Posted June 6th, 2004 by Michelle

I planted a garden today. My yard is just awful, in a way, filled with dried goopy grass and, I found out, a million tree roots, and it seems as though nothing wants to grow. So I spent a few hours tilling a 5 X 5 spot, splitting the dried earth and snapping the roots. I have a humungous tree in my yard, one that no one yet has been able to identify, and the root system stretches past my yard and into my neighbor’s. Every time I snapped a root, I smiled sheepishly up into the towering tree. “We have to coexist here, and you seem to have plenty of space,” I thought. “Why don’t you give me just this little patch?” So after several long hours of hard labor, I now have four different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, two kinds of squash, butterleaf lettuce, sage, basil, parsley, chives, and dill. They are half in the ground and half in planters and I dearly hope they don’t die.

I am sitting in my new writing studio, composing my first blog ever from my new home. The late afternoon sun is gilding the leaves on the trees that surround this property and Fezzik, my 12-year-old cat, is sitting in the window. He hasn’t stopped purring since he moved here, except for when strangers have entered the house and he’s run under the bed. I’m pretty sure he’s purring under there, too. My mom was here all day yesterday and this morning and she helped me plot out the garden. The most perfect breeze is blowing into my house, I have a garden and a cat and a family and yet I’ve been so sad today.

I’ve not ever been good at sitting with grief, but today I’m wondering why I have to. Isn’t is possible to just see that what you had was wonderful, and to know that someday it will all be good yet again? I guess two big blows in one week- one financial and the other emotional- is ample reason to not feel ducky. And tomorrow I will go stand up for myself in the most diplomatic but powerful way possible, and there is a slim chance in hell that the job will still work out. Doubtful, but I guess it’s possible.

I called my baker today and left him a message that was much braver than I feel right now. Here is what I’d really like to tell him:

I planted a garden today that you will never see. You will never cook for me from this garden. That is so strange, that you were here, and you will never be here in this spot again. When you were here, the valley seemed larger, somehow. You pushed the mountains and stretched the valley until it felt vast, and wonderful, and filled with things to see. Even my new home expanded, big enough to fit the two of us. Now that you are gone, the mountains have returned to close me in. I almost want you to stop calling me, because in the hours between I start to get my life back and then you call and it halts my momentum. I am not heartbroken, or devastated, or even very sad, really. I just loved having you around. It’s so quiet without you here.

You will move on, quickly even. Believe me. You may be enlightened beyond your years but I have almost a decade of actual living on you and I know far better what will happen. You will move on and I will move on and we will both find people better suited to us. You even know this is true. You will find a woman with a little more bohemian left in her, and I will find a man who would be willing to plant a garden because he’ll be around long enough to see it bear fruit. We were in no way perfect for each other, but we were good for each other. There is every chance our paths will cross again- god knows we’ve been in enough places at the same time before even meeting. But until then, get the hell out of here, out of this country, and go find what you are looking for. I know you won’t forget me.

And, ladies and gentlemen, hopefully that closes the blogging chapter entitled “The Baker”. Next week, look for “What To Do When Offered Far Less Money Than You’re Worth”. I’m hoping that’s the blog I’ll be able to write, as opposed to “What NOT To Do…” Also, “Is DIRECTV Worth It When All You Do Is Listen To Music On Your TV?” and other scintillating topics. At least I won’t be whining about my former man.

Posted June 4th, 2004 by Michelle

In a stunning twist of fate, the new opportunity was thrilling, engaging, and excellent, and also, ultimately, incredibly short on funds. I’ve not yet given up complete hope, and have another meeting on Monday, but the money I was offered was so far from the mark that I hardly was able to keep my composure. And now I realize that one of the only reasons I’ve been able to handle the job I have now was the prospect of leaving as soon as this bigger, better thing finally worked itself out. I’m suddenly now thrown back into the sea of possibility (and that’s looking at it positively) of what else I might do with my time here. I do not want to stay at my present job for very long- where I am belittled, and ordered around, and talked down to. Oh yeah, and where I don’t make enough money to live. I feel abandoned a little bit, by both my man and this possibility, and it makes for a crummy day.

I know I need to move on from both, even as I still work through both, but it’s hard when you feel like… well. I feel like I deserve some good stuff to happen to me. Let me rephrase that. I feel as though I’ve put in a hell of a lot of work and I would like to see some results, on sort of a grander scale. I am so willing to work so hard and sometimes it feels as though I’m just wading through sticky mud.

