture so I would feel so far away and vulnerable? Disconnected and utterly alone? Cuz, ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I'm completely aware of the thousands of miles between my feet and my family, and it sucks. Thanks a lot Thursday. You're nowhere near Home.

But it IS a wake up call. I'm up when I want to be down. And today, this is what life is all about, and all I can preach is, "Oh."

On Darkness

What Kahlil Gibran probably meant to write in "The Prophet"...

And then I added to the masses’ spectacle, “Speak to us of darkness.”

And he answered, saying:

A shadow is but the remainder of true light. It is darkness and gloom only when our attention is just to it. You think, ‘Oh if only someone could remove this shadow from my life! It is surely the cause of all sadness.’

Then look beyond the shade, from a different direction, and you will see an image strong and clear. ‘Ah, it is the image that creates such despair! It’s that other thing that casts out darkness; it thwarts my crops from growing tall; it gives me chills; it blocks the sun.’ For it is all too easy to place blame on the object that stands between you and light.

But remember, it is the same shadow that helps you sleep and prevents your plants from drying out. Our Earth moves round, and so it goes. The light will rise again tomorrow. So too, again the shadow grows. ‘The cycle then, is the cause of woes.’

The earth you walk on is able to change; as it’s turns to see what’s beyond the object that sheds dim light, so too can you. Again, change direction and open your eyes. Alas, cannot your own body’s object emit shadows dark when the sun is at your back?

Look around and you will see. Beyond the body is radiance, more than understanding can hold in. There is clarity at every angle. There is warmth as deep as the universe. The darkness, no doubt, is the shadow cast from one’s own mind, seen only from one’s own eyes. A new perspective can ensure that what’s dark is golden, and what’s light is yours.

a long and honest lullaby

you were a doctor of medicine
She was a nurse with no direction
oooh we are babies
i was a snake in the grass
too bad You knew
it wouldn't last...
oooh we are babies. we are babies.

These are the words a computer emits at one in the morning as a young and wanderlust mind waits for a tea kettle to bellow. "flick-flick-flick-flick" goes her mantra - thoughts weaving and intersecting in the attic, driving her to the underworld - fingers dancing across the keyboard.

Henry David Thoreau once apologized in a preface for his abundant use of first-person perspective. He wrote, and I paraphrase, that sometimes this display of ego is unavoidable, as one may have really interesting things to say but only one set of eyes from which he witnesses life, one mouth from which he can speak, and only two hands to dictate. Naturally and perhaps unfortunately, he explained, the "I" pours out, "for it is the only perspective I own."

I obviously can't help but repeat that wisdom in my own writing. Every truth I can tell is received and transferred through my individual self, not necessarily boastfully, and certainly not the same as your interpretation of reality, but it's all I have or own; that's my preface.

Here are the things I want to tell, and I hope that by the end of this, I have said them and you have understood:

1. I have been lost before, and more often than not I feel like my map has flown out the window, yet deep underneath the confusion and aimlessness, I am quite certain.
2. I am a fool.
3. I believe in scars and what those scars teach. I've learned a lot from my scars even though others can't see them, and this makes me old.
4. Every time I recognize my age, the world contracts and puts me through unexpected labor, and then I am a baby again.
5. We are all babies.

Okiedoke. Well where should my ego begin? Here: it's the super strength story I have locked within my bones and twitchy fast reacting muscles and memory, my so-called identity, which is great but very very similar to a million others.

You know how it goes, "Meredith somewhat spontaneously drove across the States with as much of her material possessions squeezed by her side as her brand new Cobalt would allow... she didn't have a job lined up, no friends in the area, and hardly a 3x5 piece of plywood to site on her new California license, let alone call home..." yadda, yadda, yadda.

Though I still don't want to diminish the courage it took to start my engine that August 13th morning, I've discovered that this courage is not singly mine. (My ego's stunned in surprise.) San Francisco seems to be a pinnacle destination for countless "lost souls" - "orphans," as they're deemed by locals - typical 20 and 30-something men and women who escape the mundanity of their lives elsewhere and found brilliant thrill in a brisk, coastal atmosphere. The City is built on hills, but the hills are built on bodies of folk who've dared start a-new. Simple real-estate for all the white-collar gypsies and me.

But more striking than my tale and theirs are the little shimmering stories of the masses, women's in particular, who've taken grand risks and fought all the odds to become who they are and who they've secretly always wanted to be. I could be referring to stories about brave women unclenching their souls from abusive relationships or about those who've embraced their personal sexuality in spite of a family or religion in denial, these consciousness-raising memoirs are certainly worthy of time and poetry, but I am actually alluding to much simpler accounts of being.

