you are here

I am trying to say that I love San Francisco. But it comes out all wrong. Waxing poetic about the smell of fog or a surprise view as you round a corner. Even if that view stops you in your tracks. Even if it is guide book worthy. It's hard to find the words to walk the line between well written and trite. Nailed it and over done. So how is this: it makes me happy.

I nannied there for two summers when I was in college. It was the first place I traveled outside the Midwest. It was the furthest I'd ever been from home. It was nothing like what I knew with its pan handlers, and water shortages and tourists. I had never lived anywhere people visited. But here were throngs of people in sun visors making me wait in line.

My memories from those summers are brightly colored. And the soundtrack is kid laughter. And there are moments I recall so clearly that if I shut my eyes I'm in them again. Heart pounding. Giggle stifling. Sun burnt. No summer since has ever come close.

When we started the decent into SFO, the runways built out into the water, I remembered that I never wanted to leave. And here I was coming back for the first time since. It had been over 10 years. I had forgotten here. How I cried the day I had to leave. How I plotted on ways to afford California out-of-state tuition. How I promised I'd come back. I would figure it out. I would.

I didn't.

I feel almost guilty.

These five days back. As a bona fide grown-up. In a fancy hotel. Fuck. I knew before I got off the plane that come Monday I wasn't going to want to leave. Some places just feel more like home than other places.

In the decade that's past the girls I nannied with are no longer there. They moved back home. Or moved somewhere new. Dispersed as some kind of child care super team across the country to bring time outs and finger painting to those who need it most. I e-mailed Jennie. The cornerstone for my California summers. One of my longest and best friends. I wished for a catch-up session. Over guacamole and flan. At that one place we use to go to. With the windows right out to the water. Where you could toss tortilla chips out to feed the ducks.

But she's in Alabama now. And I'm mostly in Seattle.

So instead I wandered the city. Walked for hours at a time. Pretending I had an apartment to go to. Or a barista who knew what I wanted to drink. I did have strangers who shared smiles with me. I did have spending money. I did have sore feet. But what I wanted was a key to a 1BR on Nob Hill. Instead a I had a Westin key card with gold fish on it. It's still in my bag.

With July comes a chance to do it again. 4 days this time. A different Westin. But the same perfectly imperfect city. The same sense of home and where the hell have you been and how can I never leave. Penciled out on cocktail napkins this time instead of college rule. Wondering if some Silicon Valley upstart could see the Business Developer in me. Because I can see me there. Wearing high heels on cobblestone. Always having a sweater. Feeling like I've arrived.

may you live with ease

This is year four of naming my birthday year. The three before have all been named with a word or an idea to help me navigate the months and minutes of the 365 days before the next one offers me cupcakes and presents once again. It's surprisingly powerful. Training your mind to find that particular pattern in the chaos. Slowly cataloging all the proof of how the universe offers up what you ask for, even when you only ask in one word. Maybe two. But there you have it. A theme year that seems to magically come true. So, be careful what you wish for.

1) Debauchery 2) Consciousness 3) Actualization and now.

Gratitude.

It's more for me than it is for you. There. I said it. Out loud. But don't we all know that anyway? Giving is receiving. And as I spend a few minutes a day in metta meditation and writing down the happy. The goal is to free my heart and float a little above the sidewalk. Setting down the brewing skepticism I sometimes find myself acting upon. Sprinkling a little sugar on the parts of me that need it. Watering the parts that don't. I do hope that as I change I can help raise the collective compassion of my neighborhood, city, country, world by a couple percentage points. That there is power in a smile to a stranger. And even more in a wish for their happiness.

Long walks. Sunny days that happen to land on your birthday. Plum cake. Pretty stamps. Short stories written by friends. Clover. Health. My never ending supply of wacky ideas. The people who will go along with them. Idealism. These giant purple-pink flowers on the trees up the street. The smells and sights of the Market. Walking shoes. My parents. Baths. Mentors and friends. My awesome umbrella. Those moments where you get IT. The smell of honeysuckle. Strong legs. Seeing how saying no to something is saying yes to something else. Laughing so hard that I start to cry. Catching up. Reading. Right now.

if you wind up in Fargo, you went the wrong way

Their house is in the middle of nowhere. The directions to find it included things like silos and tar roads.

Take the second tar road on your right.

I’d turn down road after road to see the dots of gray gravel poking up above the snow or the streaky black of a plowed county highway. But changing direction from North to West didn’t do much for the scenery other than reposition the sun. Flat and endless and white.

I got lost. It took me four hours instead of two and about a dozen phone calls to Josh with my hopeful coordinates. Apparently there are two “county road 9”s. Since you go through two counties. Each having at least nine roads to call their own. Wound up in Rockville or Paynesville or something like that. When I finally stepped out of the car and said hello to their dog Josh asked me if I had to pull over to cry.

“No.” I laughed. “But I did stop to pee in Belgrade.“

Inside there was hundred year old wallpaper and original woodwork and a one year old baby I was meeting for the very first time. Christa made lunch of dates and dark chocolate, tea, cheese and whole wheat crackers. It was the best everything I’d ever tasted, having been hungry for 3 hours and out of water for two.

Christa is forever linked to my old coffee shop. She had front row seats for the dramatic eight month decline of the little shop on the busy corner in South Minneapolis. She was the only one who knew all the players. Knew the day to day. Held my hand and sat next to me while I tried to figure out how to stay afloat for another month. She taught me how to smoke and got me drunk on days when getting drunk was the only sane thing to do. She helped repaint my house and move all the furniture so it felt like mine again. She’s the brightest colored character in a grayish blue time.

