rounding the corner

When I lived in Germany, every so often that statement would hit me out of nowhere. I live in Germany.

I’d be coming out of the German theater that played movies in English and on a hill in the distance there would be a castle all lit up. I’d be out with friends and realize how accustomed I’d grown to the slower pace of dinner service in German restaurants. Or I’d be at my bank, carrying on a mundane conversation with Herr Schiller and realize that I was no longer translating in my head, I was just speaking.

But primarily it would strike me when I would drive between villages. From home to the base or to a friend’s house. Nothing spectacular, just an ordinary moment. I’d come around a curve in the road and something would just resonate somehow. Occasionally I’d have to stop for a flock of sheep to cross the road and I’d have time to ruminate.

I had one of those moments today. I was driving from work to the train station to catch a train into the city. I’d taken surface streets to avoid rush hour traffic. I’d taken a shortcut to avoid other people avoiding rush hour traffic. I was not in the best of neighborhoods.

I turned right and onto a main street and in the distance there was a line of four palm trees. Standing significantly taller than anything else on the horizon. The sun was at just the right angle to turn them into black shadows against an amber sky.

And it hit me. I live in California.

Not because I have family here. Not because I followed someone here. Because I got a job and picked up my life and I went. And I’ve built a life for myself that more or less makes me happy.

And even though I know that it’s real, for a moment it felt like I was watching myself in a movie. Because it just didn’t seem like my life. If I was able to get through all that stuff, and be that girl, the girl who could just pick up and move and start all over successfully, why is it that all of a sudden I’m second guessing everything I’m doing?

Who knows. The moment was gone by the end of the block.

roots

Roots have always been a sort of shifting thing for me. My southern roots are deep, it’s true. But when I was 8, I moved to the west coast. I became a successful transplant. And while it’s true that I lived in WA longer than I lived in OK, I spent so much time in OK on vacation and family related trips that my roots there remained strong.

Both states felt like home. Neither state felt like home.

And then I met LH. And when you marry the military it adds a whole other dimension to shifting roots. You’re told when to pick up your entire life and you’re told where to take it. And when you get there, you know on day one that your time in that place is already counting down. So you make friends and you do things, but it never really becomes home. Except it does a little.

Even when LH and I settled in TX and he separated from the Air Force, we knew our time there was limited. Our plan was to go to TX, finish his enlistment, finish school, take the world by storm. That didn’t exactly happen. Not all of it anyway.

The year after I left TX was the most rootless in my entire life. A few months in WA, a few in NY, a few more in WA, and then the move to CA. There were times when I felt homeless, even though I never was. There were times when I was acutely aware that my most major possession was my truck. That inside it’s cab was the only space I could call my own.

I’ve managed to build myself a quiet little life here. It’s a life I’m pretty fond of. But, I’ve been here for almost three years now. So I’m starting to feel that itch. The moving itch. And truth be told, there’s some pretty strong gravitational pull toward the middle of the country. To Texas. To Chicago. To New Orleans. Santa Fe.

Instead, I’ve done something to deepen my roots here. I joined a board of another performing arts organization. It’s not the sort of thing you do if you’re only planning on being around short term. I feel good about the decision. But at the same time, there’s that little part of me that’s aware of it’s larger implications.

There are plenty of reasons to stay here. More reasons to stay than to leave, really. But there’s just something about making an active, deliberate decision to commit to a place that sketches me out a little. Maybe because I view the world as being small and easy to move around in and I don’t want to lose that. Maybe because part of me worries about missing out on something that is happening somewhere else. Maybe because my fear of entrapment really is that big.

I don’t know. What I do know, is that from all appearances, it seems I’ll be staying here for a while.

simplifying

When I sat down to write I truly didn’t know what was going to flow from fingers to keyboard to screen. It’s Sunday night. So I’m doing my thing where I make sure the dishes are done and laundry is in the hamper and lunch is packed. Where I clean out my inbox and respond to any lingering email and pay bills and generally make sure my life is in order to begin a new week.

Only the lamps on the desk and the piano are lit. My iTunes is playing from my favorite “sad and sappy” playlist. My balcony door is cracked open and the blinds are dancing wildly on the chilly breeze that’s rushing into my living room. I can hear the wind thundering through the trees outside. It’s that kind of night high on my hill with nothing to stop it.

There’s a lot on my professional plate about which I’d like to write. Trials and tribulations. Frustrations and goals. Plans I’d like to put in action. There’s the recent visit with PF that I’m still processing. Conversations with Aaron. Reframing of so many relationships in my life. I’ve been taking stock.

And in the midst of that, I’ve been surfing. And I stumbled across a blog entry. Posted on my employer’s blog. The context is not important. The sentiment is. The post talks about our past and how we’re affected by it. How we are deformed by it. That it is always there. Always present. And how we react to it.

And it gave me pause.

Because I’ve been cracking a little under the strain of my life in recent days. My baggage has all come back with a vengeance. My drive and my ambition. My need to have a plan for everything. My belief that if I put up strategic walls it will prevent me from getting hurt. The tears that come with the realization that logic is complete crap. My constant need to fill the voids in my life with project after project. With meaningless sex.

I’ve heard myself say more than once recently, that I’m just tired of being alone. That I’m tired of being on my own. But have I actually been doing that? I look at this blog and see how everything is about a constant search for a partner. For my happily ever after. I’ve been working so hard to get to my finish line. My perfect job and perfect relationship arrangement.

I don’t think that I’ve ever taken the time to actually be on my own. To entertain myself. On some levels, yes. But I can also look at a staggering number of sexual partners in the last two years as evidence to the contrary.

