fuckit

I have been sitting at this fucking table for the last five days trying to write something.  Trying to find something to say that would ease the angst and lift the weight that is suffocating my soul.  But what could I say?  What combination of words can you put together to adequately express all of your failures, weaknesses, adversaries and demons?  How do you do that?  Do you tell people that the reason you live in near poverty is because you don’t see anything better for yourself?  Do you say that being alone is easier than being connected?  Or maybe you could tell people that you had to tell the father of your child that you can’t absorb all of the everything anymore.  Then there was that Christmas morning text from the sister who you haven’t heard from in three years that read “you are a ruthless bitch.”  I could probably write about that.  That would probably get the ratings.  Or you could talk about how you got dumped by a man who was supposed to be “different” in a really casual, yet very expensive manner, four days before Christmas.  Those are the things I have been sitting her trying to write about for the last week.  But I couldn’t find the words.  There are no words for any of that. 

Because when you try to articulate that shit, the first thing that people want to do is tell you to forget all that and just be grateful for what you have.  Never fails.  Ever.  That’s the first sentiment out of other people’s mouths when you have a hard time.  They say “don’t lose sight of what is important.”  Or “you are so blessed.  Don’t let this get you down”  Or my personal favorite “You have more than most people.”  What the fuck kind of encouragement is that?  You think that because I am having a hard time, I can’t see the gifts I’ve been graced with?  You think that I’m ungrateful for what I have because I can’t shake the shit circus that has been shacked up over my being since forever?  This is why we are socialized to not talk about our feelings.  Because if you do, you will be labeled as weak or emotional and be chastised for being unappreciative. 

In the hours, upon excruciating hours, I have spent sitting here trying to find words that don’t make me sound like an entitled douche bucket, I started writing some of these things down.  I always keep a spiral bound notebook next to the computer when I write.  I guess to try to organize some of the emotional tsunami that happens when I write.  So, I started writing.  While I was writing.  I know, I am a multitasking marvel…Anyway.  I looked down at what I had written last night and tried to make a correlation between their relevance.  It wasn’t until I was stirring my coffee this morning, and spilled a little on the notebook that I realized what it was. 

The list was everything that I have been holding on to, trying to control.  All the things that are so far out of my control that I have been trying to navigate and manipulate and improve and own.  But they are all things that I can’t change; they aren’t mine to own.  I can’t change the pressure of December.  It is what it is.  I can’t change douche bags with judgmental eyes.  I can’t change a failed marriage.  I can’t change people who care more about their ambition than being kind.  I can’t change the way that people have treated me.  I can’t change the poor decisions of my past, nor can I replace them.  This is all shit that just is. 

I thought about that list all day.  When I got home from running my errands, I started tearing them out of the notebook, one by one.  I knew I had to do it, but I didn’t know why.  Or what I was going to do with 100 pieces of my past on shredded, college ruled notebook paper sprinkled all over the dining room table. 

It was right then that my phone buzzed from across the room.  I turned around to check it and, as if the universe had planned it, I read a text from my little brother.  It said “Hey Sis.  How are you?  It’s almost over.  Keep fighting.”  With tears in my eyes, the only words I could respond with were “I love you, but fuck this shit.  I’m a pacifist.  I want life to be nice.  I know that’s naïve.  But I want that.”  And this kid, God love his soul, said “You aren’t a pacifist, Angela.  You are a hippie.  By design, hippies fight a different battle just being who they are.  You don’t conform.  If you did, you would be a pacifist.  But you don’t.  Keep fighting.  That’s what we do.” 

I put the phone down and turned around and looked at the scattering of guilt, regret and rejection on the table.  I walked to the back yard and grabbed the aluminum bucket that I stole from a bar, circa 2003.  The one with the faded Budweiser logo that usually houses bottle caps.  I dumped out the caps and wrote in big, black letters:  FUCKIT BUCKET.  There’s going to be a fire running through my past, like Sherman’s march into Atlanta.  I’m burning it all down. 

 Just because I can’t control it, doesn’t mean that I can’t feel it.  It also doesn’t mean that I can’t let go of it.  Fuckit. 

-Inner Peas

Dear December,

Dear December,

What happened to you?  Do you remember the days when you were that enchanted time between fall and winter?  Do you remember the days that you embraced all of us with spirit and delight? Do you remember being the time of year that summer envied?  Do you remember that?  What happened to you; what happened to us? 

December, what happened to the excitement that came with your arrival?  The Thanksgiving dinners full of laughter that gave way to the lights and decorations that celebrated you.  The traditions that you brought back year after year, once so coveted have become tedious and excruciating.  Pulling boxes from the closet to decorate trees and homes has become a chore.  Grocery shopping to bake snowman cookies and gingerbread men and peppermint bark has become a series of hostile encounters that has robbed us of the enjoyment of the final product.  Giving the gifts we have chosen with such attention and concern to detail has become less fulfilling now that we can question the options. 

What happened, December?  When did the days of playful weekends with cousins turn into three months of corporate propaganda?  When did the 25 days in the advent calendar succumb to half a year of pressure, starting with Christmas in July?  Where did you lose the simplicity of short days and long nights?  Hot chocolate has been replaced with peppermint mochas.  Gingerbread houses have resigned to rebar enhanced culinary designs.   The bicycle has been made obsolete with battery operated, battery powered, plastic trucks.  Where are you, December?

I remember days when December, you were desired.  You were an escape from the rest of the year.  As a young adult,  I remember the first time I saw the city lit up from Shoreline drive in Alameda and being as captivated with the lights on the city skyline, as I was with their reflection on the bay.   December after December, I rode BART into the city, from the Fruitvale Station, with my roommate.  We’d get off at Powell and Market.  As we made the accent into the city, we would both stand silently in awe of the energy around us.  When we finally found our bearings, we would head straight for the effervescent lights of Union Square.  We would banter back and forth and say things like “One day, I’ll get you that for Christmas” or “One day we will be able to eat there.” When we grew fatigued of Macy’s and Virgin Records, we would meander through the Market to the waterfront.  When the glowing blue and pink neon lights and shiny façade of the Fog City Diner reflected off the Embarcadero, we could almost taste the bread and milkshakes. 

Every December, we did that.  We would rest our feet and tempt our nearly sophisticated pallets at one of San Francisco’s most iconic restaurants.  Then we’d hail a cab back home, by way of BART.  Once we got back to the East Bay, we would go to Waldon’s books or See’s Candy and pick up a gift we could afford for each other.  But once upon a time, those nights in the city were cherished and hopeful.  What happened to that?

I wouldn’t fly to the city now, during the month of December, if a helicopter landed in my back yard, picked me up and dropped me directly on top of Union Square.  So, what happened December?  When did you lose your mystique?  When did you become so angry and resentful and dirty?  What happened to your genuine innocence and kindness?  What the fuck happened?  Why is it that December is the most resented month of the year, now?   How did a month of celebration become some much responsibility and angst? 

December, I want the old you back.  The one who shone with glitter and magic. The one who sparkled with the light that reflected in all children s' eyes.  I don’t like the new you.  I don’t like the expectations and disappointment.  I really don’t like who you have become.  I don’t need your entitlement or your judgment.  Somewhere along the way, you lost sight of what was important.  Try to find that again.

