On breaking up with an idea

The fog had wrapped its arms around the western part of the city -- the part of the city closest to the edge of the world. In the creeping hush that followed, she made a decision. She waited for her heart to break, but it never did. She breathed out, her shoulders lowered against the falling sky.

*****

“This is indulgent,” says my inner monologue. “This is indulgent and you are wallowing.”

“Let me have it just a little bit. Please don’t take my feelings from me.”

“Well, all right.”

*****

“Sometimes I am more in love with the idea of loving someone.” And the moment she said, it instantly became true.

“I know what you mean,” he said, squeezing her hand.

They were both staring at the ceiling, imagining shapes and signs and stars in its texture. She wanted to say more, but the words crumbled away.

*****

“I really just don’t want it,” my inner monologue says, “I honestly feel better without it. Didn’t you notice the way I became sad? And what changed?”

“You make a really good point.”

“I’m trying to be as honest with myself as possible. This is more strife than it’s worth.”

“More than that, I’m just not ready.”

“There will be others.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that.

“Well, that’s good then.”

*****

She watched him move, and if he had been an ant struggling to shoulder a burden of food, she would have flicked at him with her finger, just to watch his body disappear into space.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

*****

“You’re not really like that,” my inner monologue says. Except it’s not really a monologue -- it’s a very real dialogue.

“I know I’m not. It feels like that sometimes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with waiting until you get exactly what you want.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting.”

“There’s nothing wrong at all.”

I nod to myself, taking the sentiment in.

*****

In her fantasy, the curtains rippled as if caught in a sigh -- the only evidence of her moonlit departure from the hardwood floor bedroom they shared … in some glorious home in some glorious land. In the fantasy she knew would only ever be that.

In reality, it was a few lines of texts, issued hurriedly before she could change her mind while he was drowning in his bed on the other side of the city.

She wondered if he would even read them, or if he’d wake, scattered, and stumble to the bathroom to urinate, then carry on with his day, unable to see the Sunset shrouded in fog. And then when he did read them, she imagined he’d just shrug and sigh. She hoped he would respond but also hoped he would not. She hoped his heart would break a little, but she also hoped he’d understand, and that he’d already be reminiscing about their fumbling drug-dumb fingers and the day the rare San Francisco sunlight was made of syrup. She hoped he’d smile whenever he heard that song. She hoped he’d think about her body. She knew he’d understand.

He was not bad for her, but he was not good either. He just was. And this revelation alone was pretty empowering.

*****

“These are such mind games you/I/we play with me/you/us,” my inner dialogue says.

“Yes they are. But I’m getting better.”

“We are getting better.”

“One day there won’t be anymore. But that day is not now.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Probably tomorrow.”

*****

The end.

On running away to a strange city: Texting people until my battery runs out

I originally wrote this piece in February or March 2012 (I can't recall exactly). A lot has changed since then, but I still enjoy the sentiment.

A lot of people come to Los Angeles hoping to "make it." LA is a transitory city where it's rare to find someone who was actually born there (but I was).

In San Francisco, someone likened the city to an airport, where everyone is just waiting for their flights. And some people are late, and some people are sitting and reading magazines, and some people are stressed out and afraid of flying. But no one is staying. When I think about what I do in airports, I think about how I excitedly text people until my battery runs out.

San Francisco boomed during the Gold Rush in 1849, becoming one of the largest cities in the country practically overnight, and then it all burned down in 1906 after an earthquake blossomed fire started. In 1967 children with wide-eyes and hope-hearts unfurled in the park and they called it the Summer of Love (Mark Twain supposedly called it the "coldest winter" -- but he actually didn’t).

Composite then and now photos of the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake by Shawn Clover via Laughing Squid. 

Britney Spears is a certain pop hero of mine because we all bore witness to her darkest moment. I remember the night and the helicopter footage of them wheeling her into an ambulance on a stretcher -- it must have been a Thursday night because S and I were getting ready to go to a regular dance night at La Cita in downtown LA. Britney Spears came to Los Angeles from Louisiana, just a good 'ol southern girl with a Norma Jean whisper in her ear, and she made it -- goshdarnit she did -- and for so long I denied her appeal until one night I found myself pole dancing in a frat house to "Toxic."

