love

i love

I had forgotten how much I love this album… I was listening to Pandora (do you all know it? Pandora deserves an entry of its own in my love section… i love love love it) and they played The Price of Love from Let’s Stick Together. It reminded me of so many things, of high school, dressing up all in platforms and black hot pants and glammy shiny jewelry and glitter makeup and heading for Gazzari’s and the Roxy on Sunset (yes they served us, what do you think? we were little glam girls in hot pants and platforms… times and rules have changed). It reminded me of when I first left home and moved to Santa Cruz and was this weird amalgamation of Neil Young lovin’ hippie girl crossed with Bowie Roxy lovin glam girl. Funny – 30 years later and I am still that same amalgamation… hmmm. time to change??? Whatever, Bryan Ferry does some great covers of his own Roxy songs on this album, and some new ones too. I forgot how much I loved it, and I am grateful that listening to it brought me back some shiny memories.

because when i go to the farmer’s market there is a stall that sells the most absolutely delicious coffee and they drip it right there for you, which takes time, and because it’s so good everyone gets some, and because they drip each cup, pouring a little water, and then a little more for each and every cup, the wait is incredible and interminable and long but the wait is part of what i love, and part of what makes my town wonderful, because waiting everyone hangs out together meeting people they would never otherwise meet, seeing old friends, laughing about the weather, laughing about the slow slow drip of the coffee that is so worth the wait. i am not even a coffee drinker and get decaf, but even that is so good and enjoyment in the wait is to be had, good cheer and all that.

and i love this town because leaving the farmer’s market there is a stop sign on which someone has stenciled the word driving under the STOP on the sign, creating a sign that says STOP driving, and i love this town because around 25% of the stop signs are stenciled this way.

and i love this town because on my way home from the farmer’s market there was a sign for a yard sale but when i got closer i saw it was actually a sign that said book swap! and i love this town so much because i know without any doubt that there will be awesome books at this book swap, run by a little elderly woman sitting on her little chair outside of her house, because the people in my town read great books, lots and lots of them. any book swap here will be a BOOK swap for sure.

and i love this town because after the book swap and after i stop for a slice of today’s cheeseboard pizza (mushrooms, onions, mozzarella cheese, montalban cheese, and arugula in a french vinaigrette on an organic sourdough crust)where there will be another line and much more fun and happy hanging out in line to be done where i will no doubt see friends and make new ones, i can go to the free energy healing clinic that happens every saturday at our local clairvoyant college and i can have my weird f-ed up week read and cleared and maybe feel better for a day or two.

what i do not love about my town: that i will have to wear a down jacket for all of these activities although it is june and almost july.

the ocean
lupine
bare feet in clean sheets
the perfect virabhadrasana
the vulnerability i see in my son’s sweet skinny neck
working the creative potential of conflict
bubbly water
kumquats
canneles
saint benoit plain yogurt
berkeley
being held
being met
hillsides covered in wildflowers
creating beauty and then giving it as gifts
mitali banerjee bhawmik
the pansy faces of my dogs
steve erickson
my fridge magnet
mexican chocolate cake from tacubaya
my son’s amazing detail-less drawings (i don’t like detail mom!)
kissing
the new mexico landscape
puzzles
the green of my living room
the delicious feeling of warm pajamas straight out of the dryer
utility canvas
smooth stones, found at the beach
the spirits
his poetry
that moment when a group’s energy comes clearly into my sight
velvet
tea
magic
swimming in warm water
being a mother

i am so grateful for the little pansy faces of my sweet dogs. they cheer me up when i am feeling dark.

...

sick father, very, very sick. he has meningitis. i can’t say i have been loving him very much for a while now. he was cruel and abusive to me as a kid and so as an adult i am careful with my boundaries and keep quite a distance. but seeing him so helpless, with almost complete memory loss, something like love, or at least compassion, seems to be creeping in. i care. i didn’t think i’d care again.

i can’t say i was loved as a kid and that has made it very hard for me to allow myself to be loved as an adult. instead of glowing in the love that’s been offered to me by men who have wanted to be close to me i have glowed in those ultra-brief moments of attention from remote men whose attention was difficult to obtain, and so seemed all that much more precious. they are not more precious. now, almost old, i can see that. love given freely, love that you almost end up taking for granted, love that grows mundane: that’s what’s precious, and sweet. it is precious in its dependability and safety and honesty. i have been loved like that before, but didn’t really value it. i am sorry about that now.

seeing my dad in the hospital, the whole thing of it brought all of this stuff up. i felt all these conflicting feelings and they just exhausted me. i felt such guilt that i didn’t love him with a big open heart. i felt happy that i loved him at all. the last time i visited him in the hospital my heart was still open to him, he had cancer and i was terrified and cared deeply. but in his illness and in the hospital room and in front of others he engaged in a vicious bout of cruelty towards me, an attack with hatred just spewing out of him. going there this time i felt terrified that would happen again.

i have this goal: love. love all sentient beings is what i mean. i want to give, to love. but loving this man really puts my goal to the test. is this something i need to test myself on?

Bitter is made sweet through love;
copper becomes gold through love.
Through love dregs become clear;
love heals all pain.
Through love the king becomes slave;
love brings the dead to life.
^{Rumi, a fragment of the Masnavi}