Yours Truly,

Inner Peas

Let it Go

Every time my journey into the land of the living is delayed by traffic, weather, or mechanical malfunction, I wonder why I can’t seem to make any headway in my travels.  I am perpetually reminded that even though I want out, I am stuck in Survivaland:  The place where life is replaced by existence and dreams give way to reality.  It’s a place where the only aspiration is to wake up in the morning, with no greater ambition than, only to maintain shelter and food.  Survivaland is the place where the once aspirational and idealistic settle.  Survivaland is a psychological continent for people who can’t let go of the wrongs they have committed and those that have been committed against them.  It’s a realm of past injustices and transgressions. In Survivaland, you don’t have to live, you just need to exist. 

I know about Survivaland.  I’ve been there for years.  I’ve been doing that thing that we do here.  In Survivaland, we wake up early in the morning and get our kids ready for school.  We go to work.  We shake hands and make nice with other people.   We take out the trash and do the dishes and sweep the floors.  Not every day, just the days that courtesy requires us to do so.  Here, we don’t do much. We just survive.  Here, we don’t realize that the key to living isn’t surviving, it’s letting go. 

When you live for survival, you are bound to the things you can’t let go of.  Sometimes you cling to the best times of your life.  Sometimes it’s the worst memories you have that make you remember.  Regardless, you are just breathing one breath at a time. Day by day is too much to deal with.  So, you don’t do that.  In surviving you become complacent; comfortable.  There is no hope and no future.  You have nothing to look forward to, except Wednesday night when you take out the trash.  Or maybe sweeping the floor for a last minute guest.  The only thing you have is what has been.  And to be quite honest, what has been means nothing if you can’t let it go. 

Some of us can’t let go of the past.  We can’t let go of the boy we had a crush on in college.  We can’t let go of the time the mean girl made fun of us.  We can’t ever forget the people who watched us the time we fell off the curb the first time we wore high heels.  Some of us will never be able to let go of the first girl who broke our hearts…Or maybe the last girl who did.  We will never be able to let go of the friend who, as it turned out, couldn’t be a friend to anyone.  We can’t let go of the belts or wooden spoons that our parents disciplined us with.  We can’t let go of the lunches we couldn’t make with our cousins or the times we got bounced from bars because of the people we love had two more shots than they needed. It’s fucked up.  All of it.  It’s fucked up. 

Let it go.  Let it fucking go.  Whatever it is, LET IT GO.  It’s not worth it.  Mean girls and bad boys and friends who don’t know how to friend.  Let them go.  The family who turned on you because they didn’t understand who you are or what you stand for.  Let that shit go, too.  The friend’s who get too friendly with bartenders who expect good tips.  Those people are all living in Survivaland.  Let them go.  Let it all go. 

If you don’t ever experience it for yourself, take it from me.  I’m the girl who can’t let go of what has been.  If I let go of what has been, I wouldn’t be able to suffer.  If I let go of what was, I wouldn’t be able to live for now.  I can’t enjoy life because I am too busy abusing myself for the indiscretions of my past.  I’m the girl who puts on a woman’s facade because I have too.  If I could let it all go, I wouldn’t live to survive. 

Like a sweet sunset in Georgia, Let it go.

Like the fear that grabs ahold ya, Let it go.

LET IT GO...

-Inner Peas

Constant

Not too very long ago, maybe in the last week or so, I was thinking about writing.  I sat down here, at the dining table, where I usually write at and started a blog post.  The first thing I wrote was “So, I was talking to [some random person who has magnificently impacted my life], and [this is what happened.]”  Then I thought to myself “Angela.  You have written this before.  You have to stop writing about hugs and laughs and the smoke pit and phone calls and text messages.  It’s just the same shit over and over.”  Because, let’s be honest, what I write about are human experiences.  I didn’t want that to get too monotonous.  After all, being human is monotonous and excruciating and, often, real fucking boring. 

I didn’t want to do that again.  I didn’t want to write about a conversation I had had or an experience I had or some random text message.  I thought to myself, “You can only write about that for so long before people stop reading; before your writing gets stagnate.”  Then, today, when I got a text message from a young man very dear to my heart, I realized that my Inner Peas is about my relationships with others.  If I stop writing about those relationships, they may dissipate…Those memories may be forever forfeited because I didn’t share them.  I guess my hand has been forced…

So…Today, I got this text message from a young man I revere as a friend and a confidant.  A human being I love and respect so much, I would drop most anything I am doing if he needs me.  Even if he didn’t need me that badly, I would likely, still, stop what I was doing and listen to what he said.  He’s pretty special.  Anyway, back to this text message.  At first it was just a “hey…how are ya…how’s life…how are your people?” kind of conversation.  As the conversation rolled to a close, I said “I couldn’t love you more if you were my own brother.” 

Then, I read this: “Thank you for being there and simply being consistent.  Few people understand how rare consistency is.  It’s one of the things I value most in you.”  I smiled when I read it.  Then I read it again.  After I read it for the third time, I saw my left hand covering my face, as if I was asking my soul how to understand why I was so gifted with this love. 

Naturally, I tried to save face.  I tried to be despondent with humility.  I responded with some snarky comment about not being a constant, but rather being the Edmond Fitzgerald…The Great Lakes freighter that fell apart in a storm, just miles from a safe harbor. 

But Steven wasn’t going to let me be dissent; he wasn’t going to let me be the Edmond Fitzgerald.  He said “we know each other well enough to know our bad days and our good days.  We know each other well enough to know that we are always going to be there for each other at the end of it all.” 

It took this kid to remind me that consistency isn’t an even temperament. It was a conversation about life that made me realize that we don’t choose our destiny; we only facilitate it.   It was this wonderful young man who reminded me to love with all that I have.  Because you never know who will be your constant.  You never know who will be your balance.  You never know how consistent love will change the way you live…the way you love

-Inner Peas

Feel Something

This afternoon, I attended the graduation for the Coast Guard’s newest Independent Duty Health Services Technicians.  I make this pilgrimage across the street three times a year to watch corpsmen, who have previously functioned as team members, advance to an independent duty status.  That means that they now have the training to function as a primary health care provider.  Sometimes it means taking responsibility for the health and well being of a ship’s crew.  Sometimes it means that they will maintain their own sickbays at isolated or specialized units.  Sometimes it means that they will go back to their clinic and await assignment to one of those units.  IDHS school is an important step for a corpsman.  It gives them the opportunity to further their careers in health care and it demands that one individual absorb the responsibility of an entire clinic.

So, three times a year, I find myself watching these men and women be celebrated for their hard work and dedication to their trade.  I go for a couple of reasons.  I go to show support to my friends and colleagues who have dedicated the last three months educating and transitioning more inexperienced corpsmen into the future of health service provides in the service.  I also go because, without fail, someone from my past has participated in the program.  Mostly I go, because of the people I didn’t know until three months ago, who somehow found a way into my heart while they were there for school.  Essentially, I go for the people.  To support them.  To encourage them.  To make sure they know that they are important to me.  All of them. 