I have never attacked a car with an umbrella, head shaved and eyes blazing, but I have totally lost my mind. Screaming crying laughter pacing in my bedroom, tearing out clumps of hair and calling suicide hot lines. Thankfully those lows were not captured on camera, immortalized in pop history, but one time I watched the Britney Spears documentary while I was on acid in San Francisco after walking through the hailing rain in the Castro, and I swear, she was talking directly to me. I could see it in her eyes, the same deep soul-haunting anguish that stirs me awake, the "Lucky" girl who has everything but still cry cry cries.

So I ran away to San Francisco, like the forty-niners, hoping to strike it big in a city huddled dewy under the fog. Or like the flower children, hoping to find some sort of peace for my soul, escape the striking concrete beat-heat of Los Angeles. Los Angeles -- the city I always characterized as my crazy Mexican girlfriend, slamming doors and throwing dishes at me. I ran away from her into the arms of my patchouli scented maiden with flowers in her hair, hoping that I could find some stillness, some stability, some quiet destiny. But San Francisco is a dazed and indolent lover, content to spend hours in the park, too far away to hear my voice as I fling it across the bridge. Once again -- I am lost.

A certain film producer I ended up in the strange employment of once told me to be careful about my reasons for moving after I told him I wanted to leave Los Angeles to get un-stuck. "You might get stuck somewhere else," he said, as I drove him down the Pacific Coast Highway into Santa Monica. Am I stuck? Am I like the forty-niners, the gold-seekers, who placed all their bets on a dog-led sled, and lost it all after panning panning panning the waters and turning up nothing?

Maybe I could fall in love with any city. There are so many out there. They all have their breathtaking moments: like the way my heart jumps into my throat when I crest a very steep hill and all of the bay rolls out before me, igniting midday fire on the water; or like the way I was struck with childlike wonder-eyes whenever I'd turn down the 110 through downtown LA, all a-glitter, all a-glow. What city shall it be next? Portland? New York? Madrid? Austin? I’d love to be anywhere but here, right now.

Maybe a child of immigrants never has a home -- especially if her parents have never or can never visit their birth places -- then maybe she is a ghost, wandering the earth for a place to finally rest, only the house of her ancestors is not in this country, and she can’t put her head down among strangers even though she’ll take a strange man home tonight. Yeah, "home."

Yours Truly in San Francisco some years ago.

These days I find myself thinking of the past a lot. I have spent a lot of my time trying to forget the past. That’s probably why I've never learned. That's probably why I’ve found myself in the same place, just a different city, just another moment in the terminal, waiting for my flight, reading some celebrity rag, and dreaming of being somewhere else.

On becoming the woman I've always wanted to be

One thing I have not taken advantage of in this beautiful new city of mine is the opportunity to create a beautiful new identity. No one knows anything about me and I can be anything I want to be. I can explore aspects of myself never touched because part of my identity in Los Angeles was shaped by my friends’ expectations and by the limitations of the sprawling concrete city itself. In San Francisco no one knows who I am. In San Francisco alternate avenues of living are possible. In San Francisco there is a different culture, a different lifestyle, a different landscape.

I’d never realized just how much my identity was fostered by those around me. I’d moved here with very different intentions than what I’ve ended up with. I came here with a partner and what I thought was a mutual dream to begin our “adult” lives here. What I discovered is that it is difficult to maintain an adult relationship with a man who insists on remaining a boy.

And that is one of the few things that forms the foundation of who people meet when I introduce myself to them: I am from Los Angeles, a lot of my work revolves around dogs, and I am going through a breakup.

The rest can be whatever I want it to be, yet I am stuck clinging to the person I was. I feel abandoned by my friends when really their lives are simply continuing as they would and I am six hundred miles away. I wonder why my old methods are failing. I am trying to cram my Los Angeles life into San Francisco...and as you can imagine, LA’s wide breadth of shorelines and valleys won’t fit into SF’s 7x7 water-on-three-sides. I am letting myself be defined by what I lost by coming here instead of building on what I am gaining.

During other transitional times of my life I was younger and more flexible, or maybe I was just more ignorant and more self righteous. I was a picky eater -- now I’ll try anything. Back then I knew what I liked and I wore it emblazoned across my backpack. Now I say, “Well, I don’t know, I have to give it a shot or two before I can be certain.” If I knew half the things I thought I knew when I was a teenager I would know a lot more than I do now. Maybe when you are unsure it’s easier to get swept up in a riptide instead of standing fast and anchored and stubborn. Or maybe when you are younger your roots are not as deep, and you can be un-potted and planted anywhere. Maybe once you’ve started to find a certain soil, it’s more difficult to go, and I’m like one of LA’s many non-native palm trees...uprooted, transplanted, and dying.