I’ve always counseled friends with the words “if you can’t make yourself happy, you can’t expect anyone else to either.” And the truth is, I’m in love with two pretty wonderful men, both of whom are long distance, and both of whom are pretty clear on the fact that I’m not to be sitting around waiting on them.

In the past I would have approached “not waiting” by strings of random dates. Filling my time with pleasures of the flesh that only leave me empty at the end of the night. On wallowing with sad movies. Junk food and girly magazines. An overpacked social calendar and too many projects that I can really handle.

Instead of exploring the museums that I want to explore. On taking road trips on my own just because. I’ve spent my time at big parties and group outings instead of quiet dinners with the people that matter most. There’s a stack of books on my nightstand waiting to be read. There are career steps I’d like to take that will require work on my end. Simply paying dues isn’t enough. Not to go where I want to go. There’s a type of life I’d like to live and a type of home I’d like to have, and what I’m doing now is only getting me part way there.

A few weeks ago I sat at a bar, across the table from a dear friend, a friend who looked me dead in the eye and said, “girl, you need to simplify.” I’ve taken baby steps that direction. But I think it’s time for bigger ones. Because I know what I want. And I know what I need to do to get there. I’ve just let the path get a little cloudy.

birthday memories

My most memorable birthday ever was the year I turned six. When my brother and I were little kids, we got a party every year. But we had to switch off between a party with family and a party with our friends. Six was supposed to a year where I got a party with my friends.

That was the year I got the chicken pox.

We had my party, but it was filled with grandparents, great-grandmothers, aunts, and uncles. I remember very clearly tearing the wrapping paper off a copy of Michael Jackon’s Thriller. A shiny new record to play on my Fisher Price record player. It was the best gift ever for me. That year anyway.

My family got a kick out of the fact that I was too sick to enjoy my birthday cake. In that, “awww, poor kid. Such a mess she can’t even enjoy cake,” sort of way. The party took place on the deck at the back of our house. If I close my eyes and breathe I can see the trees far beyond the swing set. The horses grazing in our neighbors pasture.  I can hear our pet geese honking away.

I’m sure that I sulked and was miserable.

Mom and Dad must have felt sorry for me. A few weeks later, after the pox had passed, I got my birthday party with friends. Mom took me and four of my friends to a nearby town. To a university production of Sleeping Beauty. The stage turned. It’s the only thing I remember about that show. Mostly I remember the smug satisfaction of listening to my older brother whine about the fact that I got two birthday parties that year and he didn’t.

birthday plans

Birthdays are a big deal for me.

Last year there was a series of celebrations. Super fancy dinner with Aaron, small quiet lunch with two friends, and a large party at a piano bar where we drank and drank and drank and then found chicken and waffles in the middle of the night.

The year before that I flew SB out to the bay. We took in a screening at the LGBT film festival (my birthday falls in pride month so there’s always something wonderfully gay to do), there was a big sushi dinner with my friends, and then there was bar hopping.

The year before that, I was in Rochester. The theater bought me a cake and through careful portioning I was able to bring most of it home. My most favorite roommate and I got stoned, sat crosslegged on the kitchen table, and dug in with a couple of forks. As more of our housemates trickled in, beers were opened, more forks were brandished and an impromptu party developed. It was the only time our entire house socialized together.

You get the point. I like to make an event out of my birthday. Even if it’s a low key event.

This year, I am wholly uninspired. My friends are like me. We all have a zillion things on our calendars. Trying to find a weekend when we’re all free is impossible. My birthday falls on a Tuesday so it puts a little damper on any evening activities on the actual day.

We talked about going to a firing range. Something we’ve been wanting to do anyway. I figured, why the hell not make it a birthday thing. But it didn’t feel right. I racked my brain for restaurants and clubs that felt right. But nothing was clicking.

Really the only birthday plan I’m excited about is a trip to TX. PF has asked to spend time with me and we picked dates that fall just after my birthday so he’s promised birthday dinner. I’m excited about that. But even though we’ve got dates and we’re talking about plans, part of me won’t believe it’s really happening until I have a plane ticket in my hot little hands. Or you know, in this age, a confirmation number in my email. So I’m trying not to think about that too much, not wanting to jinx things or let myself get disappointed.

Which brings me back to the local plans. And how nothing was clicking. I almost abandoned birthday planning entirely. But a little voice in my head told me I’d regret that later. And the little voice is right. So this weekend I finally created an event on Facebook and invited the in-crowd. The loose plan is to truck out to the east on the day after my bday, have BBQ at the best BBQ place I’ve found out here (but it’s CA so you know, lacking) and then head to this crazy little bar with the cheesiest lounge singer you can imagine. Who is also fucking amazing.

I have no idea who all will show up. Doesn’t matter. Glory of the BBQ place is you order at a counter and find your own table. Folks can come and go. Bars? Always ripe for coming and going. My two closest friends will be there. There are a lot of folks who will miss it because of one production or another. But that’s OK.

One of my friends is having a solstice party a few days after the bday. He asked if it would be OK for him to make a cake and give it to me at the party. I’ll know people there, but I won’t know everyone. But it’s sweet of him to think of it and of course I said yes.

Then last night a friend emailed and asked about scheduling birthday lunch. Our plans are fairly loose as well. She might end up in Tahoe that week, but right now we have something tentatively scheduled for my actual birthday. Because it would be a shame not to do ANYTHING on the actual day.

So there you go. There are some plans. I just don’t have my heart in it this year.