She moved right after I moved. Moved to the country to put her Master’s Degree to work, saving the world one migrant family at a time, bringing her big city smarts back to the barely incorporated township she grew up in. They don’t have internet access and her cell phone reception is sketchy. We talked sporadically when she was in the city or staying late at work. But like all great friendships, the pause button works flawlessly. No time actually passes, but your hair grows and you can have babies. It’s some kind of perfect magic.

The catching up was easy and laughs over things we never collectively thought would reach the realm of funny were so healing and life affirming. If I can say that without sounding like a wannabe guru. If even saying that can capture all the wow.

The little baby who took to me gleefully fast won my heart as quickly. She has messy hair and soft cheeks and shares her Cheerio’s with near strangers. Seeing Christa as mom and hearing her talk about it so smartly. So thoughtfully. That little girl is one of the luckiest babies in the world.

Sparked from the picture perfect afternoon while driving home with crystal clear directions and a painstakingly crafted map it hit me for real this time. A gratitude for the eight months of bluish gray and how it’s come to show light on the best parts of who I am. I’ve flirted with this idea. Hoped for it. Tried it on. But it never stuck. Too early. Too insincere. I wanted to let go of the ick and fill up on the good but that takes time and patience. It happens under the radar maybe. While you are unaware. Pops it to the surface as a bona fide revelation while driving back to Minneapolis at 4pm on a chilly Saturday afternoon. I almost pulled over. I almost picked up the phone to call everyone I know with the news. But instead, I just drove.

And talked to myself.

And let it wash over me again and again like a really great hug.

opening lines

The first word they read will be "Welcome." It will be black on a white background and it will be written in Helvetica. All uppercase, I think. Maybe not though. A mix of the two might be best. What comes next will be a reassuring sentence about why they have come to that web address. How it wasn’t entirely chance that their name was selected and it wasn’t entirely not chance either. I think it will say: “If you are here, you are meant to be here.” Yes. That is exactly what it will say. First it will say:

Welcome.

And then it will say:

If you are here, you are meant to be here.

I think that will keep their attention while also being two true statements. I could keep their attention with sensationalism or exaggerations but instead, I will chose to do it through sweeping but truthful statements. I will chose to do it through telling them things they secretly long to hear and by asking them questions they secretly long to answer. They might so secretly long for these things that they don’t even know they long for them. Those are the people that might get choked up. The people who when they read:

Welcome.

and

If you are here, you are meant to be here.

Feel the pluck of their heart strings and an increased dampness in their eyes. For them, maybe this will be like getting the answer they’ve searched for. For me, it will be an IP address. An IP address is a unique address given to your computer so it can communicate with other computers. And that’s how I’ll know them all first.

67.128.90.32

Them being the men who get the postcard. The men who demographically fit a profile. The ones who have filled out a warranty card or subscribed to a magazine. The ones in a database available for sale for just $25. Them. I’ll know them as an IP address and they will know me as a mysterious post card.

T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y

Welcome.

If you are here, you are meant to be here.

like the whole solar system stops and holds its breath with you

I’m reading No One Belongs Here More Than You. By Miranda July. She doesn’t have it capitalized on her book. On her book it’s written as “No one belongs here more than you.” I guess by here she means Earth. I want it to mean Alive but that doesn’t make sense in the context of the sentence. Alive isn’t a place you can be. But Earth is. So she must mean that.

I’m reading it slowly. At first I was reading it slowly to make it last. Now I’m reading it slowly because parts of it make me so incredibly sad that I have to space it out. The parts that make me incredibly sad aren’t predictable. Or evenly spaced. I need days between stories to recover. Sometimes up to one week.

Her and I have hair color in common.

No one belongs here more than you comes in two color choices. One is yellow and the other is bright pink. But those are just the dust jackets. The inside book is yellow regardless of which color dust jacket you choose. This fact, and this fact alone, made me pick the yellow cover. I wanted my copy to look the same naked or clothed. I thought it would be less confusing for me then. I would always just know that it was yellow. Plus, I like yellow but can’t wear it. It makes me look sickly. So when I can pick something to be yellow that I don’t have to wear, I usually jump at the chance. I guess that means two facts, and two facts alone, make me pick the yellow cover.

We may also both think of ourselves as sensitive.

Somewhere in the first few pages, she wonders if all she’s ever wanted to say to someone or be told is this: It’s not your fault. That hearing that. Or saying it. Would make it all ok. Like the line in a great movie that you think of days later and still get the chills. “It’s not your fault.”

“But it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

I wondered what mine was. All I’ve ever wanted to say? All I’ve ever wanted to hear? I remembered this one time. I was still in Minneapolis and he lived in San Francisco. Beautiful boy. Dark haired, blue eyed. Andrew Hendrickson. The One Who Got Away. It was morning, hadn’t slept. We had talked for 7 or 8 hours back when long distance was twenty cents a minute. I was in my hallway. In a t-shirt and underwear. Receiver to my ear.

“These things never work out.” he told me.

“I know.”

“I can’t move there. You can’t move here.”

“Yeah.”

“But.”

I said “But.” back.

“One of us is going to wind up getting hurt.”

“Probably me.” I said.

“Probably me.” He said.

We got quiet.

And then he asked, “Do you want to try anyway?”

And then I said “Yes.”

My It’s-not-your-fault is any question phrased like this: do you want to maybe try and fall in love when the whole world is out to eat us up? If I ask it, I want to hear Yes. If I’m asked it, I want to say Yes. I don’t know if it’s the question I crave or the answer. It’s probably the pause in the middle. The second where everything good and everything bad is possible. The second where it’s just breath holding and beating hearts. A million reasons to say no. But one person of a reason to say Yes. Good. Fucking. God. I love that. Love it. Makes me want to stand up and cheer.

Makes me believe in stuff.

And then after figuring that out. I wondered what it was for you. The thing you most want to say. The feeling you most want to feel. What is it? I’d really like to know.