Today, at my 2 o’clock smoke break, which actually happened at 1:50 because graduation was at 2, I was at the smoke pit with my friend Dave and three of his classmates.  I was talking story with them.  My friend, who missed the birth of his child because he was here, honing his craft, made some comment about how it was hard to believe that it has been nearly six years since we worked together for the first time in Kodiak.  Then he said "Who ever thought we’d be standing together here today when I’m graduating from IDHS?”  I giggled and agreed.  Then I looked at the other three and smiled and said “Who would have thought that I’d ever be standing here with these kids?  I watched them all go through “A” school.”  It got real quiet at the pit for a minute.  Then I looked at them, “Am I rite gentlemen?”  And they all nodded “Yes ma’am.  We always remember Ms. Angela.” 

Probably not in a good way, but that made my heart smile.  For a minute. 

After that, I walked over to the upper galley and made my appearance.  Let it be clear that sounds more pretentious that it should.  Nobody was waiting for me, I just kind of meandered in.  Greetings and hugs and stories happened during the next few minutes.    When the ceremony started, I sat with my head on the shoulder of a friend who has always shouldered the weight of my emotions when I needed him to.  As I listened to the class advisor introduce the class and the instructors.  I heard the more seasoned independent duty corpsmen give words of wisdom to the newest of their counterparts.  I watched ten of the Coast Guard’s newest talent in health services, accept their qualifications.  Seven of them I had watched since they were studying to be corpsmen.  SEVEN of them I have known since they were scared to draw blood for the first time and nervous about every test out.  Seven out of ten.  One I have known as a colleague and friend.  One I have treated, as a patient.  Nine out of ten I have a history with. 

As I sat there with Louie holding my hand on what had been a very hard day, I felt so many things.  At the time I looked at those ten faces, I felt pride and hope.  When I hugged Dave and wished luck to his classmates, I felt honored to share their accomplishment with them.  When I talked to Allen about the impending arrival of his first baby, I felt love.  When Louie and I told him the story about the night we made out one New Year’s Eve in the Castro, I felt amused and nostalgic.  I remembered that New Year’s Eve buzz when I asked him why he couldn’t be straight and he yelled back at me “Why aren’t you a gay man!?!”  Allen looked at us and laughed.  I felt kindred.  With both of them.  But as I walked back to my office, I felt something different.  I felt torn.  I felt lonely.  I felt insecure and unsure of myself and a little sad. 

That’s the thing.  I feel everything.  Not just my own emotions.  I feel the emotions of others as well.  I have to balance that.  The feelings.  I can feel emotion in a room or at an event or in another person.  I understand when others are sad or indifferent or despondent.  I can feel relief and joy and satisfaction in others.  I can feel it.  All of it.  I can feel my emotions, too.  That’s that hard part.  Feeling all of it.  I’ve gotten pretty good at finding a place where balancing the internal and external is comfortable.  I know now that my emotions are deeply rooted in those of the people around me.  It’s called connection. 

But today, as I walked across the street after that ceremony, I didn’t know what to feel.  I had just left an event that evoked so many positive, meaningful emotions, only to return to a place I had been so sad an afraid all day.  I left a place where I was loved and felt love, only to return to a place where I felt disposable and devalued.  There’s so much dichotomy there.  It’s all a part of who I am and what I do.  Being without value to your employer, but being invaluable to the people you are employed with is a really hard place to be.  Being trapped between what you want and what you deserve is a really hard place to feel. 

-Inner Peas

No Questions Asked

How can you say that I don’t know what love is? 

If I were a love song, I’d probably be Fleetwood Mac’s No questions Asked.  Most wouldn’t consider it the most prolific love song ever recorded.  But I do.  It’s a song that so poignantly delves into the realities of love and desire, and even on a more instinctual level, survival.  It’s not soft and sexy.  It’s not sweet and tender.  No Questions Asked is honest and relatable.   It’s not just a love song.  It’s a life song.  It’s a song about how we live.  The struggles between loving someone and loving yourself and wanting to be loved by others.  The lyrics don’t reflect the action of making love, but instead, the longing to be loved.  On our own terms and on our own agenda.  Of course.  Because we cannot accept the love of others unless they love us the way we have outlined.

I’m frightened and I’m lost

But isn’t that what we all want?  To love and be loved on our own terms?  Isn’t that how we are conditioned to live and love?  Don’t we all want to dictate our own futures; our own outcomes?  We want to be in control.  We want to be able to manipulate the products of our existence.  We want to own the successes and the failures.  As a result of our desire for success being more than that of defeat, we try to minimize the variables.  Therefore, the people we chose to share our road with, are those we are most vulnerable to; with those people, you have no other option than to be yourself.  And in a world as superficial as ours, being vulnerable is really fucking scary. 

Night after night

Night after night. No questions asked.  I affirm my belief that I am happy being alone.  I remind myself that being alone is safe.  I like the solitude.  I like that I don’t have to answer to others.  I like that my bed is my own.  I like that until I remember that I chose an empty bed to punish myself.  Then, night after night, I’m torn between loving my empty bed and wondering if there were arms around me, if I would appreciate it more or less.  Night after night, I climb into bed on the side closest to the window.  I wake up several times a night, when I cross the imaginary line that separates my side from the other side of the bed.  When I have realized that I have crossed the line in my own bed, I will get up, take a Benadryl and swallow a cup of water.  Then I’ll go back to the east side of the room; the far side of the bed. 

Pushed up against the wall

We can’t ever have a relationship that we feel stifled in.  We can’t ever love if we feel pushed up against the wall.  I realized at a very young age, that suffocating your lover, or being suffocated by your lover doesn’t make you close.  It makes you want to escape.  Being watched and controlled only makes you want to find a way to emit from what binds you.  When you feel cornered, the first response to be free of the discomfort, of the threat. 

The instinct to retreat is how we survive.  By being alone, we either become independent or we become sociopaths.  We can isolate ourselves from others in order to shield ourselves or save ourselves.  It’s a very thin line that separates love of self from love of others.  I line just as thin, separates us from loving ourselves and being loved by others. 

Need you now

Being alone only gets you so far.  All the money…All the independence…All the indifference only means something when you have something to prove.  I spent years alone.  Not independent, but alone.  I was convinced that was where I needed to be.  It’s only been in the last year or so, that I have realized the difference.  We should all be independent.  We should all be able to take care of ourselves.  But we should never be alone. 

Sometimes we want to be alone, but we should also be willing to accept that we need to not be by ourselves.  Sometimes, you just need to say “I need you now.”  That’s what survival is about.  That’s how you live life.  The people who love you will come through for you.  Your friends.  Your family.  Your lovers.  They will be there for you and know that there are no expectations.  No questions asked. 

-Inner Peas

Another Unnecessary Loss

About four years ago, I was talking to the students about their health records.  I do that with every class that leaves TRACEN Petaluma.  It’s important.  Your medical history is really important.  So that’s why I talk to the students about getting their health records to the next place they are going.  You know, you need to make sure what happens to you medically can be traced for several reasons.  Continuity of care.  Health benefits. Maintaining a medical history.  It’s a big deal whether you have served in the military or you could never fathom a military lifestyle.  Your health care and treatment is as much your responsibility as it is that of your health care providers.  I’m digressing though.  Point is that I make a concerted effort to make sure every patient I see understands how important their health history is to their future. 

So, I go and I talk to the students and I have them fill out a form.  It’s a very simple form; a form that I built myself in Microsoft Word in about three minutes.  It asks pretty simple questions like your name, your date of birth, the unit you are reporting to and when you are reporting there.  Seven lines. They fill out the form, I have them sign it, you know, just to make it a valid document.  (Don’t tell anyone that it is in NO way official.  I’d lose all my street cred.) After that, I carry on my way. 

