Dreams

Last night I had a dream that I was dating Eminem. You know. Marshall Mathers. Slim Shady. Yeah. It was pretty scary. I think the relationship that we had last night looked a lot like the one portrayed in his music video that he shot recently with Rhianna: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uelHwf8o7_U

I've chosen to title this blog "dreams." But, no, not the kind of dreams where you are in emotionally abusive romantic relationship with a rap star. Not the kind of dreams that happen in the strange recesses of the perverted subconscious at night during sleep. (Referring to my own, not necessarily yours, of course.)

I'm talking about the kind of dreams that your mind drifts into during a long, tedious meeting at work or when sitting across the dinner table, bored to death by the conversation. The kind of dreams that tap into something inside of you that longs to live life differently but is met by the limitations and liabilities of your present reality.

These kind of dreams are even more dangerous. These kind of dreams are even more thrilling. These dreams are the kind that you are afraid to say out loud, afraid to admit to other people...

I went on a trip to Paris, France last month. It was my first time. This was a total, reckless act of overindulgence on my part. I never had the experience of backpacking through Europe as a college student or taking overseas family trips growing up. So as a single 28 year old who is in debt from school loans and who recently spent the past two years of her life in an intensive counseling educational program, I was in the PERFECT position to plan a European excursion... burnt out, broke, tired, old and boring.

Perhaps that was an overstatement.

But you get the point, right? I thought that Paris would be the perfect petrie dish for my bruised, burnt out and bored soul. There was something inside of me that felt so weighed down by the limitations and liabilities of my life that I needed a break. I needed to tap into that life source, that deeper place where time and money and physical age and depression disappear and a little girl dressed in a yellow dress with pigtails in her hair emerges...

She is the dreamer. She is not afraid of grandeur. She is not ashamed of triviality. She dreams big. She dreams beautiful. She dreams beyond the physical and the present. I invited her to lay beside me in the grass of the garden at the Musee de Rodin on a warm, sunny day in Paris and her mind soared to places of ethereal bliss.

Dreams come small and large, practical and impractical, poetic and violent. Here are some of the things that she whispered to me that afternoon in the cool grass of the garden...

1. I want to buy an espresso machine so that I can host breakfast parties at my house and make lattes and cappuccinos for my friends on Saturday mornings.

2. I want to fall in love with a man who will play the piano while I lay on top of the instrument, absorbing it's tones through my chest while gazing deep into his eyes.

3. I want to learn how to speak French and move to Paris in my old age after I retire, snacking on fresh croissants and creamy white cheese until I die.

4. I want to shave my head down to the skull so that I can run my hand across my head to see what it feels like.

5. I want a daughter with brown eyes named Julia.

What is the point of a dream? Dreams are sometimes nonsensical. But perhaps the point of dreaming is not necessarily to escape our present reality, to indulge ingratitude or to shame ourselves.

Perhaps we dream so that we can share something so intrinsically transcendent about who we are with others that it can only be captured and communicated through a dream.

The poet Langston Hughes asks us to consider an important question:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Readers and friends, please comment here and share with me one of your dreams...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2I5refJec

So This is Grief

This past week my pastor talked about being the kind of person who is able to receive honest feedback from the people in our lives. I stopped breathing at the thought of that. It scared me to death...

As a clinical counselor, I have been invited into the sacred ground of my client's souls. For a moment every week, they welcome me to exist in that secret place with them. I am honored when I realize that they are allowing me access into a solemn and spiritual territory. They are living with me as people who are open, vulnerable and receptive to someone giving them the honest feedback that my pastor had mentioned.

To allow another being to enter into that place takes a lot of courage.

To allow yourself to see yourself for what you really are takes even more courage.

I was in therapy these past several years as a requirement of my seminary's counseling program. It was altogether a terrifying and holy experience. I had shared things with my counselor that I had never told another living, breathing human being. I was allowing my counselor to access the space in my internal world that only previously existed as a silent dialogue between me and God.

That journey can be harrowing and lonely. It can, at times, feel hopeless.

It can feel very, very dark.

But in that darkness, I found new acquaintances. In that space, I believe now, we meet a part of ourselves, exiles that have been hidden away for so long...

Very recently, a good friend of mine became one of the people in my life willing to give me some honest feedback in the way that I had failed to show her love. I felt exposed. But the thing that was exposed was the very part of me that I realized I had been running away from for a long time. I met someone there, in that sacred, secret place that I usually allow no one to go to... until my friend's words caused me to look closer, to go into that dark corner.

