Adventures at Burning Man - Third Night

"I must find Barbara today!" I declared when I got up in the morning. Barbara is one of my closest friends and the person I'd originally planned to go to Burning Man with, but logistics made that impossible. So after a wonderful morning with Gitta before she and her family left for home, I rode my bike to Center Camp to check the espresso bar one more time. Barbara said she was working some coffee shifts, so that was the first place I checked when I got to Burning Man. But when I asked around, no one seemed to know her.

"What's her playa name?" a dark haired woman in a black, shredded t-shirt and Ugg boots asked.

"Playa name?"

At Burning Man, some people choose a playa name, a name that identifies them for who they "really" are. Not a title or label, but a name that reveals a little about their true nature. I met Squirrel, Jumper, HooDaddy and a man I think called himself Star Bliss, or maybe it was Starless... People will use their name exclusively at The Burn so no one will know them as John or Tracy.

Barbara had never mentioned a playa name, and since there are about a hundred people working the espresso bar, I decided to try asking again. This time I lucked out.

"I know Barbara. Blond, kind of perky?"

"Yes!" I shouted.

"She's my camp-mate."

Grabbing the woman's hand, I said "Thank you, thank you! You just made my whole day."

I wrote down my address with specific camp details so Barbara could find me and the woman said she'd give her the message when she got back to her camp. After that, I rode to my own camp to rest and see if Barbara would appear.

But I was too restless to stay in camp, so I grabbed my camera and played tourist, exploring my own neighborhood in this make-believe city. I climbed the scaffolding someone had erected for us to take in the view and watched the dust clouds swirl across the open playa, where The Man appeared and disappeared in their midst. Climbing down, I made a long circle down the avenues. People waved at me as I walked by, struck up conversations, invited me to join their games or rest in their bars. A man who had brought his son invited me to draw a picture on the side of their camper in honor of his son's fifth birthday. Passing an S and M tent, I watched one woman tie another woman to a large wooden frame  with leather straps, then I stopped at a display of pastel teddy bears, burnt and mutilated and stuck on pikes. I listened to two terrible guitar players try to get into key without much success while the drummer kept the rhythm going and a crowd gathered to hear them play.

"It's in G..." said one.

"No, it's D..." said the other.

Finally someone in the crowd yelled, "Just stop!"

Back at 7:30, I explored a steel sculpture that made me think of a sea monster and sat on a cushion someone had left inside the curve of the structure. It felt safe inside the sculpture, secure and a little secluded, even though I was sitting in the middle of the street. This became my favorite place in the City, my own secret hide away, like the places I'd hole up inside when I was a kid. From that cushion, I could watch the people and art cars and bicycles zoom past on their way to some kind of adventure.

A man walked by my hiding place, pulling a rake across the dirt. Behind him walked a woman pulling a large barrel wheel. They walked back and forth and I realized they were making patterns in the dirt, so I crawled out to see. People would stop their bicycles to look at the images of stars and planets the barrel left behind as it rolled. One man said, "That is a cool gift."

My stomach growled so I went back to camp for dinner, and to get ready to promenade along the Esplanade with my dad and camp mates. As we were gathering in front of camp before sunset, I heard a woman yell, "Terena!" I turned and saw Barbara riding her bicycle toward me.

"Barbara!" I shouted. We hugged tightly. "I'm so glad you found me!"

She'd been hunting for me since Wednesday and was just as excited as me when her camp mate gave her my message. "As soon as I got it, I came to find you."

"You're just in time. Want to promenade with us?"

Barbara stashed her bike and joined our motley camp crew.

I love the Esplanade. It is the last road before the open playa, marking the edge of the City. It's where most of the activity and events take place, where the biggest discos and the brightest lights shine. It can be chaos, especially at night. As the sun sets, the City lights come to life and the mood transforms from siesta to party. We walked together for a mile, then when we reached MalMart I announced I wanted to climb it. Barbara joined me while my dad rested. Before we could go inside, a very gorgeous young man in leather pants, swinging a leather strap in one hand, said we had pass by him first. Barbara and I looked at each other, then I stepped forward and turned around. He welcomed me into MalMart then slapped my butt with the strap, not too hard, but enough to sting. Barbara followed, and then we climbed four stories, almost to the top.

