The ocean seems endless,

the tides come and go.

The sun that makes the waves dance with light
as if alive with a million restless water nymphs,
threatens ever so slowly
to set upon another day.

I sit and wait
and want.
Not yet... not yet...

Now?

there are places I remember

though some have changed, some forever

~The Beatles

I was feeling good after yoga the other night, and the newly-turned-night sky was such a gorgeous shade of cobalt blue, so I decided a walk to Alamo Square was in order. I should have known the light mist would turn into all-out fog by the time I'd run inside to feed the cat and throw on a jacket. But then as much as I love a clear night sky full of stars, I've also grown to appreciate the beauty of the blanket of fog that almost always rolls in at night to tuck the city into bed. At times I even finding it strangely comforting (I wonder if that means I've been in San Francisco too long?).

I knew where I was headed as I reached the top of the hill, pulled instinctively in the direction without even being fully conscious of it. My tree. The one that's just perfect for sitting in. But it wasn't there. It's an odd feeling; looking for something you know should be there but somehow isn't. I began to feel strangely disoriented, the heavy mist swirling appropriately around me as if I had somehow landed in the Twilight Zone or an old film noir. I felt almost as if in a dream, one of those disorienting nightmares where you are in a place so familiar and yet things are unnervingly off, and you can't quite tell where you are, what's reality and what's the dream. I started to feel like I was going crazy, I knew I hadn't been there in a while but it hadn't been that long.

Then, almost as if a switch had been turned on, I regained my bearings, and there it was, looming out of the fog like a long-lost-found-again friend. Not lost, merely temporarily misplaced. I swear, I was so glad I almost hugged it. As if I didn't feel foolish enough already.

But in this almost-losing of one of my special places, I felt a certain sense of sadness and nostalgia awakened in me. I couldn't help but think of when I was very young and my parents, at the city's urging, allowed the tree on the sidewalk outside our house to be cut down without my knowledge. They replaced my beloved tree, with it's little white flowers and tiny sweet plums, with a boring anemic stump, something "less messy" that wouldn't litter the sidewalk with fallen fruit that would inevitably become a thick splatter of purple stickiness as it was trampled underfoot. I was furious. I thought of the idyllic summer days I'd spent with my grandparents, picking plums to make jam, eating them by the handful until I felt sick; waking up to the explosion of white petals from my bedroom window in the spring; listening to my mom tell of how it was blossoming the week I was born. And I cried. Maybe it's because it was the biggest loss I'd faced at the time. Maybe because it was the first time I realized that everything changes.

Then there was the first time I came home from college for thanksgiving, seeing through the passenger side window of my dad's car the playground around the corner, the playground I'd practically grown up on, completely torn down and rebuilt. The comfortably familiar splintered old wood and worn-in metal replaced by garish plastic, mocking me like some sick circus clown in bright, safe primary colors. The uneven wooden posts I would balance along, the slide I hurt my back on as a child when I tried to climb down the ladder face first, the tire swings where as I got older I would go to sneak a cigarette or have a romantic rendezvous. Gone.

The tangible settings of my memories scattered to the wind like the night-cooled sand I would dig my bare toes into, staring at the stars in a ragged rubber tire hanging from a rusted old chain. Another reminder that nothing ever stays the same. That when you're not looking, things change, people die. Buildings are destroyed, trees cut down. Restaurants and shops close. Acquaintances are forgotten and friends move away. Love fades.

All we can do is mourn and move on. And remember. And when I find myself growing nostalgic for places and times that no longer exist, or for people no longer in my life, I have to remind myself that as sad as it is to lose something or someone, to lose part of yourself, there is also beauty in loss, because it's just another part of the inevitably ephemeral experience of life. Another part of the journey. In leaving home we find a new one. The ending of a romance makes way for a new one. The death of one dream can lead to a life-changing epiphany. And so on and so forth.

So we go on: losing and learning, mourning and growing, remembering and discovering. Collecting the little bits of wonder that make up our lives and make us who we are.

gimme some sugar

Have you ever found yourself in the clutches of what I like to call "Instant Karma"? I was hit with a mild case this afternoon at Starbucks when, immediately after helping myself to several generous handfuls of raw sugar packets at the milk bar (What? The office was out and they don't sell it at Walgreens!), I found myself treated to the kind of exceptionally poor customer service you write home about.

Halfway out the door, my grumbling soliloquy on the innumerable merits of doing one's job efficiently and pleasantly was interrupted by the realization that I just may have brought my bad service upon myself by angering the Gods of Ethical Behavior with my klepto ways. Then again, this is Starbucks we are talking about, so maybe this incident really didn't have that much to do with the Karmic Forces of the Universe after all...

Either way, I still think they owe me a few lousy sugar packets after the shameful amount I've spent on overpriced drinks throughout the years (not to mention the four months of barely-over-minimum-wage servitude). Ef off, Karma, this is between me and Starbucks.

patience

I get so impatient sometimes. I find myself, at times, growing so antsy and anxious for things to happen that I can almost feel the anticipation crawling underneath my skin. I convince myself that it must be now or never.