Really, I'm not sure if I can explain the beautiful, bright and bold moments I'm thinking about; spirit and fearlessness have become the taboo characteristics of a person like "queer" and "colored" and "vixen" once were, so much that I'm having trouble finding some wordy examples. But perhaps I can quote Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., who tells about the Rio Abajo Rio, the river beneath the river, which is actually a woman, or a collection of wild women spirits, that is a state attained through the most courageous acts when one yearns "by seeking something she can see just out of the corner of her eye. She arrives there by deeply creative acts, through intentional solitude, and by practice of any of the arts."

When the Rio Abajo Rio flows, women are in touch with their creative forces by whatever medium allowed. I write. Sometimes I paint. Often I hum as I stroll. But it can be anything, as long as the do-er is acting from their deepest gut instincts and doing so with wide-eyed awareness and undauntedness.

"We are use our senses to wring the truth from things, to extract nourishment from ideas, to see what there is to see, know what there is to know, to be the keepers of the creative fire, and to have intimate knowing about Life/Death/Life cycles of all nature - this is an initiated woman."

This is about a pool of people who act, perform, and exist because they're following the currents of the river within them; I like to believe I am a part of this collection. We are rolling along, trying to find truth and meaning in our senseless, mapless worlds, and we stretch to uncharted territory just to better understand all the chaos within us.

Anytime someone changes their course or meanders around a new bend in the river because of a sudden or nagging, persistent vision from the corner of their eye, no matter how minuscule the change appears to be, it is as significant, if not much more significant than moving across the country. The brave who take a new path, with or without map in hand, are everywhere but often invisible. I suspect that the majority of people can identify with the sharp twist in navigation I am speaking of from time to time, they act via gut and aren't sure why; but a smaller portion of people choose to be governed by their instincts on a more regular basis. They still don't know why they make the choices they do... why they move from one place to another, why they accept and deny certain jobs, or why they give their numbers to certain men at clubs rather than gas station attendants... and despite the apparent arrogance attached to wandering about without clear direction, the quiet, underlying guts within these people (again, I'll include myself for ego's sake) are certain. Their guts are confident, and the intuitive knower at the centers of their beings is following a plan that cannot possibly go off course.

With all that said and as absorbed in the Rio Abajo Rio as I can be, I frequently lose touch of my instincts. As Pinkola Estes said, the one who looks to know what there is to know is an initiated woman, and with new initiation comes youthful abandonment, forgetfulness, and unintended laziness of the soul. Sometimes I make choices that are clearly not governed by the knowing river within me, but rather by a shallow layer of naive hormones and social expectations.

Know what I mean? Haven't you ever just gone with the flow, but the flow was without purpose and void of thoughtful attention? Examples: partying, experimenting with drugs, getting drunk because you're bored, acting promiscuously just because you can, sticking at the job you hate because it pays or because the market isn't any better elsewhere, sleeping in 'til noon, sitting at the computer refreshing Facebook...

I'm not condemning these behaviors - I'm not trying to say that anyone who has ever identified with these actions is a thoughtless, weak person. Well, not always. I am most definitely not above any of these examples considering they are all snippets of my recent and current life! I am trying to prove that even strong, brave, wild people lose their bearings to act a fool.

That's the irony of wisdom - I can experience the most profound understanding, and much more easily I can push knowledge to aside to have a little fun. That fun usually ends up biting me in the ass, which propels more soul searching and bubbles of truth to evade the river beneath the river, so I guess it's all works out for the best, but it's pretty ridiculous.

I have to admit on an even more personal level that I have been a tremendous fool in regards to dating. If you've read past entries, maybe you have some vague idea of how dramatic my love life has been. I would hate to consider myself a dramatic person, but I cannot deny that the relationships I nurture grow to be bravely insidious. They take on their own lives and though they're full of gaps and holes, the details burst through the seams of my heart, tearing me down as if I had no idea it would happen.

This is because I'm not thinking with my gut. I feel pressured by society but mostly by myself to find a man and create a meaningful relationship with him. I've tinkered with online dating sites and thrown out my requests for attention in a slew of directions. How many dates have I gone on in the last year? Too many. How many men have I thought would really be worth pursuing to attain a defined status? Waaaaaaay too many! I am so silly.

