The Big Woo

I heard you are returning. I heard that when you come back, either all my dreams come true or I'll get my comeuppance, depending on whether I've been true to myself or not. I heard it can be the best time or the worst time, depending. I also heard that you are the ruler of lessons, limits and burdens, and when I heard that it made sense that you also rule Capricorns because I am a Capricorn and the things I know best are lessons, limits, and burdens. I think it's fair to say that I am your child.

I had wanted to prepare myself for your arrival because I'm a little scared of what might happen once you're back on the scene. I imagine you looking over my shoulder, clucking your disapproval in my ear at every five minutes, saying that I need to work harder and set more goals and be stronger and more productive and more disciplined and stop slacking and procrastinating and daydreaming and smoking pot. I guess I have been waiting my whole life for you to come back and tell me to do and be those things, but the truth is the voice whispering at me to do and be those things is my own. So I just wanted to let you know, Saturn, that I'm working on it. I really am.

Anyway, welcome back! Looking forward to catching up.

xoxo,
Emily

-a nice irish whiskey and flask
-ibuprofen
-french press, hot pot, and coffee
-turntable and all my springsteen records. also flat and skruggs.
-cowboy boots
-pot
-bathing suit
-all of the socks, bras, and underwear that i own.
-dr. bronner's
-six or seven work shirts
-dress pants
-black dress
-embroidery kit
-vitamins
-enough bologna sandwiches for two fucking weeks?
-happy camper mentality

It's been years since my last camping trip, and many years since the last one that was anything other than drinking and sleeping outside for a night. I am gearing up for a trip out to Guadalupe River State Park, and even though it's forecasting thunderstorms, I couldn't be more excited.

On the drive home from my grandparents' house a few weeks ago, my mom asked me if I remembered all the fun we used to have when I was little. She started telling me about our trip to Sea World, most of which I had forgotten. What I remembered was sitting in the splash zone for Shamu and my mom telling me that buying little fish to feed the dolphins was a rip off. That is basically all I took from, what in actuality, was sort of a miraculous vacation. For one thing, we were poor. Mom said she saved for months for this vacation, which ultimately amounted to us sleeping on a friend of a friend's airmattress out in the country close to San Antonio and going to Sea World, where we did things like share a giant soda between the three of us and then keep the commemorative cup as our only souvenir. But since we had come so far, and because this was to be one of 2 vacations we would take in our childhood, Mom packed the long weekend with many other (mostly free) events as was possible. And one of the days was spent tubing on the Guadalupe.

The way she tells it, and from her perspective, it was just a little mistake. The way I recall it, this was the most amazingly terrifying brush with death known to man. For one thing, there were rapids. At times, we fell out of our tubes and had to retrieve them. The water was deep. We would get separated from each other and have to cross our fingers that we would all make it to through alive. At one point, I fashioned a rope from my tee shirt dress (stylin!) so we could stay together. It felt very Macguyver at the time. Probably because that show was still on air. Of all the adventures that we had on the river (so many turns! so many rapids!), the most exciting part was four hours later when we realized that we had continued well past the exit for tubing and we were alone on the river and completely lost. Mom says now that she had accidentally "missed the exit" but even now I'm unconvinced that she wasn't trying to save a little money somehow. It was getting dark and we had to walk alongside the river--on other people's ranches--to get back to where we had parked. The terrain was rough and there were no paths. We had on wet clothes and flip flops. I think my brother had lost his shoes in the river and so was barefoot. We banded together and walked through the woods as though we were the only people on Earth. It felt that way. It felt like we were explorers, lost in the wilderness, fending for ourselves. It took hours of walking in the dark before we got back to our car, exhausted. I felt so brave that day. I'm glad my mom reminded me about that trip, because I did remember it after all. I remembered how it felt to survive something. And I love that feeling so much and I think I have always gone to the woods or to the river in hopes of finding that feeling again.

