the era of burnt - creamsicle sky

If you asked me today what my favorite color is, I would indefinitely tell you that it's turquoise (not gray, as I often tell people, or as my previous bloggings would suggest. Those were lies.) Turquoise is deemed a color of protection, healing, attunement, fortune, and connection of the body to soul, earth to sky. Upon learning these details 4 minutes ago via google search, it makes good solid sense that I've recently been re-drawn to the color, albeit subconsciously, in my jewelry and clothing selections, for I may very well be spiritually shifting again and in need of an umph in protection and balance.

It was also not really any wonder that I pumped up the jets of my hot tub tonight after a grueling and - I'll put it bluntly - infuriating day of work today. I was too exhausted for dinner, but the bottle of Honey Moon sufficed as I slipped into the 99 degree and rising, Brominating cauldron on this hump-day's cold and foggy night. I kept the stereo off, the jets to a low to moderate oscillation, and the glowing underwater lights to the color setting turquoise.

The first 10 to 20 minutes in my bubbling turquoise pot was used for grievances and bitter sighs, and of course, beer bottle clenching. Seriously folks, I had a bad day. The idea and sound of 'getting in my hot tub' still seemed better than the actual result. If I were Yiddish, it would have been a rather ferklempt moment. My mind reeled and ruminated on the days events; my skin acclimated quickly and I was already absorbing more fog than steam; the alcohol had not yet hit my calorie deprived system. I was a bummed out gal in a luke warm bath.

But then I turned up the jets just a tid-bit higher, and the turquoise aura began to glow a little softer under the swirling chemical foam. I let my head rest back, and the rest of me floated upwards, bounding and buoyant. As my sight rested on the fog-ridden sky, that's when the world changed.

Perhaps it was my imagination... perhaps it was the booze... perhaps it was the magic of cone and rod polarization, but above the turquoise pool and me, the dark, cottony sky burned orange. It reminded me of sherbet, or a summer's creamsicle treat, just tainted with a burnt-out and tired hue, where exhaustion met Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (sans the chocolate). So I gazed in awe and my brewing body buoyed.

I believe this time of my life to be an epic era of self discovery and spiritual transition. Although it sounds a bit egoic, I can sense that even my greatest challenges and frustrations - with work, living arrangements, minimalist income, relationships, and et cetera what-have-yous - are lessons towards my degree in wholeness. I may struggle at times; I may struggle often, as viewed from my parents, but I am learning and stretching and demanding more of myself in ways that cannot necessarily be seen. Chaotic? A bit. And chaos is my be.

Pema Chodron writes in When Things Fall Apart that there are 3 ways of dealing with chaos such as mine. You can 1- let chaos and suffering go (I envy anyone who can do this effectively and will pay money to be taught); 2- you can change your attitude about suffering, and use every day/moment with chaos and discontentment as a tool to learn compassion. Chodron states, "Instead of pushing it away, we can breathe it in with the wish that everyone could stop hurting, with the wish that people everywhere could experience contentment in their hearts. We could transform pain into joy." It may seem a little masochistic at first, but worth trying in the end; and 3- acknowledge and accept that darkness is a little bit everywhere always, "whether we regard our situation as heaven or hell depends on our perception."

The sky was burnt-creamsicle and perhaps a tad demonic at the end of a wretched, painful day. But then again, it's actually quite logical that the creepy, Gene Wilder-esque color was simply an opposing projection of the turquoise protection swirling everywhere around me.

I sat on my knees in the middle of the jacuzzi like in the eye of a tornado, calm, collected, while blue-green lit water hugged me from every direction. If this era of my life isn't profound or tale-worthy, in the spirit of a big-picture perception, than I simply don't know what is or would be.

What Love's Got To Do With It

Another best friend bit the dust. She got engaged at 24. She's never been happier.