I met Grief there. I am only now beginning to get to know her.

So this is Grief,

The friend I have been avoiding for so long.

Our conversations are painful and slow.

And She blanks from time to time.

From time to time She stops,

And is silent.

And She stares ahead as if in a memory.

I lose Her there.

I check my watch and take another sip of my coffee.

I glance over at the young passionates sitting beside us

And wish that I was out to coffee with somebody else.

Until again She stirs,

And takes a breath

And moves on.

I vow that I am never going to call Her again.

So this is Grief.

As She ponders,

As Her fingers twirl Her hair and Her glazed eyes

Stare out the dirty window,

The sun then hits Her in such a way that makes Her almost beautiful.

Grief, sitting in the sunlight of the cafe,

Staring out the dirty window.

My heart moves and I want to kiss Her.

I want to comfort Her.

I want to take away Her blackness and Her pain.

But all I can do is to sit and let Her be.

I let Her stop. I let Her say nothing.

I let Her remember what she remembers.

To love Her is to let Her be Her.

So this.

So this is Grief.

Goodbye, North Beach

I was walking around Washington Square Park in North Beach this afternoon.

The sky is overcast, the air is cool and a little crisp and there are dry leaves on the damp ground. Though it is the dead middle of December, it feels like autumn, my favorite season.

I am in mourning because I am leaving North Beach to move to a flat in the Upper Haight and I will miss it's beauty. This walk is a bit ceremonial for me. I wanted a chance to drink her in as I start to say goodbye...

As I come to the top of the park where St. Peter and Paul's cathedral stands erect, keeping it's watchful, fatherly eye on the addicts, the vagrants and the children playing in the park (yes, they are all at play today), I come upon a series of trucks and trailers lining the side of the street. The trailers are labeled "Costume" and "Makeup" and I discover they are shooting a film here today.

My imagination starts to wander... what kind of story will be told of my neighborhood?

The large industrial trucks, with back panels raised, are filled with cameras, cords, and lights. The film crew, shaggy haired men dressed in black, are lined up and down the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes and talking excitedly to one another.

I pass by the last truck on the block and this one looks markedly different from the others. It is longer and black. I eagerly peek inside for answers.

It is packed with three vintage cars. Beautiful maroon, navy blue and emerald green 1940's era cars. "Of course," I think to myself, "a period film!" This is the perfect neighborhood for this story. I glance around me and notice the storefronts of North Beach that I pass everyday. But now I squint and try to look at them through the eyes of a storyteller...

I see the gilded window frames of the Goorin Bros. Hat shop, circa 1895, filled with textured, handmade fedoras and berets. (http://www.goorin.com/hat-shops/san-francisco-north-beach)

And next door to it, my very lovely Cafe Divine, which occupies the corner space of the Italianate Dante building. Elderly Italian patrons in tweed jackets and tourists in windbreakers sit outside at the roundish tables, sipping their red wine. (http://www.cafedivinesf.com/)

And then, of course, the elegant little Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe. (http://www.northbeachshop.com/pages/marios.html)

A young man in a green hoodie leaves one of the trucks with a tripod under his arm at his side, and starts to jog toward me. He slows down when he nears and points to the corners of his mouth as he turns to me, painting a smile onto his face. I catch his eye. He wants me to smile. I smile back, and, satisfied, he continues on.

My head hangs down in contemplation. A hint of my grin remains as I near my apartment. I wanted to turn back and tell him "thank you"...

Thank you for sharing your smile. Thank you for noticing my mourning, darkened eyes. Thank you for giving me a taste of your joy. I can tell that he is excited about the story about to be told here, just like I am.

Dear North Beach,

You have been a warm welcome, a captivating muse and a good friend, and now I am moving on.

Not "but." And.

It's a very important distinction.

Your truly,

Rachael

An Existentialist Surrenders

I remember being about 7 years old, dressed in a pink tutu with braids in my hair, and proudly declaring to my mother that I had made an important decision: I realized that I wanted to be a "princess" when I grew up. Then I humbly asked for my mother's advice on how should I go about to doing this.

My mother smiled, bent down to me and said I would have to marry a prince in order to be a princess, but the good news was that there is a prince my age named William who lives in England.

Well, I thought this was unfair. At the time, ew, boys still had cooties! But eventually, several Disney movies later, I fell in love with the dream of marrying a prince.

