twenty five

I’ve found ways to say hello - I’ve found it in the autumnal rains, in the almost citywide blackouts (a record since the 90s), bobbing my head to every song I hear, sunglasses covering my eyes and thus my nervousness so I may continue to sing aloud as I pass strangers on the street.

And now spring - the Mission has been abound with the smell of jasmine for the past few weeks. I picked a sprig and let it dry atop my altar, and weeks later I closed my eyes and kissed the hand that lives there too, the one you tied together. Did you feel it? I have a feeling you did - it was always like that.

My sister said she saw you sitting alone on my birthday, a few blocks from where we all were. There was something blowing our thoughts all to the wind, tangling everyone up that night. My heart ached hearing you sat there alone. I wished I’d seen your lovely face, but then again, on my trek to the show my brain kept looping around the thought - why would a woman spend her birthday at the Knockout? The answer evades me still.

Twenty five years - now I begin to worship the ground I walk on. Billions of people have made it to their twenty fifth birthday and billions have not. Does it still hurt to carry the world on a string, knocking about in your pocket, if you know who you are deep in your core? You know, like when it’s the absolute truth of your heart. I mean, I haven’t gotten there yet, but I could. Some days I’m halfway there and others I slide backwards as if on a San Francisco hill with no gas and no brakes. Maybe some tourists will break my fall before I slide all the way into the Bay (kidding).

But it’s like this: I had it, like bursting with hope on a lively summer day, strolling around my new neighborhood (I remember the day, I spent an hour at the historical Mission Dolores chapel and sat talking to god in the pews while a girl my age sat ahead of me crying and all I could see was her wavy hair falling against her back). I put part of it away in you. Frankly, I didn’t even realize. I didn’t think it’d hurt so goddamn much! And now I’m getting it back, more than I had, but it’s all new and wonderful and bright and invisible (I’m learning that love will do that - you put something in and it comes out so much bigger on the other side) and I am just so much a creature of comfort. It scares me. But lots of days I’m more courageous than I knew. So, twenty five, I abandon all my ingenue ways! Well, not the charming ones - just the desperate.

Last summer I played out my fantasies of romance and mystique and adoration and play. The thing is, I’m greedy and I want more, I want you all to myself. But not really. I want you to go out into the world and love yourself and everyone else all the ways we loved. I want that for myself too. I guess not all the ways - save those three AM nights for me, will you? Oh, but everything else. Turn that gaze around, inwardly, the way you’d look at me head tilted ever so slightly, reaching in to pull out some unsolvable answer only you could retrieve. Give yourself the same inquisition. I’m doing it too, it’s only fair.

One would be amazed at all the worlds to be traversed within the walls of my bedroom. The large green one is best for envisioning fantasy while staring vacantly into space, though the other cream colored ones will do too. In my big comfy beanbag chair with the blankets draped over it (one is pink and cheetah print and I’ve had it since I was five, the other was knit by my great grandma) I sit and try to meditate but get lost in the swaying shadows cast by the foliage outside my window. In my bed with the red sheets, overlooked by my tigress tapestry and pink star lantern, I am truly the Princess of San Francisco and no one can tell me otherwise.

Sometimes at night I smoke out my window, enveloped in my canopy of trees, especially since the incident with the man with the switchblade when I was smoking in front one night at one AM. I always choose a song for ambiance - this is very important. Neil Young often brings me immense comfort in times of heartache. He tells it like it is and yet it still sounds so romantic and hopeful. Tonight the wind is howling so much it seems to be creaking every floorboard in my apartment and I just know the universe hears me. There is an innate, instinctual understanding between both parties when things are reciprocal, you don’t have to ask. Nobody can tell me what any of this means, I just have to learn for myself. Twenty five will be a year of seeking, both within my bedroom and out.