Back to California

The house where my Dad grew up

On Claremont Ave in Berkeley

I used to come to Northern California at least once a year to visit my Grandmother, whom I loved dearly. But after she died, I didn't have as much reason to come back, especially not to Berkeley.

We loved this lemon tree as kids!

But Berkeley is where my Dad grew up, and where my Grandmother lived for most of her adult life before moving to Oakland when she sold her house.

When I learned about the yoga retreat in Berkeley, it just felt like it was time to go back.

Back to California:

I've been feelin' down in Atlanta
Immobile in Alabama
I'd rather be in traction
Than to be here where I am
Oh, you Georgia red clay
And green Virginia pines
I've got to make it home somehow
Before I lose my mind

So won't you carry me back to California
I've been on the road too long
Take me to the West Coast, daddy
And let me be where I belong

Pain of my Ancestors: It's for real

Hey now, Philly, you street city

Been down by the railroad track
I know you can be a sweet city
But I won't soon be back
Haystack towns and smokestack cities
Are nothin' I want to see
My own house on high ground
Is the only place I want to be

So won't you carry me back to California
I've been on the road too long
Take me to the West Coast, daddy
And let me be where I belong

I do feel like I belong here, but in some ways it was hard to come back. As soon as I arrived at my Dad's house, the tears started flowing, and I had the distinct feeling that they were not my tears, they were my Dad's. So I let them come, hoping that to feel them would help us both heal...

I Feel the Earth Move

Yesterday was a new moon, so blissfully, I got to sleep a bit longer and not do my Ashtanga practice. Man, has it ever been rough lately. I've been dealing with a very tender hamstring that gets very unhappy in almost all of the postures in the second half of primary, the postures that I previously loved practicing. I used to feel, when I got to that point, that I'd arrived at that place where everything would be ok.

Today, not so much. Where there was once a feeling of comfort, there are now tears. Lots of them this morning. I know, since they aren't really accompanied by a story of any kind, that these tears represent a release of something I've been holding for a very long time, and I know on some level that is a good thing. But it doesn't make it any easier.

This morning what came to me as I attempted to keep practicing through this release was that maybe this is groundlessness. Maybe part of my release is feeling like I have experienced groundlessness and I'm still here, I'm still ok.

In fact, I'm better than ok. Because I understand, as I didn't before, that no man, no food, no drink, no amount of money, no yoga posture, no nothing is ever going to put ground underneath me in the way that I have craved in my life after not having it as a child (when under the best of circumstances, one does). Which means I can stop searching for it, and waiting for it, and just live my life.

I know that Carole wasn't talking about groundlessness when she wrote this song, but it's the song that came to mind:

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around

Ooh, baby, when I see your face
Mellow as the month of May
Oh, darling, I can't stand it
When you look at me that way

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around

Oh, darling, when you're near me
And you tenderly call my name
I know that my emotions
Are something I just can't tame
I've just got to have you, baby

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I just lose control
Down to my very soul
I get a hot and cold all over
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down,
Tumbling down, tumbling down...

And it makes me think that maybe the next time my heart starts trembling, I can remind myself that the point of a romantic partnership is not finding stable ground. It's having someone with whom to navigate the groundlessness that is our reality as humans...

Where You Lead

Walking down the driveway today, I heard this song on the inner ipod:

Wanting you the way I do
I only want to be with you
And I would go to the ends of the earth
'Cause, darling, to me that's what you're worth

Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead

I think it came on because I just started watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, and it's the theme song. Hearing it in my head made me think of the time a friend (at least to me he was just a friend) from high school who told me he didn't care where I wanted to live, he just wanted to be with me.

And then I couldn't help but think of the contrast between that and the New Englander. One of these days I'm gonna find both -- a man who loves me enough to commit to living life with me wherever I am and a man whom I love just as much.

If you're out on the road
Feeling lonely and so cold
All you have to do is call my name
And I'll be there on the next train

It's incredible to me how often my thoughts turn to the New Englander. For a long time I thought of this as my inner knowing that he is the right person for me even if he isn't managing to show up for us. I'm starting to consider that it might be more like some sort of addiction, and I've started telling myself when I catch myself going there that I deserve someone who will show up in love the way I showed up for him.

I'm hoping this shift in my thinking will get me off this dead-end loop and onto something with more possibility for a happy ending:

I always wanted a real home with flowers on the window sill
But if you want to live in New York City, honey, you know I will
I never thought I could get satisfaction from just one man
But, if anyone could keep me happy, you're the one who can

And where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead...

It's Too Late

Here we all are at the Northernmost point of the U.P.!

Ever since the first time I went to Copper Harbor with my (then) boyfriend, I wanted to go back with the kids. Once he'd decided to leave for his homeland at the end of June, I wasn't sure we could make it happen before his departure. He encouraged me to take the kids on my own, but I wasn't sure I was up for a 7 hour drive (in each direction) by myself.

But last weekend, we managed to load up the Volvo Cross Country and head north. We had a fabulous adventure, and I think we were all grateful that we found time to make the trip together before it was too late.

As if on cue, on the drive home, this song came on the radio, and that, combined with something that was said in the car on the way home, got the tears rolling for yours truly:

Stayed in bed all mornin' just to pass the time
There's something wrong here there can be no denyin'
One of us is changin'
Or maybe we've just stopped tryin'

And it's too late baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Something inside has died and I can't hide it
And I just can't fake it
Oh, no no no no
(No no no no)

It used to be so easy livin' here with you
You were light and breezy
And I knew just what to do
Now, you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool

And it's too late baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
(We can't make it)
Something inside has died and I can't hide it
And I just can't fake it
Oh, no no

There'll be good times again for me and you
But we just can't stay together don't you feel it too?
Still, I'm glad for what we had
And how I once loved you

Still do. But something shifted in me on that trip home -- something that had probably been in the process of shifting for months -- and that was my level of acceptance about the fact that for whatever love we share, for each other and for my kids, he is focused on going away to have the freedom to do what he wants to do, and it just doesn't work for me to be with someone making that choice:

It's too late, baby
It's too late
Now darlin', it's too late