The last year of my life has drifted by so fast, and now on the eve of my 2 year anniversary, I feel extraordinary guilt and anger that I've allowed this to happen. I have so many interests and so much wildish depth, but I have not fostered much other than a few online profiles and weak links with dangerous, soul-scarring men. It's a self-scarring process.

Why didn't I recognize the beaming red flags in so many men before I drove in heart first? Looking back on the people I've been with, the warning signs were everywhere, too many to name. I wish so much that instead of opening my heart so rashly for the taking, I had opened it to let my instinct out for an extra layer of genuine protection. But what's done is done, and at this moment my lesson is learned. This is where Buddhism and Taoism ring true... everything that is, isn't; suffering leads to enlightenment; from life to death to life, I have rediscovered my self and my purpose because of the fool that I am.

While I prefer to look forward from here and reclaim my depth, I find that if I want to hold onto my wisdom with a stronger grasp, I need to keep my past wars and victories and battle scars close to mind. I think that by reflecting on my mistakes and departure from intuition, I will be better equipped to find my self in future episodes. Once again, Pinkola Estes writes, "It is also a good idea for women to count their ages, not by years, but by battle scars. 'How old are you?' people sometimes ask me. 'I am seventeen battle scars old,' I say.... I wonder what our granddaughters and great-granddaughters will think of our lives recorded thusly. I hope it will all have to be explained to them."

As a thinker and a writer, I am keen to this idea. I am about thirteen battle scars old.

Does that seem like a lot or a little? I don't mean to judge my own life so harshly and again demean the experiences that have made me Me, but I fear that claiming my scars is an act of egotism and self righteousness. I can't quite resolve if all this banter is part of my descent back to the Rio Abajo Rio, or if I just like speaking on these issues so I sound important, as a sharer of Truth...

If you're confused by all this, imagine how I feel! All I want is to get back to my roots and my core. I want to shed the suit of thoughtlessness I've been wearing, and I want to go naked and uninhibited through the fields sowed by gods.

Perhaps - ney - certainly this yearning is part of the laboring process; these words and thoughts and questions of my basic self must be the necessary cries a new born child makes as she enters a fresh world full of light. The world I know is contracting and pushing me, as I push myself, to new experiences and better understanding. I have the opportunity to begin again and grow strong. Tomorrow's a new job with a new family and a new environment...

Today I'll tunnel towards the light with only my instincts to clothe me. I'm not afraid, because I know I'm not alone. We are all babies. We are all humming along to ourselves, trying to understand the world so we can get to sleep at night a little easier.

not much ado about nothing

This morning I woke up (too) early due to street sweeping from a poignant dream, which is to say that I rarely remember my dreams at all. I dreamt I was riding in a car with my dad - to an unknownst or unclear destination - with spotty conversation - listening to Barry White and Christmas Classics cassette tapes because it was all we had. We were going to stop at a Piggley Wiggley or a such and such supermarket, but that's when my alarm attacked the settled white noise blanketing my ear drums and ripped away my pleasant nothingness with uneducated urgency, the way a child tugs at his mother's blouse, screaming and crying, just to show her a bug he found.

Stupid, loud alarm, pulling me away from nowhere.

Then again, even in day I'm going nowhere slowly, sans enthusiasm or intention. My workless days drag on and stretch out as if time was molassus taffy and I'm a fly stuck to it all. I wake up early, kill the buzzing machine and go back to sleep til 10 or 11. From then til 2 I sloutch at the attention of my computer, reloading and refreshing Facebook to ensure I am as in touch with the people I never talk to as I possibly can be; and then after 2 or 3 games of Freecell, I begin to beg my online friends (who are diligently pretending to work) for suggestions on how to waste my day with valour - at their tips, I shrug and "meh" and deny ability. Proceeding all this, I might go for a brief walk and accomplish one errand on an unending to-do list; read a few pages of a book; take a nap; desire a workout that my aching back would prohibit; refresh Facebook.

I've seen so much empty time in the last week that my introversion has morphed into an unbound social monster that attacks anyone with a screenname minus away message. I don't know enough people in this city without jobs, so in concoction with the coast's gray and depressing weather, I have no reason to do anything but sit and prune from my insides out.

I revamped my bathroom though- tried to paint out the boredom in my fingertips with white wash and two coats of Kittery Blue- yet the craftiness escaped with ease, and now even my dreams are transparent and dull as though my subconscience has nothing left to leave to mystery.



