Having a bed-in is a great idea, John and Yoko did it for world peace, we did it for peace of mind. We read last Sunday’s New York Times, we let Loca up to snuggle, we let Bam Bam join in for pets and we had our tea and just thought pleasant thoughts. We ended up finding just what we have been missing around here – peace of mind.
I strongly urge you to have a bed-in.
I was sitting in Tonique last night speaking to a friend about life’s many twists and turns and I remembered so clearly sitting on the black leather sofa that is now in Steve’s apartment and staring out at West Street in San Rafael – it was an overcast day and as usual, since we were on the other side of Mt. Tam, we were getting the brunt of the seasonal rain. A garden catalog had arrived the day before and I was thumbing through it and the first page had an ad where they would custom make a small replica of your house to hold your garden hose. I flipped out. I literally flipped out. I recalled the words of a guy I once heard interviewed on NPR where he was talking about leaving an establishment he had worked in for many years and he screamed: “I FELT LIKE I WAS IN A GRAVE AND THEY WERE SHOVELING DIRT ON TOP OF ME.”
That’s when I knew I was a having a nervous breakdown and that the banality of my life had caught up to me at warp speed and that I was either going to stay in that grave or I had to claw my way out – PRONTO.
I created a means to an end – a disaster that included Katrina – and I got out.
Fast forward, this year has been a year of many roadblocks. My mother is, well, she is barely still here. My dog Arlene is dead. The adoption – I hate to say – we might be getting screwed all over again. And well you know the rest. Last night, though, we donned our clothes and went to see Romeo & Juliet. We have season tickets to the opera. Neither of us felt much like going but we were in the fake it till you make it sort of mood and needed to get out of the house.
We ran into a friend there and after decided to go for a cocktail – we parked on Rampart and made our way past Donna’s where a brass band was in full swing, then made our way to Tonique where the crowd was a mix of tattoo’d girls, rasta hotties, pretentious gay men and yuppies. We sat huddled together and talked about everything – about how gay men are forced into a life of promiscuity because that is the only place society wants them to be, we talked about how ten years can change you dramatically, we talked about how great a space Tonique is.
Then we left our friend and went by Buffa’s to split a burger. We sat down and there was the usual eclectic crowd with a dog. The dog came over to us and it was small enough for T to lift it and sit it in her lap. A man came in, dressed like he was about do a show in Vegas, and he strapped on his guitar and began to sing Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash. I looked at T and thought I am so lucky in love that I could spit.
We came home sometime after 2AM deciding that today we’d have a bed-in a la John and Yoko, and that we wouldn’t do one thing we didn’t want to do, and we wouldn’t want for anything else, and so far, it is working for us.
Buddhist believe that most of life’s misery is caused by wanting.
There is a card in the Tarot deck of a woman blindfolded with two swords – I like this card because it is about self binding. If she used the sword to cut off the blindfold and turned around she would see the stunning blue ocean behind her.
So it is with everything that you think you can make happen. Take any number of issues that I am juggling right now – my mom, no control over what happens, no strong investment in the outcome as all options lead to the place of no return. Take the adoption – we’re up, we’re down, and suddenly things are starting to seem familiar, like oddly familiar to the last time where we were taken for a ride emotionally and financially and our wanting to believe was soon replaced with we couldn’t believe.
It’s like in life you set up all these cards and you think to yourself that it is so important that they all stand upright just so and when you get the house of cards all situated you pray no one blows too hard in your direction, but then suddenly thinking you are safe in your card structure you turn around and accidentally the entire structure falls apart. That’s called freedom.
Because I feel like I’ve have spent the last year trying to make something happen – trying to make my mother better, or happy, or safe, trying to make a baby whether though T or us or them, trying to be a good worker bee and giving everything I have to make a company a success in challenging times – and you know in the end sometime you just have to back away from it all and let go, and let god.
There are many things I want to do in life and I have been bound by self-imposed walls/tethers. One is to not worry about my mother. The other is to be a parent to a child – not a mother, or a husband, but a child. And along the way, I want to do meaningful work in my life.
I think it is high time I quit trying to make everything and everyone turn out all right and turn inward and follow my own bliss.
There are people who believe that private adoption exploits poor women. I beg to differ. It’s the couples trying to adopt who are exploited left and right because they want a baby so bad they will give up the farm. Then there are the attorneys who make their living on this transaction. Honestly, last night we met a woman who was adopted out of the foster care system because her mother was a drug addict, she now works at an orphanage. She says the system is broke. Why should it be that two loving people who want to give a child a loving home have to jump through hoops, pay exorbitant sums of money, and risk not even getting a baby.
You tell me.
Everybody has had an opinion lately – where were these people when my mom needed financial, emotional, physical support? Everybody wants to profit on T and my desire to have a baby – so far $40,000 of money we don’t have. Everybody wants to own a piece of me, have a piece of me, destroy a piece of me. But they can’t.
One of the songs I listened to when T and I first fell in love – nothing’s going to change my world – jai guru deva om – is running through my head. It took about 50 long years to realize that no matter what the external event, I am who I am, and they can’t take that away.
Today was possibly the most gorgeous day we have had all year. The sun was shining – the sky was blue – there were these cloud shaped white clouds in the sky – and birds were singing. If all days were like today, I would find it absolutely impossible to work.
Oh now it’s coming out that Fox New is manipulating the news – give me a break – do you trust Rupert Murdoch to spin the news? Uh, no. The fact that they are trying to resurrect Sarah Palin by claiming she is so popular right now is the biggest load of hogwash I’ve ever seen. Give it a rest – you backed Bush for how long?
I walked Loca around the Big Lake this morning, reveling in the beautiful day outside, and the fact that despite all of the heaviness of late, that things are going to be all right. This is a difficult time because so many huge things hang in the balance. My uncle wrote me that having a baby was going to be life defining. Losing my mother is also as weighty. All around us there is beauty – the bayou, the oak trees with moss, the bells of Our Lady of the Rosary ringing on schedule, the sun in the blue sky. In the morning Loca jumps up for loving and Wolfie ambles around to steal her bed then Bam Bam starts to meow for his breakfast. Meanwhile, we linger just a little longer in each other’s embrace. All of these fine details punctuate what makes our life wonderful. I’m just closing my eyes and focusing on each of these details as a steady reminder that troubles pass, and sorrow turns to joy eventually, and in the meantime, it’s all good.
Last night I went to a birthday dinner with a bunch of friends and looked around the table at some point and felt that it was good to know that I have yet another safety net out there in the world.