Anyway, about four years ago I was talking to the students about their health records.  I did what I always do.  I gave them a brief lesson on their health record and how significant its contents are to their future.  Then, after I collected all the forms, I took a minute to ask them where they are going and how they feel about their orders and if anyone is so devastated that they won’t make it through the next three or four years.  As usual, that a courtesy laugh.  I thanked them for their time and for being a good audience and exited stage right.  I remember that day very well.  They were the first class to applaud me when I walked out the door.  Again, a courtesy.  But I remember their laughter and their applause very well.  I remember smiling as I walked up the hill. 

When I got back to my office, I filtered through all of the forms to make sure they were complete and I could read all of the hen scratch.  I put them into two different piles, a “to be shipped” pile and a “hand carry” pile.  I was about half way through the sifting when I found a form that didn’t look like the others.  It was complete.  And accurate.  But that’s not why it didn’t look like the others.  Even though, truth be told, none of the others were complete and accurate.  This particular form stood out because there was a very intricate drawing of a giant robot shooting at an army of much smaller robots. 

When I saw it, I smiled.  Just like his class had made me smile as I ascended the hill back to the clinic.  I maintained that feeling of delight when I saw the image that young man shared with me on his complete and accurate medical record transfer form.  I remember thinking two things 1.)  This kid didn’t hear a thing I said.  2.)  How did he complete such an intricate drawing in the 10 minutes I was there? 

It touched me so much that I emailed his class advisor with a scanned copy of this kid’s artwork with a note that said “Thank him for me.”  After I scanned it, I pinned it to my bulletin board.  And the days after that, when I was having a hard time, I would always look up to that drawing and put it all in perspective:  Medical records are important, but creativity is makes other people smile.  That was the message I got from him. 

About a month after talked to that class and transferred their health records, the clinic supervisor came up behind as I sat at my desk.  The only thing I remember was a hand holding a piece of paper with a name on it.  I recognized the name.  I looked up at the robot etching on my bulletin board.  Above the armed robot, on the first line of the form I had created myself, the names matched. 

I turned around and I looked at Allen.  I shook my head.  I yelled at him “NO!!!!”  He asked “do we still have this record?”  “NO!!!”  I screamed at him.  “NO!!!”  He went to that boat in Hawaii.  “He took his record with him before he left.  He drew me this picture.”  I pointed at the picture.  “HE DREW THAT FOR ME!!!   He was excited about going to Hawaii.  I asked him.  I looked in his face and asked him if he was excited.  He said ‘yes.’  That name is wrong.”  That’s what I told Allen.  “That name is wrong.  You. Are. Wrong.” 

Allen wasn’t wrong, though.  He was right.  That kid had left California on a plane for Hawaii.  Within hours of reporting to his new boat, he swallowed a 9mm round.  I was so devastated.  I wondered what his last days were like.  I wondered how a smart, handsome, likable young man who never went to medical ended up as a self-induced blood stain on a hotel carpet.  This young man who never exhibited any signs of feeling helpless or hopeless, was suddenly dead because he felt SO FUCKING alone. 

When he picked up his medical record, I hazed him a little.  I said “I emailed YN1 the picture you drew. Thanks for paying attention when I talked.  And just so you know, I’m keeping it on my board forever.”  I pointed behind me at the place he had memorialized in my heart.  He smiled cordially and walked away.  18 days later he was dead.  I thought my jokes were funny.  I thought that he understood that he had made a difference in my life.  I never would have thought that he was so sad, so alone that he wouldn’t want to be a part of our world anymore. 

It has been four years to the week that I learned of that young man’s death.  It’s been just a little more than four years since I tacked that picture up onto the board.  I knew that cute kid was sharing something meaningful with me when he drew that picture on the bottom of a printed Word document.  I knew he was sharing something so much as to email his class advisor about it.  I made a huge deal about it when he left the clinic.  But I made what he was sharing with me about me.  It wasn’t about me.  It was about him.  It was about a nameless, faceless statistic.  Where I saw another creative, free spirit, another creative, free spirit felt abandoned.  Again. 

In five years of doing this.  I have never received another message like that.  I get the Coast Guard’s “best” who can’t write their social security number or their next unit.  Sometimes they can’t even write their own names legibly.  But in five years, the only time I had a piece of art handed to me, I didn’t recognize the plea for acknowledgement; the silent scream for relief.  Don’t ever do that.  Don’t ever let someone ask you for help and not recognize it.  Don’t ever do that. 

-Inner Peas

Broken

There are days that I marvel at how broken I am.  Those are the days that I revel in my many pieces and the way they always find a way to fit back together.  There is a certain amount of fulfillment that comes with understanding that being broken doesn’t mean being dysfunctional, it just means that you can function differently.  The days that I take solace in knowing the gaps in my being and sharp edges didn’t come for naught are the days I find the beauty in the imperfections.  Not only my imperfections, but the imperfections around me as well. 

Its days like those that I define myself with words like “gypsy” or “hippie” or “spirited.” Its times like that when I feel my strongest and I find the most beauty in all of those busted pieces.  That’s when I feel powerful.  Not the kind of power that governs nations or pulls the tides.  Powerful like a Joni Mitchell song.  Those times also give me meaning.  Not like the meaning of life or anything.  More like the meaning of my life.  I find a lot of comfort in being broken.  I find a lot of identity in it as well.  While we are all broken, not all of us realize that we are.  In my revelation, I have control.  In my acceptance, I have peace.  That’s how I embrace being broken. 

But there are other times.  Times when it’s not so easy to appreciate the damage.  Times when it’s cold and bitter.  Times when it’s near impossible to see the beauty in the sum of your parts. That’s when I can feel those pieces of my fractured self, weakening.  It happens every time.  I know when I’m about to break again.  I can feel myself coming apart in the fall, before I even hit the floor.  Sometimes, I being to anticipate the damage before it’s even done.  Times like this make me wish I had never been broken in the first place.  If I had never been broken, I would never know what repairing the damage entailed.  It’s a lot of fucking work.

So, at times like this, I get really tired.  And kind of pissed.  And real resentful at the entire world because, really?  Can’t you learn to be more careful with fragile shit.  If you’re a bull, steer the fuck clear of china shops.  If you keep breaking mirrors, don’t blame other people for your bad luck.  If you drop everything you hold, then please, don’t pick up my heart.  I am tired of the anticipation.  I’m tired of carrying gorilla glue in my purse.  I’m tired of emergency fixes and temporary holds.  I’m tired of hearing “you are stronger than you think you are.”  I’m tired of “Do you know what a great job you are doing?”  I’m really fucking tired of all that.  I’m tired of doing “the best I can” and making excuses for my inadequacies and hoping they are reasonable explanations for barely holding it together when I’m falling apart. 

A product of loving people is not being loved back.  Everyone knows that you can’t love all of the people all of the time.  Even more, we know that we will never be loved by all of the people even part of the time.  But when is loving people going to stop being so painful?  There will be those that we love who can’t love us back.  There will be people we love who we can’t help.  There will be people we love who don't know how to love.  Every time we love someone, we risk the fall.  Every time we fall, we have to be ready to put the pieces back together.  We have two options. Either we can stop loving or we can be prepared to put it all back together.  Again.

