Am I awake or am I delusional
In which, once again, I have no idea what I'm talking about
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For the past two weeks at least, California—including San Francisco, which is often exempt from weather extremes in either direction—has been experiencing a heat wave. Like, a bonafide, too-hot-for-the-weighted-blanket, Tater-panting-under-the-bed heat wave. I wore shorts and tank tops all weekend, placing that part of my brain that whispers fire! Global warming! DEATH! on the shelf. Inside that tried-and-true coping mechanism practiced by every remotely awake human alive on the planet today—you know the one, it’s called compartmentalization—it’s been quite nice. I took Tater to the beach on both Friday and Saturday nights to take in the sunset, spent hours outside all weekend, and passed most of Saturday (yes, most of the whole day) supine on the couch, reading and staring out the window at the cloudless blue, sounds of the neighborhood drifting in, so much life all around.
Revisiting the post from “this time last year,” I am unexpectedly nostalgic. So many of my posts from last year began with updates on what was happening in the plum tree outside the window of the house I lived in before this one, the bedroom window that was almost as big as the whole eastern-facing wall. I miss being privy to the inner workings of that tree, my avian friends who would visit every morning and throughout the day, and the way springtime in the tree felt like the closest thing I’d gotten to a party in, well, you know how long.
My apartment now is above the trees. Now when I stare out the window, it’s all sky. I see over the tops of my neighbor’s houses spread out like a grand quilt. Looking south, houses give way to the trees in McLaren Park, and to the north, there’s Sutro Tower, Twin Peaks, Mt. Davidson. I’m less than a ten-minute walk from that house I lived in with friends, but being one block up from Mission Street means it’s a whole lot more lively over here. Neighborhood hot-rods and motorcycles regularly blast off all the car alarms in a three-block radius, I can hear the sidewalk evangelists singing into microphones plugged into mini-amps on any given day—and definitely on Saturdays and Sundays—and even though I don’t have a TV (nor do I follow sports) I know the precise the moment any of our teams win by the sound of joy erupting in living rooms all around me.
Every single week, I tell myself I’m going to spend part of my Sunday working on these Tuesday posts. Instead, what happens is that I get up before 5am on Monday and Tuesday, and sit and squirm under the pressure of the clock until the words come. It’s a process I’d like to shift but so far it’s been mixed results. I used to stare into the plum tree as a way to get me started. Now, when I look out the window, my gaze just keeps going. There’s the occasional crow alighting on the telephone poles outside the windows, but mostly it’s blue, or gray, and occasionally, pink.
Sundays, now, are for daydreaming. I spend a good part of the day walking, and this is where I discover what I’m thinking, what I know, what I believe. No longer privy to the inner workings of a neighborhood plum tree, it’s these long walks that move me into the week’s inquiry. I ask myself, what is true? Where am I, in time, space, in this exact moment? What is currently inspiring me, or informing my sense of where I am, where we are, right now? I do my best not to force or push, and wisps of knowing float in. More often than not when I sit down to write, it begins with the vaguest idea or thought. I worry the words won’t come. And then I sit and wait, and trust.
Do you know what else makes me nostalgic, when I reread the This Time Last Year post? That I still thought that we were going to learn something. I believed we were going to evolve. I had hope that we had not only woken up to the fact that normal was oppressive for more of us than not, but that we were actually going to do something about it.
Instead, well, damn. I do feel sad when I linger here, of course I do—when I presence myself to all the opportunities we’ve collectively squandered again, and again, and again. And, it’s also true that the work I do in the world shows me that a great waking up, a great transformation, is happening. I bear witness to it every single day, multiple times a day.
Sitting here in the pre-dawn, I am surprised by what whispers in: a deep and abiding sense of faith, that the change we desire is not only coming, but is inevitable.
<RECORD SCRATCH>
“Excuse me, ma’am?” my brain interrupts, “I hate to break it to you, but: you know you are delusional, yes?”
(Every. Damn. Time. Sigh.)
“Delusional?”
“You sitting up there in your apartment in the clouds, thinking you know anything about anything that is actually happening? Do you have any idea how insulting that is?”
And this is the dance, isn’t it? This is the true inquiry: Is what I’m doing enough? Am I inside of reality, or floating above it? Am I the person I think I am?
There are no clear answers. My god, all I want are answers.
So I walk some more. And the fog rolls back in. In the span of a few hours, I am enveloped. Her tentacles reach, and spread, and snake around and through the hills, obscuring the parks, the towers, the rooftops. I walk, or really, I sit, next to the clanky wall heater that may-or-may-not be possessed by a poltergeist, and my faith is cloudy, until I remember the thing that saves me every time: I am not alone. You are here with me, my people, inside of your own inquiries, chasing the threads of your own precious longings and desires, feet on the ground and eyes on a horizon of your own design and making. And this is what gets me every time - that I get to be alive right now, with all of you, that I get to bask in the way we show up the only way we know how: heart first. That I get to carry, and be carried, through the inevitable challenges, heartaches, mistakes, stumbles, slips.
We are learning, and evolving, and adapting, in real time, and it is awful and terrible, and gorgeous and illuminating, and we carry on, and we keep each other close, because if there is anything to do, if there is any answer, it is to keep each other close.
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OK excuse the abrupt turn but please sign up for this Sunday’s writing workshop.
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From the archives ~ this time last year:
⭐️Daffodils and Post-Traumatic Growth
SELF MADE is a newsletter for fellow 🌺late bloomers🌺 with a focus on recovery, creativity and community. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, coach, and recovery advocate in San Francisco, CA.
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The imagery, the truth, ugh thank you.