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"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
-- Albert Einstein
"Time is round and space is curved
Honey have you got the nerve
to be Queen Elvis?"
- Robyn Hitchcock
"You can't kill relationships
You watch them drown like sinking ships ....
around you."
- Robyn Hitchcock
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My friend Scott is traveling around the world. Here's a snippet from his latest report. I've been reading about Scott's travels for months now, just as I myself have been changing. In this last report I noticed a touch of something new in his writing. This is a lifetime experience and he is having a blast. It's great to live not so much vicariously through him, but experience what he is experiencing from his point of view. I would have a different experience even if I was doing the exact same thing Scott is doing. And that's the delight of so many people - so many points of view. And by reading their travelogues, or web logs or minds you experience something from someone's point of view. It's an experience you wouldn't be able to have any other way.
"As we approached the village, the chickens scattered
and the cows moseyed out of our way (yes, a cow can
actually mosey, who knew), but the huge hogs basking
in the late afternoon sun, couldnt be bothered. So we
walked around them."
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Rob and I have been talking about Pippi over on his errata site. It's great to find someone else who is so into Pippi. I think she is one amazing character.
When I was in high school theatre class, we had an exercise where we had to do a character study. Pick a character, put together the costume, write a monologue and find a couple classrooms to perform in. Of course I picked Pippi. I wired my braided pigtails up with coat wire. I dyed a pair of tights: one leg green the other orange. I found fabulously large men's patent leather dancing shoes that were very long. I did not have a monkey. That was the catch - I was looking for Mr. Neilson in Mr. Slaymaker's Chemistry class and Mr Bemis's AP English class. I jumped on their desks - walked around on the desks in the classroom (while class was in session) and generally acted out a dream for 10 minutes. It was lots of fun.
A couple other stories come to mind.
In this time of transition, as I am specifically redefining who I want to be. Why not take my favorite things about Pippi and make them me? The things like, she always lived alone in a big house with a monkey and a horse and treated them like normal people. She had a suitcase of gold coins, but she didn't spend a lot of money. She liked to surprise storeowners by trying to buy lots of candy and toys and then flashing those fabulous eyes and pulling out a couple gold coins saying innocently, will this be enough? and then laughing uproariously. Her two square friends, Tommy and Anika, who lived next door with parents and all the kids wish for some of the freedom and stability of the other. Pippi has a connection with her world. She paid attention. She didn't try to be something she wasn't - she was a little girl with a lot of spunk and imagination. She didn't take shit from adults and required them to pay her attention. It's not that I want to be the living Pippi - but I want to take the best things from my perception about her character and incorporate it into my own hero with a thousand faces.
The other story I was reminded of happened the first week I was in high school. The scene is debate class. Our teacher decides that since there is some announcement that the whole school has to hear that it will be delivered in person to every class on a certain day. The debaters will be giving this announcement. It's about 5 minutes max, but it's probably most of the freshmen's first experience in "public" speaking. Debate teacher decided that the freshmen get to deliver the notice to senior and junior classes. Talk about jumping into the fire with public speaking. Here I am, all new to high school and everything that that mean. I'm the insecure 14 year old checking out the scene and just trying to fit in - not wanting to stick out or draw attention to myself. I felt like I was going to die. But I didn't obviously. I made the announcement without any mistakes and proceeded to have several senior and junior friends later that day in the lunch room. That experience wiped away my inability to act based on my own fear reaction. I was afraid to make the announcement, but I did it anyway. So now, when I feel that fear reaction (or a shade of anxiety) I acknowledge it, but I don't let it stop me from action.
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A fun time last night, but I'm reminded of the pre-programmed hard/soft-wired stuff in my body/brain. Eating, drinking, dancing, driving. I love listening to the music and go where it takes me. Pretend to be various roles. I am fully these personalities that come out. I was the jerk with the door guy doing his job. The somewhat drunk girl. Detachedly checking out the scene and people in the scene. Talking to guys, yet trying to appear unavailable. That is somewhat difficult being single and new and friendly and wanting to make connections, but not really in that way. Which causes me to ponder about relationships. I have to keep reminding myself that I don't want a relationship (although there's that one in the background - the third staircase). It's strange though, because, the part of a relationship role is one I've been in for a really long time. It's been a great role, because it has sheltered me from the sexual "onslaught" (whatever) with my unavailability. Now, I've got to create that for myself. And self-subterfuge exists. It's not about control - controlling or "weeding" out these hard and soft wired programming, it's about awareness. Being aware of the pre-programming and knowing what I want to do.