I think that's what I'm after this weekend, back to the Guadalupe two decades later.

Sometimes lately it feels like all I ever talk about are the seasons and the stars. Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox and when I heard it was, I heaved the hugest sigh of relief. I've been feeling like I've been lurching forward just here lately... trying really hard to get ahead of myself. I heard some old Southern person talk about how he didn't like eating peanuts in the shells because with all the work to get to them, he felt like he could just never get ahead of them. That is how I have felt. Knowing that today represents an actual shift--astrologically, seasonally, and probably emotionally--feels important. Really important.

I think this preoccupation with seasons and the stars has a lot to do with wanting to feel like I can navigate through these seasons of my life with minimal tools, and wanting to witness change in nature that reflects my own processes. I think we've all been missing Summer a lot because it was so good to us this year. Sometimes I felt like I had too much of a good thing--like everything was overflowing and I wished that I could hold on to all of it a little better. Summer is a season of plenty and it's hard to know it's ending.

What I am trying to embrace about Fall is that it's the time of year when you're supposed to put up your Summer bounty and plan out your Fall crops with a mind toward the coming lean days of winter. Hoarding is one of my Fall goals, but it's a little deeper than my plans to hoarde whiskey and freeze a lot of pot pies, I think. I'm looking further out into a more distant future than the weekend and trying to save up and hold on to this bounty in my life. I'm putting some up for winter.

This moon is one of the more spectacular moons I've seen recently. It is about a quarter of the way down from full. It's larger and oranger than most. According to science, the large size and orange color of the moon are optical illusions based on the pollution level and the position of the moon on the horizon relative to my position here on earth.

According to my own observations, the extra large size and orange color of the moon indicate that right now is a time when distance is a meaningless measure of closeness, relative to my position here on earth.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my stubbornness. I refused to believe that I was stubborn until I was well into my twenties. I was simply to stubborn to admit it before then. But it's definitely true.  I've been working pretty hard on being more flexible and open. It's hard to release when you want to clench! I'm learning how, little by little. I'm learning that there is always more than one right answer.

But the real thing I want to say about stubbornness is that I'm grateful for it on this day. I figured out somewhere along the way that there are moments when my stubbornness should be cultivated. It's been exactly one year since I quit smoking and I can say that no matter how bad I might want a cigarette, I am a person who is too fucking stubborn to quit quitting.

I feel like I should have something more meaningful to say about this experience, which as has been profound in my life. I'm truly proud of myself today and I'm breathing easy. I'm trying to remember that stubbornness is one of many ways forward.

1. Get down to business---like, literally! Attend C.O.A. business start up classes and write business plan. Craft my future!
2. B-A-N-J-O, goddammit. For real this time.
3. Make a budget and save money. Start bringing my own lunch, stop drinking so much Cava. Hoard. Become charmingly frugal.
4. Rockumentary Mondays. Learn about Rock and Roll. Expand Rock and Roll vocabulary. Develop street cred.
5. Craft Nite Reprise. Maybe in conjunction with rockumentary monday? MINDBLOWING!
6. Perfect Pot Pie. Not just chicken, all kinds. Except beef, gross. Duck, pork, oyster pot pie? Or chicken.
7. Change Art on Walls. Re-organize bookshelf. Reupholster the green chair Mouse destroyed. Think more about moving to a house.
8. Keep watch over the moon in its cycle and how it affects or does not affect my mood and behavior. Whenever possible, use lunar cycle to measure time.
9. Start writing down my recipes.
10. Learning about Irish Whiskey + letters to Chelsea= Whiskey letters.
11. Expand record collection to Mississippi blues. Also Jorge Ben.
12. Invest in rain suit for scooter riding. Leather gloves.
13. Use pasta machine to make Ravioli.
14. Remember to give compliments.
15. Forgive myself and others more easily. Get these monkeys off my back.
16. Get through next three units in Arabic textbook.
17. Acquire appropriate book and start collecting the interesting stamps I come across at work.
18. Plan trip to Nicaragua for January '10. There will be a baby girl there that I'm going to need to tell one day that I traveled all the way from Texas just to be there when she starts learning about the world. I'll need to tell her that I already loved her that much.
19. Campfires.
20. Learn to polka.

