gIRL mess HC

Hair Care 4 gIRLs in and with class

Wait as long as you can to wash your hair

Strip off your tee, and honestly, just toss it; trash it; been yours for years but before that it was his and that cognition is there each time on/off, so it cannot be a rag

Let the water warm on your head

Do a scalp scrub even though it's hard to get in there with all that hair; tried a sample sized scalp scrub and next time will make my own with some ACV and sea salt combo

Shampoo with Mane 'n Tail, twice, using a scalp massaging shampoo brush

Put a hair masque on — another sample from Ulta with Shea butter and ACV; heavy application from nape of neck down and comb thru to distribute

Leave it for ten minutes or more, so shave or dance

Rinse really well

Rinse with ACV

Cold rinse

Quick brush and then air dry, sunroof open and windows down running errands on a very warm spring day

Wait as long as you can to wash your hair

Wait long enough to watch two movies, even though each movie takes you a few nights to finish

The Comfort of Strangers 

 

Jade

Decide to go into NYC for an adventure

Take the bin to the alley in case you spend the night in the city

Pull Oaxacan ceramic garden art out of garage to hang inside somewhere when you're back

Drive to NYC

Face rational fears about parking in the city 

 

Drive back, facing rational fears about the Holland Tunnel

Discover Radio Zindag ! before it fades out

Moon roof open for pink full moon light gathering

Flash of inspiration to rotate bed tomorrow

Tune to catch favorite song, this rendition by Stanley Turrentine

Stream KJazz to bring it on home

Don't brush out the city tangles quite yet, just teeth

Sleep 'Animal Pile' style with your kid and their stuffies

In the morning, strip the bed

Two cappuccinos

Few dishes, little laundry, bring in the emptied bin

Wear a thick headband and tease the crown

Reset your bedroom again, taking notes for class !!

Take your spring breaker across the Bay Bridge to order a white television for the new bedroom layout

Pick up your craziest lamp from the local lamp doctor

Run it home, set it up, biggest bulb, wipe it down, plug it in, tidy the wire

Back out for tortellini bolognese and a glass of chianti to watch the thunder storm

Mario Bros on the big screen

Hold a sticky hand the whole time

Apply rosemary oil to ends, working your way up the scalp

Massage head and neck with gua sha comb, then hands

Read in bed

Muse from bed

Allow LOVEly knowings to come thru

Text a bestie

Meditate into sleep

Get up @four:something

Thank a wave of panic for leaving

Pray for continued guidance

Two cappuccinos, back in bed with your laptop

Left hip talking?

Mantra per Louise Hay: Hip Hip Hooray — there is joy in every day. I am balanced and free.

 

Gather soft, smooth hair into low, loose pigtails

 

Walk under early morning grey skies and acknowledge how much you love where you live

Spy a stark white feather, then again !!!

Realize that to mother is to be willing and able to nurture oneself

Note the mailbox full of ants and leave them be

Prep deviled eggs for a feast later; invite a new friend to join

 

Blog in a straddle at the chabudai in the eating nook

Reluctant Medium recommends this hip opener

Wait as long as you can to wash your hair

Place Home/body Castile soap, scrubber mitts, scrubber sponge in shower for later 

 

55

SAT🪑
Washed all the components of the espresso machine and polished the electric kettle and made myself a dirty chai latte and now I'm going to make a second, so brb —

I will wash and polish in closing as well. I'll wait to know that there is not another, even though a third would surprise me, but let's leave a door open for wherever this sunny Saturday goes. The sun warms my back as I write at my desk. In my office! I hadn't really been using my office, but then I got a bookshelf and the energy of the room changed. Wouldn't you know?

Always a second (hot morning drink?). I do love pairs. Soon two barns will be where there is one. Just across the way. A walking path shall make a bridge. Do dig opposites, like old vs. new, heaven and hell, yin-yang. Love the tension between two entities, and by tension, I mean The Intangible Third. The elixir of life is 'made' by rubbing your palms together and pulsing 'your' bubble of creation. One plus one must make more than two, or sorry, it's a waste of (our) time. Ask Mother Earth and I imagine she'll confirm.

