Waiting for the bus...

Check out the size of this big ass hummingbird!  

I am waiting for a bus down to San Ramon, so decided to update.   Ramona and I got to spend the last two and a half days with Ramona;s dad and her little brother.   Sometimes I wish we were able to spend more time here, playing with the same kids for more than just a couple days.  The first day there was a lot of calling and craziness.  We spent the day on the side of a hill at Ramona’s sort of Uncle’s house, which is right next door to the lot that R’s dad says he is going to build a house for Taylor (Rmaona’s brother) and Ramona.  Check out the view of Golfo de Nicoya.

The View, ahhhh.  Of course pictures do it no justice. 

The day was interrupted with many many phone calls from Erika, the other mother.  Angry that Jonathan had Taylor out so long (though arguments are rarely about what they pretend to be about) cumulating in her threatening to call the police if he wasn’t home right away as we waited for our pizza.   So the second day she was invited.  It was all a little weird, but at least we spent some time together. She drank a couple beers. She was no longer so scary to me. Though she did exhibit slight insanity a couple times.  I do think though, were I to be in a situation like hers, I may be slightly crazy myself.  But it is all relative. Relationships are so strange, especially upon the landscape of social restraints.

Gotta go.  To be continued…

We're a goin' on a trip!

Though I have less funds than I had been planning at this particular point in my life, I went ahead and bought plane tickets to Costa Rica on a credit card.  February 27th. When I told my mom over the phone the other day, she immediately responded, “I thought you don’t have any money.”  Ugh, my downer mom.   “…you asked us to all go in on a Christmas gift this year and get you a sewing machine because you said you can’t afford one, but you have enough for Costa Rica?”  I tell her I put in on a credit card.  So what anyway!?!?  I have priorities. I earn my own money, mommy! Right now was the time to get the tickets.  

It is true that I can’t afford a sewing machine, but what one can afford is not always a matter of how much money one has (especially in the days of credit and the stock market).  It’s a matter of priorities and how much risk you are going to take. I wouldn’t go into debt for a thing.  When I was a child and my mother was young, it always turned out that, though there were times when she couldn’t feed her children, she always seemed to manage to be able to afford the paint and other supplies she needed.  I have never held this against her, because I get it.  She needs to do art to keep her sanity.  Art supplies were a necessity. She sacrificed much of her money, days and time to raising us three kids, something our fathers did not do.  She deserved to have something that wasn’t to be sacrificed simply because she was a single mother.

For me, the occasional and regular self-displacement from my life, culture, home, town, is a necessity.  I haven’t left the country for two and a half years.   Leaving helps me see clearly, away from mundaniness, the regularity, the familiarity that works my thought cycles in circles.  It gets me back in touch with myself, in order to grow in a more authentic way.  

But this trip is extra special ‘cause we are going to meet Ramona’s paternal family.  She has never met her father.  He doesn’t really talk to me and he doesn’t do the internet.  He didn’t have a cell when I was there, and no one has given a number to me.  Once in a while I hear a word.  But I am not going for him.  Ramona wants to meet her dad, so I am taking her.  Lately, when the subject of her father comes up in conversations with people, she replies with a nervous sort of laugh.  One that is quite familiar to me.  It is the exact same nervous giggle I used to emit when I was little and confronted with a situation that I was uncomfortable and insecure about.  I still have a version of it as an adult.

Now, when I mention to someone our trip to Costa Rica, she declares, “We are going to go see my dad!”  I had never heard her say “dad” with such boldness before this.  She is thrilled and proud to go. I try to help her not have her hopes up too much.  Of course I don’t want her to be disappointed.  But I know that the time is now, she wants to meet her father. 

(The suspension bridge in the cloud forest just north of Santa Elena, where R's dad lives.) 

Besides, she loves to travel.  She is quite adventurous and curious; traveling fulfills her quest for constant stimulation and newness.  If things feel uncomfortable with his family, we we will be spending three weeks in a beautiful tropical paradise.

But yes, I am nervous.  I know not to worry too much, because the truth is that most likely everything with turn our great.  I left her dad because I couldn’t be his partner (i.e. wife).  I was not willing to live in Costa Rica with him.  We are not made for each other. I didn’t trust that my staying would cure him of his issues with drinking, drugs, jealousy, etc.  I wanted to protect my daughter from the horrors that children go through when their parents’ relationship gets ugly.  I knew it would end, and why make the baby be there to witness the pain of the separation? Not that he doesn’t have a good heart, he does.  He was always kind and gentle to me.  He’s been hurt in his life and doesn’t know how to deal with it in a productive manner.  

And honestly, I am also nervous because there was no lack of chemistry between us.  I know that we were attracted to each other until the day I left. I know that, as I ran from the house, late, to catch the bus, we both hoped on some level that I would miss the bus.  