In fact, sometimes I just don’t know what more I can do. I don’t know if I can try any harder, or work any harder, or wish any harder, or believe any more deeply.

Posted June 3rd, 2004 by Michelle

I had the great delight and utter misfortune of seeing The Latest Catastrophe Flick starring The Latest Actor You Haven’t Seen In a Long Time and Here’s Why. It’s that “Day After Tomorrow” or “Yesterday’s Gone” or “Tomorrow is Never Today” or whatever movie. I’m not going to spoil it for you, because that is by definition IMPOSSIBLE, but I will agree that the special effects are pretty forking cool. However, in a tent, post-apocolyptic, having just lost his best friend (oh, the agony), Dennis Quaid actually says, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. It depends on if we learn from our mistakes.” Looks down, shakes his head, pauses pregnantly. “I only hope I learn from mine.”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. But I was captivated when tornadoes destroyed Los Angeles.

My man drove for 20 hours STRAIGHT yesterday. He didn’t stop until he was in Montana at his friend’s campground. Apparently he threw his sleeping bag pad onto the ground and fell asleep right next to his Jeep. He’s been very good, called me ten times at least already, but he’s gone. And not really mine anymore.

It’s been a torturously boring day at work, filled with sludge and dredge, oily and smelly and slow. However, I have a big fat meeting tonight, with a big fat opportunity, and I hope it knocks loudly.

My advice to you: eating popcorn and M & M’s for dinner is BAD NEWS. I promise.

Posted June 1st, 2004 by Michelle

My love is gone

His boots no longer by my door

He left at dawn

And as I slept I felt him go

Returns no more

I will not watch the ocean

Although, in his case, it would be Birkenstocks rather than boots, and the ocean is the gravel that covers my driveway. He’s not gone yet, not until tomorrow morning, but I don’t think either of us are really looking forward to tonight, our “last” night together. He still insists it is just the beginning. I know better. He knows I know better.

What is it like, being 23 years old? What does it mean to wake up each morning having lived only 23 years? When I was 23, I had just met Wayne, just graduated from college, and had no clear idea who I was. I moved to Chicago, did a bunch of terrible shows and a couple great shows. I flew to Kansas City about twelve times that year on Southwest Airlines. (Can’t imagine life before Jet Blue.) I called my brother Sean so many times because I was so terribly lost, and befuddled by my own actions. God. 23. I can’t even imagine.

Well. I’m curious to see how I feel tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and how exactly I will move on. My stomach is in knots.

Posted May 28th, 2004 by Michelle

This is one of those days that I’m paid to sit in a chair, at a certain place, for a certain number of hours. This is the corporate America that makes my teeth itch. A couple of days ago, Sean said, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t go to Africa?” in light of my baker, my job opportunities, my new house, my friends. “It’s not that simple,” I replied. I’m not “glad” that I didn’t go to Africa, because that is an entirely different path I can’t even imagine right now. I know that right now, if I were in Africa, I would be thinking, “I can’t believe I almost didn’t do this”. It may sound phony or trite but even love does not outdo a calling. I’ll have to reconcile all of this someday.

And, like I said, love is easy when the other person is leaving forever, and not just because of the freedom it creates. The day my baker told me he was leaving was to be the day that I talked to him about our relationship. He has traits, practices that would have been an issue if we had more time together. Everyone can’t believe how well I’m taking his leaving, but the fact is, we aren’t entirely ready to be together. I don’t know if he’ll grow out of these things; I don’t know if it’s youth or if it’s just the way he’ll always be. It’s also a huge defensive maneuver on my part because he is 23, passionate, wild, and moving to Europe for several years. I am going to let him go. Completely, cleanly, clearly, let him go. And allow myself to go, too. No matter what it feels like to be around him, to wake up next to him. No matter.

If I were in Africa, I would not be paid to sit in a chair and write to all of you every day. That was my point. If I were working in service, I might be miserable, but I wouldn’t be paid to sit in a chair.

If I were in Africa, I would not have gone to the Farmer’s Market this morning and bought heirloom tomato plants to start my garden. Nor would I have put seeds in my bird feeder, nor would I have seen three hot-air balloons in the morning sky above my cottage. I mean, I’m not a fool. I know a good thing when I see it.

