proteanme

Was I really in NYC just yesterday? I almost have to pinch myself to see if that was true. (A funny aside; I initially typed “punch myself”). Already, I think the trip was too short, which makes it feel kinda dreamy. It is impossible to look out at my back yard this morning or at the street in front and imagine just 24 hours ago there was honking and hustle and bike delivery guys and a sea of yellow cabs and miles of wide boulevards lined with big ass buildings and tons of fabulous and interesting looking people. I love the combination of energy and solitude I feel in NYC; if that combo makes any sense to you we are alike. Oh goodness, I wasn’t prepared to feel wistful already.

And even with a touch of melancholy, my mind is already starting to tick off immediate and future to do lists: tend to the garden, do my laundry, grocery shop, listen to music, go to the bank, get ink for the printer, do another run of my chap book, change the litter boxes, pet the cats, go through the stack of crap on my desk, start purging – books, clothes, crap in my basement, lift weights, prep my rain gear, figure out if I can go to Chicago in October, clean the house . . . Is there always so much to do?  The busyness keeps me from writing and playing music, which are really my heart and soul, as cliche and dramatic as that sounds and as I think about just saying that, I realize it really may not even be entirely true, as there is some heart and soul stuff in other creative work and in cooking and spending time with people I am close to. I can’t believe I am even talking about heart and soul stuff. But I keep saying I want to open up.

So now what? Be a little sad and miss NYC and M, who I’ve known since I was 14. Be excited about things happening this week. I think, I will be both. Embrace the whole fucking thing. At this very second the Ghost in You by the Psychedelic Furs is playing and even though I don’t associate that song with a particular time in my life, it seems like I should and it feels fitting for how I am feeling right now.

I do have the best housemate in the world though, picking me up at 1am this morning and leaving some delicious food in the fridge for me to eat today. In short, Remy, you fucking rock and I am glad you moved in.

Finally sleep. Only woke up once before 6 and then once at 7:30 and then didn’t get up til 8:45. I’m not sure how much more I can handle of the not sleeping nights, which have been occurring pretty frequently over the last 2 or 3 weeks, where I go to sleep at 11pm and then starting at 1am or so I wake up every 1 to 2 hours.

Last day in NYC. Very mellow. Was gonna try to jam a couple things in to today,  like Central Park (not all of it, obviously) and replacing my flip flops because the dog chewed one end of one of them, but this trip has not been really been about running around and seeing or doing a ton of stuff; its been about spending time with one of my dearest friends, who I will just refer to as M. I don’t think M and I  have spent this much time together in 10 or 15 years. There has been a lot of sweetness and some laughing and I made some really good food. I don’t usually use language like this, but I will treasure the time I’ve had with M this weekend.

Everything on top of that has been such a nice bonus, walking around, hanging out at parks, having some bahn mi, going to the museum, spotting other butches, seeing Colleen (especially nice bonus) and all the writing I’ve done, which has been an unexpected pleasure. I’ve been wondering if I could do a writing retreat/residence/workshop in New York without getting too distracted and now, I think it’s a real possibility. To finish off this visit I have a goal of seeing if I figure out public transportation to JFK. I think its doable. M is confident. RU keep your fingers crossed!

Being here has been a little like hitting a reset button for me. Which I think I needed because right before I left town, my lazy and relatively quiet summer was giving way to a busier and very possibly more fun fall, with more writing and reading and being AM’s T.A. for the IPRC class and trying to take advantage of the good weather to work on the yard and the garden and the house and more cooking, because this is the bounty, and more other kinds of personal things that I don’t really blog about. I was kinda stretching myself a little thin and one day last week I even found myself inexplicably sad/emotional, so much so that when I got this kind and encouraging email from Cheryl Strayed that I hadn’t expected, I just started crying at my desk at work. Luckily I go in early and no one else was around. It’s like I actually needed to go to other side of the continent to chill for a second, catch my breath and and take a look at what I’m up to. It’s all good stuff, really, some of it’s even exciting, but I know I’ve been shut down for a while so I am a little rusty I think with  managing the emotional parts. Away from it all and walking around New York, I’ve had some good revelations about myself, which is always gratifying and I feel good coming back and jumping in. IPRC class is tomorrow and my writing group the day after that and maybe some freelance work and then a reading this weekend . . . I’m stoked.

