Constellation

Early this morning, I stepped outside to look up at the dark sky contrasting against the stars. The constellations twinkled. I blinked.

I blinked again. The air conditioner hummed. 

Back inside, I made an espresso and drank a glass of water. My dogs growled. I opened up the back door and let them out.

Time to give the dogs their meds. 

My feet felt swollen. Everything feels swollen. My heart. My head. My eyes. 

I think back to the day the towers fell. My dad was still alive. My dad called me as I watched the news coverage in my high rise apartment in LA. I was in law school at USC and lived on 4th and Spring.

He said, "Are you watching Jenny?" 

I can almost hear his voice in my head. And if there's one silver piece of memory I want to remember from that awful day, it's his gentle voice. 

Checking on me. Making sure I was okay. Telling me to come home.

Days to remember

Years ago, what seems like a lifetime, I lived in San Francisco. 

Adrian was in dental school and we lived near Twin Peaks at the top of a hill. The fog was so thick at night, you had to squint to see through it. 

We lived there, in the student housing's 500 square foot apartment, for almost a year. I could barely fit in the bathroom. I used to have to squeeze past the door. 

Then, we moved to an 800 plus square foot apartment in the Inner Sunset by Golden Gate Park, on 9th and Irving. We had a back yard and shared a washer and dryer with the second and third floors.

On Fridays, we would order in food and watch TV. On Saturdays, when Adrian didn't have to study or I didn't have to go into my corporate law job, we went to Sonoma, or Marin. We had lunch and drank wine. I used to love driving over the Golden Gate Bridge. When we would get home, I would hold my two black cats in my lap and listen to them purr.

Every Sunday morning, we used to walk to get the best scones (ever!) at the co-op bakery Arazmendi's. After, we would walk the lake at the park listening to Johnny Cash. 

Some Sunday afternoons, I would go to church at a small little Catholic parish down the street.

When my dad died suddenly, I moved back home, but those days I will remember always. 

Always. 

Beautiful day

Yes, it's a beautiful day. 

I am alive. Here, typing this out, the keys click clacking my thoughts into the universe. 

You dear reader, wait patiently for the words to post.

You've waited so so long. It took me years to believe in my voice, but I finally do. I know this is my destiny, my life, my work. Before, meaning before I knew this, I thought work was hard, but this work is easy.

Easy in the sense that when it's right, it flows, it just is.

When I was in junior college, almost 30 years ago, I remember reading James Joyce's "Dubliners" for the first time. I remember thinking, how did he do that? How did he turn words into a magic carpet that swept and flew me away into the clouds? How did he paint a picture that way? 

Now I know, writing is not just from the head, it's from the heart, from the universe. And it is magic. It is spiritual. It is God, and it is me. 

So as Patti Smith reminded me the other night as I listened to her sing under the stars in the desert, keep walking barefoot in the sand and grass, dancing. Arms in the air. 

Twirling. Spinning. Breathing. 

  

Curveballs

Life is what happens when you're making plans. I just received some news. I'm having a very invasive surgery soon. It's not life threatening or anything but is necessary to help with my chronic pain issue. 

Truth is, I'm terrified.

I keep thinking, what if I don't wake up? What would Adrian do? My dogs? My sisters? My best friends? What would happen to my second book?

Then I think, don't worry, you'll wake up. God is kind. 

Your life is just beginning. You're just starting to realize your dreams. Your second book is soon to be published. You have a radio show. You have 18 episodes of your podcast. You just saw Patti Smith sing under the stars. You and your twin are getting along well. 

You're almost 50, but finally happy, content and joyful most days. I keep telling myself, it will be ok.

Lately, I've been a bit fatalistic, questioning my life. I keep thinking, why am I so stressed out at work? Then, I recently realized that it's not my management of the stress, I just have a very stressful job. 

Something must change. It must. I have to find a way to make it all manageable. I want to live to be 100. My life has been a series of acts. And this act. Right here and now is it. There is just this really. Just this now.

Morning

This morning, I realized I hadn't written for almost 2 weeks. How did time fly by? My writing practice is such a part of me, of my life. How did I let it go?

The problem is life. Life gets in the way. Family. Work. Health. School. All the projects on my plate. 

I want to be the me I'm meant to be. The person I see in my mind's eye. The future me. The writer.

I know, I'm already a writer, but I want more. I see more for myself. 

Yet, I am also happy that no matter what life brings, I have my first book published and the second one on the way. I'm documenting my life. Memorializing it all. That's what matters. That I was here. 

Right here.

Transmission

Yesterday afternoon, on a Sunday, I drove out to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles to start my own radio show. It was a program through the city's arts conservatory that I had applied for. 

The week before, I had went in to train on the boards. It was somewhat of a disaster, in the way that learning something completely new can be. 

I am by nature uncoordinated, and on that first try, I fumbled. I scripted it out, but everything moved too fast. Squinting at my script, words escaped me. 

Trying to coordinate the movements, and the "running" of the radio board, flustered me. Move this up, turn that down, turn mic on, then off. It was frigging hard. So hard. But also weirdly exhilarating and terrifying.

On that demo, I wasn't myself on air, with lots of vocalized pauses and no flow. Oh and the death knell for any broadcast, dead air. Then more dead air. Oh and I learned, the hard way, not to introduce a song unless I was sure that I could cue up the right song. 

To sum it all up, I belly flopped the demo. 

Yet still, the producer was encouraging especially about my theme of musical choices and the intersection with legal injustices. My vocal amplification was great. Along with articulation. Regarding the boards, he told me, "You'll suck till you don't. You'll get it. The boards, it's like a dance."

I thought of learning the tango with my husband Adrian and how I stepped on his feet and winced thinking of it. Dancing (unless it's pogo dancing) is not my forte.

Then, this Sunday on the show, something clicked. I relaxed. And I breathed. No script, and instead I just went with it and made notes through the show. Suddenly, I could say what I played and even wax on about a song choice or two. I even moved around the songs without incident and at the end, I was able to say why I chose the set I did. And illustrate the intersections with public defense. 

This was going to be okay. Let's do this.

Breathless

This last Saturday, we saw X in Orange County. 

It was a show that words can't do justice. I screamed myself hoarse. Danced like a maniac. Jumping up and down fist pumping in the air to the beat. 

We were near the end of the row almost center about 12 rows back and I must admit, I went a little cuckoo. I was "that girl", but I didn't care. Adrian acted as my buffer and put up with me screaming lyrics into his ear. 

What got me there?  It was being at a concert, after all this time, for one of my favorite bands. It was seeing the Blasters rock it. And Los Lobos.

Most of all, it was X's performance. They were perfect in the most punk rock of ways. The set list was awesome with a couple of new songs from their latest, the great Alphabetland. And then everything from Los Angeles to New World to Because I Do to Breathless to We're Desperate, to White Girl. So many of these songs hit me in the gut. Instead of bowling over, I rolled over. Into the music. Wave after wave. I rode it. 

You see, I write with their music in my head and in my ears. Their lyrics are everything. Poetry really.

Yet as always, it was also the emotion of it all. It was hearing Exene sing "Come Back to Me" (remembering all those who passed during Covid) under the deepening night sky, her voice carrying over the rows into the breezy air. It was what felt like an entire eight thousand crowd sing the song "Los Angeles" in time together. Dancing to the beat.

It felt incredible. I was transported. 

We swayed. We stayed. We danced. We gave ourselves up to the night. And I lost myself in the music. 

We were desperate. And breathless always. True love. Truly.