In Olympia

I am driving back from the store where I shopped quickly and moodily by myself. Ever was not with me. Neither Dakota Ian or Lola. Just myself. I ran my hands over food and breathed deeply and looked around to make sure no one was even acknowledging my existence and was thrilled to find they were not.

I had almost forgotten how not fit I am for here, suburbia of Poway. I love Poway. I have lived here a long time. There are memories in shopping center parking lots, in Starbucks, in many grey or pink houses, in apartments, in long stretches of road, in tucked away parks, in back alleys, in the creek, in the Alano Club.  I am Powegian. But I'm not one of them. It's easier to forget when my children are older. The things that make me strange aren't likely to come up, then, in casual conversation. I'm good at keeping things acceptable. I'm good, like anyone is who was bullied as a kid, at blending in.  I don't have to. No one's making me. I make me. Because I like to feel cozy, even if it is a big lie. Like anyone who had a bad childhood. This hurts, but it's familiar. Fine. Fine. Same. Same.  Are you still nursing her?  Is she ever leaving your bed? How can you guys go that long without a babysitter? I'd DIE. ( Please. Go right ahead. ) The looks. Sideways. The body shifting until the back meets my face.  The glances, the totally awkward conversations about mundane things that it takes real effort and dedication to be awkward about.  How can you be shocked at ME when you live in the adult world? My writing? My language? My thoughts? My children? The same world that contains stripping, dead images of Osama Bin Laden, Hooters, lung cancer from pollution, child molesters, Stephen King, drunk nights: and I shock you?  Have you ever read a novel in your life? Seen an R rated movie? Had a night out with adults? Had a real talk with friends about their lives?  The ladies of suburbia. The gentleman, not so much. They are mostly horny/overworked/totally subdued and looking forward to their after my wife goes to bed porn. They don't respond to stimuli much.  I like a good generalization as much as the next person.  

Suburbia. Holding so many who are excellent at managing their children's social calendars and discussing work related stress and housing disasters and that dang economy and yet somehow, in some way, have not swung their spirits into their adult lives, naked on the rope that goes out over the deepest part of the lake?  Where are the toys on the lawns? Perfectly manicured lawns. Today I pulled into our driveway and saw Dakota's ripstick, Ever's ball and Lola's bike on the lawn and it occured to me that ours is the only house I've seen on our very large block with toys on the lawn. Our lawn is fifty percent brown. We step on our lawn. We JUMP UP AND DOWN ON OUR LAWN.

When I went to school
in Olympia and everyone's the same
And what do you do with a revolution?
When I went to school
in Olympia and everyone's the same
We look the same, we talk the same
Baby, baby, baby, baby
Won't you please make me real oh no
Make me real oh no
Make me real oh no
Hurt me
I went to school in Olympia
everyones the same, and so are you! in Olympia
we look the same, we talk the same, we even fuck the same
Hey, hey, hey, hey
And what do you do with a revolution
I went to school in Olympia
Baby, baby, baby, baby
And everyone's the same

-Hole-

Mr Curry sang this to me late night. He was in the bathtub, reading, and I interrupted him, like I often do, to pour out my guts. I cried. He listened, book on his chest, getting wet around the edges. He sang this to me. Honey, he said, you don't fit in here. You live in the worst possible place to be you. It's not YOU. It's here. And you are awesome the way you are.  I looked at him and thought, for the millionth time, that I have never wanted anyone as much as I want him.

There is a dumbness, a dullness about me with certain things. My brain can be incredibly dull. Experience the same thing over and over and every time think, but how can that be?  I see it, hear it,

feel it, but cannot shake the feeling that it is too stupid to be true.  Too pointless or fucked up. When really all human life on this planet tells me exactly the opposite: that nothing is too fucked up to be true. Nothing is too wonderful either. People walk when they were told they never would. Babies are born when they were doomed to die. Lives are saved on the brink of death. Bacteria reginerates in a petri dish and we discover how to cure a disease. For example:

I'd like to do the stupidest smallest fucking things different without being treated like a total wackass. 

I drove home from the store and a tiny baby bunny was in the middle of the road, just sitting there, looking at me sideways. He could have fit in the palm of my hand, my God. So tiny. I stopped the car right in front of him. He looked my way, turned and hopped back into the big cluster of bushes and Spring blooming flowers in front of a two story house.  I just cried, I couldn't help it. The poor fucking BUNNIES of this world. What do they know? What do they know about cars and concrete and suburbia?  The mommy bunny can do nothing to keep her babies from running out into the big black river of concrete and getting ran over by a steel machine larger than life.  The baby bunnies can do nothing about not knowing about it all.  All I can do is slow down. Stop.

My husband says Stay close to home. Keep your eyes on  your family. We are where your life is. Our family is our world.  And it's true. And here- in this blog space time continueum, there is a world of you- a world of yous out there who are weird too, in the best possible way.  Weird because you are writers, painters, mother warriors, artist dads, subversives who drive what you want to drive and use the word fuck and have the biggest hearts of hearts, people who dance drunk and sing sober and sit in the bathtub naked and read while imagining how you will do the hard things good and do the good things so hard. 

I love you for that.