| Title: | what erika's up to now |
| Topics: | adventures in: domesticity, adventures in: okcupid, adventures in: polyamory, adventures in: social security, body: weight, cryptic, disability: living with, emotions: happy, good days, level: drama: idgaf, recovery: giant leaps, rships: how do they work, rships: travis |
| Date: | Sunday, July 31st, 2016 — 6:51 PM |
| Security: | public |
| Music: | birds |
| Mood: | contemplative  |
We're graduating from high school and I don't know who I am or how to be, without anyone to fix, to help, to make better.
"You're the type who'd go start a commune in San Francisco," my best friend said, 15 years and half a lifetime ago.
Reality intervenes. Turns out San Francisco is over, like me and my best friend, and Santa Cruz is all that's left.
I'm living in an independent community 12 miles outside of town, mostly highway driving. poly-friendly, funny, interesting people, all deeply committed to personal development. I go to the beach and on cheap dates with a European man, and go to the beach and the library and get sun-touched on the back of my neck every 36 hours or so. I unpacked, finally. GODDDDDDDDD THE RELIEF.
It's enough to make a
girl woman person want to write a thank you note to her new boss.
Santa Cruz. Oh,
of course.
Sand is everywhere. People here don't so much look old as well-seasoned. The level of grime in 1800s pirate movies starts to make more sense. The mountains are covered with pines and jaw-droppingly devastatingly beautiful natural wonders. Then they end in cliffs that lead straight to the Pacific Ocean, or better yet, drop into Monterey Bay, and the locals don't even
care about how gorgeous it is and sand, sand is everywhere.
The attendant at Kong's market says that all the true locals are homeless, that there's only so much here and I worry that I am stealing a place from someone who deserves it more than me, but feel emboldened that I'm acting like a local. High praise, apparently, and what does deserving something get you, anyway? Living in my car out of pride has never made me so keenly aware of everything. . I try to take a breath. I keep forgetting to eat, my body beginning to resemble the moon, diminishing nightly. I'm not sure I have enough money to eat, anyway, so why bother?
I ask for help.I found a brilliant piece of sea glass bigger than my fist, even if I didn't take it. Just picked it up, out of the ooze, and set it on a rock, where high tide won't reach. I sat there last night, and the night before. I roasted potatoes over an open fire and dreamt of having someone there I'd be honest with. I sat on the sand just right here.
The skies cloud and I imagine wildfires, sand melting into silicon and glass. Sand is everywhere, inside my BMW, outside my BMW, but I tell myself to love the grit. I love being rubbed raw and smooth, even if I complain. I'm grateful to the people who listen. I try to hold a space for hope in my heart.
It turns out that here they also have earth, and gardens, and blackberries and zucchini and dashing European men with culinary genius who really enjoy eating my food. I'm so happy I start cooking to feed people, and start eating again. I swim in the Pacific, and sand really does get
everywhere OMFG. EV. RRRRRRRR.Y. where you're thinking I promise.
people say, okay, but how about you apologize less, relax into yourself, own your power———and I say——
;oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize. What did you want me to do? and then I laugh, and laugh, and laugh. I flip them off, and everyone else laughs too, relieved, glad that I let them in on the joke. I find a place to live, and then I let people in, when they knock.
I start to construct a lie and
catch that instant feeling of a yawning void of imminent separation. Then I decide to tell the truth even though I hurt peoople, to make an agreement that would work for me. I start to contemplate what it would be like, to live a truly honest life. To have absolutely nothing to hide. What is privacy, in the sake of transparency—she says, her mouth twisted, as she writes alone.
Earlier, I put a luncheon on my calendar, spoke to my beloved life partner, and I made plans for tonight, and now, remembering this, I beamed like my car.
Man, my car could maybe use a wash. Guess sometimes sand's everywhere.
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