As we gazed across the city at all the lights, a strong wind blew a cloud of dust against us, making MalMart shiver with the gust. We climbed back down. It was odd for the wind to blow so hard at night, and it didn't stop. That wind blew so hard it kicked up a thick dust storm that obscured our vision and almost knocked the wind out of my lungs. Plus, I discovered my goggles weren't in my playa bag (a bag which you keep all your survival gear and never leave camp without).

"You don't have your goggles?" my dad said.

"I thought I did, but they're not in here." I kept digging in my bag.

"Virgins." He handed me his goggles and then lectured me on how important it is to never leave camp without the necessities. I felt 14 again. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know Dad. Sheesh.

My dad decided it was too windy for him to walk the Esplanade, and we'd lost our camp mates at the last bar, but Barbara and I decided to keep going. The further toward 3:00 we got, the thicker the dust became. We turned down a side street which seemed to cut the wind a bit and wandered down quieter streets. At one camp, we discovered a giant crane decorated with neon lights like a pink flamenco with the basket as the beak. At another, four musicians played quiet, gypsy type music under a mirror ball. We headed back to my neighborhood and took a turn on the tall swing, then we sat together in "my spot," and watched the nighttime City flow by.

I looped my arm around hers.

"I'm so glad we found each other out here."

Barbara squeezed my hand. "Me too."

Some of the fabulous art cars I saw

Discovered this site where photographers collected images of gorgeous art cars. Here's the link.

http://thejailbreak.com/2010/09/09/the-art-cars-of-burning-man-2010-72-photos/

Aren't some of them amazing?

Stay tuned for the next installment of my Burning Man adventure.

Adventures at Burning Man - Second Night

Home Sweet Home

As soon as the sun hit a corner of my tent, I was up and out, too hot to stay buried in my sleeping bag. Black Rock city in the daylight looks very different, more like an upscale refugee camp than a metropolis. Thousands of tents and RV's line wide dirt boulevards which break the city into blocks as large as the ones in downtown San Francisco. The porto-potties were a short walk from our camp, and I was happy to discover they were clean. Bacteria can't survive in the alkali desert, so the potties didn't reek.

I downed a quick breakfast and a cup of tea, then my dad and I rode our bikes to Center Camp, the only place in Black Rock city to get an espresso, and where I was meeting my best friend, Gitta. She'd arrived with her husband and little girl two days earlier and we'd arranged to meet for coffee at 10:30 on Thursday. I'm glad we planned ahead, because it is almost impossible to find people at Burning Man. I had a list of people to visit and their relative addresses (4:30 and Cairo, 5:30 and Frankfurt, The DPW Ghetto), and was desperately trying to find my friend Barbara, who I was originally going to Burning Man with. No luck. You tend to find people by planning ahead, or through happy coincidences. You'll be out for a stroll in the evening and run into the person you wanted to see drinking a beer in a pub-camp you just happened to step into.

Gitta and her husband and little girl gave my dad and I a tour in their car of some of the artwork out on the playa. The weather was incredible, warm but not too hot, with a light breeze, not enough to kick up the dust, and a sky more blue saturated than I've ever seen before. We played in the shade of some giant balloons where a man was giving people rides by putting them in harnesses attached to the balloons. I wanted to go for a ride, but the line was long and Gitta's daughter was tired (she's two). The number of children out there surprised me. I had no idea it was family friendly, but there's a large "Kid's Camp" and lots of kids activities, plus the city planners keep the more freaky, sexually explicit camps far away from the children. My friend's daughter loves Burning Man, especially exploring all the art.

When it was nap time, my dad and I joined two of our camp-mates for a bicycle ride across the playa  to see The Man. Six stories tall, made of wood, metal and neon, the Man is the heart of Burning Man. You can see him from anywhere in the city, standing watch over the playa, until he is sacraficed on Saturday night. Then we went to The Temple, a huge, 4000 square foot, 50 feet tall structure made of interlacing wooden planks. The walls are covered with mementos and messages to people who have died, or to lost loves, lost dreams, goals, hopes, obsessions, and desires... anything people want to let go of when the Temple is burned on Sunday. My father brought ashes of a dear friend who had died last year, and I brought a piece of paper which I'd written, "Must control, and anticipate, everything, all the time, and never stop," around the word "Fear." I shoved the paper between two planks of wood in a protected alcove, and beside it placed something another friend had asked me to leave for her. We're both hoping to let go of these obsessions and fears, and maybe knowing their burned to ash along with a thousand other griefs will help. Later, I rode to the intersection where Gitta's camp was, but never found her actual camp. Instead I went back to my camp to rest for when the sun went down.