Nothingness, as defined by Dictionary.com, means:

4. unconsciousness or death

According to the ever-faithful wordnet, it's described as:

1.	the state of nonexistence
2.	empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk; "that's a lot of wind"; "don't give me any of that jazz" [syn: wind]

Sounds about right. But wait! WIND is a synonym? to death? to void and emptiness and senseless blog-blabber? Now that's somethin'!

...Because today, my boring-lazy-nothingness-day, I sat at the fat, gray ocean and listened to the waves, and soaked up the cool wind through a loose knit sweater that matched the sand. I was ipod-less, bookless and phoneless, and for that brief, escapable stretched out time, I became an ocean of alive.

So I thank GOD for my boredom and for going nowhere fast, even in slumber.

In Sight

Two years she walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped... Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage... No longer to be poisoned by civilization she flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.

-Alexander Supertramp / Christopher McCandless (by his rightful name), slightly amended
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And then she returns. And escapes again. And again comes back to an imaginary, manipulated, carved-out-of-nothing habitation, creating chores for herself and fostering a sense of responsibility that builds like fragile match sticks stacked upon one another. One slip and she'll go into blazes, the true fire-sign that she is, only to pause, embrace the beauty of her recycled embers, and go on to use the scraps and rubble as fertilizer for her next grand adventure, whether it's an adventure found in the wild, The City, or lost wholly within the mind's abyss.

The world we all know is recycling. AM/PM, 24 hours on repeat. Feed the kids, feed the pets, feed yourself and work it off. Take out the trash. Favorite weekly sitcom on Thursdays, watch the reruns on Tuesdays. The seasons - see the fog roll in, roll out, roll over, and the cherry-blossoms morph throughout the year, the years. Grow up. Grow strong. Get tired. Shiver in your ever-present adolescence beneath your certain tears, and let your fears lay down to die. Reabsorb the wet salt on your cheeks so you can get the glimmer back in your eye, and live on.

When I was a child, a narrow minded, bread on Catholicism child at that, I always felt intuitively certain of life recycling. I learned as a young adult that many people understand the concept, or at least know of it, in terms of reincarnation. There's so much energy and life and spirit within our bodies - it doesn't make sense that just because the equipment we've attained will get weathered and tired, the operators within would expire as well. No matter how exhausted or wise with age your engine driver may one day become, how could it/you (the you of you's) leave this beautiful world indefinitely? That's irrational, illogical, impossible in my mind. Life is recycled.

And since there are so many cycles within our present lives, it only makes that much more sense that we sprout and bloom and burst, exist, weaken, disconnect and surrender back into our hosts like flowers on a cherry blossom. We are born into someone new -something new- all the time, every decade, 2 years, day, or millisecond depending on your soul, and we stretch our arms out wide along side of our ever-yearning, craving, desirous minds; we LIVE, in the truest, most passionate sense of the word, like Jack Kerouac said, as "fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." and just like wicks, we can grow short and dim, we can burnout within our careers, our relationships, or whatever interest we are captive of. When our energy for one thing withers, it is not WE who are withered, not entirely, but it is a moment when we can reflect and redirect all the love within us onto something more deserving. The suits our minds were wearing are expired, and we can try on something new for size. A new life, a new direction. We are reborn within our bodies, witnessed by no one else but our own witness, our own engine driver...

Many many times, much more often than not, I forget who's driving my body along the roads. I assume I have control, I'm encompassed by my frontal lobe consciousness, my ego, which can be all together very empowering in an era of independence. But when crap happens or things change, my ego yelps and grasps at anything it can by it's fingernails in order to maintain it's power. I hate living in a state of powerlessness. I get depressed. I lose hope in civilization and I crave removal from my environment.

All this is the result of being governed by my smaller self, my temporary and finite sense of life dubbed Meredith. This is the self that burns so fiercely and can burn out just as fast. It's the suit my bigger Self wears just for appearances. Who's really in charge? Big Self. Always. Always way back/up there in my mind, resting in observation and smiling.

I believe there's a Big Self in each of us, and although we are each separated by bodies and experiences and interests, etc, the Big Self is but one. It's the earth our cherry-blossoms are born from and wither back into. When I'm very very lucky, my smaller self takes a break from burning and reaching outward, looks around, and stretches inward towards this great seer. When I get this chance, my small self obtains invaluable lessons and understanding, and I'm absorbed in a sense of peace that cascades through my veins like a much needed drink of water during a drought. My small self calls these rare moments "insights." In sight of the big picture where you, me, and the whole gang are united and never die.