I so wish I could figure out how to have the both of best worlds . . . wait . . . ha – that was good . . . I mean the best  of both worlds. That I could be bi-coastal and live in NYC and in PDX. I’m not trying to manifest anything because that manifesting is not my thing. But it is a dreamy wish that I’m not to embarrassed to write down here.

Hit Union Square this first thing this A.M. for some coffee and then headed down to Washington Square Park, where I spent the morning working on some poems for my writing group’s upcoming reading. Amazingly, I was productive and I did not get distracted by kids on their razors or the people beside me speaking French or the older dudes playing their acoustic guitars and singing songs by 4 Non Blonds and George Harrison and the Doobie Brothers. I could even read the poems out loud to myself without any one noticing or caring or really paying any attention to me at all.

Next stop was Whole Foods on the edge of the Lower East Side for a bathroom pit stop and to scribble down the lines for another poem I have been working on for a month now. Either this going to work and people will get it. Or it’s going to suck because I am trying too hard to be clever. I’m not being dramatic about it or looking for some re-assurance or being defensive.  I don’t think this about everything I write. It’s just true this time.

I also got to bond with this Whole Foods guy over our Red Wing boots. I thought for a second he was flirting with me, but I can am oblivious to this in the same way I can over estimate my cuteness.

After Whole Foods I walked down to the New Museum. I always want to like the shows I’ve seen there better than I do. But the building’s cool and I got to go up to the roof this time and I joked around with this woman who worked there and happened to be riding in the elevator every single time I got in it. So overall, a win.

Last stop for the afternoon, involved me tracking down, Nicky’s, my favorite bahn mi sandwich shop in the East Village. Except its not called Nicky’s any more, but it still has kick ass bahn mi, which I wolfed down. Then I walked back up 1st Avenue and over Gramercy Park, where I am currently hanging out inside and typing this. The sun is shining and its tiny bit cool outside and my friend, who I’m staying with, has the most beautiful apartment ever. And I can slip into one my favorite day dreams, which is that I live here in New York. One of my all time favorite places I have ever been.

Hello New York City! The red eye landed early. I am remarkably awake. The weather is perfect. I took a short walk and saw some fabulous looking people. And I just spent some nice time with one of my oldest and dearest friends in the world.  My crush on New York has immediately picked up where I left it. Thump. Thump. It is easy to feel grateful. Pretty soon I am going to go march myself around to stay awake and then meet Colleen and then do some more marching. Need to adjust to east coast time in a day. Makes me think of when RU and I went to Paris and her Dad took us on an epic march and we drank cafe au laits, I think, and we took some melatonin and then went to bed at 8pm and boom, next morning, we were set. Not jet lag.

Life has been kind of whirlwindish lately. Full of everything all at once. It’s like suddenly every little part of life a got a boost of abundance, from the mundane and tedious to kind and generous and also, the sublime. Yay, sublime! My approach is to dive in, in a low key way, if that’s possible. Say yes; say yes; say yes. the only outcome of all this abundant energy that I can really bitch about is that I’ve not been sleeping very well, for almost 2 weeks now. Whew. Occasionally, I get neurotic and think about how lack of sleep is connected to all these health issues, but then I just try and think about the good luck of having come from a hardy gene pool.

Right now I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I am to just be able to fly to some place I love and see some people I love. It really is pretty amazing.

It is dusk right now. I used to love dusk, especially to ride my bike in it, because it was the physical manifestation of the idea of liminality. And for a while I loved the idea of being liminal. It was around the 2008 election and I was attributing Obama’s popularity, in part, to his liminality. I’m sure I blogged about it at least once, if not more. I’ve really got to activate search for my blog, so I can find out how much I am repeating myself. But also, more importantly I loved thinking of myself as liminal. I had this grand theory about how being butch was a liminal state, as in a state of being in-between or transitional. I think it’s still a good theory, but the love shine has worn off the idea, in that I’m not talking or thinking  about it whenever I get the chance.