Wearing red velvet pants, a red shirt and a cap with glow-in-the-dark fairies, I went to find the Boonville Cabaret with my dad. This is my family, my father's best friends, and some of the people I grew up with. As we walked, one of those happy coincidences occured when Gitta and her husband and daughter parked their car just as I was walking by. The Boonville Cabaret was having a show, an open mic with story tellers and musicians. My dad wanted me to sing a song and Gitta urged me to, but my typical stage fright kept me silent. Even out there, where outrageous is the norm and even people who can't sing think they should, I was too shy to sing a song I've been practicing for several weeks in my kitchen. Instead, I jumped on stage and shouted "I'm a virgin!" Everyone cheered. Then I told the story of breaking down on my way to Burning Man, which was more embarrassing than singing. This stage-fright of mine is a real social crippler.

At last, the show ended and we loaded up in the Boonie's art car, a large, open air cargo bus decorated like a gypsy wagon. I rode in the very back on the window ledge where I could see the most. The sun had gone down and once again the city was transformed into a thriving, shining, colorful city of DIY dreams.

DIY? Yes... and no. There is a lot of money poured into some of the "camps." But just because they have money (one dance club cost a million bucks), does it mean they aren't DIY. Groups of people get together, pool their resources and talent, and create fabulous "gifts" to the community: interactive art, dance clubs with video screens and laser lights, entertainment like circus performances, fire dancers, and live bands, and traveling food stands giving away quesadillas at midnight and pancakes at dawn. And all for free. No money changes hands out there (except for coffee and ice). Everything is a gift, and you only reciprocate if you're able.

We drove to the opposite end of the city to a club called Skinny Kitty, so named for it's display of mummified cats (real?). There we danced under a half dome of canvas and watched the silk performers twirl and twist above our heads. Then we loaded back up and headed out onto the playa where an impromptu art car party had begun underneath the 30 ft. tall dancing woman. I walked through the sea of dancing bodies and swirling lights, the music of 10 different art cars competing for my attention, and stood beneath the woman, watching as the lights under her steel mesh skin changed color and moved. Her entire frame balanced on one toe, and despite her great mass, she appeared weightless. Then I turned to look across the playa toward the city, which was a long ring of lights, as if we were on the sea and the city was the harbor. I started to dance and the stars over head seemed to join me.

My father joined me. Grinning, he said, "You're eyes are shining. I love watching you take this all in."

I laughed. "It's pretty amazing."

Then I danced with my dad to the beat of the music from our gypsy art car.

Adventures at Burning Man - First Night

I've been home several days and I'm still cleaning playa dust out of my camping gear and clothes. That stuff is everywhere! More like talcum powder than house-dust, it dissipates with the slightest breath and resettles softly on areas I already cleaned. Now I understand why people say, "Make peace with the dust." There really isn't much more you can do.

I've also been thinking about all the sights, sounds, textures, smells and experiences I felt out there on the playa, and trying to write it all down. This also seems like an impossible task. There is nothing like Burning Man, no comparison I can make. Even the environment feels like a far away planet. But I'll do my best to share what happened during my Burning Man adventure.

The adventure started before I got there. My car, a 1995 Honda Odyssey with 220,000 miles on her, overheated on the Donner grade (climbing the Sierras). I pulled over to the side of the road and waited for her to cool off, then checked the fluids. Everything looked okay. Two CHP officers checked on me and one said he'd be back later to make sure I wasn't still sitting there. After 20 minutes I started up the mountain again, only for the car to overheat AGAIN. I pulled over, let the car rest, drove for a bit, pulled over again, waited, drove, pulled over, waited, drove.... until at last I made it to a gas station 3 miles away, a process that took an hour and a half. At the gas station, I called AAA and tried not to cry. Then, two motor-homes pulled in to the parking lot, each with Burning Man symbols painted on the side. A man came up to my car and asked what was wrong.