More than anything, I wish I had been more aware.
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I fell in love again today. It was with Silverlake. After taking in MOCA at the California Plaza; which totally reminded me of Yerba Buena - they even have performances, great landscaped with water and moss and granite and trees in the middle of downtown and even some wacked out contemporary art. It was Thursday free day at MOCA so I checked it out.
Afterwards I meandered towards Echo Park/Silverlake. I've been thinking about this area for a while. There's some history. 29 years ago I lived in Echo Park. Today was the first time I've explored that area as an adult and I absolutely feel in love with Silverlake. It really reminded me of the Berkeley Hills. The houses were great. There were tons of them for sale. Some parts are run down. Some are upper snooty. I like the eclectic mix. I liked that as I drove up Alvarado the billboards were in Spanish. I saw a Brazilian store. I like that. I know there will be good Mexican groceries in the neighborhood. I liked the twinkling of the sun off the blue blue water. I liked the big trees. I like the potential and I can really see myself living in that part of town. That is .... if I want to pretend that I am still in San Francisco (minus the natural northern air conditioning). That thought occurred to me as I drove back to the coast along sunset. Then again, I also fell in love with Playa del Rey. And the more I hang out here in Venice I love it here too. Am I just in love with everything LA? What about a discriminating taste? What about choice? Am I overwhelmed? I don't know. It seemed to me that San Francisco could be compared to Rio de Janeiro, while Los Angeles would be compared to Sao Paulo. Regardless, everything is going to work out exactly the way it's supposed to. I don't know where I'll end up. And Los Angeles, Venice even this house is another point on my line that is the life I currently experience.
We say goodbye and hello every second of the day. We say it with our exhale and inhale. We arrive at one place and depart another at every instant in time. And then the instant changes.
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I've been fascinated with airports all my life. They represent adventure. Because my mom was a flight attendant we traveled all over the world at the drop of a hat. Airports were always hubs of opportunity. I would look up at the departing flight TVs and see the destinations in alphabetical order. I knew, with my airline ID, that I could get on any flight if there was an open seat. I would stand in the international terminal in St Louis and see destinations of adventure: Barcelona, Paris, Cairo, Athens, London, San Francisco, Honolulu, Munich, Amsterdam with flights leaving in the next few hours. I would look at my open ticket and look in my bag and realize I didn't have my passport with me. I was planning only a domestic flight. I knew I could go to those places. They were not foreign. I was scared. At 14 I didn't have the guts/charge/irresponsibility to change my plans and jump on a plane to Rome at the last minute. I dreamt of doing this, every time I was in the airport, but I thought my parents would be worried when I didn't show up in San Diego or John Wayne or Kansas City. Thinking back, I wish I had done that at least once.
When I wasn't traveling I still loved airplanes and airports. I used to go out to the airport at night to watch the airplanes take off and land. The red and green and white lights. The blue lights on the ground. It was magical to me. If I couldn't travel, I could at least watch people traveling. I imagined the people on the airplanes. Wondered where they were going. If they were excited because they were leaving cold Iowa to go on vacation in California or Florida or the Caribbean. Or were they coming home to visit family after they moved away from college to places like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Houston.