I was recently on a date with a man who told me (and believes) that he is one of the most eligible bachelors in the music art world. Before he told me this, I already knew that I was on A Practice Date. I dated a lot in my early thirties. I had a rhythm down for how I dated then. By 'rhythm,' I mean a code of self-conduct for that time and space when I was new to Adult Dating (very different from non-adult dating (and has nothing to do with being a legal 'adult')). My sons were babies. I was a brand-new Adult with a baby face. We're older now, all somewhat wiser (still have our buccal fat), and we're in different places, meaning a Different Place. Out here doing my best to speak for the trees, I thank my lucky stars for pushing me to get my Heidi on — or what my girlness remembers about Heidi — escaped to nature, fresh air & rosy cheeks, great dairy products, a ghost, miraculous healings, etc.

I didn't plan it (this is a total aside), but I've realized that I have been gearing up for a new dating rhythm. Soooo on this A Practice Date I did that thing that Adults of a particular age (integrated confidence) do, which is to clarify what I am looking for from the get-go. I feel it's clear I'm open-minded about much. And I shared a few key non-negotiables out of respect for us both. Then, and most importantly to me, I hand-talked my way through explaining my Core Desire to be supported in filling my cup from the streaming Intangible Third that my style of making love profusely generates.

Most Eligible Art Bachelor Honorable Mention #7 seems to want a hot girlfriend to coo over his dog, walk the dog lol, and help him translate bell hooks' "All About Love" from the lunar to the diluted solar.

Befores & Afters. I was born into a twisted love dynamic. I allowed my heart to be there in that thorn bush pattern beat into me as a girl. I always could tell what sweater I was wearing when a punch came (cold house) and the pattern would sink into my skin. Patterns do do that. The allowing was true, and in that truth, I became brave. So brave that I am outside of the thorn bush now. I grew up and and sprouted out. Rhizomatic bravery on a quest to connect the dots.

. spreading . without . a . traditional . hierarchy .

Truth morphs

    Another strong indication

I realize that I am at the end of one body of work and at the beginning of another (that I have really hoped to embody since I was a teenager locked in a room without a door). 

Stuffed clams and broiled asparagus on my tv dinner tray are fuel for learning how to watch movies home alone / held still (not up and up and up again, fussing in (inherited) refusal to relax (feel feelings)). 

Allowed to hold still. Safe with sound at an audible volume. No1 screaming and pulling the cord from the wall, 2 drunk / not brave enough to know why she's so angry-scared-mean to her children. Especially me, 4 whatever reason(s).

SUN🌅
Even though I napped yesterday, I sleep deeply and the room begins to leak sun when I get that tasty not ready to wake up & don't have to Energy.

    Uncurl from my sleeping ball

        Gratitude stretches when my heart hurts

A pang means a mind's eye visual of the crusty brown leaf falling away from the budding sprout as it does that first burst open, leaving, outside in nature

☉☉☉☉
☉ ☉ ☉ ☉
☉  ☉  ☉  ☉
☉   ☉  ☉   ☉
☉    ☉  ☉    ☉
☉     ☉  ☉     ☉
☉    ☉  ☉    ☉
 ☉   ☉  ☉   ☉
 ☉ ☉ ☉ ☉
  🍀☉☉☉🍀
   🍀🍀🍀
  🍀
 🍀
  🍀
   🍀
   🍀
  🍀🍀
    🍀
   🍀
  🍀

       

NEXT-THUR-MORN🌹

I have never been more tired in my life:

True        False

I have the space in my life to let the tired leave:

True        False

<bbtalk

52

Living in the space where the biggest boulder shifted and the dampness is prime for germination. Shall sprout after a bit of sun. I don't think they're creepy, but they will crawl away. Some prefer darkness over light. This truth provokes balance if we can sit with it. See ourselves in it. Sit integration. In meditation: Stillness is growth.