"It keeps over heating."

"Did you check the fluids?" he asked.

"Yes."

After asking me how long I'd been sitting there, he opened the radiator cap and stuck his finger in. "Radiator's empty."

I was dumb struck! All this time, I'd been checking the overflow, not the actual radiator! I felt like a typical, car-stupid, "girl."

The man filled it with water and then left, just as the tow-truck arrived. The driver checked my car and since I didn't need a tow, offered to follow me up the rest of the grade "just in case." I tipped him for driving all the way out there and for making sure I made it up the mountain. When we got to Truckee, he turned off and I continued on to Burning Man. The car was running great, but I bought two containers of radiator fluid to make sure.

It is a long, long way to Burning Man. After making Reno I still had a two hour drive on a two lane road through the high desert. When at last I reached the gate to Black Rock City, the temporary city where Burning Man takes place, it was almost dark. I'd left home at 8 am and had been traveling for 12 hours. Sitting in my car, idling with thousands of others trying to get through the entrance, I tuned the radio to BMR (the Burning Man radio station) and watched the people around me as they excitedly chatted, smoked, shared a meal and introduced themselves to people waiting with them. A couple beside me waved and asked me if I was alone.

"No. I'm meeting my dad. He's already in camp."

"You're dad? Wow... That's neat. You don't look like a kid..." She faltered, as if suddenly embarrassed by implying I look old. "I mean, you're an adult, like us."

I decided to rescue her. "My dad is 62. He's been coming for years."

"That is so cool. You're lucky to have a dad into Burning Man."

Yeah, I am pretty lucky. How many people can claim they went to Burning Man with their 62 year old dad? There have been times growing up I'd wished a had a "typical dad," one that wouldn't embarrass me in front of my friends. But none of those non-embarrassing dads would ever go to Burning Man.

It took over an hour to get through the gate, and at last I made it to the "greeters." A very cute young man (there's some sweet eye-candy at Burning Man!) welcomed me, handed me a map and program of events, and then asked, "Have you been here before?" When I said no, he invited me to ring the bell.

Getting out of my car, I walked to a large, iron prayer bell and grabbed the medal rod he offered me. Then I rang that bell with all my might, making my arms shudder with the force. Everyone cheered and I laughed. At last, I was here!

But then I had to find my camp, and my dad. The city is laid out like a clock, with streets leading away from the center numbered (6:00, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30...) and the cross streets named after cities (Athens, Beirut, Cairo...). My camp was near 7:30 and Hanoi. It was night time. The streets were a sea of people and bicycles and every camp was lit up with Christmas lights and neon. I turned right on 7:30 then drove down the street hunting for Hanoi while at the same time trying not to kill any pedestrians. One person yelled, "Park your car!" Go to hell, I wanted to scream. I was tired, lost, and hungry and all I wanted to do was find my dad. Hanoi Street appeared and I turned left, then realized as I drove there was no way I'd ever find my dad's camp. None of the camps are marked. There are no addresses, just a sea of nondescript tents. "I guess I'll have to just park and sleep in the car and look for him when the sun comes up," I said to myself.

Then suddenly, my dad's face appeared at my window. He had bounced up to my car like a kid on Christmas morning, with a huge grin on his face. Sitting outside camp all evening in a lawn chair, he'd been watching for me. After directing me to our camp, he helped me set up my tent and get settled, then invited me on a walk to see the neighborhood. I was exhausted and nauseous with altitude sickness (Black Rock City is at 4500 feet), but eager to see some of the sights.

The very first walk through the city that night felt like I'd stepped into the heart of chaos. Competing sounds from a hundred different sources flooded my ears; flashes of colored light and blasts of fire slashed the darkness; people raced past on decorated bicycles with bells ringing loudly; art cars slowly drove by with people dancing to techno on the roofs; camps on either side were packed with people dancing, drinking, playing games, laughing, singing songs. The overall feeling of the city was madly happy. We walked down to the Esplanade which runs along the edge of the playa where the swirl of activity was even more frenetic and I watched as huge, glowing art cars moved across the dark playa like neon boats in a black sea. We walked back to our street, 7:30, and my dad pointed out MalMart, a huge six story structure people could climb to take in the view and dance. "That's our landmark. If you get lost, head to the Esplanada and look for MalMart. The landmarks change in this city, but I doubt MalMart will go away."