Then the roles would swap and I'd be up on that airplane. It would be taking off. My body would be pressed against the seat. I would relax and feel the pressure increase, my delight increasing in measure until the ultimate climax and we were no longer earthbound. The cool release. The game I played with the clouds and sun and earth below. I would think of the my colleagues on the airplane. Wonder about their stories. The teenage girl who sat next to me by the window. Words overhead in SFO at the United International baggage check-in "Raj, I need a thousand dollars" and their accompanying stack of boxes and luggage with a couple women and several children silently waiting behind them. The couple on my left going to San Juan. Was it their honeymoon or their first vacation together? I looked out the window at the blackness of the ocean. I would be meeting my boyfriend in San Juan the next day. He would get off his boat at the crack of dawn and wake me up in my hotel room with kisses. I wondered about the people on the ground. Those box houses, many with turquoise pools that I could see on a clear day in my approach to LAX. Two weeks in a row, I pointed out the Hollywood sign in the Hills. First to a son and dad couple going to DisneyLand. The following week to a college girl and her boyfriend going to her film school interview at UCLA. Both were excited to see it from the air. I kept thinking, this is my town. This is my town.
In an airport, the mundane and everyday mix with the excitement of the unknown. It's what I wrote just a moment ago. It's a magical place of many opportunities. Of places to fly off to. You don't need an open ticket to go to places like business school or rock star or father of 3. It makes it easier. But you'll pay for it some way. You pay for it by making a choice. And once you are in one destination, you can always leave and go to another destination. The ticket is always open, until the destinations cease to exist.
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So I've got some Gmail invites. If you're a friend of mine and want a gmail email address, send an email to heathervescent at gmail dot com. Say something funny or interesting.
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Playa del Rey is the first community just north of LAX. To the south, the airplanes take off over the Ocean. To the North is a wetlands reserve that is threatened by developers. To the east new developments like Playa Vista are popping up. There is a lot of controversy with the proposed LAX expansion. But I don't think it will really happen because just north of LAX windstorms (aka Tornados) occur with not so rare frequency.
Driving west Culver Blvd (which heading east on it will take you to Culver City and the Sony Pictures Soundstages) takes you to this amazing beach town. It's a classic southern California beach town. An Italian restaurant with lots of neon. A bar called the "Outlaws". A place called "The Shack" subtitle: So California, Colorado, Hawaii. Colorado?!!!! What surfer moved east to the Rockies I wonder? Across the street at the quasi flat iron corner is the brightly painted yellow and blue Bistro Solei. I've noticed this place every time I've turned the corner to head south along the beach.
Last night, I went there with my Aunt Mary Pat and her soon to be husband Steve. We didn't know what to expect and we showed up just before 9pm hoping they would still serve us. It's true we were the last ones to leave the restaurant but the place was completely spectacular. I had a filet mignon covered in a brandy wine cream sauce. It was one of the most interesting sauces on the menu and I had to try it. It was amazing. The filet was so tender I cut it with my butter knife. The sauce was impeccable. It was delightfully creamy with subtle flavors. The accompanying vegetables were delightful. Mary Pat opted for the fish and chips which were crispy and flavorful. And Steve had the Poulet Dijonese. All of us were blown away by the saucy goodness. Since Mary Pat and Steve were going to Hawaii the next day and it was basically Steve's bachelor party (with 2 women) we convinced our waitress to let us order desert. Crepes Martinique folds chocolate mousse inside a crepe covered with raspberry and rum sauces. Totally Yum! My brain starts enumerating the list of people I have to bring to the restaurant - starting with my mom - who introduced a picky petulant child to chocolate mousse crepes 25 years ago.
Playa del Rey is barely 10 minutes from LAX. It's a completely hidden gem in an amazing location. The beach was more or less empty yesterday when I pulled up to explore and watch the airplanes take off. It was the cloudy overcast JuneGloom in LA. I'm not really surprised. I'm intimate with the marine layer that rolls into SF all summer. It was an interesting trick of the infinite, watching huge jumbo jets, long necked airplanes and smaller aircraft propelling themselves into the sky followed by a rocketing blast of sound as they blend into the nothing of the marine cloudcover.
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"Colonel Aureliano Buendia organized thirty-two armed uprisings and he lost them all. He had seventeen male children by seventeen different women and they were exterminated one after the other on a single night before the oldest one had reached the age of thirty-five. He survived fourteen attempts on his life, seventy-three ambushes, and a firing squad. He lived through a dose of strychnine in his coffee that was enough to kill a horse."
- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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"every road leads home" is what Amy said to me today as I was test driving her Saab. It's a great quote that I want to remember. And I also want to buy her car.
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The sun set on the last day of Spring. It's now a hot summer night. I'm back home. It's always a hot drive on 5 through the San Joaquin Valley. I see the blue of the aqueduct and dream to jump in. In my car I brought with me: Ms Salvia, a chest of drawers for my clothes and a bird's head in a velvet ring box among other things.
I was in SF for a few days longer than I originally planned - but then, I wasn't that surprised with house drama happened and other delightful distractions occurred. I saw some good movies, notably, Shakes the Clown and Napoleon Dynamite. Also saw Coffee and Cigarettes a few weeks ago. I'll write reviews of them in the next few days.
Being up north was somewhat discombobulated. I had no home. I stayed in my house - a jumbled mess with painting and carpeting and then finally finding its personality. I stayed in my old place (and x-boyfriend/roommate's place) in SF. And I stayed in a hotel near Union Square. It's neat to be able to get up and go and stay at any variety of places - the freedom is there. However at the same time it's somewhat ... new ... to not be rooted anywhere. It's a new feeling to be a visitor in your old town. An intimate visitor. As much as I love the bay area, the life I had there, my friends and lovers past and new, my home is south - and that's where I want to be. And here I am. Home again, home again.
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| How to make a heathervescent |
| Ingredients: 1 part pride 5 parts brilliance 3 parts leadership |
| Method: Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of fitness |
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It's been a busy week. I'm back here in SF - looking at that view - hi there sutro tower, the outer mission sprawl, the church. The sky is clear blue.
The house went on the market yesterday. The painters finished Wednesday and I had one evening to stage the house, clean it and generally make it look like a fabulous place. A place out of a dream - and it is. The house looks the best it has ever looked. The backyard is planted and gorgeous. I stand on the deck from the bedroom and look at the redwood trees, watch the sunset and feel the breeze. It's somewhat sad that I won't be living in this house anymore. But then again, I haven't lived there for 8 or 9 months. But that house represented to me the achievement of many of my dreams. Of home ownership in the Bay Area, where housing prices are not cheap. It was a beautiful house. A unique house. It was a small house. But it was compact. The house represented to me, that I was finally successful. And that I did it all alone. Well - not totally alone, because Clint was there too. But I did most of it. And to me that house represents success.
So I was successful. It's time for a new dream. A dream that holds it's castle in the south. There are many things in the north that have my attention - but my dream is south. And I can't wait to get back down to Venice and the warm moist air. A city with sandy loamy soil where my roots are already settling in. It's full of holes.
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Yesterday there was a collection of flags on Venice Beach, today there are half-pipe rollerblade and bicycle competitions.
A women's razor promotion called Venus. I rode by and they were playing Venus by Banarama. This is a great song - especially the original version.
And here's this:
It is saturday so the beach was packed with people. I rode all to North Santa Monica and pulled out to attempt to read this patent submission. Needless to say I was not that successful.
I looked up at the waves and saw three black triangles humping parallel to the shore. It turned out to be a pod of dolphins. There were about 5 of them.
I didn't see any movie sets today, but yesterday they had lots of electricity cables a couple cranes and a hanging platform along with a large quantity of RVs and Trailers.
Oh and then there was the FOX thing. A whole parking lot was blocked off. All I could really see were the white tents, tables and green plants. There were three huge letters right on the edge of the beach. They were F O X. I really wanted to do some kind of joke or climb on top and pose or do something funny. But I was alone and had no accomplice. That reminded me that I wanted to get involved with the Cacophony Society again - and they are supposedly more active in LA than SF.
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain
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reading page 119 in sleeping in flame propelled my thoughts into a new thought dimension. Carroll didn't spell it out like this, but he wrote in some hooks that, like the midget, pushed me out the window. these thoughts are my own and I wasn't doing anything other than drinking coffee and breathing the Venice air.
These ideas
- there is a finite amount of time in which life exists (say 0-N)
- there are a finite number of vessels (anything that has "life" from a cicada to you reading this right now.