Two Loves

The emotional roller coaster has persevered. I was once so even keeled. I keep myself that way because I know what lurks inside my placid shell. But here I am, living and exploring everything in here. Drinking beers all afternoon to keep me from exploding.

Being Ramona’s mother has been the biggest privilege of my life. I love her so much it makes me cry sometimes. I am in love. Only the second time in my life. Over the last couple days things have gotten really hard. When she is complaining or trying to get her way, I have found myself wanting to do things and say things I am ashamed to admit. For the first time in my life I want a break from being a mom. I want a week off. I want to explore and groove alone. I don’t want to have a kid to take care of. I just want to be all about me and what I want. I thought it might happen, that I feel like this one day, but I hate the way it feels to want to escape my own child. I have always loved how we are a team and have generally always had such a good time together, talking things out, keeping our heads, keeping respect…not like those other families. Last night, after I turned off the lights to sleep, I told Ramona I was sorry I haven’t been the best mom, that I am just stressed. She said, “I know you’re stressed, mommy.” In such a sweet understanding voice. I feel so lucky to have her, just hours after wanting to throw her out with the trash. I snuggled the little cutey. Emotional roller coaster.
Of course I can’t take a week off. Today, thank goodness, I do get to take a day off. I think I will be getting to take a night off as well. We are preparing to try having Ramona take her first night without me, at my mom’s house. I am going to the next town over for a show. I hope to stay out past 10:30 for the first time in 5 years.

Oh and speaking of 5 years, I haven’t even told the world I lost my mama virginity yet. (I love the benefits of a semi-anonymous blog). He had been flirting with me and trying to hang for a couple months. Then I saw him last week and he started playing with my hands when suddenly he says, “Oh, wow.” And looks at me surprised. And to my surprise I realize that I had grabbed his hands, and was holding them and stroking them. I just went with it. That night he came over after I put Ramona to sleep. My housemates were out of town leaving their bedrooms open to exploration. The next night we did it again, and the next. Then I realized I may already be over him. He’s 24. I think he grew up on porn. I feel like if I keep hanging with him, I might wake up trapped in some weird fetish porn and wonder how I got there. And I guess I think he is cute, but he isn’t really my type. Like there isn’t enough desire in me to propel me to do the things II know he wants me to do. So I am a little turned off for him, but the experience has just made me hungrier for whatever this is that my sensual core is aching for.

After five years of nothing, what more could I ask for than a sex-crazed 24 year old? I guess my job is to figure that out. He didn’t quench my thirst, but stroked the fire. Opened Pandora’s box unleashing all sorts of chaos on the world. I want enough girlfriends and boyfriends to make up for the 5 years of starvation. I’ve never been into multiple sexual relationships, but I wonder if I am now. I am realizing crushes I have had that I didn’t know about. This is why I was hesitant to get involved in the world of romance. I knew what was brewing just under my placid shell.

I met a guy named Ryan over a year ago, when he approached me I totally screwed up and he left without me and I regretted it all year. He was like a magnet, and we had been catching each other looking at each other all afternoon. . I emailed a friend of his to tell him I want to talk to him (since I don’t know how else to get a hold of him). I was too shy to do it last year. A little loving can do wonders for a woman’s confidence. Still waiting for the response.
So do I tell my guy that I am done? Or am I done? I guess I am not sure. I like him, but if I don’t even want to kiss him outside of the bedroom, I think that says something. But if I am using him, then it is mutual I think.

And all the while this is happening, the number of days until I have to move are ticking, ticking. Nerve Wracking. Three weeks left. And Petaluma is prejudice against people receiving rental assistance. I am really afraid. Running around frantically trying to not remember that I don’t have a place to live yet. And my housemates weird, Marin, middle-class, nuclear culture is really making me uncomfortable and miserable. But that is another story that isn’t about love…not really.

I want to run around, I want to get crazy, liberate myself. Fix all this love stuff. Think I will go crack a beer and feel selfish for a while.

Another Train of Thought...

I’m kinda writing sometimes, here and there.  It is kinda how I am trying to stay sane, connected to myself.  But I feel like everything I write and could write is repetition.  Of course it mostly doesn’t get posted anywhere.  

Like how I am trying to play guitar, or stay connected to it.  I play/sing the same song or two, the ones I know well, every day, because I can’t/won’t/want to make the effort that goes into creation, self-discipline, learning something new.  I put in just the minimum daily dues, so that, “yeah, I play guitar,” rather than, “I should be playing” or “I haven’t been playing or "I used to play.” 

