What will you do with your one wild and precious life?
Fall to your knees.
Went for an early morning long bike ride – feeling surreal – hands out – fast ride – IPOD blaring – coming down the only hill, flat tire. Chin up – won’t let it get me down. Robin pulls up beside me says I’ll fix flat – does so in record time – says enjoy your ride – then takes off. Nice guy does good deed of the day – a mitzvah.
Maria spazzing a little because she wanted me to show up earlier than appt – does my hair like there is a fire coming – love it – across town, the Post Office automated system produced a change of address so D wasn’t lying when she said that when she took over from Cliff there was a change of address for me. Now it involves dealing with forms etc. I lay down and hear thunder and think uh oh about our bridge party tonight and then head to the PO to take care of business – rain rain rain – I ask PO woman could I have a garbage bag? I just did my hair – she says “us womens know hair” and she gets me one.
Raggedy Andy didn’t arrive in the mail so I went out and got a Groovy Girl and I sewed on a goatee and moustache and made the skirt a kilt to make it look like N. S wrote a limerick about N before she left for Mexico, which I won’t share with you because it is naughty and nasty the way all good limericks should be.
We arrived – N and the Snake, L with A who said she is staying another week, P without C but then C shows up later after his Buddhist meeting, K comes, H and T come, G is there, C rides up on her bike when I arrive, and we are all there then I see C and tell her to come join us – A says S is in Italy and he will join in – D is crossing the bridge and we snag her too – 12 bottles of delicious French Champagne, twist and food later – we are all cheering the burning of N’s effigy – everyone has something to say and it all says the same thing – they love me and don’t want anyone to hurt me – and they recognize his force in my life and want to expel it – so we burn several things – and everyone drinks to my moving on – and then I have an argument with the Snake about how you force yourself to move on because you have no choice – but it doesn’t stop your heart from breaking – and he argues that love is free will and I argue back I would break the ties that hurt me if that were so. We finish in disagreement.
And I told E today – she said she can’t be my friend because she is my therapist even though she wants to – and we said or I said – I did not have control over the circumstances but I have control over my reaction to it. And I know that what I need to do is move on because it is move on or experience heart ache and she agreed. And we talked about all the absolutes that have finally come around to being recognizable – I think the LaLa is a positive force in my life but so much so and so much about me that I have hesitated embracing it – and I think that holding W in my arms so tightly, the urge to merge, and smelling him made me realize for the first time that as much as I love him, I can love another the same way – with that much intensitiy – I decided there is no doubt I wll adopt a Chinese baby.
And this birthday was such a great birthday because it was filled with interesting people, in the most interesting city in the US or the world, and the food and the champagne and the conversation all mattered – and in the end it was about recognizing the depth of feeling and the links between people – the toasts I remember the most are T who said that coming back after Katrina and learning I was here made her returning matter – or C who was invited last minute and said “may your mistakes in the future be more interesting than those of the past” and I thought “oh my”. But we all agreed we liked that one.
Tonight we burned N in effigy – a Groovy Girl with a goatee and moustache and a kilt – my peeps want me to be loved and they absolutely resent my love seed being planted in fallow earth – where else should you be on your birthday but in the city you love, with the people you love, on a bridge with the stars and the moon and fire burning inside and out?