Unconditional (self) love. Work that works. This work is mothering turned inside-out. We can know a thing, and then we can really Gr❂w > G❁ > Kn❀w > Sh✿w

DATA > INFORMATION > KNOWLEDGE > WISDOM

I moved it

Aware of the shadow

One thing leads to another

Rungs of a ladder, or leaves on a twisting vine
Thick stalk, but I'm not horny, u r

☉FL*WER

sunflower

I remember being so self-conscious about my stretched out postpartum bellybutton when I started taking lovers. Each new lover licked it, lapped it up like they needed it. They do. We all crave getting back to the place where it seemed to start. Under the scab, in the jelly.

☉

Searching for my treasure, I work with omens. There's usually a symbol I use as a mile marker, a sign that I'm on the 'right' path. These symbols pick me. For a long time it was a star (lunar). Then it was a butterfly. Next a yellow taxi cab. And, at the airport, I realize it's now a sun with rays. Runshine. Mothersons.

Man in lounge in sweatshirt with painted sun on left shoulder. Man seated next to me, ball cap with embroidered sun. Driving, they're everywhere. Man darts into traffic wearing full sunflower sweatsuit. Correlated extension. Walking and more, everywhere. In Los Angeles, but this is something. Morning writing this at Silverlake coffee shop. Barista wearing Grand Canyon sweatshirt with large sun shining across the divide. Woman walks in with different sun-embroidered ball cap.

Mothering and the expectations on mothering are the wound from our orbiting womb boulder, all take and no give, no flexibility unless you are a bad bad bb. Something here about shining a light / solar power / divine masculine as if it's all that simple BUT CAN IT BE

?

.

.

.

FLUUUUU 4 DAZE

So hot I shake with chills. Legs drip sweat. Rivers behind knees, between legs. Head hurts. Lots. Top of head wants to be cut out. I feel a black sun sitting on my crown chakra. Black sun throbbing relentlessly. Pulsating like the refrigerator buzzing throughout this concrete home. I'm crashing. Soaking up the off-ness? Shedding too. I work to send light up through the black sun, my head, crown. I want to lift it up, take it off, open it up. Can barely move. I hallucinate extra when I'm sick like this. But I break through the center. A channel. The dark spikes remain. I think they're supposed to. The universal language spans the spectrum, and mothering, at least they insist, is loving unconditionally. Who?

I come to + cum 2 knowing =

LOS ANGELES HAS BEEN TRYING TO TEACH ME THE NECESSARY DARKNESS

Thx U other teacher I've dissed hard + maybe have a crush on cos I do that

45

,

I went out to the farm today with my third cousin who's kind of like an uncle figure, which is sweet, being that I inherited the farm from an uncle. And, it's pouring rain. My car is at the shop attempting to pass a Maryland inspection, which I thought, well, of course she would pass, then failed for three reasons. But I didn't know that then. And we're out at the farm, and we're driving, and he's like: I'm worried we're gonna get stuck. It's really rainy. And I'm like: We're not going to get stuck. And then, right as we said that, we realized we were stuck. So he calls his son, who happens to be in town, and I call the neighbor. I have neighbors on both sides. I know the one neighbor better than the other, and he's a landscaper, so I figure he has something, as we're not that stuck. And he comes over with his tractor. [A cigarette between his lips.] It's so funny — the men — they don't say anything to each other. They don't even make eye contact. My neighbor has a tow rope thing. It's not a rope, but I don't know what it is. It's like a band. Not a bungee — a canvas tow band? Hands it to my cousin, who just buckles it up. And they just, they just do this thing. And I'm watching them and I'm videotaping it because I'm still so tickled that it's a Tuesday and this is what I'm doing. So he just gives a tug and the car comes and they're not talking and they're not saying anything.