We walked back to camp and sat together under the starlight while I tried to eat my apple. It was almost midnight. The stars, so crisp and strong, were as incredible as the city. Eventually though, my body demanded I get some sleep. I crawled into my sleeping bag and put in ear plugs, which only helped block the roar of the city a little. Frank Sinatra sang in my mind, "I want to wake up, in a city that doesn't sleep..."

Burning Man- right now all I can say is Wow!

I've been trying to think of something coherent to write that will convey my experiences at Burning Man, but all I can come up with is...

aaaaaaaaaawesooooooooommmmmmme!

For now, I'll let pictures show what I'm trying to say.

Black Rock City, Nevada

30 foot tall dancing woman 

Flame throwing giant steel tricycle.

my friend's gypsy art car

Temple in the dust storm

Fish swimming across the playa

 

 

me (blue hair) and my camp mates

I'll write more about my adventures once my brain shakes off the remaining playa dust and I can think with more sophisticated words than "Duuuuude! That was aaaawwwwessssooooommmmme!"

Going to Burning Man with my dad!

(image from matt.peterson.org  )

How many people get to say that?

My father is 62 years old and loves Burning Man. He's been going for several years, and to him, it is Mecca. He's wanted me to come with him for just as long, but there has always been too much on my plate: school, work, motherhood, lack of money, lack of time...  until now. I realized that when I get my Master's degree I might work for a school district, which means it will be impossible to get time off at the beginning of the school year. And, even if I work for an agency not dependent on a school calendar, it might be tricky spending some of my valuable vacation time on "the burn." Then my dad had a heart attack on New Year's Eve and I knew now was the time. I had to go to Burning Man with my father at least once or I would regret it for the rest of my life.

My husband Rick agreed. "You have to go. It doesn't matter how much a ticket costs, you're going."

Isn't my husband the greatest?

Since my ticket arrived in February, I've been planning and organizing and saving and preparing, physically and mentally. The "playa," which is the bed of an ancient extinct lake, is a challenging and even dangerous environment. The alkaline dust will suck the moisture right out of your skin. Dust storms and 30 mph winds are common. The temperature can exceed 115 F during the day and 45 at night. Dehydration and sun stroke are a serious threat.

But there are also artists from all over the world creating incredible art and giant sculptures of steel and glass. There are fascinating and talented people sharing their music and crafts.  There is a night sky so black you can see the crisp edges of every star. There is debauchery, yes, sex and raves. And there is beauty everywhere you turn. People come and create a brilliant city in an inhospitable place that only lasts two weeks. Then it's gone, like a far away echo of music in the wind.

My car is loaded and tomorrow I leave for northern Nevada to meet my father in Black Rock City. I hope to explore the art and meet interesting people, dance under the moon and take long siestas during the hot afternoons. Mostly though, I want to spend time with my father. His heart is strong now and he'll more than likely live another 20 years, but when he is gone, I want this memory to last forever.

So if you're wondering where I am for the next week, you'll find me at 7:45 and Hanoi in Black Rock City, Nevada.

Sanity?

I started my internship two weeks early. My master teacher contacted me and asked if I could observe an assessment of a new student that she thinks I may be working with once I start. "It would be good for you to see her from the beginning." Hell yeah! Not only was I eager to begin, but I'd just found out that due to the university not being able to use student TA's in their O and M classes anymore (thanks to some new accreditation regulations), I'd just lost 20 hours a month of intern hours and it will be a miracle if I finish my internship on time.

Rick rearranged his schedule to accommodate this change and I rushed off to Petaluma to meet my master teacher and my possible first student. I can't go into specifics, but I will say that despite my driving 150 miles in 108 degree temperature with a barely working AC, it was a great day. Finally seeing what I'd learned being used by a professional, experienced, O and M instructor was fascinating. It was so great, I volunteered to come back thursday, friday and the following monday.

But when thursday rolled around, reality set in. I am not prepared to start my internship at all. Rick was stressing, trying to support me by getting all his work done in time to meet Queen Teen's school bus, and I was trying to shove my giant to-do list into one day, something that proved impossible. I haven't even set up regular after school child care yet! What the hell was I thinking?

