Searching for Better Than This…

When my head gets all tied in knots, I have this stash of partially written or barely started posts in draft form on here, and that’s what I put on the blog. It’s like fill-in-the-blank posts, posting-lite, don’t have to think too hard about posting…like the Road to California post…I had all the pictures resized and stuck in the post. I just had to go through and add all the names and links. I can do that without hardly thinking about it…and yet it takes up mental space and time. So I don’t have to deal too much with the goo in my head that wants me to feel bad. Avoidance. Book reviews? Same thing. I have about 8 other posts that are started in draft form, just sitting there, waiting. The Chihuly glass one? Started with photos, but then words took over.

This weekend? Not so much fun. Just keeping my head above water. Trying not to think too hard about feeling bad, about feeling sad. Trying not to remember how I used to feel, because that Kathy does not live here any more. She has moved out. She is never coming back. She can’t get in past the hoard (imagining when they try to get in the front door and all the crap that’s been hoarded is blocking it, and you can only squeeze in).

I went to a movie last night. I used to go to the movies almost every Saturday night. I loved going to the movies. I don’t love it so much by myself. I did it, though, because I felt like I was being punished for being alone, that I didn’t feel like I could do the things I love because of that. I’m becoming a hermit. OK, I was kind of hermit-like before, but I’m getting worse. It’s because it’s honestly too hard to be with people. I often feel more lonely in groups than I do at home alone with my sketchbook and my fabric and a cat or two. It’s sad. I wish it weren’t true. But it is. Right now. And realistically, the movies cost money and money is really tight at the moment.

So I picked a movie I had wanted to see when I first saw the trailers ages ago (there were others, but they weren’t at convenient times), and I drove out there to the theater and I cried through almost the whole movie and all the way home. I saw Her.

It was good…although it had some slow bits and the ending was…eh. Thing is, when I see people with technology now, out to dinner, hanging out in groups, everyone is doing that…talking to themselves, to their OS instead of a human…so it’s creepy, but not that far off of reality. Shades of that book…crap…Wake, by Robert Sawyer, where the WWW becomes conscious and starts talking to a teenage girl…because I know that’s who I would choose to talk to if I were the web (not). Anyway. Here’s why I’m on Goodreads…so I can look shit like that up, books I read before that I can’t remember the name of because my brain is like mush.

I suspect it’s really that so much of my brain is otherwise occupied that stuff like that just slips through.

So that was really successful, guys! I joined a couple of movie-going groups on MeetUp…maybe it will be a better experience. Of course, I can only go like one night a week, and most of their movies are not on that night. Sigh. But it’s better than this. It’s got to be. Something has to be. I keep searching for Better Than This…it’s an island in the Atlantic and there are no boats that go there. I might have to swim.

All the hikes I wanted to go on this weekend were too many hours for a two-day weekend…I had too much I needed to get done, so I got up this morning and hiked Cowles Mountain instead. It’s a quickie, but still is a good workout. San Diego has two mountains that get the shit hiked out of them by every weekend-walker and lame-ass wannabe hiker in the whole town: Cowles and Iron Mountains. The annoying part is the number of people…and the number of people who don’t know trail rules (yes, I’m a hiking elitist, sorry, get the fuck over if you are hiking that slow please)…and the number of dumb bimbos and assholes who are hiking up the side of the mountain, not following the trails, destroying it for future generations. Yes, I yelled at two girls. I apologize. Wait. No I don’t. They were being stupid. Ladies, if there’s a fence, it’s there for a reason. Where are the vicious rattlesnakes when you need them? Avoiding Cowles, for sure. I should carry one in my pack for times like this, just hurl it at the dumbshits who can’t walk on a trail without damaging sensitive habitat. Yes, they went over a fence right next to a sensitive habitat sign. I don’t feel bad about yelling at them.

That said, I did it fast (the hike) and proved I am much more fit than I was 7 months ago, when I would have to stop to rest. I didn’t rest at all, and I ran the downhill, passing two of my former students. HA! That was funny. And their mom. YOUR MOM. Sorry. Middle-school brain took over. I did pass your mom though. She’s looking good. You should be proud of her.

I didn’t do much in the way of art, because I was doing a lot of work-related shit. Which sucks. Always. I did a whole 16 minutes of cutting out Wonder Under…

The thing is, there isn’t much more to do on this one…then I’ll be on to the next step of picking out fabrics. But to what purpose? Hell. I still don’t know. Still don’t feel it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t push it. I knew I’d be done and have to go on to the next step and I wasn’t in the mood. It’s depressing to finish a step right now. I hate that. It used to be fun, sometimes even exhilarating. Now it’s just fucked up.

Then I cleaned photos off my phone. My computer is actually getting full. I have too much music and too many photos. I need to do something about that, like soon. I meant to do it over Xmas and freakin’ ignored it. It’s too much for my brain to handle, like the broken sprinkler lines. I just can’t take it on. I have to though.