Posted May 26th, 2004 by Michelle

I’ve had all kinds of conflicting feelings about my locale these last few days. A friend from New York, after hearing about some of the things going on in my life here in California, said he was sad because it sounded like I’m not coming back any time soon. He’s right. I cannot imagine leaving this place. It’s frightening, a little, because I am afraid of becoming soft, but then I think about how hard things have been for so long and then I know that I’m doing the right thing. But what does it mean to not live in New York? I am away from where life is hard but therefore more striking. The mountains blend into the blue here while in New York the buildings defy the sky.

My cottage, which is wrapped in nodding wildflowers, is in Rutherford, California, population 516. Make that 517, including me. There is no mail carrier, and I just got off the phone with the local post office (which is half a block from my home). The guy at the office told me that he’d make sure that any mail addressed to my street address would find its way into my new little mailbox. My phone is costing me $10.46 a month which includes unlimited local calling. And it took one day to get turned on. When filling out my lease, my landlady kept asking what each line meant and saying that we didn’t need to bother with most of it. At the end of our meeting, she signed her copy, I signed mine, and she told me to keep the one I had just signed. Every morning, there are birds waiting patiently at the as-of-yet empty bird feeder in my yard (I have a yard!) because they know that eventually I will get around to buying a big bag of seeds.

My friends are the best I’ve ever known. Jon in particular shames the rest of us because we know we will simply never be the kind of friend that he is, no matter how hard we try. Last week, before I had fully moved in, Jon waited at my new place for my bed to be delivered since I had to be at work. But when I got home, he had not only installed the bed (with his own sheets and pillows), he had also bought, framed, and hung beautiful pictures and covered the place in candles, flowers, and gifts. It was incredible. My baker showed up an hour later with wine and flowers and felt completely outdone. But the rest of us mere humans cannot compare with an immortal like John. And he is one of the handful of brilliant people who I love and who love me out here.

I am doing nothing to get myself back on stage. I am doing nothing to even get myself back to New York. I hardly even think about it, except when I have deep moments of longing for the company of my brothers and sisters and breakfast at the farmhouse. But I’m sleeping at night, so I think I’ll keep heading down this path. It’s just that the path is unfamiliar and really, unthinkable a year ago. I made a Christmas wish not even six months ago that feels like it was made in another lifetime. I guess it’s yet another lesson in impermanence, but you never believe how radically your heart can change until you look back and see where you’ve been.

Posted May 25th, 2004 by Michelle

I went camping this past weekend and it was glorious. My baker (how funny, that with all the things this man is, we still refer to him as the baker) and I went 1100 miles- South Tahoe, Yosemite, desert, mountains, lakes, rivers, deer, magpies, hawks, hot springs, cold nights, polenta cakes by the fire (he is a chef, after all) and love beneath the sun and the stars. We spent three days driving and stopping, hiking and camping, and savoring our last weeks together. He is leaving next week, Tuesday being our last night together, and I just can’t believe it. I fought this for so long, fought him and myself and did my absolute best not to care about this person and he waded through it just for the chance to tell me I’m beautiful. He has given me more in less than two months than any man of my life. In my world of dating and relationships, he has been the one. Of course, it’s easy to love when you know that person is leaving you. I’m no idiot about that. Since the moment he decided to leave, we have given ourselves carte blanche to adore each other. It has erased my fears and put me face to face with actually loving someone enough to let them go. It’s a strange feeling. I’ve told him that the minute he leaves, our lives are our own and we should live them as we please. He speaks of not wanting to love again, and of seeing me again, and what can I say? I’ve lived almost 9 years longer than this man and while he is the most evolved specimen I’ve ever met, I know what is coming to him. I know what it is like to be young and passionate and filled with wanderlust.

I don’t know how long I can last at this job. Several days in a row I came in to my work and my boss’ first words were what I had done wrong the day before. The politics of this place are overwhelming- I can’t ask for help without someone telling me I’ve asked the wrong person. Trying to get anything accomplished is like punching through huge, sticky marshmallows- it’s impossible to reach the target and you get covered with shmeg trying. It’s tragic, really, because this place, this program could be great and I get roadblocked every time I attempt to make anything happen. My boss actually spoke of demoting me the other day because a student did something stupid and she believed it was my fault. If you were to ask the people I actually work for and with, they would say I’m invaluable, but the persons lording over me have no real concept of what I do. I guess this is Corporate America but clearly it is not for me. I don’t necessarily do this well. I can, I mean, I can do it brilliantly, but whenever I bow down I can’t sleep that night.