I observed my teacher again on thursday, then explained that I was wrong about starting so early. She understood completely and told me not to worry. When I explained how I'd lost so many intern hours and was worried about not graduating on time, she was shocked. But she agreed that I shouldn't put my family and myself through so much stress to try and make up hours before any of us are ready.

Is this a glimmer of sanity? Am I really learning to pace myself and make choices that support my mental health, rather than living my life like some kind of marathon with a finish line in sight?

I'm still worried about my internship hours and really angry about it. Losing 20 hours a month is going to be impossible to make up! Oh well...  just gotta keep breathing, stay sane, and keep moving forward.

Who decided school should start this early in the moring?

 (image from Real Simple)

It's 7:25 AM and I'm drinking my second cup of coffee, finally starting to wake up. Queen Teen caught the bus for school at 6:50 and is right now heading to her class after the first bell. To catch the bus on time, she has to get up at 5:15. 5:15! That means I have to get up at 5:10. 5:10 in the morning!!!!!!!!!!

Who the hell decided high school will start at 7:30?! Haven't they read the studies showing clear evidence that teens need more sleep and don't function well before 9 AM? Want to raise test scores? Stop trying to teach a teenager anything before 9 AM!

Maybe some kids can hop out of bed at 6:30 to make it to school on time, but we have to get up this early because it takes a long time to get Queen Teen ready for school. She wakes up slowly, eats breakfast while half asleep (who can eat at 5:30?), brushes her teeth and washes her face, then slowly gets dressed. Between her groggy movements and ataxia, achieving all of these tasks in an hour and a half can be challenging. Plus, I'm barely awake myself, so my organizational skills and patience are sluggish. By 6:45, Queen Teen is awake and dressed and standing by the front door watching for the bus. When it comes she announces excitedly, "Mom! The bus is here." I help her to the bus while the driver loads her wheelchair and then her walker. After buckling her in her seat, I give her a kiss goodbye on the cheek, then stand on the sidewalk to wave as the bus pulls away.

At 7:00 AM, Queen Teen is on her way to school, while I am fighting against the urge to go back to bed. My night owl body begs for more sleep, telling me I shouldn't be awake before 8, but I force her to stay away from bed and won't allow a nap on the couch. The day has started and I need to train my body to get used to getting up early in the morning, even though I know it's futile. I'll never get used to it, never feel alert before 8, but eventually I'll stop feeling like I'm hung-over and stupid.

Again, I ask, who decided school should start so early? Don't you know anything about teenagers? How do the teachers feel about getting up this early to teach grumpy, sleepy adolescents who barely pay attention when they're awake. Hasn't anything taught in the first two periods of school been negated by starting so early? And what about us poor parents who have to get these sleepy, grumpy, miserable teens out of bed and ready for school on time?

I know, I know... getting up this early helps parents who have to be at work by 8 (when I start my internship in three weeks I'll probably be happy, if sleepy). And I know teachers probably like getting off work earlier than later. And I also know districts are short on buses so the buses have to come early to pick up all those kids on one route. And I'm lucky there's a bus at all. But none of those supposedly good reasons mean Queen Teen and I have to like it. Nor does it mean that starting school this early is good for the kids.

First Day of High School

This morning, Queen Teen started High School. She was a little nervous yesterday, and very sleepy this morning (why does school start so frickin early?!), but by the time she was dressed and in the car, she was smiling. Driving her to school, I remembered her first day of preschool when she was a tiny three year old. I helped her out of the car and then walked with her to the group of preschoolers standing together in front of the school building with their parents and the teacher. She held my hand tightly, but grinned when she saw the other kids. Once all the kids were gathered, the teacher took Queen Teen's hand to help her walk (this was back when QT could walk on her own without a walker, but on uneven ground she needed a hand to keep her balance) and all of the children followed in a line, holding each other's hands. Most of them were crying and a few had refused to let go of their moms, but Queen Teen looked back at me, smiled, waved with her free hand, and said, "Bye Mom." Then she happily went to class with her teacher.

I went back to my car and burst into tears.