The girlchild got reading glasses.

Which is funny, because it was the boychild we thought needed glasses and turns out his vision is almost perfect. She describes her vision as “buzzy.” We said, “vibrating? blurry? fuzzy?” She said, “No, buzzy.” The child has her mother’s way with words. Oh well.

There was this…

Now, it’s one thing to put all those words on the back of your car (to remind you? because it’s not reminding others…driving along, OH SHIT…I’ve blown number 8. Dammit.); it’s another to spell one of them wrong. Sigh.

Jake helping the girlchild make her bed…

I am still learning to take panorama photos on my phone…I inevitably do it wrong three times before I do it right.

That’s Penasquitos last weekend. NOT a panorama.

And here it is again…done almost right this time…

Pretty, huh?

And here was the top of Cowles’ Mountain this morning…

San Diego does have the weather, doesn’t it? OK, summer will suck. I’m a little worried about summer. I won’t be able to hike like this. I don’t do heat well. Maybe I will borrow my ex’s kayak a lot. Maybe I will swim more. I don’t like swimming though.

I finished this book…A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore…

which is a good thing because book club is Wednesday. I liked it. I liked his turn of phrase. I like his weirdo stories. It’s the second of his books that I’ve read. It’s a little wacky, a little out there, but amusing and not dreary. Probably that was a good choice for the weekend, because it was a bit dreary…except for the hiking bit.

I watched this, a Tate Gallery video on nudity in art through the ages…

What’s funny is that to actually link to this video, I had to persuade YouTube that I didn’t need Safety Mode on my videos. They thought it was unsafe…I guess you shouldn’t watch it at work (I thought it was pretty benign myself). I like their shorts…educate the public about art. God knows we aren’t doing it in school any more.

This week? This week is the girlchild’s team finally making it to the CIF playoffs…two games this week guaranteed unless a volcano swallows us up (could happen), a book club meeting, and I think I signed up for two hikes next weekend, just because I think one will get canceled due to rain (she’s a real water wimp, the leader is). I set some goals on the art stuff for this week…I have two drawings I’d like to get done…one is in the sketchbook and one has been copied full size, but needs more. I want to finish the Wonder Under on the Mammogram quilt and start ironing it to fabric. I’d like to get all the wool cut out for Ivy’s quilt too, but I suspect I just shoved more into a busy week than can actually realistically get done. All that is better than thinking about the muck my brain wants to wallow in, though, so hopefully it will keep me distracted. If not, I may be back here again, clearing out photos and writing filler posts that don’t let my brain think too hard about reality. My other goal is to try to go to bed earlier…those super late nights aren’t helping. Maybe just 10 minutes earlier each night until I get back to something in the realm of sanity? Or not. It’s got to be better than this.

The Place You Go…

I’m sitting here (Sunday night) waiting for the laundry to finish so I can put the girlchild’s soccer stuff in the dryer for tomorrow morning. I’m actually kind of wide awake…must have been that 26-minute nap I took this afternoon when I realized I couldn’t keep my eyes open. That’s the problem with hike days…they do kick my ass and I get very little else done, which is why I can’t do them every weekend. I can’t lose a day every weekend.

This is a 3-day weekend, though, so I still have tomorrow (Monday, yes I started this on Sunday night) to play catch up. I had a rough day yesterday. I actually cried on the hike…usually I don’t, but strangely, being in a group that large was isolating for someone like me. I’m not an extrovert at all. I need space, both mental and physical. I felt like some alien creature. It was so loud and raucous and overwhelming…I had to strike out on my own and physically super-challenge my body so my mind wouldn’t freak out. I have an event coming up with a lot more people than that…and I’m worried about my ability to deal. It’s strange…I spend all day with tons of people, but I don’t feel so out of place with my students…they are safe. I can handle interactions with them. Interactions with large groups of strangers? Fuck that. I’d rather stay home. I will be that crazy cat lady who never leaves the house if I’m not careful. The hike was redeemed slightly by the last 30 minutes spent talking to one other person. I can handle interactions like that, but you have to have something in common or at least something you can talk about.

It was a relief to come home after the hike and space out for hours, grade some papers, hang with my kids, cut out some Wonder Under. I appreciate the physical exertion and being out in nature, but hanging out in groups isn’t making me happy. Then again, nothing much is making me happy.

So in the middle of this post, the rant came through and became its own post, and then I went to the gym to try to leave some of my irritation and anger there instead of carrying it around. I’m debating calling the doctor (hemorrhage!), I need to find eye doctor paperwork for the kids, I haven’t prepped for tomorrow, I need to go to school to check for lab supplies, but I can’t get out of my driveway, because they are in fact digging holes in my front yard so my toilets might work properly someday. I’m wondering if I will ever stop grinding my teeth, if my eyelid will ever stop twitching, if I will ever sleep properly again.

