Discursive Musings

But I Bought The Extra Wide Beach Blanket Just For Them!

"Hey, how many books would you say is appropriate to pack on vacation?"

"Whatever you've gathered so far - Stop.  Cut it in half.  There is only so much room on the plane.  - And on the island."

The 28th Year

Last year my birthday resolution was to learn Spanish.  Well, that did not ending up boding to well on the list of priorities this year.  What this year did hold however is some of the best, and some of the most challenging, moments of my life thus far.  Because there is no use in remembering and listing the bad, I will go ahead and list some of the good. Unfortunately, I am too hopped up on the anti-anxiety medication that has enabled me to make it to this birthday milestone to be heart-felt and sentimental right now, but I shall try my best to be sincere -

1. Friends – not since my high school and college years has my group of friends come to mean so much to me.  They as a group have been my rock and my salvation.  The majority of them has no idea how much this is so. 

2. A lovely affair with LA.  Never had this city held any magic for me, and now I think I am in love.  Car rides winding through coastline roads, mountain ridges, and traffic riddled highways.  Views from Muhalland, the beach, and various breakfast spots near Beverly Hills.  Endless and countless shopping excursions.  Parties brimming with someone else’s friends and acquaintances.  The sexiness of anonymity.  The excitement of the new and unknown.  And, oh yeah – drawing close someone who unexpectantly taught me so much about myself and what I want out of life.

3. Another city that I had a casual flirtation with, and some of the key memories that are in the forefront: driving through traffic on the Golden Gate bridge, enjoying season tickets at Pac Bell Park, beachside strolls on crisp and sunny winter days, rooftop breakups and late night reunions, drunken cab rides, VIP lounges, clubbing until the morning on weeknights, private salsa lessons, and meeting new friends.

4. My travel milestones – my first trip abroad solo and another with a lover.  My week in Cabo San Lucas was absolutely amazing and pampering.  Shall I never be let to forget passing out from mid-day drunkenness during a pedicure appointment.  But what else do you expect to be the result from a resort with 7 happy hours a day?  Who can pass up two for five dollar margaritas?  The mere thought is almost criminal.   And their rooftop hookah lounges with the yummiest mochas and minty pipes.  Almost every picture from that trip is of me drunk and my eyes closed.  There was the day-long kayaking trip however, and the afternoon jet skinning adventure – so not all was lazy lounging.  But interestingly enough our best night there is when we finally ventured to the sleezy bars downtown – and Siete was born.  Don’t let the name fool you – because I came in second in the competition.  My Molly-Mormon upbringing would not allow me to do the thing necessary to come in first.

5. Brazil – Reading on the private veranda with water lapping on the shore just below.  Kayaking alone through the crystal-clear still waters of an Atlantic bay.  Dancing in the street with locals.  Walking through streets filled with chatter of a language I did not all grasp – a local tongue with an exited tone equal to their spirit.  Drinking the best coffee and eating the most delicious fish.  Watching the most beautiful people in the world stroll Impenima beach. Being ok with setting off on my own and being excited about perhaps tackling the rest of the world in the same fashion.   

6. Another milestone to note was the first in overindulgences in booze and cigarettes.  The first time I passed out from alcohol.  The second blackout.  The third.  The forth.  Shall I go on?  The first week of my life I sustained myself on a steady diet of margaritas and other tequila mixed drinks.  (see above)  The first time I had to be creative in my hiding of an embarrassingly large supply of booze before my mother came to visit.  The first time I was scolded by my mother for smoking.  The first time she held a prayer session for my smoking.  The first time I ‘stopped smoking’.  The second time I stopped.  The first time I lied about stopping. 

7. And, interestingly, some of the calmest moments have been for me as a passenger in someone else’s car, exploring places I had not yet before seen.  Maybe it is something about the passing of scenery outside while I am warm and cosy with someone I love on the inside.  Or maybe it means that I am right about being born to be driven or confirmation that I have indeed not experienced enough of the world.  Maybe all of the above.