But then suddenly I am reminded that there can be beauty in taking it slow; simply taking each day and moment as it comes, for what it's worth. Without expectation.

And so I try not to feel the urgent need to rush, I attempt to enjoy the gradual unfolding of events, like the slow dance of unfurling petals as the flower opens to the world. I fight the urge to speed life by force, as I would pop stubborn fuchsia buds open as a child. I am wiser now and know that the delicate bloom may not survive the rash fluster of my impatience.

I know now that sometimes life requires a careful balance of patience and awareness. I can't coerce what's not ready to happen, nor can I sit back and wait passively. After all, a plant needs space to grow, but also requires the care of water and sunlight to flourish.

I must somehow be able to recocile the restlessness that wants to rush forward full speed, and the doubt that sometimes forces me to stand still.

reminiscence

Summertime.

The subtle waft of weed that permeates haight.

The lullaby of drums from hippie hill

pulsing a rhythm through my body,

setting a pace to the up-down of my feet.

I allow my mind to succumb to the pull of nostalgia;

all at once wandering the city streets of the present

and the bittersweet corridors of the past,

together, intertwined.

Immersing myself in memory of days and years gone by,

the friendly ghosts of reminiscence that haunt,

before coming back to reality at my doorstep.

And like a dream early woken from,

not quite sure whether to be sad of its end

or glad to be in the moment.

In the reality of here and now,

knowing how much I've grown,

celebrating the journey that's brought me to this very point in time.

I wonder:

when we are in these moments;

these strange snippets of time our minds like to clip and store away

in special catalogues of our ridiculously complex brains,

if we ever truly appreciate them for what they are,

these memories we will later hold as precious.

Do we know in the moment they happen

that this is something special,

something to be remembered?

Or do we only treasure the moment after it's gone.

Perhaps the knowledge that the mundane wanderings

of an ordinary afternoon

may someday be the subject of fond and wistful recollection 

should make them all the sweeter to us now.

waiting for the world to begin

“Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can’t be happy until they’ve graduated, servicemen who can’t be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can’t be happy until they’ve found a mate, workers who can’t be happy until they’ve retired, adolescents who aren’t happy until they’re grown, ill people who aren’t happy until they’re well, failures who aren’t happy until they succeed, restless who can’t wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin.”

~Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

This is precisely why I always feel the need to remind myself that living is for the NOW and not at some distant point in the future. Yes, it’s good to have goals and desires, things to look forward to in the future. But we can’t put our life on hold until these things have been acquired. Time is too precious to waste and life is too important to wait for.

And as I've learned through the years, the thing with this mindset is that once you've reached the desired destination you can often find yourself looking around at your life thinking, "So what? Now what?". Because no arbitrary date or milestone or achievement can instantaneously bring happiness and clarity within itself.

And so I tell myself this: make your plans, keep you dreams as the carrot on the stick. But live now. Love now. Find joy within yourself now. Whatever your situation, however near or far you may be from your destination. Because if you’re forever waiting for your life to begin, it will be over before you even know it.

the trials and tribulations of the flat-intestined

I am now pretty much convinced I'm anemic. I always hate self-diagnosing, it inevitably makes me feel like a hypochondriac. BUT I also hate putting my health care completely in the hands of others. It makes me feel helpless. So I do my research. I guess maybe I'd rather be a hypochondriac than passive and helpless. I just like to think of it as being a hands-on patient.

But the other day this sneaking suspicion was actually given credibility: it seems my flattened intestines may be preventing me from properly absorbing certain nutrients. Yes, flattened intestines. Well ok, it's not really the intestines themselves that are flattened, it's the intestine walls. But still.

"Look, I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything but... your intestines, well... they're just so flat. Just rather dull, really. So lacking in villi. I mean really, if you were a nutrient, would you want to stick around?"

Oh dear. What is a flat-intestined girl to do. Well apparently take Omega 3 Fatty Acid, but that's another story. As for the possible anemia, pernicious or otherwise (pernicious is soo ominous sounding), I know I should really get a blood test... but oh god, I am a horrible coward and just the thought of the needle spikes (no pun intended) up the level of light-headedness from the slight buzz I've been walking around with for weeks to an all-out squeamish fluster. I wonder if I can just load up on b-12 and iron alongside the fatty acids (why do I just love saying fatty acids so much?) and hope it helps...

I'm really not a hypochondriac. I swear. In fact, I tend to subscribe to the "if I ignore it, maybe it'll go away" philosophy, which has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion (turns out if your knees or ankles start to really hurt from running it's not actually a good idea to push through the pain). But after weeks of feeling unable to focus and like I'm functioning at half capacity, even I have to admit that maybe it's time to stop giving this anemia or whatever the silent treatment and tell it to go fuck itself. Politely, of course.