running..

     I went for a run, yesterday, pounding down sidewalks and past suburban houses that all look the same. My skin sweating under the California sun, sticking my plaid shirt and the hair that had escaped my pony tail to the skin at the base of my neck. But it felt good to move. Good to let myself run. My legs carried me over main roads and onto trails I had hoped to find, slowing in the shade of big trees and past a man leaving food for coyotes. I slowed and let my thought run on instead.

The other night, when I was leaving San Francisco, I had packed up all my belongings and cleaned the apartment I was staying in.
Down on the evening sidewalk I sat on my big leather suitcase waiting for the bus, the street empty but for a few cars passing in the twilight of the city. I tried to stem my anticipated fear of getting to the other side of San Francisco with all of my things on a bus system I am not familiar with at all, I took a deep breath and tilted my head back and looked up into the sky. I found my star and smiled.

Later, after missing my bus twice, paying for it three and a half times and getting very lost I found myself carrying my whole heavy life down Mission street at eleven o clock at night, dodging homeless men and schizophrenic people talking to the evening air as if they had just threatened their own kin.
     I felt weary, and quite alone, sweating under the ridiculous weight of my suitcase on one hand and my brown paper sack filled with food in the other, my messenger bag, it's zippers tight against my camera, and laptop swung over my shoulder.
 I had a sneaking suspicion that the bus was out of service for this route, and everything I had with me was too heavy to really carry the 16 or so blocks to where I was headed, and it was through the dodgiest part of town. I realized I couldn't think of anyone at the blues venue I was headed for, who I could call to come and come and get me, nor anyone else in the city I could call.
     I felt sweaty and shaking and unsure, but not like crawling up in a ball and crying about it, at least not yet.
I found the next bus shelter, and was on the verge of reading it's sign to see if it was in working order when a yellow taxi cab pulled up and asked where I was going. I glanced up and smiled but said quite plainly that I didn't have any money. He smiled in return but asked again where I was headed.
     I could feel his concern in his face, of a young pretty girl carrying way too much down a dark ghetto street in the blackness of night in the damp of the city, and when he offered me a free ride, I only hesitated for a moment, checking in with the inside part of myself, of that feeling of God, I hesitated between opening the door and heaving my suitcase in, but the voice inside didn't throw up a warning and so I slid in to the back seat and shut the door.
     At a red light a taxi stopped next to us and it's driver asked my driver what was going on. He told him to roll down the window and then said he was being a good samaritan, giving me a free ride, and it eased the tention in my neck, somehow. We chatted about colorado and dancing and he let me out without any further demands on my time or my soul, but with a cursory invitation for drinks next time I was in the city. Something we both knew probably had to be said, but would never actually happen. When I reached the venue and the welcoming arms of friends I felt relieved and safe.
But I am realizing, I am as alone as I wish to be, I work as hard as there is something to struggle against. But God sent that taxi driver and he probably would have sent me to a different bus stop which would have made everything easier if I had asked for or even allowed his help and ease into my life, before then. Sometimes, what am I saying most days I believe I should struggle too much, should have to really work for happiness, should somehow wallow in real life; rather than happiness being what God wants for me, for everyone, if we have the courage to ask for and receive it. God is good.

Yesterday, I walked around a museum in downtown Sacramento with some new friends and felt the glories of feeling taken care of and valued, again. Something I have been missing, lately.

Shut out, and not sure exactly why. But knowing that the door is locked for me, specifically. Reeling from shock and trying to understand. But something flares to life deep within.
I am still a fire, to be felt if I am being shut out. I still burn.

Last night, I danced. Not blues, but the hybrid of swing and lindy hop and shag that I seem to be trying to learn. It's crazy for me to feel like I can maybe actually dance a little bit, picking up steps was always the hardest thing for me as a kid and now it's coming fairly easily (knock on wood) and it makes me feel so accomplished and excited that I can maybe, actually, dance kind of well.


My best friends voice on the phone, shaky with distance but strong in consequence. I love that woman and the words she sings into my ear. Our laughter carries us through anything that would be awkward, because we have twenty one years of knowledge between us. I look up into the sky, the bright shape of the moon floating between the dark silhouette of tall city buildings and know that she will see this very moon soon, reflected in the waters of the ocean, against the island of Hawaii.



I may feel lonely sometimes. I may feel sad. I may find peace in odd things, that you will never be able to understand. But this is my heart, this is my life. Every day of it, changes, everyday of it shapes me, whether I'm expecting it to or not. You never know when your life will end, or when you will begin.
    I am finding a kind of peace, not something I've been finding in my heart about this, recently. I've been fighting and trying to make myself fit into the situations I find, and trying to force myself out of a love that is inherent in my heart. At least for now.
     I partition myself, thinking it will be easier for life to love me back, for me to love me back, if I am not so much, but in the end I feel unopened and un-alive in my own skin, forcing myself to try and feel things that aren't true.

The sky is blue beyond my window and the bare branches of the trees are flung wide into the sun. I am cooped up by thoughts and worries and wonderings and know I need to go put on my super girl underwear and and go out into the sunshine. (of course I will don more than simply underwear ;)

I leave you with this, after my wanderings in this post being wide and felt and scattered.

You are incredible. You have life inside of you that is all your own. You can make something beautiful or full or hungry or small out of it. But it is your choice to ask, to choose your own yourself, the respect you deserve and the love you yearn for. You are a perfect child of God (or the universe or the heavens or the earth, or what ever you choose to believe in or use as your word of choice.) You are alive.

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