And yes, I am a faithful friend and outrageously happy for her, of course! But her excitement was an unintentional dagger to my love life's esteem. 4 of my closest friends got engaged this year... my brother - who I NEVER thought would fall in love - got married... and I officially don't have any single friends left in Michigan. (Not an exaggeration.)

But before I get to the woe is me bit, let me remind my audience that I'm not a head case, not always, nor am I desperate or destitute or really that jealous of a young-20-something marriage. My eyes and ears have cracked open into a pretty nice reality since my death defying quest in Yosemite (see post below), and I'm aware of what I've got. Woe is certainly not me.

So, I'm single and I work too hard and I barely make enough money to sustain independence in San Francisco... three points on the frowny-face side of life. But but but but but! My infinite freedoms outweighs these bits. For example: since I don't have a hubby or needy boyfriend to get back home to at the end of the day, I can take leisurely drives home across the bay; my mind wanders to great places; I see fantastic sunsets; I connect with old friends. Today it was grossly foggy, but in my un-eager and wanderlust state, I felt like I was more driving into the center of a blurred Magic-Eye Puzzle than a dark and depressed city. While I've never seen the hidden-image of a Magic-Eye Puzzle, feeling like I was "in it" seemed even better. And even though my home is sometimes gray and blurred and down in the dumps and often anxious and often so irritatingly liberal that I want to regurgitate air and expensive and full of cute couples and mind-blowingly attractive men who don't prefer my gender... despite that, I'm in love with my town and my situation.

My brother doesn't want to get married because the chances of him getting divorced are just as great as him staying in love. I got mad when he explained this. How can someone make a decision on love based on the possibility of no-longer-in-love? What about the other side of things? What about the crazy, uninhibited love that you can't even imagine until it's booming all around you? Is it ok to give up on that possibility?

Girls, like those I took to Yosemite, prostitute themselves because their pimps promise love; and even though pimps manipulate and demoralize and break down young girls, they DO provide a sense of security that those vulnerable girls need. That's why they drink the kool-aid. It seems the only way to fix their altered understanding of love is to provide an overwhelmingly different and positive and better version of love. The idealized pimp love cannot be removed, it needs to be replaced and one-uped. Prostituting is ALL about love. It's something to think about.

So I'm the last of my friends to maintain single status; so I've never been super-duper, let's get married in love with someone; love has never been promised to me; so I make ends meat but nothing too tender. So it seems, from a fragmented point of view and a bit of unspoken backstory, that I was dealt the cold and heartless hand of cards. Maybe that's true.

BUT! Thanks to my beliefs in transcendentalism, and the time to practice it, I know things could be much worse for me - I don't see love in terms of loss, I don't need to sell myself off for a false sense of love, and I can feel a whole lot of love for the things that others might call nothing. I have long car rides, and interesting challenges to conquer, and romance budding all around me. I have freedom and independence and opportunity. I have potential for unstoppable passion. And in everything, in every nothing kind of thing, there is infinite love.

I've been wanting to open up more and FEEL something, and GIVE and GAIN some kind of tenderness. Maybe now's not my time to get married like the rest of my pals, but there's something to be said for the fierce freedom I'm wrapped up in. I'm growing and changing and bettering myself and my surroundings because of it. And it's got everything to do with love.

A White Reflection

"Cracker." "Cracker-lacquer." "White Breaded Bitch."

The girls I took out to Yosemite this year thought they knew me so well by first glance. What else did they need to know, anyway? I'm Caucasian - that much is evident. They knew I was educated because I used "5 dollar foot long big ass words" like "extremely." They knew I was fond of the wild - an entirely foreign place, an uncomfortable place, a presumably privileged place, compared to their comfortable cell blocks and prostituting allies. Everything I was, they thought was out there for the degrading. They took my identity. They smashed it with a hammer.

"Fucking Bitch. Fucking Fagot. I hate white people. Don't touch me, Bitch. Where's my dinner?"

In a round-table of questions on day 3, a girl asked the adults, "What's the stupidest thing you've ever done?"