- reincarnation happens, but you don't always come back in the future. you can come back at any point in the finite timeness of life
- in fact, there really is no time. "Time" is what allows awareness to experience itself and evolve (i.e. learn)
- we are recycled constantly into the "past", "present", "future"
- this recycling within time, within vessels (bodies) happens constantly. It is a constant circle.
- Perhaps through the cycle, you are recycled into every single living thing that has, does and will ever exist.
- There is really no difference between you and that jerk who cut you off on the freeway today. One life you are the one being cut off, the next you are being cut off. and if there is no difference between you and that jerk between the millions and millions of years difference from switching bodies - what is the real different between you today?
- You could say that the myth of Heaven and Hell explains this in perfect symbolism.
- some people will experience all the forms and vessels of life.
- some will experience very few.
- there will be times when the "world", "the arena" are filled with many vessels
- and times when there are very few
- and they will evolve and mutate and create and destroy and everything you can possibly imagine and more
- And there is a way out or a way beyond the circle/cycle.
- But it doesn't really matter whether or not you care or even know about all this. Or if you get out or transcend it.
So you over there, reading this entry. Hello you. You're me. And I'm you, thinking and typing this right now.
Thinking all this, made me almost feel hopeless. Why bother almost came into mind. Why continue to exist if I'm "doomed" to be all these jerks or have the amazing opportunity to experience everything. To be a man, a woman, a mother, a killer, killed, an un-elected president, a dictator, an activist, a nomad and everything else. I've been all those things and I've been the opposite and I'm all those things and the opposite right now.
But no really, I'm just an almost divorced 30 year old woman with the ability to fascinate almost anyone. But then again, I'm also all of you too.
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"Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you nad tomorrow you arrive there and know them by inhabiting then."
- Emerson, Essay on the Oversoul
Today I start my writing schedule. Two book ideas that have been percolating for years. Cantos and Trade are their working titles. I want the stories to unfold and read like a cross between Italo Calvino, Bruce Chatwin and Jonathan Carroll. I hope it helps that I'm living in the house of a writer.
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I woke up this morning with the lyrics from Franklin's Tower in my head.
I rolled away the dew and got out of bed. I scrounged around in the kitchen and to my grand luck there was coffee! I love coffee. It was the first time in months that I used a coffee maker and it worked out fine. No cream though... I relaxed, perused some books. I already mentioned the Native American one in my previous post, and I found an Italian one on the Mayans. I drank my coffee looking at pictures from both books - twisting my portuguese trained brain around the italian words and then I gave in to my imagination from the pictures. I sat on the couch and talked on the phone to my best friend. Then I went to the beach.
It was overcast, cool, no bright sunny southern california weather for this day. But that was just fine. I checked my po box. Mail for the previous occupants. I walked on the beach, sat and watched the waves. Looked at the dead little swimmers on the shore and watched out for bits of tar. I stopped and had breakfast at a beachside cafe in Venice. I liked the dark eyes and calm demeanor of my waiter. I watched the sky and the people walking by. It was very quiet - it was Monday morning.
Heading back to my car I walked through a movie set. It was cool to see the lights, the shiny cafe table, ketchup and mustard props. It reminded me of how much I like props and setting the scene. Life is but a series of scenes, hmm.
Then I drove around and around. Certain names jump out at me - these will be my main travel ways. Neilson Way (funny and special to me because of my house on Neilson Street in Berkeley), Lincoln, Main, Rose, Penmar, Abbott Kinney, Pico, Ocean, Ocean Park, 6th, Ashland. For some reason I keep thinking about a certain needle pusher up north when I see ashland... I wonder - did he tell me about something about that street or is there some other connection. Now, dear reader, don't take needle pusher the wrong way - I paid him well and he is well trained in the Asian Art of Acupuncture.
I wandered down the street to look for a funky salon for a new do. I've been waiting to arrive before changing again. I found this fun place called, Sit Still. Which, if you know me, is not something I can do very well. They were able to get me in today, so I had my ultra blonde, chocolate brown, flippy ragged cut done. It's what I would call Heather's Aeon Flux cut. Cause I just can't cut it all black.