-Inner Peas

Grace(Land)

I came home from work today, and like most days, I went immediately to the closet and kicked my shoes inside.  I went into my bedroom and grabbed a loose, ratty skirt and faded tank top.  I went to the bathroom and stripped myself of the dress and panty hose that I had been bound to since 6 o’clock this morning.  I changed my cloths and washed my face. I looked at myself in the mirror as I dried my face and was convinced that I looked older than I did yesterday.  Trying not to think too much about my rapid and premature aging, I walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine.  Then I headed to the back yard to sit in silence and watch the North Coast sky does what it does this time of year.   

As I watched the gray sky roll in with conviction, I saw the bright blue overhead and the hole on the horizon that the pink sunset screamed out of, I thought about all the life that had happened in the last 24 hours.  I looked down at my feet and saw something that concerned me:  my ankles were swollen.  Bigger and angrier than I had seen them in a long time.  I generally don’t think too much about that.  Swollen feet are an occupational hazard of spending 60 hours a week in high heels.  I’ve accepted it.  But as I reached down to rub the product of my vanity, my mind took me to a place I didn’t know was important.  I flashed back to just before lunch this morning.  I was in my office, back to the door, when a heard a knock, knock, knocking on it.  It kind of threw me off a little.  Nobody knocks on our door.  It’s open, and usually people walk right in, because they need something from one of us.  And they expect us to produce it for them right now.  Right. Fucking. Now.  In my office, we always joke about those people.  We always say that when people walk in, they say “Hey you.  You with the vagina.  Fix my shit.  Now.”  Of course, I plan to  discuss that one day.  But for now, we will stick to the knocking.

So, when I heard the wrapping on the door jamb, I turned around and saw a young man with a medical record in his hand.  That shouldn’t be surprising.  Medical records are what I do.  But what surprised me was that I recognized him as a student.  And not just any student.  An Independent Duty Health Services Technician student.  They work in the clinic at the end of their extensive training.  I looked at him, with his creepy Movember, panel van, free candy ‘stache and said “Come in, Sweetie.”  He did, with a little trepidation.  He asked me:  “Is your first name Angela?”  I confirmed.  He looked relieved and sat down and said “Good.  So you must be Ms. Angela?”  I guess so.  Sounds right, anyway.  Then he said, “I was just looking at this record and this person transferred a month or so ago.  I called the new unit to confirm and I saw that the dental exam was updated online, but it’s not in the record.”  I know.  I know.  Those are a lot words that don’t mean much to anyone, except for me and this kid and the military member with horrifying fears of dentists.  But essentially, what Movember was saying was “Can I find the answers?  Can I help you?” I said “Thank you sweetie, leave the record on my desk.  I’ve got to go to a meeting.”  And as I walked down the hill I wondered if that kid understood that with his simple gestures of kindness he gave me grace.

Then, as quickly as Movember left, I found myself late for a meeting.  When I returned, another knock came from the door behind me. This time I looked up and saw a very familiar face, also with a hideous mustache.  The first thing I thought was “how come such magnificent people insist make me feel so uncomfortable with hideous facial hair?”” Despite the unsightly upper lip, I told him “COME IN HERE!!!”  “Do you have any Kleenex?”  He asked.  I said “Have a sit, babe.”  Then, I threw a box of tissue at him.  We talked for a while about the superficial stuff. We talked about the cold and the snot and the bullshit.  After that, we talked about real shit. We talked about our children and our hopes and the way life can be mean sometimes.  We talked about that for quite a while.  And as he walked out of my office I wondered if he knew that his honesty and the trust he had in me gave me grace.  

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Tonight, as I sat there rubbing my tender ankles, questioning the colors of the sky, I also wondered about why people are the way they are.  I wondered why people trust me.  I wondered why people want to help me.  I wondered why I have been so graced. Then, I head Paul Simon on the radio.  Even though I had heard Paul Simon sing Graceland many times, both recorded and live, Graceland suddenly resonated with me like it never had before. 

“She comes back to tell me she’s gone.  As if I didn’t know that.  As if I didn’t know my own bed…Loosing love is like a window to your heart, everybody sees you’re blown apart.  Everybody feels the wind blow.”  But do we all understand that?  Do we all go to places to feel we are safe when our lives are falling apart?  Do we take our love and kindness to people who need grace the most?  How do we know where we can find grace or share our grace with others?

I think we are all living to give and receive grace.  I think we are all human trampolines.  I believe that when we are bouncing, falling, flying in turmoil.    And the only time or place we can calm the turbulence is in a state of grace.  That’s Graceland. 

-Inner Peas

Live

A few months ago, I was having a real hard time finding a work-life balance.  Actually, I had been having a real hard time with that for a few years before that.  I was letting my life be dictated by the circumstances of my employment.  By the responsibility that I had.  By the unpredictable nature of my job.  By the pressure to be everything to everyone.  As my job became more and more complicated with unreasonable expectations from internal and external factors, I became less and less capable of dealing with anything outside of work.  That meant that I was too overwhelmed to go anywhere after work.  It meant that my child became bound to the confines of our neighborhood.  It meant that any social interaction that happened outside of work was pretty much confined to my yard or kitchen.  We were both suffering because of that. 

And that’s how my life was happening.  Waking up too early.  Going to work.  Coming home.  Throw in some microwave dinners and a bottle of wine.  Baths and stories.  Some broken sleep.  That’s where I was.  But a few months ago, when I had finally reached the place where I was throwing up in the bathtub every morning, overwhelmed with the anxiety of going to work and the threat of permanently isolating my six year old, I decided to make a change.  I decided to do the job I am paid to do, and not the other five jobs that I’m not paid for.  As soon as I made that decision, weird things started happening. 

I started going out after work.  To the grocery store.  To softball games.  To dinner with my girlfriends.  For fuck sake, I took five consecutive days off to go visit with people I love and enjoy.  I started doing things that, well you know, things that real people do.  I was doing those things with a different sort of life; a different expectation.  Instead of going out because I felt obligation, I was doing them to enjoy life.  That was the first time in five years I had been able to do that.  Just enjoy. 

But the thing about learning how to live life, is that the old expectations and demons always find a way to creep back in.  So, you start enjoying life a little too much, and you remember that happiness is not normative behavior.  When hurdles present themselves, you forget that you can, actually, leap over them.  When work gets too serious, you forget that your job isn’t the only facet of your life.  Then the overwhelming fear of simply living creeps back in.  That started happening again.  Too much obligation, too much responsibility, too much asinine bullshit.  TOO FUCKING MUCH!!!  So much, that I had passed out in the shower yesterday morning and cracked my head on the side of the tub, only to wake up naked and tangled and near drowning.  For what? 

Today I was at a party.  A fun party.  With people I respect and trust.  But at the two hour point, I was out.  I gave hugs and kisses and dismissed myself, on the premise that I just can’t be with people for more than two hours.  If nothing, I’m honest.  As I drove home, though, I felt this overwhelming guilt.  Guilt for not being able to stay and support my girl and celebrate her husband’s birthday.  Oh the fucking guilt.  So much that I almost got back in the car and went back.  Then I saw this “Enjoy life everyone.  It’s worth it.” 

