Elsa

#tb to the pure joys of public transit and its patrons:

HOWEVER.  The woman at the very end of this video is named Elsa and here is a nice, long story about her and our meeting that I happen to like a lot.

When asking if she could sit by me, she touched my arm, which immediately endeared her to me. (Not a recommended method for males on public transit, btw. I mean, it will endear you to a cold glare and my pepper spray and that's about it.)

I pretended to keep reading (Anna Karenina for those of you curious) while trying to figure out this elderly lady safely from the corner of my eye: around 80 yrs old...clothes are simple but nails done...Clip-on earrings... aaaand she's pulling out a tube of Chanel. Okay now I'm smiling to myself.

She was so warm & friendly at every opportunity that I was reminded that I don't always need to be closed in on myself in public situations. I probably miss out on a lot of great conversations.  (Also spare myself potential death. Also couldn't help but wonder how gullible she was, cause who is willingly that open and sweet on a bus to San Francisco with these...folks? For all she knows, I'll be the next one the driver is yelling at to calm down or she'll pull over and hit my eject button).

Well, one question snowballed into another and over the next 45 minutes I found out her story. Born in Peru, she was working for NASA when she graduated high school. Her boss told her she would make more $$ if she learned English and offered to connect her w/a job in Washington DC. "What do you do when you finish school?" She had a very strong Spanish accent.  "You adventure. So I adventured."

She flew to Washington DC at 19 for her big girl job w/out knowing a word of English.  When I asked how things went, she leaned in to my arm like she was sharing a secret and said "I got married within 2 years!" and laughed like she'd fallen for the worst trap of all adventuring girls.  Her husband didn't speak a word of Spanish, either.  "Spoke the language of love, eh?" I asked.

17 years ago he said he was done, that he didn't love her anymore, and he left her with nothing but the mortgage payments for a house he stripped clean, 2 daughters, and no job.  Having never managed their checkbook, she got a job at Neiman Marcus and another as a secretary, and finished raising her girls alone.  I showed her how to navigate photos on her iPhone so she could show off her 2
daughters, now working for GE in Sacramento and dancing with the New York Ballet, and 1 granddaughter, in ballet lessons of her own.  She still has a huge family back in Peru that she has visited a couple of times, but they don't want to come here.

 She showed me her SF hotel reservations her daughter had printed for her, and insisted I send her an email right there while she watched me, so she could have my contact to invite me to visit her "old, small but filled with love" house in Virginia.  I thought she was just being friendly, until I realized she was seriously watching me, waiting for me to get out my phone to email her.  Ha!

When a little old lady grabs your arm, looks you in the eye with a thick Spanish accent and says "You come.  You come to see beautiful Virginia, and you stay with me" the way she said it, you will hear "come fill your soul with my wonderful Peruvian food and be my grandchild" and find yourself mentally scanning your calendar without knowing what's happening.  

After the bus stopped, I asked if she knew where to go and she had no idea.  While she waited for her luggage to unload, I felt a sense of responsibility for seeing her safely into a cab and went in search of the bus driver.  By the time I'd given up and went back to make sure she hadn't been mugged, she was trekking away down the sidewalk, luggage in tow, smiling and waving back at me with her classy little head scarf on.  She yelled that she knew where to go and that was the last I saw of her.  Other passengers saw our exchange and when I looked at them like "well, guess I'm not as needed as it seemed" they laughed.

 I reminded myself that in that 80 yr old body was a 19 yr old Peruvian girl who had uprooted her entire life for the sake of opportunity and adventure and never looked back. She had the house she had worked hard to pay for and repair along the way, and an incredible family now taking care of her that she raised herself in a foreign country.

Anyway, she emailed me back.. Twice. Once to tell me she had made it to her hotel and that her room was lovely, and the second time to tell me she was back in Virginia.

"Dear Ms. Sara, please let me know when you are ready to visit [name of town], VA, my dream house (small old house, but will always welcome you) and your family. I had a wonderful time. Saludos!" 

This is me committing to make more friends like Elsa. <3

(My next post will be a photo of Elsa's kitchen table, an empty plate and my full heart, thank you very much and goodnight.)

Leaving Was the Best Decision I've Made In Years!

About a month ago, I moved back to Midtown Sacramento.  There hasn't been any update or writing from me because I needed to let the dust settle in my brain.  Quite frankly, I wanted to re-start on my own terms and re-build after clearing away the excess.

Though a hefty chunk of my motivation for blogging about my recent move is so I can Instagram my new place with reckless abandon, writing really plays a huge role in my emotional well-being.  Thank you, fearless reader, for your contribution and sacrifice.

The leap from Fresno to SF was a story of faith, miracles and awesomeness in itself, and I learned a whole heck of a lot about what our God will do for His kids when they ask for something. I had spent my savings in transitioning to Fresno, and when the time came where boyfriend and I were on the same page about moving, I had no means to make it happen.  With no potential job or ideas for one, no money, and no place to go, choosing one of the most expensive living areas and competitive job markets in the entire world was ludicrous. Still, I felt God telling me to fast (something I had never done in the context of asking Him for something), and knew that I was about to see a new facet of how He works.  So, while working at a piano store and Starbucks (this Starbucks), I fasted food and social media for over a week.  Oddly enough, being out of touch with social media was the most in touch with life and reality I've ever felt.  You know what I'm talkin' about.

