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flew down to so cal and back with no drugs/alcohol. normally i need something to handle flying without hyperventilating/panicking (even though i've flown many times in my life). occasionally, when there is no turbulence, and i am able to focus on the beautiful views, i do not totally freak out. i do love seeing my home from above. i love that the island of alameda can be so easily seen as a whole. it's graspable (both from above and on foot/bike). i see the green park street bridge, and from there can figure out what the other visible main streets are and where my house is.
after flying over alameda, we passed over the golden gate, which looked like a bright toy bridge against the blue. and then water and more water and the blinding sun casting a gigantic gold circle on the water. and then some rows of curvy clouds lined up seemingly evenly spaced, like a letter written in cloud instead of ink. i got lost in the incredible beauty of the earth, instead of in thinking about how insane it is to be up so high. was still completely exhausted by managing the anxiety though.
at my parents' i sat in the sun on the front steps in the mornings. it was strange and still without any dogs around. first time ever in my life that my parents have been without dogs. no one running up to wipe their shaggy sandy schnauzer beards on me.
saw two of my long time/lifelong friends and then back up to my insistent lap cat, PL. a short but sweet trip.
the scoreboard from our very complicated work dessert contest judging. yours truly won for the second year! (i, of course, did not score my own dessert.) we even had a monitor to make sure our scoring was fair. serious business.
(just realized after titling this post that i may have been channeling cookie monster with that blue outfit.)
i'm feeling very festive and cozy these days. looking forward to sharing glögg, cookies and games with some friends this weekend.
recently i read the book stoner (name of main character, not about about an mj smoker) by john williams. stoner's responses to events/people in his life are frustrating, but the often sad story is beautifully succinctly written. somehow this excerpt, and thinking about willingness in particular, helped me in my seemingly never ending (or my gradual and recurring) letting go:
In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being in which, if one were lucky, one might find access. In his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a greatly familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia.
Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of
grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition
that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the
will and the intelligence and the heart.
wispy clouded, sweets-filled, a fika mamma
the glögg is made, the tree is trimmed, the candles burning and the rain falling (finally).