As soon as I saw those words on the interwebs, I texted my friend.  My text read “’Enjoy life.  It’s worth it.’  I’m gonna write about that shit.”  He said “I hope you do.  The story is pretty amazing.”  We bantered back and forth for a little while.  The long and short of the story was that Tim had went to a Tough Mudder event to cheer on a buddy. He was just there for moral support. But when he got there, something changed. Something told him that he needed to participate.  So, without a change of clothes or a plan, he shelled out a couple hundred bucks, at the last minute, so he could run the course.   Then I read his experience from this morning.  “So there was this guy at the start of the run who was talking and it went like this ‘There was a tough mudder runner who died of cancer last year.  Don’t be sad.  DON’T YOU DARE FEEL SADNESSS.  Because when he was diagnosed in 2001, he made a choice.  He chose to live life.  He made a promise that every chance he had he would live life and do something new.  He made it 13 years and he lived those years to the fullest.  He would always say ‘when was the last time you did something for the first time?’” 

Wow.  Just wow.  Fucking wow.  We are all impermanent.  We are all mortal.  We all begin to die the day we are born.  Why does it take us so long to figure out that we were born to live, not to make a living?  Why are we so convinced that we need to suffer rather than enjoy?  When was the last time that you got to do something for the first time?  

-Inner Peas

Kindness

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the very spiritual experience I had at my aunt’s memorial service down in Fairfax.  It was a beautifully gray North Coast Day.  It was a beautiful gathering of friends, family, and people who she had reached.  While I was there I was overcome with love.  I was also overcome with a reminder of my spiritual journey. 

A few days later, I was relaying the experience to one of the people closest to my heart.  I told him that I had needed to be reminded that my spirituality lies deep in the belief that we are all connected.  That as human beings, we are all connected.  That we are connected to the earth around us.  That our connectedness with each other creates balance.  It was then that he asked me a question I didn’t expect.  He said, “So, how do you worship?”  Although I hadn’t’ expected the question, without hesitation, I told him “with love and kindness.”  I hadn’t had the opportunity to think about it or to figure out if it was sensible.  But I said it.  And I said it with so much conviction that I actually believed myself. 

I preach a lot about the universe and its power over us.  I speak a lot about our connectedness and how we all have a place and a pull.  I focus a lot of my thought and my writing on finding balance and peace.  I also focus a lot of energy on orgasms and asshats and Teslas.  Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily related.  But sometimes.  But everything I write about helps me to find conscious and spiritual balance.

So a couple weekends ago, when I told my friend that the way I worship, the way I celebrate my spirituality, is through love and kindness, I kind of had an epiphany.  That’s my road.  It might not always be tactful or in good form.  But that is what I believe in.  I believe in love and kindness.  I have dedicated most of my adult life to loving other people.  I have committed myself to doing right by people who need help.  And still I am more surprised when people love me back than I am when I see people who don’t understand love. 

I had a long day.  Fuck, I had a long couple of days.  For that matter, I have had a long 16 years.  But today, on the way home, I was stuck behind a Volvo station wagon, circa mid 1990’s.  You know the one with the hatchback as tall as it is wide.  And, of course, plastered on the back window was all sorts of nostalgia, in bumper sticker form.  “Clinton/Gore ’96.”  "Visualize Whirled Peas.” (My personal favorite.)  The sticker that resonated most with me was one that I remember on my step-mom’s Mercury Sable, “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.”  Remember that sticker?  Ok.  If you aren’t from California, you probably don’t remember it.  It was a movement with California hippies though.  I saw that peeled, bubbling bumper sticker and noticed how the color hadn’t faded over the years.  It was weathered, but it was still the same periwinkle blue it was 20 years ago.  I smiled to myself. 

As a child, I remember the “ah ha” moment when I realized how poignant the idea of practicing “random kindness" was.  I can almost see the moment in my memory and thinking “Wow.  Just be nice to people.  No matter who they are.”  Give me some props, friends.  I was nine when I figured that out.  At that time, it meant smiling at people I didn’t know and pushing the shopping cart to that place where the shopping carts go in the parking lot.  That’s kind of impressive for a nine year old. 

The older I got though, the more I realized that kindness wasn’t random.  Kindness is a manifestation of love.  A universal, unconditional love.  A love that you show to other human beings because we all need that.  It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  We won’t necessarily die without it.  But, believe it or not, people have actually died without it.  Anyway, back to kindness and randomness.  Kindness is not random.  You choose to smile at someone as you pass on the street.  You choose to push your cart back to the shopping cart place.  You do that not because there are rules that dictate that you should do that.  You do it so the poor kid who has to walk 100 miles across the parking lot, collecting stray carts can catch a little break. 

Kindness isn’t random.  Kindness is intentional.   Kindness is spiritual.  We can’t all be connected without compassion.  Even on days like today, when I see the darkest, ugliest side of humanity masquerade as righteousness, I have to remember that there are more of us who choose love and kindness as spiritual principles than there are who choose greed and ambition.  I have to remember the days that I have held young women in my arms when they were at their very weakest.  I have to remember the people who have held me in my arms when I was at my very weakest.  I have to remember that kindness is a decision.  It isn’t random; it’s a choice. 

-Inner Peas

Work

This morning, I had breakfast with one of my oldest friends.  While we have been friends for more than twenty years, this morning was the first we had seen of each other in nine years.  This is one of the times that I say “thank you, technology.”  If not for Facebook, I would never have known that my childhood playmate was only minutes away.  As soon as I found out, I begged her to go to breakfast with me.  She conceded.  And there we were, sitting in the damp west Sonoma morning on the patio of a little bohemian coffee house.  We had coffee, a Boston Terrier, and nearly a decade of catching up to do in a matter of hours. 

We have both been a lot of places and done a lot of things since the last time we saw each other.  But, now, Jenny is doing something completely different than what she had been doing her entire adult life.  For that matter, she is doing something different than anyone our age has done in their entire adult lives.  Jenny quit a job that she was good at, after she was offered a promotion and a raise.  Not just a raise.  She was offered twenty thousand dollars more than she was making.  She was respected and accomplished in her profession.  Still, she uprooted herself from a job that had owned her for seven years, and walked away.  To go on a seven month road trip.

I had to know.  I had to understand what this journey was about.  I asked her “So, what are you doing now?”  She looked at me and grinned “This.  This is what I am doing now.”  I still didn’t’ understand.  So I probed further.  “Where are you living?”  Again, she grinned and shrugged.  At this point, my mind was fucking blown.  I had no response.  She said “Like I told you, I’ll be in Big Sur tonight.  Then Huntington Beach by Wednesday.” 

Sure.  Big Sur.  Huntington Beach. Makes perfect sense.  But it doesn’t.  I screamed “WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU IN THE PETALUMA KOA???”  Then she told the story.  The story about being a company woman.  About how when you are in your mid-thirties and don’t have a family, you find yourself only living for work.  She talked about how she had done it all right all of the time.  College.  Jobs.  Careers.  Paying bills.  Paying off her student loans.  One day, she woke up and realized the only thing she was paying for was food and that cute little 320i that has gotten 7,000 miles out of during the last three month.  She finally said “The only thing I had was my work.  Work that I was proud of, but didn’t want to define me.” 