And now here we are, 12 years and 24 inches later, on the first day of High School. Dressed in a Tinker Bell t-shirt and light-blue skirt, Queen Teen looked confident. When we got to school, she grabbed the arms of her walker and walked to the front door, grinning when she recognized her aid from the 8th grade who had followed QT to 9th grade. I helped Queen Teen find her desk and explained to the aid why QT wasn't wearing her hearing aids (eczema is still a major problem). At last, it was time to go. Kneeling beside Queen Teen, I said, "Bye sweety. Have a good day at school."

She smiled at me and said, "Bye Mom."

And then I went back to my car and cried.

The feel of hummingbirds zooming past my head

Queen Teen and Rick flew to Austin, Texas to visit family for 10 days and since I had my last internship meeting this past Saturday, I couldn't go. Okay, I admit it, there's a part of me that was happy not to go. I would love to see everyone and I miss my girl and hubby, but the peace and quiet has been amazing! After a few days, the constant ache in my jaw and shoulders dissipated, the knot in my stomach faded, and my thoughts stopped hopping around like a drunk frog on a hot plate. I could take a deep breath and feel calm for the first time in... how long? Years?

I went to the coast with my dear friend, Jody, and stayed at The Howard Creek Ranch B n B, an eclectic, beautiful property tucked between the ocean and a thick grove of redwoods. Built in 1879, the rooms are in the old farm house and the redwood coach house, both crammed with antiques and odd treasures. Hummingbirds battle for the garden, which overflows with flame-red, yellow, ice-blue, and white flowers, nasturtium, berry vines, and roses. Fat, friendly cats curl up in your lap when you sit to read in the sunshine. The inn is run by an older couple who serve you a hearty breakfast every morning. There's a narrow swinging bridge across a creek choked with blackberries, and at night you can hear the ocean crashing back and forth on the beach. It is my favorite place on the Mendocino Coast.

Jody and I spent three days there, lounging, going for hikes, talking, eating, and writing of course. I finished an essay that had been haunting me for months, and started working on my play again. By the time I got home after all that relaxing, I felt as if I'd been smoking dope on a hot beach. My head was fuzzy and the world seemed strangely distant. Walking into my house, the silence felt as loud as a rock concert. There was no Queen Teen shouting "Mom!" as I walked through the door, no husband cussing in the bedroom while he works on another computer, no dog bounding at me in greeting (she was at the kennel), no roar of a dishwasher or radio. Everything was still. I went to bed early with a book and breathed deeply the solitude.

Is it possible to have stress withdrawals? I'm so used to the pace of the last 2 years of grad school, of being mom and wife and keeping a roof over our head and food on the table and running a publishing company... feeling calm was bizarre. I soaked up relaxation like a starving person and now felt fat and lazy on it. But God I wanted more! Give me more calm and peaceful days, more silence. Let me get sick on it until I turn into a lump in the hammock with a book stuck on my nose. I've done constant stress, I'd like to try constant calm.

Saturday was my last internship meeting and during class our teacher explained the certification test and the master's exam. After listening for half an hour, the fog lumbering through my mind cleared and I felt the tension return to my jaw and shoulders. Ah, there it is... the churning knot in my gut. The fear lapping at my ankles. Then when she told us how much the fees for those exams are, I felt a rush of adrenaline flow through my body, chasing out the last bit of lazy still wrapped around my bones.

Back to normal once again.

But now that I know what calm feels like, I wonder if I can duplicate that feeling during my normal days? Can I learn to hold on to the feeling of sitting quietly in the garden at Howard Creek with a fat, black and white farm cat curled up in my lap and the hummingbirds dashing around, fighting for the best blossom just inches from my head. Even though I could feel them flying past me so close their momentum created a breeze on my cheek, I wasn't startled. I watched them and smiled. They are so like me, like all of us I suppose, zooming around and fighting for a crumb of pollen from the best blossom, not able to see the beauty of the flower they're fighting for.

Bourre the dog is back, worn out from playing with the dogs at the kennel for four days, and Queen Teen and Rick will be home on Tuesday.  I have several tasks to get done before then, and an awful lot of studying to do in preparation for my master's exam. But the bigger goal is to remember to stop and enjoy the flower I'm fighting for, rather than being a humming bird all the time.