My memory of this story surfaced this past week when I read the announcement: http://abcnews.go.com/International/prince-william-kate-middleton-engagment/story?id=12158508

I've just hit my month four mark here in the city, and the finality of my decision to move to San Francisco is starting to sink in. This is my home. This is my city. This is my work. This is my calling.

This is my life.

I am here in San Francisco as a 28 year old, single woman who is a counselor for a church. Life doesn't look like what I had dreamt, the vision of an extravagant destiny that I had pictured as a little girl.

How many paths have I pondered and pursued throughout my life? Princess of England, elementary school teacher, wife, mother, Hollywood actress, cake baker, ballerina, Olympic gymnast, action movie star, novel writer, fashion designer, crime scene investigator, punk rocker, music video director to name only a few.

For creative beings like you and me, surrendering our dreams is hard to do. Not because life as it is isn't wonderful or beautiful, but because it is unexpected. It is sometimes disorienting. Life as it is can never look like the one that we have tried in vain for years to construct. How can it?

Does God's sovereign hand or do our own personal strivings determine the outcome of our lives? (Or, perhaps, you are more comfortable with the idea of Fate versus choice.) There is a reality that I can choose some things. There is also a reality that I cannot control most circumstances, I cannot control people's choices or the bus arriving on time or the rainclouds rolling in on the horizon or the color of my eyes.

So the life that I am living is both mine and not mine. Mine by choice and not mine by the choices that I cannot make, those which are not under my jurisdiction.

I must surrender my own creation to the greater Creator.

I used to tell people that I wish I could meet with God at Starbucks once a week to review his upcoming plans for my life. Not so much in order to micromanage his decisions, but to be a part of the brainstorming process. Oh, yeah. And to have veto power.

Will life be beautiful or tragic?

I have a choice to either sit here on my bed, dwelling on my own dream, my own art, my own creation, the idyllic world that exists in my head.

Or, I can choose to surrender, turn my head to the left and drink in the gorgeous creation that is right outside of my three paneled window overlooking a sunny North Beach street bustling with tourists and Italians. The bells of St. Peter and Paul's church have just chimed 4 o'clock and now I will hop in the shower, put on some red lipstick and hurry off to meet a group of new friends at a cafe in the Mission for dinner and cocktails.

Where, o where will the tale of life in San Francisco lead?...

The Deity of the Database

There are so many options here in this city.

Ideally, this is a good thing. Right?

Restaurant options, relationship options, transportation options, entertainment options, communication options...

There are entire databases online built for researching and rating the "best" services that this city has to offer. Where should you eat Thai food in Noe Valley? Well, duh. You should "yelp" it and let the collective consciousness of the city tell you exactly where to go.

Are you vegetarian... vegan... gluten free... dairy free... organic... macrobiotic... free range... raw... no carb... or, hey, do you just eat any food they put in front of you?

Tell us. Who "are" you?

This is a city crawling with opinionated people. Smart people. Creative people. Good looking people. People who work passionately, go skiing in Tahoe on the weekends, buy organic clothing, drive electric cars, drink good wine and eat at only the best restaurants. Life is lived with much deliberation and intentionality in the midst of the chaos of the endless options available.

I just moved to this city from a community where there is one good happy hour in town. You show up there on Friday night and everyone you know is already drinking.

By contrast, in this city, most of the time I've just feel lost, confused and disconnected.

"Who am I?"

Uh oh. I feel an unnecessary identity crisis coming on...

I don't KNOW what I want!

I am so overwhelmed with opportunities that I have found myself defaulting to a passive, "go wherever the wind may take me" mentality. Actually, I vacillate between that and the resignation of hiding in my apartment watching instant streaming movies online. Even there, in the comfort of my own bedroom, I am drowned in a sea of choices. But don't worry. The databases have solved this dilemma for me. My preferences are instantly predicted and my identity is magically generated by my book vendor, music player, search engine, clothing distributor and social networking site. A list of "movies you will love" or "books we recommend" pops up for me every time I visit.

Seriously! Just check out the sidebar next time you are looking at your ex's wedding photos on your social networking site:

"Fan of Kill Bill, Vol. 1? Well, check out our newest blockbuster titled..."
"Is art your passion? Register now for photography classes at your local..."
"Are you a Tori Amos fan? Check out debut artist..."