Come here? Try on you? I was up first, and I knew what I was up against. These kids... these troubled, rebellious, and compassionless youth wanted to see if I could measure up to their crime and wrong doing. They were testing us all so they could feel better about their badness. As I opened my mouth to express where I come from and how I've personally dealt with problems and choices, I could taste the girls' disappointment, though it was still an expectation, that I have not had an abortion... that I never did so many drugs I had to be taken to the hospital... that I never crashed my parents car or held up a liquor store or was part of a drive by...

"I grew up in a moderately privileged, middle class home. Should I feel bad about that? I wasn't apart of a crowd that ever acted out in negative ways. Do they know what I'm saying? Is it too obvious that I'm labeling your actions as negative? I got straight As. The stupidest thing I did was get smart. I played sports. I don't mean I did tricks. I sang in the choir. Could I sound any more virginal? And my parents had extremely high expectations of me. Do you feel bad for me yet? I felt like there was always a lot of pressure to be a certain way, so instead of acting out and doing stupid things..."

The agency leader cut me off. "Even white, privileged kids do stupid things, though."

"Yes I know. I'm explaining me. Thanks. Should I finish?"

"Oh.... ok... shhh everyone, let her finish."

"So instead of doing drugs or staying out all night, I internalized the pain of my world. I didn't do many dumb things, but dumb things ate at me in a really deep and serious way..."

They all looked bored.

"...that I'm not at all comfortable talking about."

"That's fine," the agency leader jumped in. "My turn? I grew up in Compton..."

We might as well have been playing chess with the game of white versus black we were engaged in. I started with my pawn, while she busted out her queen. Did I even have a chance at winning anyone over?

"Fucking white people. I can't wait to get away from you people. I'm never doing shit like this again."

At the end of the trip I asked one of the girls what their favorite moment of the week was. She said it was best when she called me a cracker on the first day. I was so proud she got something out of the backpacking experience!

I was happy to get back into Oakland and out of the woods, which I certainly never thought I'd say or think or type. I was elated to separate from the violence that overtook me in the back-country. I began to drool over the idea of independently kicking it on cement blocks for the next few days, knowing there was no way I'd be as attacked in the city as I was in the wild with those girls. I survived! I put down my pack; I thought a poignant, "Well fuck you, too."

But their attacks left scars and bruises and endless echoes.

"Bitch. Fagot. Did you do my laundry? Where it at, Nigga? Fucking cracker. "

I wanted to lose myself any way I could. If I could get lost enough, maybe I'd be renewed. And suddenly, in my detaching, I felt the itch to rebel. I wanted to get pierced. Get tattooed. Dye my hair blue. Cut it all off. Get drunk. Get stoned. Screw around. Throw some eggs at cars.

"Hella Cracker-Bitch!"

I told the hair dresser to do anything to my head to make me look less white, and I showed him the scar from where my eyebrow ring used to be. "I'm not as sweet as I look, truth be told," I announced. But the gay little hair dresser man didn't seem to believe me.

Why was I trying so hard to deny who I was? I AM sweet. I DO have blonde hair and blue eyes. I DO have white skin. Why did I feel bad about it? Is it really anything to feel guilty or ashamed about?

The stupidest thing I ever did as a teen was the same stupid thing I was doing a decade post. These girls popped pills... but I popped pain and digested it until my head spun and I passed out. Reverting is no game.

A few days out of the woods, I'm realizing again that I didn't need to prove myself to them then, and I don't need to prove myself to anyone now. I've been some places. I've seen some crap. I've done some shit. And I'm white! There is no paradox here. I'm is what I'm is, and that's good enough. Those girls and their adult leader are free to judge.... I can deal with that, because in the end of the day I know I'm not wearing a mask to conceal my identity or emotions.

Take it or leave it, I've got strength, guts, and pride. I'm Wonder Bread Woman, and I fly to the tune of honky-tonk, Bitch. Would you like milk with that?