It’s been a while since I’ve really been in love with an idea, since I’ve had some intellectual love fest with myself/my mind. I am generally a head first person – thinking, thinking and more thinking – although I am trying hard this summer to be more open hearted. Is that a contradiction, to try hard to open one’s heart? Shouldn’t one’s heart soften? I can almost hear Pema Chodron’s voice in my head, saying that trying hard is just another way of being aggressive with myself. If I say I’m trying hard is it giving off the image of prying my heart open. Good lord, that just sounds painful. But softening up sounds too much like corduroy pillows and nagchampa. So I guess I could just omit the “trying hard” part of the sentence or even just the “hard” part. I am laughing to myself right now and thinking how my friend Toby would call what I just did extreme editing, which might make some sense to any programming friends who take with a grain of salt all the development gospels out ther, like extreme programming and agile development

Ah, dusk has resolved itself and it looks like the very first part of the night has officially fallen. My front door is open and A Guide By Voices song is on. I don’t have one light on in the house and the street light is shining on the hawthorne tree in the city strip, making it look yellow. It is kind of magical looking at it from my seat, behind the bright light of my computer screen. It’s almost like I am imagining it.

This is it. This is being alive. Eating my secret version of breakfast pizza and drinking tea and listening to music, Johnny Cash covering Glen Campbell at a second ago and now Bon Iver. I got up to feed the cats when it was still dark, but now the sun is shining and the sky is blue and Remy’s left the house to go hiking. I’ve got the back door open and Phil is laying in the warm spots on the deck. I can see some tomatoes need to be picked. Probably some green beans too. I am doubting the pumpkins, which sprouted up on their own this summer, have turned any oranger, but I can’t see them from here and my approach with them, all along, has been curious and kind of hands off, anyway. Last night my friend told me that I am “a catch” and that made me smile. I also wrote a poem, last night, and I think might work out, as in something I keep. And I finally slept better than I have all week. Not great but better and I will take that. Because not sleeping was starting to drive me nuts.  I started working on cleaning the windows at eight this morning and I put a load of laundry in too. I need to water the garden today. I might cut my hair. If all goes well, I am going to make a pie.

It is so beautiful out these days. I stand in my yard or look out the windows of my house or at work and I marvel at this burst of everything that is so amazing about Portland. Tonight, riding my bike home from my writing group, the air felt so perfect and I felt all this joy that my lungs work well and my legs have gotten more powerful over the course of riding so much this summer. It was one of those  “wow, I am alive and wow, I love this world” bike rides to the post office and then home

Hello September! What a stunning start. First the weather: blue skies, warmish temperatures and a little wind. Second the people: new folks, friends in the making, tried and true connections, Portland family, and old friends far way who are on the mend, thank goodness. Third the bounty: corn, tomatoes, basil, green beans out the wazoo, eggplant, zucchini, kale, more tomatoes and pickling with A.M.

Easy to practice gratitude this past weekend. Easy to be in love with the world and chit chat with fellow bike riders and weed and pick green beans and sing along loudly to old soul music and belt out kids songs to distract my favorite  2 & 1/2 year from the sadness of leaving the park. (Who knew you could make the Wheels on the Bus last the course of 10 blocks?! Let’s just say lots of people and farm animals were on the bus.)

I know this is the end of summer and the start of fall and that the change is a reminder of how all things change. Seasons are a pretty perfect reminder and an excellent and obvious example of how life and death work. And Fall seems like a pretty opportune time to embrace all of that. Because it’s beautiful but the beauty is on the wan and because the sun shines but the days are getting shorter, etc. Sometimes I am amazed at how desperate we, as a people are are, to figure out all these life and death mysteries, when nature seems to hold so many of obvious answers answers. We are all connected. There is beauty. There is destruction. Neither one of them are based on merit. It’s hard to to talk about this without lapsing into cliche. I suppose that speaks to my writing skills. This fall seems super poignant to me (even though its just started) and I don’t know why. I think it has to do with getting older and people in my family getting older, too. There were two other milestone birthdays in my immediate family this year. Mom turned 80 and my niece turned 18. Also for me fall may be symbolizing this time of my life, where I’m clearly in the 2nd half of it. But anyway, if you’ve got it in you to spend some time reflecting on change and endings and beginnings, I think this would be a fruitful time.