Call me archaic. Call me foolish even. But the rebel within me says "no."

I don't want a database to tell me who I am or to turn me into who I will become.

To be continued.

Life Lessons Learned at the DMV

My Florida driver's license expired this past Sunday on my 28th birthday...

Unfortunately, this happens to be the sort of "expiration" that they won't let you simply pay money for and renew online. Nope. You have to go down to the DMV, in person, so that they can verify that you still know what a stop sign looks like.

Now that I live in California, I had to hunt down and trek over to the local DMV in San Francisco. You know, the one over on Fell Street and Broderick... yeah, the ONLY one in the entire city. (Seriously. People?) Of course, I have to admit that I got the renewal notification in the mail months ago when I was still living in FL and I waited until the very, very last minute to take care of it. And this past Thursday was the last day the DMV was open before my license's expiration...

So, I show up first thing on Thursday at 10 a.m.

(I realize that 10 a.m. is not technically "first thing" and I probably should have gotten there earlier being that I was missing work to take care of this, but, um, you know, I had to meet a client that morning and then I got some yogurt for breakfast from my new favorite place called Fraiche which just happened to be on the way (couldn't resist!) and then, well, I eventually got there.)

I understand now that I was unconsciously procrastinating and trying to put off the inevitable pain.

It ended up being one of the strangest experiences I have had in this city yet... but there are 5 important life lessons that day I have learned that I will share here with you.

Life Lessons Learned at the DMV

1. Barney the dinosaur lied. You are not special. Nobody is. No matter what your age, class, ethnicity, height, weight, handicap, religion, intelligence level, style of dress, attitude, sense of urgency, etc., YOU will have to go through the same process as everyone else. The homeless man, the hipster with his ipad, the vegan couple with dredlocks and the mother of the two year old she couldn't leave at home are all together, crammed into a bank of plastic chairs, waiting for their numbers to be called. We are all equal in the eyes of the DMV in that we are all cattle. We are simply a number. (In my case, G168). Do not take this as an insult. No. This is just a way of life. Every day, the DMV has to get hundreds of city dwellers through this process. The only way to be impressive is to smile and act happy to have just waited 138 minutes for your number to be called. Even then, they won't do you any real favors... maybe they just won't scowl at you quite as much. And they might even tell you to have a happy birthday.

2. Mr. Gates is a failure. Gates' stated that his dream was to get a P.C. "on every desk and in every home." For a city with such advanced technology (ref. "hipster with ipad" in bullet point 1), this technology has not yet penetrated the fortified, inner realm of the DMV. There is literally a crawling hub of dot commers and silicon valley-ians right here in the city. Dude, there are public toilets that clean themselves!! There are electronic signs at the bus stops that tell you how far away the next two buses in the queue are. Yet. Yet. When you renew your license at the DMV, you take traffic law test on paper with a number two pencil and stand in line for an hour so that the lady can hold up her score card next to your 30 question, two sided test and grade it BY HAND. Yes, folks. They grade all of the tests by hand. Yes. By hand.

3. The red headed lady at the counter is not your mother. The lady at the front counter of the DMV does not like you. She doesn't like anybody. She yells all day long and never gets tired. She will yell at you even if you fill out your form correctly, avoid eye contact and stand patiently in line. She will yell at you because she likes it. She will yell at you because she can. There is obviously something wrong with you and she is not trying to act like your mother.

4. The true definition of a "good" book... If I could have gone back and done this whole day over, the one thing I would have done differently was bring a book. No. Sorry. I did bring a book. I would have brought a GOOD book. One that could keep my attention for more than 5 minutes at a time. Trust me on this one. Though you may be tempted to bring a book that will look impressive to others or a book that you "need to read" for work, don't do this. Bring one that you will enjoy. No, no. Don't bring "Anna Karenina" or "How to Heal When Ministry Hurts". Instead, indulge yourself and bring that old, tattered copy of Twilight, The Devil Wears Prada or Vogue. (Ok, that last one is not really a book but it counts!) The true test of a good book is whether you will still want to keep reading it at minute 137 of your wait.

5. Birthdays can expire. So this is the sad part of my story. At the end of the whole three and a half hour ordeal, they say you owe them $34 and that it will take 4-6 weeks to mail your new driver's license to you. Yesterday I went to Trader Joe's and purchased a bottle of "Two Buck Chuck" Savignon Blanc. The cashier asked to see my I.D. so I handed her the only one I had, my FL driver's license. She looked at it and said, "That's expired. I can't take it." Ummmm... well, driver's licenses expire but birthdays can't expire, right? Wrong. "I can't accept that as a valid form of I.D." Well. Lesson learned. Apparently birthdays do expire.