Today it has been eight months since I threw half my things in my car and drove up here. That is almost a year. I’ve developed a routine, I know my way around, I can sense which stop the bus is coming up on without having to look. The weather nor the hills faze me. I’ve lost a bunch of weight, I always carry a little bit of cash with me. Time is no longer an excuse.

So I am going to start becoming the woman I’ve always fantasized about being. Broodingly beautiful, keenly intelligent, creative, frighteningly confident, graceful, focused, and outlandishly dressed. I’ve started to wear false eyelashes and going early to bars just to sit in a corner with a dark bitter beer and eye people with no intention of talking to anyone. One thing I’ve adopted is handing things to people with the delicacy of a butterfly. Proper posture. Laughing loudly. Bored flirtation. Defining my own rules for my own brand of femininity. Intense vulnerability. Always packing an overnight bag. Trying to please no one but myself. Pursuing the writing career I dreamed of as a little girl but got distracted from by boys, college, and fear. Living fearlessly.

Coco Chanel once said, “A woman who changes her hair is about to change her life.” I’ve always had streaks of pink in my hair, but this time I decided to be more bold. I went to see my fabulous stylist at MaduSalon and the only direction I gave is, “I want my hair to be like a unicorn mane.” I walked out with more pink in my hair than I’ve ever had before. Pink hair I can no longer tuck under a bun. Pink hair that reminds me every time I look in the mirror of the woman I want to be. This woman is fun, daring, and confident. This woman lives and loves in San Francisco. This woman is ready for anything. This is the foundation of the identity I am building here.

One of the greatest changes I am making as part of this new identity (which is actually the old one with improvements) is giving myself permission to dream of and achieve the life I want. Using Pinterest as my vision board, I am allowing myself to visualize what I desire. I swear the very moment I voiced my intentions to the world, the world responded with dazzling opportunities. I’ve gone out dancing in a gold sequin mini-skirt, made new friends, seen live music, been offered a new job, and in developing this enriched identity, feel more like myself than I have in years.

It’s been a long strange journey, but I am finally arriving.

 

 

Got my hair done

These days I feel closer to the woman I've always wanted to be. One day I'll be her.

What am I saying? I already am her.

It starts with my hair (courtesy of MadaSalon ... the only place a curly-haired girl needs to go).

And the music I've been listening to lately, which seems to be about being -- or not being -- a woman.

And on that note (hah!) to bed I go.

On meter maids and compassion

One of the most devastating effects of the Dreaded D-Word is the way it makes you forget all your exceptional qualities. I once read that depression is like wearing gray-colored glasses, but it’s worse than that -- depression is like wearing blinders. You can’t see anything at all. It’s like fumbling your way through a room that is familiar but the lights are out and you just came in from the bright outdoors. When your eye adjust, the room is still dark, and the shadow-shapes could be furniture or phantoms, and if only you could find the light switch then you wouldn’t have banged your thigh on that sharp corner. In that darkness you lose track of yourself.

I know I am emerging from my cycle of depression because I feel more like myself. I move with ease among friends and strangers, and I feel connected to them. When I laugh I mean it. I can find the thread of energy that runs through those exquisite moments and hang onto it. I recognize when my body needs to rest. I do things for myself and I don’t feel guilty. I’m remembering that I possess a radiant, accepting, and celebratory quality that people gravitate toward. When I found myself dancing to Cher’s “Believe” after two beers and a slice of pizza with one of my best friends, I knew the fire inside of me was returning.

And my life is magical. I am not a religious person, but I am a spiritual one. Maybe it’s the Mexican in me, but I believe in magical realism. I mean, I don’t really believe in magic, and I know the systems of connections and divination I’ve devised for myself are merely my human efforts to create some sort of meaning in a chaotic world ... but things happen to me that seem lucky or destined, and my life is richer for these things. I could tell you so many stories, and maybe, one day, if you invite me out for coffee, I will.

Recently I was walking a dog for work over in Bernal Heights -- the dog is very old so I have to be very gentle even though the dog anxiously awaits his walks like an excited puppy. We move slowly. He sniffs at things, sees things, hears things … but not really, because both his eyesight and his hearing are gone. As we turned homeward, a meter maid rolled up alongside me and parked. She got out of the car and I stepped aside, uttering, “Oh sorry, excuse me.”