So I write, a little, and I bore the hell out of myself.  Everything is lack for me now.  Time, space, sanity, desire…except of course sexual desire.  I have plenty of that, but too frazzled to figure out where to direct it.  Getting lots of attention from a nice 24-year-old jobless guy.  Sweet.  Should I or Shouldn’t I?  My problem is that I am always thinking of the future.  I would always say yes to my appetite if I knew I would never have to see the devoured walking around town, talking to my friends, frequenting my café.  That sounds so callous.  Its not though.  It is actually that I am so sensitive.  I don’t like hurt feelings.  I don’t like severed connections.  Sex can ruin relationships.  Sex ruins most relationships between men and women.  Especially the platonic ones.  I usually connect much easier with men, in a non-sexual way (on my part). I have lost so many friends due to jealous or insecure girlfriends. 

So, since I don’t have two hours to rub together to evolve my inner self, my creative self (living in a house full of people, single mom, taking care of her incapacitated mother, looking for a home [refuge] that isn’t not yet for rent), I have been developing myself as a lover and partner, though I am a virgin mom. Does that even make sense? I am developing myself for something that isn't happening, yes.  I'm broadening horizons, being caring and open with people other than myself and my daughter. Reaccustoming myself to sexual tension. Not giving to cold shoulder to anyone who approaches me...you know...letting people a little bit closer. Not being so god-damn independent.  

But yeah, adult love and partnerships are not very common these days in my life.  And it's going to stay that way if I don’t start trying to attract a suitable mate right?  Sounds so weird, but all animals do it.  Attract mates.  I am talking about everything. 

You know, my mom never taught me anything about sex, except how it affects children to hear their mom getting laid on a regular basis.  Other than that I learned about sex from “Wild America.”  Do you know what that can do to a person? 

Handouts

I feel like I won the sweepstakes.  But really I just signed on and waited.  Tomorrow, I go in for my appointment with HUD to do paperwork that should lead to my being issued a voucher to help me pay for rent.  Section 8, now called the Housing Choice Voucher Program.  I spent over three and a half years on the list.  I actually applied over 4 years ago, but didn’t get my update form in on time (5 minutes late) so was bumped of the list and had to reapply.  Don’t most of our tax dollars going to terrorizing and bullying the world anyway?

I got the letter weeks ago, but my intake appointment was of course weeks later.  That way us “clients” can collect all our paperwork (and there is a lot of documentation to collect). I am surprised at the feelings I have gone through over the weeks about this.  I was surprised at how I felt like I should keep it a secret, like it was something to be ashamed of…you know with all this anger about fair shares of taxes.  Am I paying my fair share?  Is there such thing as a fair share?  And if so, who decides?  And why should taxes be fair when everything else isn’t?  Aren’t taxes our remedy for our unjust system anyway?

What is fair?  Does fair even exist? Is being born into poverty fair?  I mean, I like who I am, and what would I be like were I not born poor?  Would I like myself then? More or less?   Poverty isn’t the thing I would change, would I?  The unfairness in my childhood is mostly fine with me now, though it wasn’t then.  What I did learn is that it was the interactions with people that affected me, that’s what I would have changed.  I would have chosen a different dad, probably. I would have wanted my mother to spend more time with me.  But if she had spent more time with me, would my relationship with my daughter as an adult have changed? Would I be so determined to give my daughter the love, compassion, consideration that I desperately wanted as a child?  Or was it actually the poverty that robbed me of the love, compassion and consideration?  Isn’t it poverty that forced my mother to destroy her body through hard work as a low-wage slave? Isn’t it poverty that forced her to choose between giving her children enough time, or giving up her passion (Art). Isn’t it poverty that drove her to the brink of insanity over and over again? So was it fair we were impoverished? Or was it just punishment for having a mother with the audacity to raise children absent of a breadwinning male head-of-household?  And should I be punished as well?  Hmmm, Some would say, “YES, I should be punished” but they’re generally the same people who would tell me I couldn’t have had an abortion if I wanted one.

Okay, stop thinking about those crazies.  I am ecstatic…just when I thought single-motherhood in America was about the gut me.  I will be able to rent a two-bedroom place for 1/3 of my income…in northern California none-the-less.  The idea of not having that huge bill to contend with has opened up so many possibilities to me.  One is entrepreneurship.  I won’t work for the stockholders and the upper crust.  So I have non-profits and myself left to work for. Having a small job that I do from home has taught me that this is what I want. I want to work from home.  I don’t want to dress up to impress others.  I need to be me.  I want to throw out my work clothes.  Since my teaching job is out for the summer in 4 weeks, and I should be moving around then…I have all summer to recreate myself.  I get to take risks because I won’t be paralyzed by the fear of not being able to pay rent. Untrapped. I get to be an asset to society again.