And perhaps this is the secret to why wisdom comes with age. The older you get, the more life lessons, like these, you have to learn at the DMV.

A Day in the Life... Three Odd Tales

Intuition

Early in the morning, I was walking to a bus stop in the Inner Sunset... not my usual neighborhood but I was staying in the area for 4 days watching my coworker J's dog, Buddy. As I am strolling down 6th avenue, a guy about my age comes out of his apartment, cuts right in front of me and walks hurriedly ahead. I am a bit put off, thinking this guy is a little rude. (And I have not had my coffee yet.) He arrives a couple seconds before I do to the same bus stop and stands directly underneath the street light on the side of the road. I was casually observing this guy, sizing him up. He seems antsy, nervous, wound up. His hands were in his pockets and he kept on looking down the street for sight of the bus. He is shifting his feet, bouncing up and down. He seems a little cold. He only has a tee shirt on and the weather is probably in the mid 50's. After about two minutes of this fidgety dance, all of a sudden he stops, gasps, and takes a giant step backwards. Just then a HUGE bird dropping splats on the ground right where he had been standing. We look up and see that there is a large black raven perched on the lamp post above. He looks at me, lit up and smiling. "Did you just see that?" I laugh and tell him, "You are a very lucky man." He said that he just "had a hunch." Then he announces loudly to me and to the world, "Today is going to be a good day." At that exact moment, the bus pulls up, he stands aside and asks whether I am getting on. I say no that I am waiting for the 43. He smiles, waves and hops on the bus. He rides away.



Calculator Race

Last week, it was one of those dull, slow days in the office. Almost nobody is around. My office mate J is on vacation. My boss is out. I decide to check again for any new emails. Then I move on to reading updates on my facebook home page. No new updates. No notifications. No messages. I move on to obscure, random articles on CNN.com, the couple ones remaining that I have not yet read. Just then, my coworker B stumbles through the doorway, almost Kramer like, and asks with a wild, determined expression in his eye, "Do you want to have a calculator race?" More of a statement than a question. He immediately picks up my calculator off my desk, places it in my hand and tells me to type in 1 plus 1. Ok. (I am not getting it.) He tells me to hit the equal sign repeatedly. In my curiosity, I comply. "Ok, stop" he says. He asks me what number I am at and the screen says 25. "25." I am sitting there, looking at him, eyebrows raised, totally confused. I still have no idea what is going on. He tells me, "Now, wait until I say go." He lowers his head down onto his folded hands on my desk, deep in concentrated thought. After a subtle beat, he dramatically peers up at me and says "Go!" I begin pressing the equal sign and he starts rapidly sputtering the numbers, out loud, in sequence up from 25! No freaking way, I think to myself. Game on! I get into it. I am pressing pressing pressing, going going going, and he is rattling the numbers off so fast I realize he actually could beat me. =,=,=,=,=,=,=,=... (I am laughing out loud, completely bewildered at this point.) He reaches one hundred in a matter of seconds and yells "Stop! What is it?" I glance at my calculator screen and I slowly turn it around to show him... 129! Win.



The Screecher

Yesterday I was riding on the number 1 bus home from work. The bus was somewhat crowded when I got on. I was able to snatch a seat halfway down the aisle, so I laid back against the chair and relaxed. My moment of zen is interrupted by an unusual screeching, giggling noise coming from the other end of the bus. I look over curiously. There is a family of four sitting in the back row of bucket seats, obviously from out of town being that they had cameras around their necks and a map in their hands. With them was a small, blond, 8 year old girl who was gazing out the window at the city scenes passing us by. Yep. She was the screecher. The bus started to climb Russian Hill, and she screams "Wow, look, this hill is sooooo steep!" Then the bus's PA system announces we are arriving at the "Mason" stop and she screams, "We are at Mason now!" Later when the bus reached the top of the hill and started it's descent, she screamed "We're going down... wheeeeee!" And then we finally come (not soon enough) to my stop at the bottom of the hill on Stockton in the heart of Chinatown. As I am leaving the bus through the back door, I hear her scream "I see Chinese people!"

I laugh out loud to myself all the way home.