I know there are a dozen moments that I am forgetting. 

I took a very long drive to watch a very simple movie last night.  The car ride gave me the opportunity to have some conversation with a friend and hear words that I should right down to remember.  The last few months have held many challenges for me –some that I would have never expected to come about.  I am tired of talking about it.  I am tired of agonizing about it.  I am tired of being tired of it all…. So after we agreed that I needed to take a break from the stress for one day – even if it is just my birthday – I of course asked the question that needs no answer – “Do I talk about this too much?”  He said something very smart in return – “I don’t care about you talking about it.  I am, however, very interested in seeing what you do about it.  It is not so much what challenges we face in our life that matter, but what we do to change it.”

My morning has been full of birthday well-wishing phone calls and messages.  I am blessed to have that be so in my life.  Among the phone calls however was one from my stepfather who I let purposefully fall into voicemail.  His voice in the message sounds broken and meek.  At the end of his birthday message was this – “Melissa, if anyone deserved the rest of their days to be happy ones, it is you.”

I don’t know what to do with that.  The moment T moves out of that house will be the last moment I think of it.  However, it reminds me of a quote of O’Neill that I found scribbled in a note book a few weeks back while doing some fall cleaning – “I am far from being a pessimist. . . . On the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life”

Those who know me know I do however have my pessimistic ways, but I am here to confirm that life does indeed make me smile.

What I reflect on now this morning however is my hike up Isle Grande’s second highest peak during the Brazil excursion.  The first two hour leg of the six hour journey greeted us with a trail so steep and muddy that we had to rely on tree roots and climbing skills to navigate the muddy footholds.  Fernando, my trainer that day, and his calm and motivational spirit got me through that difficult path.  The difficulty during that first leg had me almost giving up out of fear that the rest of the trek would only get harder.  However, what lay in front of us was nature so beautiful, even now I cannot find the words to properly describe it.  Misty dew sugary sweet in aroma clung to the rainforest canopy that enveloped us.  Crying monkeys and rustling branches muted out the entire world, making it possible to believe in that moment only that location and I existed.  Slippery smooth boulders lined our path, worn away by a thousand million years of rain and dew just like we were experiencing that day – a testament of the everlastingness of time and the smallness and insignificance of my presence in that moment.  My footsteps would barley make and impression on the landscape around me – but the landscape around me would forever and ever change me.  Invigorated by my surroundings I felt the pressing need to go forward quickly and conquer the mountain peak.  I raced ahead in such a pace that even Fernando had difficulty keeping up.  Bounding up the ending steepness of the last cliff, I took pride in my overall accomplishment and making it to that peak in respectable time in relationship to the group.  On my way up I was greeted by fellow travelers congratulating me on my accomplishment in making the trek.  “Wasn’t that amazing?’ they all asked.  “Isn’t being here the greatest?” they all commented.  Finally I cleared myself a space on the final lookout point to behold my accomplishment and take a look at the view I was promised of the Atlantic Ocean and Isle Grande in total.  What I was greeted with conversely made my heart sink – In my fervor of not being the last one to the top; I made it up too early in the day to have a clear view of anything.  The morning fog dew that I so enjoyed on my way up still clung to the mountain side obscuring my view to anything.  Looking around my immediate surroundings was just as disappointing – the ground that lay underfoot was littered with remains of discarded water bottles and wrappers.  Yes, making it to the top was an accomplishment, but at what price?  I had failed in enjoying the journey.  I don’t want my life to be a race to the end – because what do any of us have promised to us there?  We are only promised today.  And even the patches of difficult climbing do have the beauty of reality.    How I loved the dirt between my fingers and my toes! 