When I'm looking inward like this, and I see the roots of our beings, I have achieved the Ultimate Freedom that Alexander Supertramp craved from the Alaskan Wilderness. Like him, I often ache for a change in scenery, an open and natural environment where the Big Self would seem to be more apparent. I can't lie, the wild does help. But it's not essential.

Looking for escape? Looking for understanding? Trying to grasp control and stop the pain of your internal rebirths?

Look no further.

the state of my personal agency

My state of things: I returned from Tahoe yesterday. Now I'm back in the civilized world where clocks hold significance and to-do lists decorate my refrigerator stationary in all it's entirety. I'm overhearing my roommate's music from the living room; the sound of her chopping, dicing, and processing food in attempts to make dinner is the sound behind that. Fog has been pressing against my windows all day, and off and on, with curtains drawn, I've slid open the glass frames to let the clouds in. I guess I feel that it will give me better appreciation for when the sun and warmth rarely hit the San Franciscan atmosphere. The flux in temp has caused Waldo, my fish, to dance in his bowl, and after a year he is finally following my finger when I take it for a walk around the glass. Which reminds me - I got a new book today. "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" by Henry David Thoreau. I'm excited... only 3 books to read before I get to it!

So that's now. That's the moment. As they say, that's all there ever is, and I try to believe them. Yet I was raised on opposition - a way of being that was quite literally addressed in countless family discussions at the dinner table... Me: well it seems like... Everyone else: well you're wrong. And at else times, it was subconsciously absorbed as I prowled through a jungle of parental love/hate to suddenly emerge into the land of independence with mere and delicate scars to show the ever-lonely, ever isolated track it took to get there. It would seem that with a privileged, do-good Christian family I'd have felt supported in my opinions, choices, actions and the like; but opposition always had a seat at the table, and rather than be silenced by it's presence, I learned to debate and argue the defined order, even if it was set in stone. Question authority! That's the game. And I guess that's why I'm wondering now if Now really is all there ever is.

The past is on my mind for good reason. For starters, I'm drawing very near to my two year anniversary living in San Francisco. It was two years ago that I made the rash, instinctive decision to make the change in location - change in total being quite frankly. And it was two years before that when I shifted gears and moved to Ann Arbor from Holland, to reroute my university experience with entirely new people. It was exactly two years before that in which I flew from my parents' nest to a different flock at Hope College. So now, now now, conditioned by time, I'm starting over again with a new job and a new network of life-giving Californians. I sense a pattern of some sort... must be something to do with August on even years.

Other bits to brain about: I left dear Michigan with a soulless, empty home and a car brimming, then I arrived to a new home on August 18th. This year, I left my dear agency (and I use "dear" without a smidge of acidity) with a soulless, empty office and a box of files brimming. My first day at the new org will be August 18th. Hmmmmmmm.

Some other tads to tinker: July 2, 2007 - my grandma died and a boy broke up with me. I couldn't make it back to MI for the funeral because I had to work. July 2, 2008 - a boy broke up with me and I left work early for an interview and to fly back home. I'm learning that lessons repeat themselves, and in baby sets I'm putting the lessons to practice.

I could go on with things about October 12th and 412 and deep trips to the woods and tales of long lost friends calling me just as I was thinking of them, and you could say, "Great job, Mer - you've produced a mad list of coincidences that don't hold any significance in the scheme of it all. Guys are always breaking up with you so the dates don't matter, and the 8th month of every even year thing is complete paranoia!" (You thought it, didn't you?!)

"There are such things as coincidences" - I <3 Huckabees

But I wouldn't be acting as my self if I didn't oppose that, too. And there really is something acting in my life on a certain time table that is independent of my control. Now I know how my parents must feel.

I am profoundly grateful, however, that I have recognized these coincidences. I feel that I've learned more about life and who I am from these subjective main points than I have from any book or essay I've read, or any professor, parent, media, or art.

I can only conclude my thoughts by saying that it's exciting to start a new cycle and see how similar or different my future life will become to it's past. I still want to believe that the feeling of my fingers pressing into the keyboard is the only true thing to be had, just as you reading these words on your screen is the only thing you have now; but there is no denying that I'm caught in the eye of the past/present/future cyclone, on the verge of a Life/Death/Life transition, and there is something to be said for where I've been and where I will be and what I am living for.

I may be opposing the common and agreed upon order of things here... and I think that's okay! I'm happy to spout my truths a tid and a bit because the truth is all any of us will ever have. (For now.)