I don't know where it came from... old programming, most likely... but I say to my neighbor: Well, now I'm going to have to cook you dinner. And he says: And I don't have a problem with that. And he gets back in the tractor and we get back in the car and we go on with our day.

l
a
t  o  d  a  y
e
r  e  p  o  r  t  I N g

Hey,

I guess I'm just really, I'll say the word realizing, but what I really mean, is settling into — accepting — the fact that I'm always going to love you. I always have and I have to accept that I always will. Until, maybe, I won't? But that love — there's nothing to do with It. I'm a doer, and there's nothing to do. It's not broken. It doesn't need to be fixed. And It doesn't need to be experienced. There's nothing to do with It. It just Is. It's almost like Its own entity. It's just being It, and accepting that is pretty fascinating. 

And I find myself wanting to tell you: I love you. And then I say: Why do you need to say that? You know that. And I don't need to hear 'I love you' back, because, I know that. And so there's this big thing that just Is. And it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that we're supposed to be together. It doesn't... It doesn't mean anything. It's just being what It IS. !

I think that's pretty cool. Cool, as in, actually * what * is * happening * It doesn't matter what I think of It, It just is being what It Is. Isn't that wild?

caretaking

 vs.

stewardship

 4

land

 &

men

Detaching the It from you, reignition, sparking alive, remembering. Worn into acceptance when striking It from my To Do List, ticking off my previous belief that I am the one who needs to fix big things previously perceived as unworking — when clearly they work because they Really R Real. Three. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

I want to make love for days, like Four (in-a-row). Who would you be without that thought? But I don't care to deal with the before or after. There is nothing I need / want / care to say, besides sometimes this feeling of (heart-felt (feels)) expression: I love you. Meaning, I love Love. Allowing, Love.

This really is true: As of today, I have no desire to make two cappuccinos tomorrow morning, unless they're both for me, spaced about ten minutes apart. Without that thought, I might be like my client, who checked-in after farm-stuck and car-fail. We talked about land * illness * ♡ * embryos. She desires nothing more than to make a second cappuccino, or a sandwich (a bottle). I don't think it's a *grass is always greener* thing. It's about energy, excess energetic reserves, and over on the other end — depletion.

1. Conventional vs. not ?

2. Is my soil depleted ? 

3. Is my nervous system ? 

4. 5th grader, pinkie-nursing babies, drinking drip coffees. I think I've told you this before, but a mom up the street would french braid my hair before the school bus came. Almost every morning. I would trade her mother's helper time after school 4 my fix. It's the ritualized aesthetic that gets you through trials (of being your mother's live-in helper?).

   

whoremoans
+  
lived experience

__

10.31.22 👻

tarot on the front porch of the B&B
tip jar full

11.01.22

painters slow start

    I miss my Los Angeles guy but he's my guardian angel

lawyers — discovery review — add two questions 

owner and handyman come over

discuss the ghost

dad arrives

hangs out for a bit — likes the place — ready to farm 

meet dad at the farm

get stuff out of shipping crate — family relics 

head home for Hunter the locksmith

    so many doors between house and garage

walk into town 

ring the bell of a new pal's place for a quick hello 

11.02.22  👻

up all night again

shower, hot water trying

moka pot to go 

    & my water bottle

neighborhood walk wet leaves smell real

going to trade sessions with Tarra

boiler maintenance; parts ordered

lawn mowed

    not the yard clean up I thought was happening, but a precursor 

painters painting blue trim white

    painting Espresso Bean below bedroom wainscoting

washing machine maintenance is cool and gross
2 farm

walk the farm

discuss fence maintenance and property lines

day of the dead indeed

    graveyard calls: graves have been located

check on duck blind

into town

portobello sandwich, to stay

    dad won't picnic in the cemetery

clean the graves of great grandparents

head home, dad heads home

plumber swings by to replace primary bath sink drain

    the sink on the left had been leaking on the floor 

glossy yellow lily to match the shiny deco tiles

paint the cabinet too, my whole world within a world thing

borrowed chairs

antique glance for my new desk — not there

relics getting air, another night of air

lamps will need to be rewired; where ?

deep clean tomorrow, an all day exercise

new friend coming to walk

want angels on the ceiling, I think I know who will know someone

    yes, her daughter when she comes home

realize I have interacted with at least three grasshoppers or grasshopper adjacent creatures over the last two days

dinner 

discuss the 👻's brother and bible study ?

