First time I've been in Colorado. It's totally quiet and magestic in these mountains. Beautiful.
Before I got here, I imagined nights alone until my roommate arrived, watching tv, trying to relax from my crazy, buzy, go go go life. Well the Christian YMCA had other plans. No tv in the rooms. Like all things, you get exactly what you need the most in life. I needed peace and quiet. The mountains were my entertainment.
The last day I was there I got up with some of the work/exchange guys to go for a two hour sunrise hike up the mountain. I don't usually "like" getting up at 5.30am, but it was for a good cause. In the dark, with our tiny flashlights, we worked our way up up up until we found a flat place to watch the sun come up. We chanted a little, Oming to the morning, did a few sun salutations (hard when your body is cold, you're wearing gloves and it fucking freezing outside!). We ended the hike with a short meditation. I went up there with a few 20 something year old girls that don't yet know the meaning of "silence." Blah blah blah. Some people just hate being quiet and need to fill the entire space around them with useless noise. Whatever.
I feel more centered since I got back. The noise of the city is a little hard to take. San Francisco is a little hard to take. Every morning Matt looks at me and tells me he hopes I get fired so I can collect unemployment and just teach yoga. I don't blame him. Someday it will all fall into place and if it doesn't, well, I'm really blessed to be able to work with a great bunch of people, go to new places, teach and learn. Isn't that what life is about!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Amelie Moments
"Grandma, you have such big eyes."
"Better to see you my dear."
They are like the camera lens, scoping out the world, zooming in on the details that are so minute, reveling in the stolen moments when one doesn't know that he/she is being watched.
I was walking down Market one day, and some guy just hanging on the corner says:
"Dammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnn, you have BIG eyes. Why don't you shut them a little...like this [he squints a little]." I laughed, but it was kinda an annoyed sort of laughter.
I like being the passenger in the car; I get to watch people. I love those moments when they notice me watching them and they turn to watch me and we connect/we recognize each other. I told Matt that as we were driving to Tahoe this moment. He always asks "What don't I know about you?" He didn't know that. It's like an Amelie moment. "Andrea likes to watch people as they drive their cars and really likes it when they notice and turn to see her watching them. She loves to catch someone in a moment of complete unselfconsciousness - belting out the words of a song with passion or picking their noses."
It's the stolen moments that truly show our humanity; when no one is watching, we watch them cry at commercials, scowl at the homeless, or scratch their asses.
"Better to see you my dear."
They are like the camera lens, scoping out the world, zooming in on the details that are so minute, reveling in the stolen moments when one doesn't know that he/she is being watched.
I was walking down Market one day, and some guy just hanging on the corner says:
"Dammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnn, you have BIG eyes. Why don't you shut them a little...like this [he squints a little]." I laughed, but it was kinda an annoyed sort of laughter.
I like being the passenger in the car; I get to watch people. I love those moments when they notice me watching them and they turn to watch me and we connect/we recognize each other. I told Matt that as we were driving to Tahoe this moment. He always asks "What don't I know about you?" He didn't know that. It's like an Amelie moment. "Andrea likes to watch people as they drive their cars and really likes it when they notice and turn to see her watching them. She loves to catch someone in a moment of complete unselfconsciousness - belting out the words of a song with passion or picking their noses."
It's the stolen moments that truly show our humanity; when no one is watching, we watch them cry at commercials, scowl at the homeless, or scratch their asses.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
snow melting in the mountains
The ONE thing I miss about living in a place with evident seasons, is that you clearly see time change. The shift is nothing short of gorgeous in its slow motion speed. Spring is coming to the high desert. The mornings glow pink and red against the rocks, the snow is melting from the valley floor and the line of where the temperature drops at night creeps quickly up the side of the mountains. Soon, even the snow caps will be free from the white stuff.