A quick aside to no where: I am always entertained by Robert Pollard’s fake British accent. Even when I don’t like the song. But a  also good, new Guided By Voice song, is really fun to listen to.

I am really going to miss late night summer bike rides. They are kind of magical, which is not a word I use very often and so you know it really means something when I say it. My watch or something in my room keeps beeping at 5  til the hour. It makes me feel a little crazy. It just beeped, so I feel like I have to say something. Like a kind of virtual, did you hear that?

Anyway, tonight I rode my bike  at dusk to a queer dance party on the roof top of a hotel by the convention center and then I rode home at midnight. The dance party was a strange scene that kind of felt like queers had invaded someone’s bar mitzvah, but in a good and interesting way. Like that kid was being bar mitzvahed hadchanged locations at the last minute, so it was totally ok that queers took over. At the dance party, I saw my old, as in from Indiana, as in 16 years ago friend, SB, and my new good friend, Nancy. And of course unbeknownst to me, the two of them have met and have become friends, because Portland is a small town, but also I know a bunch of different people even though I am an introvert. And then I also got to hang out and talk with a bunch of people I don’t know super well, but who I like and who I am always happy to see – Peggy, Dexter, Morgan and Maria. And then kind of like a magic trick, Carrot also appeared by my side a couple times tonight and inside I was like “yay, Carrot,” because I like Carrot and I knew that I could tell him that this party was weird but good and he would understand what I meant.

Maybe I am imagining that I connected with Carrot or anyone else, like Peggy or Maria. Although I hope I did. I did have some drinks, which I don’t often do, and it does lessen my inhibitions and make me more expressive and happy. i also kind of bite my lip when I am buzzed. But the good will and affection I felt and I feel, feel very real, though, and I am going to go with that — good will, affection, big heartedness, and hell yeah queers.

I kind of wished I would have danced,  but I just wasn’t in the sweaty dancing mood, even though I’ve been wanting to be in that mood at various times this summer. It’s just never quite right for me. I don’t know why and I can’t will it into being. Why is that? Oh well . It will happen and it will be fun and magical too.

Day 11. Surprise! I’m still blogging. What the heck and also thank you Colleen for the encouragement. I will try not to make you sorry you encouraged me to keep posting.

The roads were almost empty riding my bike to work this morning. A sure sign of a holiday or an upcoming one, as is the case with Labor day.  I used to work for a company that didn’t recognize Labor day as a holiday, which seemed absolutely absurd. Luckily, my current employer has more holiday sense. I like riding on empty roads, although on a work day I get a little bit of a post apocalyptic-where is everybody-feeling. I have an amazing ability to imagine disaster.

Morning bike rides are starting to turn cooler. Evenings too. One night last week, it was cold enough that on my ride home I actually wore my wool gloves. I was glad I had the gloves with me, but I felt a little indignant just putting them on, like “no way, wool in August.” I started pedaling along and I couldn’t get warmed up (it didn’t help that I had on shorts) and I immediately started thinking about riding when its dark and rainy and cold and how I want to ride more this fall and winter, but it sucks riding when its dark and rainy and cold. It was only a 20 minute ride home but my mind totally reeled off into this story of miserable riding, even though I wasn’t  miserable right then. It was just chillier out than I wanted it to be, and probably a little later too, but nothing at all, not even close to what it’s like to ride  in the winter. My mind turned a completely ok bike ride into an unpleasant trip and started souring me on winter riding, even though summer riding isn’t over.

The reason why I’m going on about this, is it’s such a good illustration of the bullshit unhelpful thinking that can cause unnecessary suffering, as the Buddhists would say. And it is amazing to me how quick that kind of unhelpful thinking can arise in me and how once its started, it is a struggle to get some space from it. The thinking becomes reality, even overshadowing the real reality that’s happening. I’ve been noticing more and more when it happens.