That was the second time in less than 28 hours that I had heard the same sentiment escape from the mouths of people I love and consider successful professionals.  Yesterday morning one of my beloveds told me “If today is the end, all I have is a career that I only half care about.”  The first time I heard it, I tried to be encouraging and give reassurance that being committed to your career is purposeful. But the second time I heard it, I had to wonder if, maybe, successful young people with promising careers are right to be unfulfilled.  What are we actually working for? 

Are we working for savings accounts and retirement plans?  Are we working for life insurance policies without beneficiaries?  Are we working to buy good health insurance that will pay for good medications?  What the fuck are we working for?  For promotions and accolades?  For our bosses to affirm us?  We all want to think that our jobs have meaning.  We want to think that we dedicate our lives to making a difference.  But in the process of making a difference to our employers, we often find that we are distancing ourselves from what is really important. 

So, now is the time that we need to ask ourselves what is actually important.  Is it health insurance and survivors’ benefits and 401k’s?  Is it your boss’s promotion?  Is it mission statements?  Probably not.  More likely, it’s the time you exhausted your savings traveling the globe.  Or maybe it was the time that you wrote with all your heart, without fear of retribution.  Or the mornings you were late to work because you were too busy cuddling with your babies before they grow up to live the same meaningless, corporate life you are leading. 

What are we working for?  What is our purpose?  When will we stop forfeiting laughter for money?  When will we love each other before we love status?  When will we appreciate orgasms more than attaboys?  When will our children be our actually be our first priority, without fear of unemployment? 

-Inner Peas

Change

Yesterday, I had the privilege to celebrate the life of a woman who had traveled an extraordinary path.  A woman who had overcome adversity and addiction on her road to discovering the healing powers of universal love and mystic spirituality.   I was so intensely overwhelmed by the experience that I knew I had to retell it as soon as I had a few free minutes.  I just felt compelled to do it.  And I had to do it soon.  Today was going to be that day. 

Then today, I went to work, and had one of the most disturbing days I have had in a very long time.  It wasn’t just one thing.  It was the culmination of many things.  By the time I got in the car as soon as I possibly could.  I looked down at the clock on the dash board that read 3:32.  That was the earliest I remembered leaving in quiet some time.  I picked up Radley from school and drove home, as fast as that little Jetta S would get us there.  After everything I had seen today, I knew that I needed to write about it.  I had to find a way to make sense of the senseless. 

As I do, so often, on days that make my head spin,  I sat in the car and watched Radley fumble out, no shoes, one sock and dragging his backpack all the way to the door.  I was getting more and more discouraged.  I closed my eyes and shook my head.  “WHY CAN’T THIS KID JUST KEEP HIS SHOES ON AND CARRY THE GODDAMNED BACKPACK????”  I sat in the car, alone, a little longer than usual today.  Then, I remembered yesterday.  I found myself staring down two different roads.  I wasn’t at a crossroad, I was at a fork in the road.  I was at the place where I had to decide if writing a character assassination about people who assassinate characters would make me feel better than sharing my post-mortem experience about a woman who would never participate in a character assassination. 

That’s a tough place to be in when you are emotional.  Trying to decide between discussing the brilliant and the ugly.  Trying to find an outlet that will better satisfy your emotions.  Do you choose anger or do you choose love?  Anger is an easy emotion to express.  It is relatable, familiar and controversial.  But love…Love sometimes is less relatable than anger.  So, there I sat in the car, sunglasses on, eyed closed, head back, screaming at myself:  “WHAT ROAD ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE?””  Finally, I made a choice.  And this is it. 

June 15 of this year was a Sunday.  My dad usually calls me on Saturday while he’s running errands.  The problem with Saturday calls during errands is that usually I am running errands, too.  So, I called my dad back on the following Sunday.  It just happened to be Father’s day.  On Saturday’s I will call my dad on his cell phone.  On Sunday’s, I always call to the home phone.  When made the call to the Wainiha Valley on Sunday afternoon, Kathy answered.  She usually does when I call the house.  As we exchanged pleasantries, she described their morning trip to the beach.  Then she said, “We got a call earlier today that my sister passed this morning.”  Kathy paused.  I was silent.  “Christina?”  I asked.  She confirmed.  I still didn’t understand, so I mumbled something along the line of begging her to let me know when Christina’s memorial service would be. 

My dad and Kathy have been together for more than 14 years.  When I barely knew Kathy, my dad was visiting the mainland without her.  He was staying in Mill Valley with Kathy’s sister.  Christina invited me to her home for dinner so that I could spend some time with my dad.  I remember being very intimidated driving over the San Rafael Bridge from Alameda.  When I got off at the exit to Stan and Christina’s home, and ascended the narrow road to their home overlooking the Marin Coast, I remember thinking “I don’t belong here.”  But I knew I had to finish my journey.  I parked my little blue Saturn on the side of the hill, walked up their driveway, and knocked with trepidation, on the front door.  First, I saw my dad’s face.  Then I saw a tall, slender woman push him out of the way.  She opened the door and hugged me.  Before I could ever extend a hand to her, I found myself in her embrace. 

The rest of the evening was very similar.  We all sat and talked; bantered.  This place that I was so intimidated to go visit my dad at, became a very comfortable setting for discussing the world’s affairs.  Mid-term elections.  An uncomfortable war in a region of the world we were all unfamiliar with.  The heart’s desires.  After dinner and a few drinks, I felt like I was part of the family.  Even though, a few hours earlier,  I didn’t know the family I was feeling connected to.

I encountered Christina and her family several times.  Of course, because my dad was a part of their family now.  But every time after that, I would see them at my very worst.  Divorce.  Neglect.  Abandonment.   Christina, Stan, and her children would always hug me and talk to me like I was a human being.  The last time I saw Christina was at my Uncle Bill’s.  We were having a magnificent lunch at Random Ridge.  She asked me how I was doing.  It’s hard to lie when you aren’t doing well.  I walked outside to have a cigarette.  She followed me.  We didn’t say anything for a few minutes.  But as all smokers know, you feel judged by nonsmokers.  I finally said “I don’t want to get the smoke in your face.”  Christina walked away, respecting my wishes to be alone. 

Then, there was yesterday.  My dad flew into town the night before.  He got to my house after Radley and I were fast asleep.  When I got up to go to work in the morning, he hugged me and Radley and then reported that I was snoring by the time he walked in the house.  I don’t do 6:AM very well.  So I gave him a squeeze and told him I was recovering from Ebola and that a little known symptom of Ebola was snoring. I walked out the door smiling and rolling my eyes at the same time. Dads do that to you. 

Two hours later, I was back at the house to pick him up for Christina’s memorial service.  As we hit the road, I just assumed that the day would take us to the very uncomfortable places that death and family usually take people.  But as we made our way out of town, on to the back roads of coastal Marin, we only talked when there was something to be said.  It was all meaningful though.  When we finally turned South on Sir Francis Drake, we were at a place that we didn’t need words.  We could just appreciate each other for who we were and the experience we had committed to, together. 

As we pulled into Spirit Rock, I found it funny to see signs adorn the parking lot that cast reminders to lock your cars.  Really?  Where people go to worship, they should lock their cars first?  A place where people go to free their souls requires keys?  I looked at my dad and winked.  I knew I was in for something unexpected.  In the words of every lame article that has ever gone viral:  “What happened next blew me away.”  Or “Mind Blown.”  Or “Amazing.” 