21

I am playing with broad stereotypes in energy — the feminine and the masculine. I know these words will be garish in time for they already feel on the outs and their ugliness is a part of their appeal.

    Apart of the Appeal 🍎

Slowing the flow on the bundle of wire rushing into my office router or modem — I don't know the difference and maybe will look it up — and using that example as permission granted to recalibrate my expectations for this earthly experience, because I know I've been here more than I ever wanted to be.

I have loved a man for years now and I have *no idea* if we are a *good match*
I haven't and don't care about the out there in time and space because I love him deeply, now. I just always have. Love at first sight is a purity, so tell me if ? how ? where ? trauma bonds interconnect with pheromones, with past lives, souls, karma?

He comes from a huge family. He's been at a family wedding in a remote mountain town. Nice communication still coming through. Lots of snippets. Some are appealing and others scare me off. Many make me feel tired in my brain. Maybe more scare me off than appeal? Which is why I am here and not there; he already knew. He often knows things before my circuitous process lands me there. He thinks in the masculine's straight lines, so he knows if we *end up together* and we don't talk about it. Or better yet, he thinks in mountains — in steep ups and crash downs.

Masculine and feminine. Solar and lunar. I find these edges useful for placing myself in time and space, because this is the summer that I stopped wanting ? needing ? to clean the house. Stopped Tolerating, so what happens now? In many ways I was brought up as an indentured servant. By the time I was ten, like my eldest is now, I could care for an infant for hours and very often did. I could clean the entire home and had to endlessly. It was my job to iron my father's work shirts with heavy starch. I set the table to clear the table and packed all the lunches the night before. Pack the espresso into the Italian moka pot with the backside of a spoon and turn on the small back gas burner. Wait for the percolation to begin. Wait for the sound to stop. Burner off and pour it into the brown espresso cup with a matching saucer so he could escape his wife's madness and go write upstairs. An office tucked away from It all. I washed my own laundry and much of the household's. I changed the beds. I bathed the babies. As my brothers got older I always tried to answer their questions, often asked from the bath, with honesty.

This love says I talk to my boys as if they're adults.

This love only really comes clean in the bathtub. I've learned that the masculine does best without direct eye contact. Driving. Tandem bathing. Ass pressed into; arms wrapped around; bubbles and hair sudsing; strong fingers. Many long distanced live from the tub chats. Show me.

These Summer '22 heat waves flash back to lockdowns and I don't want or need to keep an outrageously clean home. My, so organized it all goes back together again with focus. But there are days of living mess left to pile on top of the messes prior. I've been unfocused on the couch for three nights now. Staycation because I cannot be bothered to hang everything up, to clear the bed enough for fresh sheets. The *dirty* sheets are now clean, hanging out in the dryer. Fluff and fold seems too much. I am labored. Put the pale blue birds away, intending to bring back the black paisleys. There's not enough energy, which is my truth. All those siblings' babies needing care up in the Alps. He says they all love being parents more than anything else. He thinks this is true. Okay then.

I teach myself everyday not to compare my life's plot to my sons' lot. I strive for age appropriate autonomy and nothing more. It's morning here and very hot. We're inside and I have the oven preheated to 350°. I've asked Ro to please take a box of frozen mini croissants and read the directions to bake them. Call us when they're ready. He seems so uncertain of this request. Why do I test? He cannot figure it out, or doesn't want to actually, so he doesn't. He's scared of the oven, scared of anything that can burn him. He leaves the little frozen croissants on top on the tray announcing he's not doing anything else. Heads back to his room. I try not to think about what would have happened if I said, No. I don't want to. Like I am now. Or maybe I should think about it? Maybe it doesn't matter anymore, like it really doesn't matter that there are clothes all over my adult bedroom and I don't mind sleeping on this really big couch. The oven timer will go off in 25 minutes. Seems like a long time for little minis to bake.

