Laurie Johns Weblog

Caleb left on Monday morning. Life got a little harder then.

My dreams have been odd.

I saw Andrew Bird live, Amazing.

Its nearly three years later, and this is still the funniest thing I know. I drag it out and read it to people sometimes laughing  so much I am barely understood, especially through Self-Portrait with Startled Expression.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/03/20/060320sh_shouts

This morning upon waking even the desire for coffee wasn’t enough to get me up at my customary early hour, because I have a cold and can’t taste or smell. But even without the ability to smell myself into the past (Proust’s Charles Swann is transported back to his childhood via the smell of a biscuit dipped in tea), remaining in bed allowed me to slip into the vortex of my childhood and the nostalgia of skipping school. I reckon it began innocently; being sick and staying home because of it, but then enjoying it so much that I feigned sickness and then just flat out refused to go. I recall as early as first grade not  wanting to wear any of the dresses in my closet. I’m not sure what that was about and I am sure that the subject was never probed, because that would be like dignifying it with a response. I can remember my mother, in frustration, finally choosing a dress and requesting/demanding that I wear it. It must have been hard for her, single Mom, not wanting, really, to put her own dress and hose on every morning before taking my sister and me to school. She, in fact, would change immediately when she got home, usually complaining about the pantyhose, and make supper in her bathrobe. She could make supper really fast.

Today when I awoke, I didn’t want to get up until everyone was gone. That’s the urge that brought me back to my childhood. Because when everyone left (if I wasn’t really too sick) I would get up and have the house to myself. The only time I really felt comfortable was when I had the house to  myself. Sometimes I would dress up in my mothers clothing, shoes and lipstick and pile my hair atop my head. This is either how I felt glamorous, or was more analogous to who I really was…a little bohemian. I would sometimes play The Second Barbra Streisand Album from 1963 and sing using the vacuum cleaner cord as my mic. In the 1970s, in made more sense that the microphone had a cord.

It is odd, too, that I am reliving some dysfunctional aspect of that past by sharing a house with 3 others. Today I have branched out into the common space, but mostly, we all sort of keep to ourselves. When everyone is gone, I’m not sure I’ll break out into “Down with Love,” but I might make a giant mess in the kitchen. You see, I think, that is the origin of my own inhibition: feeling like I shouldn’t or couldn’t really ever make a big mess. I was chatting online with a former highschool boyfriend this morning, Steve Parker. He remembers me in a way that I find hard to relate to: secure, confident, interesting and exciting. I remember my past so differently. I wish he had told me then how compelling he found me, but maybe even then, was too late. I also wish I had a recording of myself in my livingroom singing “Down with Love.”

Instead of going to an all school luncheon (paid for by the school), I went to a yoga class. The class was slow and meditative; we did a lot of heart openers for Valentine’s Day (I assume). Heart openers always make me cry because I walk around protecting my heart and the opening is like a big release that I am ill prepared for. Present were all women over the age of 40. I liked that. It made me wonder if I should stop trying so hard and just start acting my age.

On the way back to school I listened to a piece on NPR about Charles Darwin; today is his 200 yr birthday. I can’ t really remember what it was about, but somewhere near the end of the piece it was mentioned that notions set forth by Abraham Lincoln (it’s also his 200th birthday) are not still being challenged the way that evolution and the idea that humans are not semi-divine creatures, is. I have to say that I felt a sense a relief in considering the possibility that I am simply a product of evolution, a branching off from Neanderthal Man, a mere biological being. Somehow this is a comfort to me today.

I’m not sure I can adequately explain why practicing yoga with women my age and letting go of my own divinity, were a relief to me, but I’ll try. I think it has something to do with a constant urging/inclination to be more. More flexible, stronger, more fit, youthful, positive, compassionate, my divine self, loved and worthy. The kind of religion that I can respect encourages a letting go, a flowing with grace. But what is the source of that grace? If our real purpose is to evolve back into divine light, why do I feel a genuine responsibility to survive as a species for as long as possible and to not devolve into something akin to Mike Judge’s (the Simpsons) depiction of the future in the dystopic film, Idiocracy which I watched with Ellen last night. I was grateful that she laughed; it helped me not to cry.