We were early.  I hate being early.  That means that you have to look people in the face.  You have to act interested through awkward introductions.  You have to hug people and act like you know what to say.  I don’t do that.  But as I watched my dad walk to people, talk and hug.  I suddenly felt much removed from his life.  Instinctively, that made me want to remove myself from the picture.  I was so involved with faces and hands and hugs at that point, I couldn’t leave.  Before I knew it, I had hugged all of Christina’s nearest and dearest.  I’m a lover and a hugger and even I couldn’t understand what had just happened.   Finally, I saw Christina’s daughter.  I hugged her and said “Thank you so much for letting me be a part of this day.  It means so much.”  She just hugged me tighter and whispered in my ear “You are family.” 

I was ready to walk into that service expecting for the unexpected.  Turns out, the unexpected happened to me before I even took off my shoes in the temple.  Then I sat, for two hours, and listened as the three people most important to Christina paid tribute to her.  They talked about her journey, her escape, her spirituality, her love.  Not one of them made light of her life experiences.  But they all made weight of her character.  They all made note of the way she showed her love for people through food.  They all made note of the way her words, while she was separated from them, kept them connected.  They all addressed how her mystic spirituality gave her the love that reached so many. 

I spent two hours barefoot, absorbing all of the love and positive emotion before it became too much.  I gathered my shoes and walked outside.  I looked down from the hills of West Marin.  I looked to the grey sky above and decided to walk down the hill.  I told my dad that I had to go…the people were just too much.  He understood, and went in to hug Sarah and Peggy and Stan and Than.  Then he followed me down the hill. 

We got back in the car and made the intentional right back up the coast.  I didn’t tell him about the very intimate, very spiritual experience that I had that morning.  I think something similar had happened to him.  He asked me if I wanted to go for lunch.  I did, but I felt this compulsion that made me feel obligated to go back to work.  Go back to work. Go back to work.  GO BACK TO WORK!!!.  That’s all I heard in my head.  Until I finally blocked it out.  We stopped at the intersection that gave the opportunity to go back to Petaluma or go the other direction to Pt. Reyes.  I choose Pt. Reyes. 

We parked outside of town, and walked the city streets.  Both of us were taking in the day and the experience.  When we got to the end of town, we walked back and my dad said “how about there?”  There it was.  We had a marvelous lunch at the Station House.  He had a burger, I enjoyed the grilled mushroom sandwich.  It could have been the morning we had.  It could have been the food we were eating.  It could have been the fact that we finally understood each other.  But I have never had a more delicious sandwich.   In my life.  Ever. 

It was over that lunch In Point Reyes that I made a decision.  It was there, after an amazing morning, and a guilt free lunch, I shared with my dad the very long and tortured road I had been traveling for so long.  It was in the midst of that spiritual experience that I finally saw that my path wasn’t moving the direction it needed to be headed in.

That is why I titled this blog “Change.”  It could have been titled something more appropriate.  I could have called it “Love” or “Journey” or “Experience” or anything else besides change.   But that day changed my life.  It reminded me to change my course.  It made me feel change.  I could have very easily come home from work after a bad day and wrote 1,000 words about ugly people.  I could have talked about how ugliness prevails despite beauty.  I could have written a very dynamic blog post about the good, bad and the dysfunctional.  But I’ve done that before.  And, to be quite direct, I am fucking tired of making noise about hateful people.  I am ready to start sitting in silence with people who are loving.  People who are good.  I need that in my life.

I need to make that change. 

-Inner Peas

Easy

A couple of weeks ago I started this 3-part series about easy and hard places after a midnight conversation with a friend half a world away.  Of course, for me it was midnight, for him it was midday.  It started after he made a comment about how living in a different part of the planet isn’t as easy now as it was when he was younger.  I told him if it was easy, he wouldn’t be doing it.  It just wouldn’t be worth it.  That was less than three weeks ago when he suggested that maybe I write about easy vs. hard. 

When I started writing the next day, I knew it was going to be a three part blog.  Which, objectively, seems a little illogical.  Why write THREE parts for TWO topics?  Somehow, I just knew that I was going to need more than two.  Probably because there are more hard places than easy places.  And finding a way to write about “easy” places would be harder than writing about “hard” places.  See?  The whole thing got far more complicated that I even realized it would.  Because when your drinking wine at midnight, talking to someone who has already been up for five hours, things seem easy, but are actually much more difficult than you imagine in those late night hours. 

“Hard” was easy, because it’s common.  Easy was much tougher.  I had to start thinking about the easiest times of my life.  Being 6 and climbing hills with my friends and going to the beach with my family.  Being 18 and scrubbing bilges in 41’ utility boats.  Being 24 and in college on the GI Bill’s dime and taking out student loans to pay for books and rent.  It was the old Montgomery GI Bill; not the new, good one.  Those were the easiest times I can remember in my whole life.  At this point, I thought I would give anything to go back to those places.  They were carefree and restless.  They were places without responsibility or retribution.  They were the easy places.  Or so I thought.

Now, I sit watching my own 6-year old grow up.  I am reminded of how hard it is it find your direction at that age.  How difficult it is to understand your own emotions without even factoring in other the actions of others.  How hard it is to learn to be responsible for yourself and your stuff.  Growing up is really hard.  Climbing hills and beach trips may be easy when you are six.  But that’s not all that being six is about; maybe we forget that after we are too far removed from 6. 

I am now trying to remember those days I sat scrubbing bilges with a wire brush, season after season, in the engine room of that 41’.  41381 likely had the shiniest bilges in the entire Coast Guard.  It’s where I went when I needed to appear productive and out of sight.  It was a time when I spent half of my month with 14 men and the other half completely alone.  It was a time when I longed for liberty after 48 hours of duty, but felt alone after a few hours away.  It was 3:AM for me.  You know that Matchbox 20 song?  The one with the girl who said “It’s 3:AM, I must be lonely.”  And that she “can’t help but be scared a little sometimes.”  And in the end, it turned out that “the clock on the wall had been stuck on three for days…and happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway”  She was lonely all the time, and didn’t have the sense, or the will, to check the goddamned batteries in the clock?  Remember that song?  That’s what scrubbing bilges was to me. 

I don’t even know if I can go back to 24, with all the emotion I had in college.  All of my fire and sass.  The desire to make the world a better place, the need to have my voice heard.  I had the answers.  I had the solutions.  I had the words.  That was in college, though.  Somebody is always listening in college.  You always have the possibility of changing the world in college.  You also always have the possibility of getting drunk and breaking into a public swimming pool and getting arrested for DUI on the way home from such an expedition.  Then after that, you have to deal with your student loans and arrest record and wasting that idealism and expensive education on a job that barely pays the bills.  But the memories of jumping off the cabana into the deep-end at 2:AM remain.  That was easy. 

When you are having a hard time, people always say “It’ll get better.”  Or “It won’t be like this forever.”  And they are right.  It won’t be like that forever, but I’m not convinced that it will ever get easier.  I think we might just get more accustomed too and more acclimated to dealing with the hard places.  The fact remains, if it’s easy, it’s probably not worth it. 

Sometimes, I look over the fence at those million dollar homes and think “it’s probably a lot easier over there.”  Then I remember, everyone is fighting a battle I know nothing about.  It might be 3:AM over there, too. 

-Inner Peas