There is yet another huge possibility, career-wise, that is happening outside of this place. I’m barely smart enough to know that I can’t write one more thing about it, but this could be it. The merging of all the good things I’ve ever done. I’ll know more in the next couple of weeks, and even if it happens I won’t be able to write about it. However, it is hope, and goodness, and for good people, and it could be that thing I’ve been working towards. No, it’s not a Broadway show, nor a staff writing job, nor an incredible service opportunity, nor a chance to talk about and sell wine. It could actually be all of those things.

I’m hoping to plant a garden next weekend- tomatoes and squash and herbs and flowers. It will be a good project for my first weekend without my man. And hopefully Fezzik (my cat, not the giant) will be joining me soon, too. Comparatively poor company, but I’ll take what I can get.

Posted May 14th, 2004 by Michelle

There has been something huge happening every single day for the past couple of weeks and it is amazing how time falls away each day. In my case, time does not slip, it hurtles. Work has been difficult at best, challenging in good ways but ultimately the pain in my ass factor is larger than the satisfaction factor. I’m doing my best to roll with it but when I get an evaluation from my boss and she’s marked “above average” on my work performance, I realize I’m just wasting time. Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves to show her the excema dotting my arms. I’m literally covered in stress. Above average? Above average my ever-firming ass. I do excellent work, even when I screw things up, but I am unable to play the politics to the level she’d prefer and so I’m demoted to “above average”. If I ever do anything above average, I’d like to be, as they say, taken out back and shot. Or at least beat up. I don’t care to live like that.

I’m also working on another project for a different company that I hope will turn out to be a big opportunity. The work is challenging but satisfying, and I’m good at it. There just hasn’t been enough time. I was hoping to be done with it by now. Alas. I also finished my EMT refresher course, which was not a great use of time, but at least as soon as I get my notification in the mail, I will be recertified and I can start volunteering on a bus around here. That will be good times. First, though, I need to get the latest coursebook and actually refresh myself. I learned about 10% of what I need to remember in this class, and it is not nearly enough to start trusting myself with other people’s lives. It was great to be in that environment again, however- surrounded by EMS folks, nurses, firefighters (!)- the emergency community is good company. I’ve missed it.

And my baker- full of surprises, most of them good. He is so lovely, so sweet, so good to me, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job of just enjoying it. I have moments of doubt and fear but they are so much shorter and have much less impact than in any of my relationships past. There are times in the day that I like him more. I don’t know how to explain that, but in the mornings, I think he’s the best thing since SCUBA gear. I still like him an awful lot in the afternoons and evenings, but in the mornings he is so clear-eyed, so driven, so focused, and so adorable. There are things about him that give me pause, that are directly related not to our age difference itself but to the knowledge and choices those years bring. So it’s almost, almost easy to just enjoy and have good fun rather then getting caught up in the sturm and drang of a relationship.

I’m missing Anastasia in Vanuatu, and Hayley in New York, and even my friends here who I haven’t seen in far too long. But I’ve just signed a lease on a new apartment, a cottage really, here in town, so it looks like I’m sticking around for a little while. I’ll have to get everyone here to visit me. Any takers?

Posted May 8th, 2004 by Michelle

I don’t know how long I’ll get away with writing because an embargo has been placed on computers at my wine dinner. Sometimes there simply, simply is no time to write. This week feels like one of those when I was in Citrus Singers- so ultimately busy and exhausting that there is no time.

Posted May 1st, 2004 by Michelle

I don’t have a digital camera, so I cannot visually represent this evening. I could tell you about my feet, how utterly lousy with filth and pain they are, but far more interesting is that Jordana Davis is officially my sister-in-law. The wedding was more beautiful, more extraordinary, and far more fun than I can possibly describe here, particularly since I’m weak with drink and dance. Seriously, I can’t spell, and my arms keep falling off my laptop. I would have eaten a bowl of cereal but I couldn’t lift the box. So I’m off to sleep, with wedding stories having to wait until I can think and write more rationally.

Quick favorite moments? Sean and Jordi waltzing to Ian and I singing. My great Aunt Donna dancing with Lindsay Bowen. Kent dancing all night. My mom’s yellow dress. Tessa and I dancing with a long scarf and one Scott Bullock. More than anything? Sean and Jordana both looking so beautiful it hurt.