So, California. Here we are. I am a bundle of confusion and yet clearer in my head in many ways than I have been in previous visits. Sometimes I think about moving here, because the houses are sweet and the weather is lovely and there are so many things that please me here and that are important. Family. Food. But then I remember that back home I have a job I love, and health insurance, and friends who make me laugh until it hurts. So I think this is tourist lust.
I like the signs I see everywhere that are certainly nouns but I pretend they are verbs because my mind is nothing if not amusing to me. Waste. Change. Produce. Dump.
I've been thinking a lot about guests and hosts. "Looks like some kind of guest/host relationship to me." I want to be a good guest; I want to be a better hostess now that I've had some great modeling. I wonder how it is that some people are able to make others feel comfortable, valuable, and others seem to not even consider that important. Whether it's something that can be learned as an adult.
Also various forms of communication - how it is so easy to talk to some people and others require real Dale Carnegie skills.
I am strong in my likes and dislikes and yet hate to think anybody could ever dislike me. If you dislike me because I am fussy and clever and gorgeous, I guess I don't care, but it keeps me up nights wondering if I am being judged for something I didn't do, or didn't mean to. "I want all my hurts to be intentional."
There have been swirling sounds in my head regarding who needs what, who gets what. It is my own thing that I don't ask for what I want or even need because I am afraid I will not get it, and this convinces both me and everybody else that I don't need or want anything, and I get by just fine but sometimes I feel like I want it anyway. And then I get all tangled in wet hair and longing. It bothers me horribly to see my brain go traipsing down a road that I know ends in tears and yet be only able to control how little we cry. Like, couldn't we just focus on what we have, couldn't we just NOT DO THIS. Gack.
I've been wine tasting twice, to amusement parks twice, rafting once. Got one massage so far and should get another. Got a tattoo. Painted my fingernails too many times to count and my toes twice. Painted half of a room. Rearranged furniture a few times. Went shopping for clothes a few times. Went shopping for house stuff also a few times and nearly sat in an aisle at one weeping because of what I could accomplish with so many things. Isn't it pretty to think so, that it is the availability of stuff, rather than my own lack of creativity, that stands between me and some sense of personal completion. See it doesn't take me very long to bring my empty hand around and slap my own face.
Made the trip from Sonora to Sacramento with some old CDs I pilfered from my friend, Talking Heads and REM. What a pleasure to be on a road trip with Squire, listening to the music that I used to depend on for road trips 20 years ago. Driving up 108, God's country I told Squire, and I am still so satisfied by the sight of one lone tree on any horizon. Still pleased when hills make me think of a woman's body rolling itself out before me. Still glad to sing along, to know the words. I'm not supposed to be like this, but it's okay.