At the beginning of this Summer, I compiled what I felt was a juvenile list of things that I wanted to do and accomplish. The thing I want to say about this Summer and this list is that it started out so lighthearted. It's not unlike me to make and then ignore a list of goals I set for myself. I guess I thought because certain of these objectives (getting a tan, making cole slaw) could be easily achieved, all of them (including acquisition of a foreign language and learning to love) were equally feasible. I don't know how to explain what happened between May and August, but I can look back over this list and say with total confidence that this list set and kept the tone of what unfolded. I'm not sure I really want Summer to end, but I'm getting cranky and I've been getting really hard on myself about the way the chips have fallen just lately. I am ready for a new list, with a new tone. I need a new direction, and that direction is forward.

So with all the gravity of mid-August, I am looking over that list and thinking about what I did and did not accomplish. For starters, I'm the tannest I've ever been in my life and I've been swimming nearly daily. I felt so many feelings and thought about karaoke and my stars and country western dancing and queer friendship a lot. I wrote the letters I wanted to write. I didn't learn any new stitches or read a single book all the way through, but I have purchased and flipped through all the books I meant to read and I know they're there for later. I got to a whole new place with Bobby D. and I think that eventually I'll be able to articulate my thoughts and feelings about what happened to Dylan in the mid-late seventies. I learned a new alphabet and can make and distinguish between previously unrecognizable sounds and even make sentences in Arabic. I listened to the entire Beatles discography from start to finish. I am halfway through the Mouse the cat portrait series and never bought a banjo or bothered to learn anything about Texas history. I did learn to turn my partner in two step and I discovered that the reason I had never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it originally aired is because I just don't like that show. I watched that one Antonioni film most of the way through and it was pretty good, but I'm saving Star Wars for next Summer. I don't think I ever once needed to remind myself of my manners, my gratitude, or the Alamo. Spanish on the other hand, I forgot to remember.

So what remains to evaluate on this list then is love and my best.

 A couple of days ago there was a meteor shower and during it I saw the craziest meteor I have ever seen. I knew without a shadow of a doubt while it was happening that I would never be able to explain what I was seeing without sounding like I was exaggerating the truth (it took a full minute to cross the sky and the trail behind it was blue and red!) There are some experiences that we have that are only for us to know about and not meant to become stories that we can tell later on. There is no way to accurately describe just how large and bright a thing like that meteor was in casual language. Against what yardstick do you measure the brightness and size of a meteor? The most I can do is to say that it was a huge and special thing that I am happy to have shared with some people that I love. I think also that, much like that piece of debris falling into our atmosphere in a giant blaze of blue and red, doing my best and feeling love are not meant to be told about. They are stories to live.

When I was a socially and physically awkward gangly young thing, my mother used to always give me the same advice whenever things weren't going well for me at school on the popularity front. If I didn't feel like people quite liked me enough, Mom would tell me, "Honey, they are just jealous of you."

Nothing makes the sting of unpopularity sting quite so bad as having your mom imply that despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, your classmates don't hate you for being a nerd. They are just jealous of your Wings concert tee shirt and your highwater jeans and your mad sentence diagramming skillz. At a certain point, I made a decision to stop telling my mother about the problems I had socially. I didn't believe that anyone could be jealous of me.

Lately I find myself ridiculously happy. I am having a lot of fun, and so problems don't seem as bad as they sometimes do. It's hard to stay mad or sad or hurt for too long if you are interested in having a lot of fun and willing to let yourself do it You can forgive yourself very easily when you are doing something really silly, like participating in a drum circle, or trying to measure time according to the moon, or doing some synchronized swimming with your buds. Of all the lessons that I've learned this summer, I think the most important one is to just have fun. Me and my tribe have been having a lot of fun lately, and sometimes it really blows our minds to the point where we just wonder how it's possible that we're having so much fun. And that's when we tell each other that it's because we're so awesome.