She said quickly, “Oh no no, it’s okay.” She paused. “I just … I just need to relax a moment.” There was a verdant tree before us. She reached underneath it, searching, and her hand emerged clasping a white flower. She held it to her nose, and even I could smell its perfume. “I just had a confrontation with a guy. I was writing a ticket and he started yelling at me, he said, ‘My girlfriend has the key, I can get the key’ and I said, ‘If this isn’t your car, then there’s nothing I can do’ and he called me a Nazi and opened his car door and his dog nearly attacked me and I was scared.”

Her body was tense and the words tumbled out of her so quickly she stuttered intermittently. I must have been the first person she encountered since the confrontation.

She twirled the flower in her hand. “I’ve been doing this job for twenty years and I don’t understand why people get so upset. I can let people go, but then I have to explain it to my boss, and I could lose my job. I do let people go -- I understand how life is. Sometimes you go to the doctor and it takes longer and then I’ll say, ‘Okay, know what? I understand. It’s fine.’ But when people don’t have the keys or it’s not their car, then what am I supposed to do? My brother says, ‘Just say okay and send them the ticket in the mail,’ but that feels wrong to me.” She clapped a hand over her heart. “That doesn’t seem fair … I’d much rather people see the ticket right away than get it later in the mail. That just doesn’t seem fair to me. So I write the ticket and leave it on the car. After twenty years I haven’t learned, but I just can’t just send it in the mail. It seems unfair.”

She inhaled from the flower again and after a breath, she continued.

“This tree is part of the magnolia family.” She told me the specific name of the tree, and I even asked for it twice, intending to write about it, but I’ve forgotten it. “My parents go to China every year and they love magnolias. I love magnolias. And I saw this tree here before and after that fight, I just wanted to come here to this tree to smell the magnolia flower.” She held it out to me and I breathed in. It was a rich, sweet perfume. Very fresh and very alive.

“That smells good,” I said.

She held the flower to her nose again. “I had some magnolia trees in my yard, but the economy’s been bad, and I’ve had to rent my house with the yard out, and the trees died. But I don’t understand why people get so angry. He called me a Nazi. I wanted to say, ‘Look, if I was a Nazi, would I be talking to you right now? Would you actually say that to me? Nazis don’t talk.’ I can’t believe he tried to let his dog attack me. I have two dogs of my own. I love dogs.” She made a gesture to the dog at my side.

Clutching the flower, she told me about her parents and their trips to China, about what it’s like to care for an aging mother and father. She told me about other parking confrontations. She told me about her job. She told me more about the magnolia. I let her talk because I could tell she needed it. She didn’t know me, but she needed me, and in a lot of ways, I needed her too. Dressed in her shapeless uniform and with her helmet strapped dutifully under her chin (In San Francisco the meter maids drive open electric golf cart-like vehicles and I guess they are required to wear a helmet) she seemed small and helpless. For some reason I noticed her nails were painted nicely -- red -- and I imagined that her manicure was her small indulgence in a world that sics its dogs on her while she tries to complete her job with a sense of dignity and honesty. I recalled a friend’s recent vocalized hatred of meter maids and it seemed suddenly very unjust. I wanted to know more about her then, I wanted to invite her out for a calming glass of wine (Do you drink?), compliment her nails (Where did you get them done?), and ask her about her childhood (Did you grow up in China?).

But she looked at me, sighing. She said, “Thank you for listening to me. I’m sorry to do this to you.” “Oh no  no, it’s okay, you’re upset, this is okay.” “It’s just really frustrating when people do that to me. They don’t realize how much it hurts me. They don’t realize I’m just trying to do my job. It’s just a ticket. There are so many worse things in the world.” “Totally. I’m sorry that happened to you.” “Thank you for listening to me. I appreciate it. I have to go back to work now, but thank you.”

She climbed back in her cart and I tugged the dog along. I looked back and had I seen her, I would have waved, but she was gone.

I walked back to the dog’s house and I felt significant and fulfilled. I hoped the rest of her day was better. I hoped she would think of me the next time she was confronted with unkindness and I hoped the memory would soothe her. Perhaps that is vain of me.

But I am here thinking of her. I will walk by the magnolia tree three times a week with the dog for work, and I will take in its fragrance and recall the conversation I had with the meter maid in its shade. And I will try to engage everyone with compassion.

Later that day I meter parked my car and even though I’d set a timer on my phone, I dilly-dallied in the park, and when I returned to my car, the meter had run out … but there wasn’t a ticket on the dash.

Photo by simplerich