I still wonder if it is fair that I get to pay 1/3 my income for rent while others pay more.  Well, the program is out there…anyone can sign up.  And you know, I work all the time, I work in my community, I work with my daughter and she is a beautiful, positive, intelligent addition to society. The work I do is far more beneficial to my community and society that anything the average money mongering CEO does.  I have been doing volunteer work since I was 12…wayyyyyy before career experts and George W Bush told everyone to volunteer because it is good for our resumes.  I am so excited to have a chance to recreate and organize again.  Move back into the realm I am comfortable with and direct my energy into the systems that make sense to me.  The natural movement of my life, comfort.  I am so excited!

A New Narrative for a Single Mother

I wrote a blog post and published it for just 20 minutes before I deleted it. Too personal I said. I had written the disconnection of my life, all the way down to my daughter, and all about privilege (and when I write about that, I even irritate myself). Maybe it wasn’t that is was too personal, but really that I feel just slightly ashamed. Maybe a little afraid that some well-meaning person would give me a bit of superficial advice or worse they wouldn’t give me advice, just think they knew the answers to my problems.

Forget that, now I am writing a new post. It’s true, the feeling disconnected. It’s this disconnect from my self which makes me feel disconnected from life. Just going through the motions, my Self sitting inside wondering when and if she will be able to come out. The constant whirl and worry about my new home. I can tell myself what to think and I can think it, but I have to relocate, I have less than three weeks, I am at a lack for money to give me many options, I have a child and possessions (something I never had to worry about until the child) and those thoughts, worries, never seem to give me rest. Though I can make myself think what I want, it doesn’t seem that I can NOT think things that I don’t want. Will I find a place? Should I have taken that place last month that wasn’t ideal? Did I miss my chance? Are we going to loose everything?…It is exhausting. Its survival.

Yesterday, feeling the thinning connection from my daughter and fearing loosing some of it permanently, I decided to take a little outing, so we heading to the Cheese Factory by the lake to feed the ducks and geese. I was half-way to Bodega before I realized that I have taken the wrong road, but of course wrong is relative and we were really on the right road as we continued our way to the beach just past Bodega. I couldn’t believe how nice it was, this January afternoon was more agreeable than some “summer” afternoons on the Northern California Coast. Ramona, who often balks at the idea of the beach (due to the freezing weather and long car rides) was having a hey day, running barefoot, exploring driftwood buildings, sea dragon nests, making grass tacos for the seagulls.

She came to life, I came to life, the constant nagging drown out by the sound of the layers of waves beating on the shore and on themselves. Drown out but still there. But I felt a sense of connection that I had been missing. For many I know, connection is found in the midst of old friends, there they are grounded. My old friend is the Earth. I grew up an oddity in a world of constantly changing faces and towns, unfamiliar and mostly unwelcoming. But everywhere I went I always could count on nature to ground me, be honest with me and receive me, to allow me to be breathe freely and express myself.

The Earth, my old friend, its landscapes welcome me. I feel comfortable, connected, revitalized. I remember it is the world of people that confuses me. It is the power of nature that awes me: the complexity and simplicity that exist at once, the permanency. This trip to the beach reconnects me with my Self and I begin to understand my anxiety. Sometimes I forget that even though the narrative is already written, I am a writer as well and I can write my own narrative. The narrative that I grew up with was my mother’s. Though I am in many ways like my mother in my inability to engage with society on its terms and need for introspection and creativity, I don’t have to struggle to the death. “Anything is possible” IS a load of crap, but if I believe another world is possible, so is another narrative. I am not doomed to be the impoverished struggling single mom…forever. Or the working single mom who lives on stress and doesn't get to see her baby like she longs too. Or the resentful single mom who feels her child took away her life. Victimized... When I entered single motherhood, I did it with a determination not to live by the rules of our society that are bestowed upon single mothers and find a way to make our lives wonderful. Single motherhood in itself is breaking the rules of the Status Quo and for this single mothers are punished (just look at the statistics).

I became a mother for love. We play the hand we are dealt, but love is a wild card. Love has inspired me to be more, not become a cog for the sake of stability, but play the game like a shark.

Disconnection with my daughter had stemmed from my lack of inspiration as I fumbled around in the land of worry. Letting the Capitalist Machine we call an economy run my life sucks the inspiration from me, including the inspiration to inspire, teach, create with and mentor my daughter. We have just been hanging in the same room. Once in a while a painful realization that we aren’t engaging like I am used to tumbles over me and I tenderly reach over for a hug and a kiss, reminding myself that it won’t remain this way.

But today I seem to have lost the drive to struggle and worry and take too much action. I can’t look for a home like I was. There are only so many places to look. The remedy for despair is action, but sometimes too much action can be overwhelming too. Sometimes we need to let go and let things happen, navigate what the universe hands us. To be vigilant while understanding that sometimes it isn’t going to be your action and worry that are going to get things done, and whatever happens to you could be the best thing that could happen. Just for today I am letting go…