This year I resolve to have more mud between my toes, more naked moments, more days of sun on my face and sand in my hair.  As my years add up and my body continues to change, I will appreciate my rounding hips and crooked nose and ample behind.  I will also respect my body and soul more and make taking care of each as a priority.  I will read more books and see more movies and have more breakfast, lunch, and dinner with friends.  I will visit bookstores and libraries more.  I will eat more vegetables and wear more sunscreen.  I will make more phone calls and write more love letters and send more birthday cards.  I will attend weddings and funerals and graduations – and laugh and cry and kiss and hug.  I will plan for my future and be smart and mindful of living in the present.  I will not do any more all-nighters at work, but I will do all-nighters with friends.  I will find a new job, perhaps a new city, and flirt again the idea of a new country.  Perhaps I will bother with Thanksgiving, but for sure I will run away for Christmas.  Never would I have guessed the moments of the year I am leaving behind, so I am so excited about the year that lies before me. 

Welcome Visitor

Female hormones are a marvelous thing.

You know you are wading in the deep end when you wander around your home crying for no particular reason and wake up in the morning yelling to your BF (more on that later) "Stop that breathing! You are breathing too loud!" and you declare to  your apprentice at work "I am feeling bitchy today!  Deal with it! Its part of the job!!!"... and then Zen - you look at the calendar,  realize that 28 days has yet again passed, and -  Whew!  It is just That Time Of The Month!  I really am not a schizophrenic bipolar!  - Yes, when that realization makes your day, and actually calms you down back to sanity... that is when you are in DEEP. 

God help the man who ever gets me pregnant.  If this is me normal, imagine me Preggers!  Eeek!

Ok, too much information.  I know.

Everything in Life Relates to Shopping

I have been having a difficult time lately finding proper footwear.

They are either:  A - Ugly.  B - Bad for my feet. C - Boring.  Or D - Too Trendy.

Again, another reason I should embrace my inner-hippy.  Shoes are so last century. 

But again, the fear - I may die barefooted and those who are left behind will think that I was such by circumstance and not by choice.  Every single-gals struggle.

Hey World!  I wander this world without a footed sole by choice! 

A Marvelous Work and Wonder

Thinking this morning about the things that make me feel most at 'home' - whatever that means...
I feel most at home abroad...  and most at ease in strangers houses....  the feel of dirt between my toes...the sound of the ocean hitting the shore.... and busy city streets full of foriegn chatter... the smell of a lovers neck.... the ponderance of everything and the random musings of the unknown..

... and then this list as compared to the things I give most of my time and attention pursuing: approval from a Mother who would rather ignore me... recognition from a job that leaves me dry... empty aquantiences... meaningless consumerism...

and it is no wonder why I feel so homesick for things that I do not even know.

A lesson that I learned from my uber-religious youth ... you worship the god you dedicate your time to.  Time to worship a new god?

I am mixing my methaphors here, but this thought sitting in my head is still digesting...

Independence Day

When in the Course of female events, it becomes necessary for Melissa to dissolve the emotional bands which have connected her with the wrong men and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle her, a decent respect to the opinions of womankind requires that she should declare the causes which impel her to the separation...

A Work In Progress

Things I want to do before I die:

(In no particular order - list in of itself is a work in progress)

1.       Meet Henry’s children

2.      Travel to Peru – Machu Picchu

3.      Navigate down the Amazon River

4.      Hike through and explore a virgin rain-forest.

5.      African Safari

6.      Kayak the Galapagos

7.      Spend a few months in India studying at a Hindi Ashram

8.      Retire on my orchard.

9.      Bungee jump in New Zealand

10.  Spend a week in Fiji with a lover

11.   Travel to Tibet

12.   Learn to Ski

13.   Go back to Cambodia with someone I can share the experience with.

14.   Fly a plane

15.   Make love on a plane

16.   Have a family

17.  Take up golf again

18.   Learn tennis well enough to beat someone (in particular)

19.   Spend a summer in the south of France, Italy, & Greece.

20.  Run a marathon

LaFawnduh

So…

Coincidentally, I was asked this same question twice this weekend. It totally threw me off guard:
“Do you think you will ever want to get married again someday?”

I totally choked both times in my response.

