Welcome!

My favorite 5-year old friend visited today. It’s our first solo sleepover, and since he’s fast asleep, I think it was successful. There’s always the morning, but I think the real test was going to sleep in a strange place without his mother. I’m not sure he’s ever had a sleepover with a non-family member. I drove up to the mountains to pick him up, at the very glamorous location of the back of a Kmart, and we drove down to LA. We stopped on the way at a chain Mexican restaurant recommended by IGR’s lama’s wife. Turns out that Sharkey’s Mexican Grill is a solid source for organic rice and beans, etc. Who knew? Then we went to the Natural History Museum. The living bugs were a big hit. He thought some of the fossils were the best things ever. And we both loved looking at the minerals and crystals and seeing how they were turned into gems. As a side note, I’ve never really craved that kind of rock before, but… Then Thai for dinner, a turn on the swing, bath (largely to make sure there weren’t any lingering creepy crawlies from the trek to the swing), one story from the book, a “chapter” of the ongoing saga of the little boy and his dog (a runaway survivalist narrative that I started up this summer and which seems to have legs). And he’s out, and I’m up. But not for long.

The house hunt is going poorly, or perhaps ok, I’m really not sure. I can’t really fathom that I’m living here. I just came out for the summer. I thought if I stayed in New York I would do something dangerous, but now it seems as though going back would be even crazier. And I have a certain amount of calm and clarity here. Not really along the lines of big changes, but more along the lines of the breathing room to feel that making the big changes is possible. The program is good here. I haven’t made any friends, but I have a sense that I can find faith and purpose. I never felt that in NYC. It was all head and no heart. Maybe that was just where I was, but it kind of doesn’t matter. I’ve done more work here in the past 2 months then in the last few years.

But the house hunting is really that. I think I want to live in a house. That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to be here this summer. I wanted to live in a house. And I am. I don’t know if owning one would be any easier here, but I can find one to live in. Sharing of course, but somehow that doesn’t bother me that much. I was offered a two-bedroom apartment for under $1000, but aside from some problems, and a year long lease, it made me realize that I want something specific if I’m going to be here. I want what I can’t have in New York.

That said, I don’t know how long I can be here.

I have a terrible sadness tonight. The person I love most is hurting, and there’s nothing I can do to take his pain away. I have never been able to provide the support and comfort he deserves. I guess the best service I can do is to disappear.

I’m in exile here in LA. I think I can make it work. There’s a softness here. I don’t expect as much. It’s not where I would have chosen to be, but it is perhaps where I belong. On the edge of America. The last stop.

But I think the future, if I have a future, might be Canada. I can’t see myself growing old alone in the states. The Golden Girls never really talked about money, but I have a feeling they weren’t living on social security. My future is totally insecure. I need some security. Faith is all well and good, but so is a national health plan.

My NY Cobra doesn’t really work out here–Oxford isn’t really national. So I’m looking into other options.

I’m a newcomer. Scared shitless. I’m finally asking for help. I’ve never felt I deserved it before. I thought if I could get by without it then others needed it more. As though love and support were only available in finite quantities.

There’s a wedding in September. I’ve been to so many weddings alone. Horrible. Last year I didn’t go to a wedding because I couldn’t bear to go alone. I think I lost a friend because I couldn’t show up, but I thought I might cry the wrong kind of tears and not be able to stop. But I don’t think I can go to England. I want to see Amber and Gordon and Maisie and Beatie, but I don’t think I can be around anyone else’s kids right now. Cuts too deep. I always thought I would be a good mother, a good partner. I’ve been so wrong.

There are many amazing things about Amir, and everyone that knows me has heard about them again and again. One of the most unusual, which tends to go unmentioned, is that if you look closely, you can usually find glitter on his face or body. Where it comes from is a mystery–I believe he just generates it, one piece at a time, to share and enjoy.

I had a difficult, up and down day today. I’m up in Napa helping out Ilona and Tenzin. Ilona’s sick–not sure with what yet, but she walks like a little old lady–kind of bent over to the side. Tenzin is understandably freaked out. We had a good birthday yesterday–it all ended in tears, but that seems about par for the course with the bdays at that age–the sugar overload and crash didn’t help any.

Today we dropped Tenzin at a friend’s, and tried to get some things done. Tenzin’s room has been a disaster. The house is quite large, even by California standards, 3 bedrooms, but chaotic. Ilona leans towards the precious and the cute–everything is in little baskets and on little shelves, and arranged in lovely displays, which is all good except no one can find anything, and nothing ever gets put away and there are a million cute little baskets everywhere and it just feels like a big mess. And Tenzin never wants to sleep in his room.

I wanted to give Tenzin the gift of a space that was really his–a space where he could find his things, where he could put them back easily, where he could find his way to the bathroom without tripping. Ilona makes every day special for him, she’s a great mother, but sometimes it seems like it’s more work than it needs to be, that he can’t do for himself, and that he doesn’t get to be the 5 year old boy that he is.

Of course I’m aware that my impulses are suspect. I want more than anything to be making a home and family. I’m a broody nester.