This is where my heart sort of starts to feel sad. This time of year maybe, maybe because it'll be 11 yrs. ago on the 13th that dad died (how can time just wizzzzz by you at superspeed?), maybe it's just the change in the world, the breath that I feel it inhale as it stretches and yawns awake from its winter hybernation, maybe it's just that I feel so alive when the world changes again like this.
I have lists of "to dos" starting to acculumate on the desk, right next to the growing stack of crap that needs to be "filed away/" It has a coat of nicely settled dust on it from my apparent neglect. In the natural course of things that is my life, I have created a circus whirlwind of activity right before I have to pack up and move from Reno. Which is, of course, sad on many levels. You leave your footprint anywhere, you feel a loss when it starts to disappear with the wind.
How intersting it is the way things work out. Never does the future look as if you imaging it. Not entirely. I think that makes the present sometimes so full of energy and haste and it makes the past so bittersweet and memorable. Maybe today, my present will offer me up the opportunity to create a full future filled with possibilities beyond my imagination and may that leave me with another closet full of memories to add to my cache that I can continue to share for as long as there are listeners.
This is where my heart sort of starts to feel sad. This time of year maybe, maybe because it'll be 11 yrs. ago on the 13th that dad died (how can time just wizzzzz by you at superspeed?), maybe it's just the change in the world, the breath that I feel it inhale as it stretches and yawns awake from its winter hybernation, maybe it's just that I feel so alive when the world changes again like this.
I have lists of "to dos" starting to acculumate on the desk, right next to the growing stack of crap that needs to be "filed away/" It has a coat of nicely settled dust on it from my apparent neglect. In the natural course of things that is my life, I have created a circus whirlwind of activity right before I have to pack up and move from Reno. Which is, of course, sad on many levels. You leave your footprint anywhere, you feel a loss when it starts to disappear with the wind.
How intersting it is the way things work out. Never does the future look as if you imaging it. Not entirely. I think that makes the present sometimes so full of energy and haste and it makes the past so bittersweet and memorable. Maybe today, my present will offer me up the opportunity to create a full future filled with possibilities beyond my imagination and may that leave me with another closet full of memories to add to my cache that I can continue to share for as long as there are listeners.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Happy New Year..this better be good
I really dislike the invetitability of this very moment-the very moment you start to HATE your job. You go along and you're liking, hell even loving, what you do for a living. Sometimes what you do for a living is even what you are passionate about. Now that's luck buddy. But I think that makes it far worse, you know, the inevilability of the dreaded day.
So here I am, a few weeks past that day. It sucks. Because at this point, I not only hate my job, but I want to pack up my house that I only recently moved into and go back home. Home being a loosely constructed building with your really good friends living in each bedroom. Your family unfortunately doesn't inhabit this building - they are at the summer house on the E. Coast. It was once home, but now only gets visited 2x a year. You rush in jetlagged as hell, stir up the dust, see family and friends by appt. only (since you are on a tight schedule and have to pack tons of fun into this mini holiday), get more tired even though you're supposed to be getting some rnr and rush out of there in a flurry, tears leaving a trail behind you, spattering the loved ones who wish you'd call the summer home Numero Uno and ditch your permanent residence which you barely think exists anyway.
I feel like I am neither living in the permanent residence nor the summer home, but a timeshare that I paid too much for. Making this analogy ever more painful. Contributing greatly to my hating my job sentiment expressed above.
I have been in the lovely suburb of Reno for almost 4 months now. The terms of my contract w/ my boss 2 months and some change from completion. The studio that I'm supposed to be managing is nowhere near finished and my boss went from mild mannered ingratiated servant of peace to a raging bitchy man-boy who stamps his feet in tantrum. Hence the job hating day that I met a few weeks back.