And we are. Being awesome is what's working for us right now. I have giggled so much today and spent the last few minutes with my friends talking about how awesome we are. Cool people never talk about how awesome they are, and that is why they are boring. What's really more fun is to know when what you're doing is awesome and to talk about it and explain the things that happen to and around you as being because you are so awesome. It works in almost any situation, good or bad. I think this makes it a universal truth, no? I thought for a moment that I wished I knew a small impressionable child to whom I could impart this wisdom. I wished I could get a ten year old out there to just adopt this world view that has come upon me lately and see where it took her. When something goes well, it's just because we're so awesome. And when something goes kinda shitty, it is also just because we're so awesome. Our awesomeness is really important in the world.

So thanks, Mom, for doing me a solid with your advice back in the day. You are so awesome and anyone who doesn't believe it is totes just jelly.

Nothing upsets a person quite so much as a trip to their parents' house. I got upset about some stuff after a trip to my mom's house when she wasn't even there.

What got me riled up was the fact that her sink did not drain and her car shouldn't be driven over 60mph. When I called her to ask her how exactly she expected me to do the dishes that myself and my three guests had dirtied while making ourselves brunch, I peered around at the faces of my friends while she prattled on about how there is a bucket that we could use, that it's really better for the environment this way, and lastly, that we should just do the best we can. I got the feeling no one else's parents live this way. And then I flash back to my own apartment with its sinking foundation, its front door that sticks and cabinets that wont' stay shut. I think about the air conditioner that just went out and the cracks in the plaster over the cracks in the drywall. It's July and my sole window unit is out. What sends shivers down my spine is realizing that just as my mother will sooner adapt to using a bucket to wash her dishes with water from the garden hose than consider solving the problem, so too will I lay down two towels in an ex formation on the carpet beneath the window unit that is spewing water out in a three foot arc through my bedroom. People keep suggesting I could call the landlord and then I explain the very long list of reasons that I have not contacted him. I also say that it's good to acclimate to the heat and that I have worked out a system. The truth is that I am more like my mother every year. As I drove Chelsea home in my mother's car at 60 mph down the highway, I explained that the thing about my mother is that she develops janky solutions to easily fixable problems. I don't think it's exactly laziness because adapting to a problem requires more energy than just fixing it. I don't think it's lack of money either. It's simply an inability to prioritize maintenance. In my family, we let our cars, our houses, our money, and ourselves fall into disrepair. I think about the bumper on my Honda that was held together with duct tape for a year. The sink at my grandparents's house that offers the most unbearable trickle when turned on full blast. The house we lived in for two years when I was a teenager that had a broken doorknob on the bathroom door.

Why are we like this? We ask ourselves and each other this question all the time. And yet we keep on managing our problems rather than fixing them. It can be truly shameful.

But I also think about 9-5 and Working Girl, which I saw as a double feature tonight. In both of those movies, women get ahead in the business world because of their ability to adapt to their circumstances and capitalize on whatever situation they are in. One of the best parts of the weekend at my mom's house was when the four of us realized we could put our swimsuits on and use the garden hose to wash the dishes. We all quoted my mother, standing out there sudsing up the plates on the patio, "Just do the best you can!"

I guess it makes sense why it's hard for me to remember that fixing problems is better than learning to adapt to them. I was raised to always make the best of what I have. Sometimes doing the best you can with what you have is amazing. And if you are Melanie Griffith, it can even get you a new, better job with a window and everything.

So I'm trying to strike a balance lately. I am trying to be a person who knows when to wash the dishes in the yard in a bikini but also knows when to just call a plumber.