My job has been a challenge (story here; email me for password). I try to imagine the perfect life. The one where I am free of my own self judgment. The one where I am living in the flow. I can’t help but believe that, for me, it means farming and producing food, following the cycles determined by the natural world, satisfying creative impulses as they arrive and, perhaps, sleeping through the winter.

Do you ever have those days when you question your every inclination and then talk yourself out of most “decisions” realizing that you were indecisive in the first place and that’s why you were able to “change” your own mind? I had one of those days today. It started off wrong because Ellen stayed up too late and was irritated that the power was off, again, in the morning. Sometimes when Samantha and I use our space heaters at the same time (just to take the morning chill off; I have no heat in my room), it throws the breaker. Well, because I wasn’t using any electricity, I hadn’t noticed which Ellen apparently thought was lame. Samantha, having hurt her back whilst giving a massage yesterday, was in a lot of pain and I felt bad for her too. When I finally left the house, it felt like Monday all over again. And I was ready NOT to have roomates. This made me realize that if I didn’t have Ellen, I would have virtually no social life, just a job that took most of my time and energy. Then I started to miss my kids and having people around who have known me a long time.

Halfway through work I realized I had a real chip on my shoulder and that there are people concurrently evaluating my performance and it’s a really bad time to be carrying negativity around like Pigpen stench. I couldn’t even talk myself into eating lunch because it seemed too much trouble to put it together and it was too far to walk around the corner for a latte, so I cut out paper hearts for the kids in the aftercare program to decorate. Lots of white paper hearts.

The yoga instructor made the mistake of asking me how I was doing this evening and I told her I was having one of those days where I really went back and forth about every decision no matter how minor and that I’d “come” and “not come” to class 10 times in my head, but that I was, fortunately (or not), there. She acted like she understood.

Now I am home thinking about “cooking with Ellen” and what to do about summer employment and summer unemployment, and its raining again and I’m not really sure if I should post this or not. But its all I have right now even though I wish I had, and were, more.

Sam Salwei of Team YogaSlackers posted a video he shot while snowkiting and edited with Everybody’s Gonna Love Today. I was googling the song even before the video finished and found it charming and upbeat. A really good theme for the day especially since  ” Affectionate Venus is in Aries as the Mushy Moon moves into the romance house over the weekend.”
(by the way, the only romance I got on this day was from a rather charming 70 yr old gent in line at the Good Earth–he loved my coloring and told me how he’d been sunbathing nude recently!)

In Savasana this morning, the instructor put us in contact with the “plane of contact” between ourselves and the floor, between our lips, and between our eyes and the lids. As she continually made us aware of each of these planes of contact, I felt as though I were floating. When she brought us back to our initial deepest heartfelt intention (mine was to find and spread more love), I remembered the song I started the day with.

Speaking of romance, have you heard of “family cloth?” I was reading Emily Gould the other day and commented to one of her regular readers that he should reconsider the use of Styrofoam containers that you get from restaurants. He asked me if I’d heard of family cloth. I actually don’t think it’s a concept too far fetched and the sooner some of us start to acclimate ourselves to the idea, the easier it will be to make this and other inevitable changes. I feel sorry for those who are freaked out by “nature” because I think we are all going to be living a lot closer to it, and in some very unromantic ways.

Atop Mt. Tam

I drove to work today. I drove for a few reasons. The rain came last night and I listened to it in my sleep and again for a few hours in the morning. I even made up new excuses for calling in sick that I wont use because they are lame and they are lies. I lay in bed too long listening to the rain. I also drove because I knew I needed to work until 7:00 PM.

When I left school it was still lightly raining and the sky was patchy indigo. As I drove home Mt Tamalpais was silhouetted directly in front of me and I pondered what is was that I loved so much about being near mountains. Was it their vastness and how that put me in contact with my own insignificance (certainly the plains of South Dakota are more vast) ? Then it struck me that it was because I could feel myself in relationship, by contrast, to their size. That I didn’t necessarily disappear (like in the plains), but could, instead, feel and measure my own existence against theirs. I love mountains. I love northern California and especially exactly where I live.