This is the post where I transition from using this site as just another spot to put my random musings and symbolic imprints of my memories. I never wanted to make my personal diary ‘public’. I have a diary. And it is very personal. But recent occurrences and some not-so-recent memories made my pause and reflect on this strategy today. What if there is someone out there in cyber-world who is going through something similar. Would not my sharing help him or her not feel so alone in their frustrations?

Because, me - I have my sister. Who is exactly who I called to converse about my misfortunate conversational missteps of the weekend. J gets me. J’s been there. J was brought up in the same ‘fun-house’ I was, and therefore understands and has no doubt the best frame of reference for my ramblings and non-sequitur rants.

And what would I do without her?

So - back to the question at hand.  How can I really respond to something like this? My ovaries ACHE every time I see a drooling slobbery child on the street. Screaming kids make my hormones dance the rumba. And yet the thought of admitting this to anyone .... I just can't imagine doing so.

When I was younger, my reasoning for keeping these feelings to myself were different.  Back then, every feminist and independent impulse in me wanted to reject these feelings the same way and reason I refused to be taught to cook and clean: because in some deep dark recess of my mind I thought by openly accepting and adopting these feelings I would be accepting the behaviors of domesticity and submissive-feminism being preached around me. 

Now, the question brings a new twist.

How can I dare to believe that I will be given another chance to try something, that something being marriage, that I failed so miserably at before?

And by daring to dream... even more... daring to share that being given this undeserved chance IS my dream... well, that is not yet something I am quite yet ready to do.

On an Afternoon Such As This

22/06/05

M:

Rummaging through my desk this morning I happened upon a token you bestowed to me so long ago as a thank you for your birthday present… but if I remember correctly, what I really wanted was that rust ‘ol penny. I am hoping that you are still keeping it safe in that wallet of yours.

2:

I still have that penny, but I'm beginning to wonder whether having it in my wallet at all times is, in fact, going to improve my chances of winning the lotto.

M:

I heard from somewhere that the best way to increase one’s chance in winning the lotto is *actually playing the lotto*.  I trust that you are doing this, of course.  Because and idle and unexploited penny does you no good.  ;)   Got to play the game (and take the big chances in life) to win.

Or maybe there is a parallel here with the parable of the servant who buried the talent his master gave him?  I don’t know…

Or is it a nifty little reminder that every little penny counts? 

Or maybe even that every bead of tear and drop of sweat eventually change the man and the landscape around him?

Because, just maybe, it is by the sweat of the brow we come to appreciate and, yes, even love, the things we are given in this life.  God’s curse to Adam is (or at least then, becomes) a blessing.  Because it is really not about the acquirement of things and possessions, it is about the journey and experience.  And you with your little talisman in your wallet may be symbolic of the thrill of unexpected chances and opportunities in life… the fork in the road you were not planning on… discovering new ground when you thought all the world was already mapped and charted…

Or maybe it is as simple as this article: http://sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgif=/n/a/2005/06/24/national/a073405D26.DTL

I can only imagine the view from your window (You can’t still be at work though, are you?  I thought only minions like I had to work this late on Friday’s) … reminds me I really need to make some time this weekend for squishing my toes in some dirt or sand somewhere.

2:

Nothing as noble as any of this, really.

My head has been brimming with ideas, I’ve been speaking with people who can help me make it happen and somewhere along that line will be venture capitalists or investors of some kind ...

M:

And what is not noble about entrepreneurialism?  (If you were here) I would argue with you that without it, some of the best things mankind has offered thus far would not be.  The spirit if ingenuity drives civilization ever forward.  You sell yourself short, my dear.

It seems to me that you are keeping yourself busy with things that make you happy.  And that makes me happy for you.

2:

Just wanted to make sure it's not misconstrued

You do realize that a big part of entrepreneurialism is about making money, yes?

I don't really walk around with favorite quotes, but there is one I can never remember how ironic that I liked and it was that “progress happens because of men and women who are not compromising by nature ...”

- And, "the fundamental things apply as time goes by...." -

How to Be Cruel

1) Tell the Truth.

2) Think that the word Truth deserves to be capitalized at all times.  Like God and Chocolate and Sex.