I want to be doing what I am doing for Tenzin for a child of my own. And I want to be taken care of the way that I take care of others. I get frustrated with Ilona when she doesn’t ask for help, (and of course I have the same difficulty, so it totally works my nerves). I can’t do everything, so I need to know what I should be doing. Otherwise I just do and do and then find out that what I’ve been doing is just not worth doing. I’m not much good at comforting, I’m better at making sure there’s food and tea.

So anyway, we got a bunch of functional baskets–straight sides, that fit on the shelves, and that helped. But I couldn’t put up the hooks or the curtain tie backs because Ilona doesn’t have any real tools. I, of course, have plenty of tools (or rather had), because I have always done for myself. And for a while I would always be doing some sort of “home” improvement–until I realized that the main problem was that I was living in a studio in Brooklyn, and I stopped, literally in the middle of painting the bathroom. Alison tells me that she had it painted all white, which was probably smart.

I got really irritated at the lack of tools. It made me feel useless. And then again, jealous, because it might be nice not to need tools, to be able to have others do for me. I can drill, but it’s not really my strong point.

The state of the fridge was also making me crazy. I made stew last night, and couldn’t put away the leftovers, so this AM I started organizing the fridge. Throwing out yuckies, combining things that needed combining, removing non-fridge needing things from the fridge. Cleared out space. And after I put in the stewpot, I made some muffins. Magic muffins. Named such after the Magic Soup that I used to make with Lys and Dan–we would just add things that seemed good, cooking and adjusting and usually it came out magically good. Usually.

The muffins came out great. Two batches–sweet and savory. I had to look in a cookbook to find out the proportion of floury stuff to baking soda and liquid, but otherwise it was completely based on what seemed good and what needed to be used up in the fridge. Grape jelly. Almond slivers. Dates. Flax powder. Quinoa flour. Applesauce. Etc. So good. The savory ones were even better I think, with fresh corn and grated cheese. Plus a dash of hot sauce. And no grape jelly. I haven’t done anything like that in years. I’m a good hippie cook.

So the reward of the day was that after I spend a couple of hours arranging and sweeping Tenzin came home, took one look and announced that he had to sleep there tonight. He’s having his story right now, and if all goes well he’ll sleep through the night in his very own bed. I’ve been making up a series of stories about a little boy and his dog, and if he wakes up in his own bed I’ve promised him another edition. I’m thinking about a spirit journey chapter. Since it was his birthday and all.

I’ve also been thinking about how grown up I was at his age. Probably way too grown up. I could read already, and if there was story time I was doing the reading out loud. And I did my own laundry–following the picture of how the dials should be.

The balance between childhood and independence is tricky.

And then, of course, I’m always aware of my impending birthday. I think I might have to do some sort of spirit journey of my own. Hot springs? I had hoped for some huge romantic gesture but it looks like I’m drawing a blank. My birthdays of late have been so arid, maybe it won’t be bad just to be on my own. Except that it is the very last thing that I want to be.

I screwed up my unemployment claim and have to start all over. Which means that I miss out on about $2000. I don’t need it today, but it might well come in handy someday. And it would have made buying a new laptop a little less ouchy. This one is still limping on, however, so nothing urgent. I get a little anxious though.

I might be doing north for a few days. Ilona’s got some sort of kidney problem and needs some help.

Then comes my birthday. Not at all sure what to do. Vegas?

I hate doing this alone. I hate packing alone, putting stuff into storage alone, looking for a place to live alone, planning for a future alone. Today I’m really feeling it, a future stretching out before me in which the phone doesn’t ring, in which I eat alone, in which I take care of business alone, in which no matter where I call home I am always a stranger. I think one of the reasons I’m leaving New York is that I can’t bear to feel this way in my home town. I shouldn’t live in a small box in my city. I stayed here because I didn’t want to lose the connections I had, but it turns out, after 10 years, that I’m not that connected. There’s alot of love, but no connection. No ties that bind. So I’m moving on, alone, to face being alone in a strange town, in a place where I don’t have expectations of community or care.

#1–Sometimes things accumulate. This could be called clutter, possession, laze ownership. Do memories live in silver oxide when the chemicals forget to wash away the excess light? Some say it’s best to just let go, others say, just drop it off and see what develops.

#3–The opposite of a loser today! To what, never win? With little to hold onto but the desperation of perception of days before the time that we once knew was overthrown. The moss that had gathered was scraped from the soles of our boots with our silent sticks.

Two postcards. Grainy pictures of me that date the snaps to at least 6 years ago. I wore rhinestoned glasses then. At a diner. The first card is numbered 2, and has a sticker on it, with the text “Laser guided target practice of the late Nineteen-Nineties replaced what historians referred to star studded intergalactic-rimmed constellations referred to by novices as the Horned nebulae. Those in charge knew it was just a cloud.” The second is numbered four and reads “You know what, uh, let me not do this right now. Then again will it ever be the right time again? It may be the best thing. All-in-all we were just another kick in the teeth. Hope you’re well.” There’s no signature. Sent from new york (tho one didn’t actually get postmarked.

Reminds me of freshman year, when I got strange poetry ("I will love you after the war…") from an Argentinian I met briefly in Paris the year before, and an anonymous love letter from a fellow student and something else (I suppose it’s a good thing that I can’t remember what the third leg of the stool was).

Wonders.