To grocery store, which was a crazy madhouse at 11am on Monday. I'll go on a saturday afternoon for fun sometime. Then to home, home again. Sit in the hammock, eat, ponder, dream, listen to music and write.
I feel like I've done it all. Now I can die.
Well not really. But I did get a lot done today.
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so now I'm here. I specifically left this part of my plan open - planning for the unplanned to happen. and here it has begun. it's begun with my purpose.
so, what is my purpose? It's time for a new one.
It's also an opportunity to to review and project:
- What did it used to be that I thought I was here for? (What were my goals?)
- What will it be that the future heather will think she is here for? (What will the Heather to be goals be?)
It just occured to me that my current purpose is to clean out my own programming. My social, personality, society, chemical algorithms.
We don't even realize how programmed we are. I was looking through a book from the bookshelf this morning. It was about Native Americans from 1956. There were diaramas of "traditional" indian life. Mock ups from various museums. My favorite one was the indian nuclear family. The model of family life. It shows a woman tending a bowl in the fire, the man sitting on the bed carving and a baby hanging in a cradleboard. I really question this as a scene from indian life. What this photograph shows is the 1950 family model applied to another culture.
Did you catch that? That 1950's cultural programming of the nuclear family just hiding there in the museum display and the books you read as a child?
That's what I'm talking about. Noticing that programming. Being aware that it is there. Not that you can really do anything to change your programming - but you can be aware of it. And in that moment of awareness you have a choice - a choice to follow the programming or do something different. And really, like Gandhi said, it doesn't really matter what you do, but it is VERY important that you do it.
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Carson took some photos of me on my last night in SF. We watched the sun set at Ocean Beach. Drank some ciders in the car. Watched the teenagers carry armloads of wood and potato chips for beach burns. Then we went home via Twin Peaks.
I really wanted to say goodbye to the city up there. It used to be that every morning I would check my email and raise my gaze to see Sutro Tower. That didn't happen today. ;) So I had to say goodbye to Sutro and Twin Peaks, since I would not be saying hello anymore.
The light was wonderful. We watched the twinkling of teslaescence down market street, illuminating the Castro Theater (so many good memories) treasure island, the bay bridge and across the bay to Berkeley and the east bay hills.
It was really a perfect evening. Thank you San Francisco Bay. I won't miss you, but I'll remember your dream.
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the great time about time is, that it just keeps on going and you don't have to do anything about it.
"ut oh, I lost track of time for a minute. at least I think it was only a minute that I lost track of." ;)
It's very different here. I can already feel it. I'm not exactly sure what it is. The energy is different? I felt it as I came down from Castaic into the San Fernando Valley. I don't care about putting my finger on it, but it is very specifically different. Different from the Bay Area, different from previous visits.
here I am. I'm in my place in Venice Beach. I've dreamed about living here. I've thought, planned, researched, traveled, packed, got in my car and drove. and now I'm here. So now comes the interesting part...
now life gets creative. (not like it wasn't in the first place).
now, life is a new adventure.
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I haven't been posting much the past few days - I've been busy with lots of last minute packings and gotten tired over and over. I leave today. I leave in a few hours. I have a car to pack and a final goodbye.
When Clint and I arrived in the bay area, the first place we stopped was at a coffee shop in Potrero Hill. I've planned this event for years and never known the date. I'll stop by Farley's, write an entry in my journal, see one last person and then I'll get on 280 and drive south. I'll have the north wind at my back. I'll fly south on the her strong, precise flow.
The sky is clear. I look out this window that has been my morning companion for months. I see the things I have always seen - sutro tower, the church, the water tower, the birds swooping, the tops of the plum trees, the wind swept evergreen. There's not a cloud in the sky. A contrast to the typical foggy san francisco summer weather of the past two days.
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I stand surveying my storage unit. It's packed with a bunch of boxes. Today it will get another load with furniture. Wow - all that stuff is mine. All this is baggage. My personal history. It's kind of cool that it's there - my personalities boxed up in brown boxes. But at the same time, it's so much crap, how important are these things? Could I just leave them behind? By doing so, would I lose/forget some part of myself?
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