It surprises me when the timer dings and Ro comes trotting in to take them out, then asks how to set the timer for two more minutes? He's pressing lots of buttons, lots of beeping on this dinky rental stove. I get up and walk over to help him help me.

Two more minutes.
Cos mama, they're not golden brown yet like the box says they should be.

delayed gratification farm/work spring/time

Expectation determines outcome. A quantum leap is loosening the grip and trusting enough to relax into the reveal. That has to be about alchemy. I've been too busy burning up alchemizing that I'm burnt out on (house) keeping it together. Keeping this together is missing the point.

There's a pile of returns stacking up by the front door. Shockingly, it all belongs to my mother. Now who saw that one coming?

*I do. We are / and are not \ because he's my cosmic nudge >>

icy hot

l a v e n d e r
d i r t y
c h a i

⁕

i c e d

espresso

2 teas
milk

ice

steep two tea bags

one chai and one lavender-based

such as a tulsi masala chai and a chamomile & lavender

in a few inches of boiling water

let them be

meanwhile
pull a double shot of espresso
let it be

give the milk you love a good shake

fill a tall ceramic Tumblr with spring water ice cubes

gently squeeze the tea bags

toss

pour the espresso over the ice


then
the
tea


top with cold frothy milk


sprinkle cinnamon on top


insert a bamboo straw


you're off to the races 

⁕

pairs well with
a good old fashioned bird bath top off

paces

12

Couldn’t sleep. My legs so restless, sharp jolts all through my limbs, arms too, keeping me awake and it’s annoying. No magnesium fizz here, I’m across town, he’s back in the rental, this time sweeter to return to something semi-familiar. Like the farm this last go-round, my fourth visit since, a whole week's dedicated stay, despite all the crazy. The old farmhouse is Crazy's HQ, just begging to be gone. There's an order to efficient madness. Soon, rest assured.

Finally fall asleep and wake up wrapped up. Play, play, pack, coffee-walk. I don’t bring my phone with me. I’m paying but not ordering, so I get to sit outside at a small folding table in the early sun. My eyes focus on ants between the slats, busy on the bricks. Then a tiny spider on a wooden slat, creeping closer. Still waiting in line, he delivers a sprig of rosemary. I rub it between my palms and dab the oil on my pulse points. Slow stroll with a scone I’ll save for salted butter and hot honey. Goodbye and then he’s calling my name; my phone. Errands, boy retrieval, home to turn off the phone. Too much screen time has crept in.

They're happy playing in the cool house with a castle they were ready to donate then changed their minds about. This cardboard castle is the hub for the mythological creatures I collect on their behalf. I recently added a knight and unicorn to the mix, discovered in an Easton toy store. I meditate on the hill where I watered this week by linking 🔗 two hoses.

I was standing up there, seeing the ivy surrounding the clearing, the ivy caked with city dirt, fallen oak leaves and now-useless cobwebs. I wished for a hose long enough to reach. I’ve never watered up here. Never thought about it. Oh — wait. I have two hoses of the same make and this will be fun. Screw them together and the boys help me snake the now-one very long hose up the hill. The ivy loves it and I do too, feeling big movement. I feel very helpful.

Like I clean in a loop inside, through the front half of the house and then around back, I water in a loop outside, going from the hill all the way behind the garage for also the very first time. I went nuts, watering the undersides of the trees, brushing the backs of their teeth.

A storm blew through the farm after I left. A mini twister came down the road and spun onto the land, taking out electrical poles I'd scheduled to bring down, and uprooting a 3/4 dead maple that needed to go. The twister nearly misses the farmhouse, tossing a trunk onto her roof.

While I cannot clear the debris myself, I can rinse the dirty-dry patches that I'd never considered dealing with before they ask me for some TLC.

boys > farm > boys < home < boys

listen

hill DIRT
behind the garage dirt
PILES of the paperwork spread across the office floor
debris scattered around the farm

Jung asks his soul what the wait is about
and she scoffs at his expectation for ripeness yesterday.

🍌 LOW HANGING FRUIT