It's just that sometimes you get something different than you expected. And that's what it is. But, then you get a lot more than what you expected and it's a little hard to handle. The commute 35 miles each way, the wear and tear on the little city piece of crap car you have that you actually want to see make it another year or two, the on top of commuting to work you now commute back to the Bay because your boyfriend got a job and moved back making it very difficult for the two of you. And all that would be more easily swallowed had it not been for your poor little rich boy of a boss that is freaking out cause he's paying rent on a studio space that isn't brining in any money + paying two manager salaries, but not motivated enought to get off his ass and make it happen cause he has priorities friggin off balance.
But he thinks that he got himself one of those people that actually feels guilty and so grateful that he gave them this opportunity that they won't leave his ass behind cause they're tired of taking his whiney shit and displaced passive aggressive crap. Well, he didn't. He got one of those people that had slightly different expectations of what they were signing up for and won't put up with crazy bullshit. I feel it's like I paid for a car and got a pair of roller skates instead. Not the same thing.
I hate the inevitability of this day-this hating day. I hate the 30 inches of snow and chains you have to outfit your car with. I really hate living in the suburbs by myself. I really hate having conversations with my tweaker boss that rants about how he's paying me a lot of money.... blah blah blah.
May your New Year find you without one of those days that you hate your job or that you hate your boss. May the New Year find us all in a better condition than the one we came into the year with. May the New Year find us happy. May all of the crappy little beater cars find peace without element corrosion..poor beater cars.
So here I am, a few weeks past that day. It sucks. Because at this point, I not only hate my job, but I want to pack up my house that I only recently moved into and go back home. Home being a loosely constructed building with your really good friends living in each bedroom. Your family unfortunately doesn't inhabit this building - they are at the summer house on the E. Coast. It was once home, but now only gets visited 2x a year. You rush in jetlagged as hell, stir up the dust, see family and friends by appt. only (since you are on a tight schedule and have to pack tons of fun into this mini holiday), get more tired even though you're supposed to be getting some rnr and rush out of there in a flurry, tears leaving a trail behind you, spattering the loved ones who wish you'd call the summer home Numero Uno and ditch your permanent residence which you barely think exists anyway.
I feel like I am neither living in the permanent residence nor the summer home, but a timeshare that I paid too much for. Making this analogy ever more painful. Contributing greatly to my hating my job sentiment expressed above.
I have been in the lovely suburb of Reno for almost 4 months now. The terms of my contract w/ my boss 2 months and some change from completion. The studio that I'm supposed to be managing is nowhere near finished and my boss went from mild mannered ingratiated servant of peace to a raging bitchy man-boy who stamps his feet in tantrum. Hence the job hating day that I met a few weeks back.
It's just that sometimes you get something different than you expected. And that's what it is. But, then you get a lot more than what you expected and it's a little hard to handle. The commute 35 miles each way, the wear and tear on the little city piece of crap car you have that you actually want to see make it another year or two, the on top of commuting to work you now commute back to the Bay because your boyfriend got a job and moved back making it very difficult for the two of you. And all that would be more easily swallowed had it not been for your poor little rich boy of a boss that is freaking out cause he's paying rent on a studio space that isn't brining in any money + paying two manager salaries, but not motivated enought to get off his ass and make it happen cause he has priorities friggin off balance.
But he thinks that he got himself one of those people that actually feels guilty and so grateful that he gave them this opportunity that they won't leave his ass behind cause they're tired of taking his whiney shit and displaced passive aggressive crap. Well, he didn't. He got one of those people that had slightly different expectations of what they were signing up for and won't put up with crazy bullshit. I feel it's like I paid for a car and got a pair of roller skates instead. Not the same thing.
I hate the inevitability of this day-this hating day. I hate the 30 inches of snow and chains you have to outfit your car with. I really hate living in the suburbs by myself. I really hate having conversations with my tweaker boss that rants about how he's paying me a lot of money.... blah blah blah.
May your New Year find you without one of those days that you hate your job or that you hate your boss. May the New Year find us all in a better condition than the one we came into the year with. May the New Year find us happy. May all of the crappy little beater cars find peace without element corrosion..poor beater cars.
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