 A week and a destined Craigslist ad later, I was jumping back and forth from Fresno to SF for multiple job interviews at one company.  When I was open w/Starbucks manager about potentially moving soon, she said she had to take me off the next 3-week schedule to prevent an opening on the floor if I left in the middle of it.  (Of course. Sure.)  Trying not to feel punished for doing the right thing wasn't easy at that point, but I understood her position. (This pill would have been easier to swallow if the new schedule didn't start THE NEXT DAY.) However, I had gone in to work that morning with the surreal feeling that it was my last day (I have a text I sent to boyfriend that morning as proof), so when those words came out of her mouth my brain entered an oddly satisfying twilight zone. It was like I was watching my own life get more ridiculous.  "Please fire me.  Please do something drastic and unexpected; it will be a great plot twist right now."  When life gets weird, I reach a point where those twisted thoughts happen.  Currently calling it the "bring it on! DO YOUR WORST CAUSE THIS JOURNAL ENTRY WILL SIZZLE" phenomenon.

There were a couple of floaty, jobless days between previous job and hearing from potential new one, where I had no idea where my life was going.  All I knew was that this ride was going somewhere, and that it would catch me in a couple of days. It hasn't dropped me yet, so I would hold on tight. There was no panic. (If you know me, let us revel in this together. Cheers to miracles.)  Good thing I didn't bail (where would I have jumped?! Let's be real, everything around me might as well have been lava) because I got a call a couple days later saying I had the job in SF and could start ASAP.  My Fresno roommate found a replacement for me the same day as my final interview, whose lease happened to end the same day ours did.  It was all flawless, really.  Then, since I had nowhere to live while starting new job, a beloved instructor and mentor who had lived in the City connected me with beautiful people to take me in.  Boyfriend and I schlepped my extra stuff to his garage and moved my butt to the big, sparkling, crazy Bay Area.  (He followed with a new job of his own and a place to stay less than 2 weeks later.  I know.  We're well-matched in the cray-cray dept.)

POPCORN BREAK:

Want to hear something super cool, though?  Through the summer and fall, when math said I would no longer have monies after a certain point, I continued tithing on every measly paycheck.  Later I looked back and realized not only were all of my bills always paid on time and in full, but I consistently had healthy (if fewer) groceries and gas, and my sweet little Ugandan girl continued getting sponsored every month.  Gosh, God is faithful even when we're looking the wrong way, flailing our arms at invisible fires.

Let's talk about actually being in SF for a moment.

Life in the City was exciting and fairly hysterical.  A small-town INFJ's inner commentary while navigating public transportation and Market Street every day in the dead of winter was a silent narrative of laughter, awe, disgust, and misery.  My commute was a wild journey of uphill, over-freeway climbs, wind/rain/fog, freezing, sweating, sunburns, death-by-body-odor on BART, and shedding various layers of clothing according to block-by-block climate changes.  Hair looked like a curly-haired toddler stuck their finger in a light socket or slid down a slide.  Maybe simultaneously.  (If you don't think hair plays a role in one's sanity, you don't have hair with unexplained racial identity issues. FOR THE LOVE. WHY.)

Oh, remember #rainageddon?  When Embarcadero shut down, BART flooded and Daly City had cars under water?  I walked to work on those days, too.  Rainboots, umbrellas, and plastic ponchos flee in fear while horizontal rain has its way with you.  Has.  Its.  Way.

 What I've learned:

Living and working in San Francisco was an idea born mostly out of proving to myself that I could do it.  (Plus it beats Fresno by a long mile. Peace be with you, Fresno). It had been in my mind for a while and I had to give it a shot. I'm so glad I did!

A strategic and unique relationship scaffolding has been constructed around me over the last several years as I grew into almost an entirely different human.  Yes, I can launch and build a network anywhere, BUT, I haven't been launched yet.  Until I have, I need these peoples.  My identity/ministry/outlet is in such a transitional place that their guardrails are invaluable.  Temporarily stepping away to let some dust settle helped me see it clearly.  Throughout my time in the Bay, I continued to miss Sacramento in a fierce way.  Moving away was the best decision I could have made, and returning was the second best.  I had to know why I was coming back, instead of simply being somewhere because I knew nothing different.

I've learned that I sabotaged my own creativity and progress by putting myself in boxes and assuming I had to walk the paths I saw others running with my same skills.  For some reason I only saw obligations, hamster wheels and church politics everywhere I looked (whether legit or not but you get me), and plenty of confusion and burnout. Much of what I saw behind the scenes scared the heck out of me and wasn't what I wanted for my own life.

The entire move to Sacramento (job, place to live, etc) happened in 3 days.  It started with the realization that The Bay and I were only meant to be friends and nothing more, then turned into another sense that I would be moved by the new year.  (I'm learning to pay attention to these senses.)  Well, on New Year's Day, I was standing in my own studio.  The moving story is too unbelievable to put energies into writing out now that I've blabbed this much.  All I gotta say is that I signed a year lease with gusto, spent about 2 weeks battling fatigue from the mental whiplash, and my soul is breaking at the seams with joy over creating a haven of my own in a neighborhood I love.  A quiet place where creativity can be fostered and excuses minimized as much as possible.  Two years spent away from actively participating in writing and music has been enough to determine that I need them.  Ergghhh... as of right now, I still sit and stare at journals and pianos as if they're my best/worst frenemies.  If I could just sit down with one of those for about 3 days straight and get out everything bouncing around in my head, I might find relief.  Or burn them both with fire and be free of them.  Choices.