The part I was having issues with was people making assumptions about other people based on how they behave or look or are labeled. I’m constantly amazed by how different people are than what they project…my leach-field guy looks like a redneck, talks like a redneck, and then starts talking to me about the Lord of the Rings trilogy and how many times he’s read it and whether Smaug is the coolest dragon around or what. The guy is 64 and you’d never think to look at him that he could have slogged through that series (god knows I haven’t been able to after multiple tries). You cannot make assumptions about people. You have to talk to them and listen to them and turn on the part of your brain that pays attention to someone besides your arrogant self, and only then can you make any decisions about people, and you still have to leave open the possibility that you are completely wrong. Maybe I know that from teaching middle school for so many years. Maybe I’m just that kind of tolerant person. I don’t know. I just know that it’s not OK to hurt other people. And sometimes people think your emotions are hurting them, but it is really their response to your emotions that’s the issue. I had the girlchild full on screaming at me this morning and I realized that she was having the same issue…her emotional reaction to what I had said was hers and hers alone. I was not the cause of the screaming. She was. Granted she’s a teenager and doesn’t modulate her responses well…she’s not Asperger’s, but teens often have this idea that they are the only people on the planet (shocking!) and it can manifest in similar ways. “My way is the only way.” Boychild and I often have discussions about her inability to realize there are other people in the world who might not have the same priorities as she does. In this case, I let her stomp off and slam a door, and then she came back and it was eventually all OK. I wonder what it will be like when they are both gone and I no longer have to tiptoe around those kinds of emotional outbursts. I wonder if her roommates will survive! I wonder if having the girlchild as his sister has helped the boychild navigate emotions any better…god knows they are full on in his face on a regular basis. His sister screams. His mom cries.

Wondering about my own sanity. Wondering after reading someone else’s blog if there is actually always a way out of depression, or if it just becomes something you live with for the rest of your life. After this weekend, I don’t see a way out, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, I don’t feel like it will ever change. It does not help that my hormones are going ballistic. I could really live without that additional mess in my head…hence the thought to call the doctor…more because of the physical symptoms than the mental…the physical symptoms set off all the alarms on the stupid online symptom checkers. But I already know what they will say, what they will want to do. They’ll use the words ‘abnormal’ and ‘dysfunctional’…ironic because those can apply to my physical symptoms and my mental symptoms. OK, not fully dysfunctional, because I do manage to function fairly normally…I’m just patently aware of how nonfunctional my functioning is.

Anyway. I find the solution to all this angst, short-term as it might be, is that silly thing called art. My brain wandered about a bit, trying to figure out what it felt like doing, until that urge to draw came a banging at the brain door…so I pulled this one out from before, in December sometime (was it really that long ago?)…

I had copied it and taped it to another page, so I found that and started drawing downwards…

Shades of the Celebrating Silver quilt…I still need to put yet another page on the bottom…

because she needs more room. She wants the rest of her body. She told me. She demanded it. I listened. And I need to figure out what else is happening here…maybe more of those crazy birds. Who knows. Draw, Kathy. It gives you some peace. Draw the assholes out. Draw the arrogant jerks out. Draw the emotional reactions and put them on paper. Make someone see what’s in your head. Make someone feel what’s in your head. Make.

I made it to my quilt guild tonight, for the first time in 12 months, I think. Mary Pal was speaking and she and I had seen each other Saturday night at the Coast to Coast opening. I think we might be sisters from another mother…we are in the same shows, feeling some of the same artistic angst. I hope for her sake that she is not feeling the rest of my angst. It was nice to hear her talk, to feel her deep hug again, to feel a connection to a fellow artist who plumbs the depths of her artistic self to make work in the middle of the night, by the skin of her teeth, in the early morning light. To feel a connection that deep to someone you barely know…simply because of the place you go when you work.

Art can be amazing that way.

Mule Hill Trail to Raptor Ridge

I spent about 3 1/2 hours this morning hiking Mule Hill Historic Trail in the San Dieguito River Valley to the beginning of the San Pasqual Valley Trail, going through Raptor Ridge (over? through?) on the way. The trail map is here, if you’re interested. We started in Escondido off of Sunset (across from the mall), and there happened to be a very small farmers’ market taking place, so traffic was a mess. I’m fairly sure I did a hike out of here over 10 years ago, but going the other direction, under the freeway towards some hill on the other side.

This is part of the Coast to Crest trail, which will eventually be 55 miles from the coast near Del Mar to Volcan Mountain near Julian.

We didn’t do the whole thing…went 5.9 miles out and back. I guess the whole thing of that section is more like 24 miles…11.8 seemed plenty for one day.

It was a little on the warm side, certainly in the high 70s/low 80s for part of it, although there was a decent breeze, and the clouds kept it a little cooler. You could totally feel the potential for nasty summer heat baking up off the dirt when the sun was shining down on the eastern side of the ridge, though. I mean, this is February.

The skies were amazing today.

The trail is mostly flat and fast through the valley, although there is a lot of competition with mountain bikers. In general, the bikers are good people, respectful of trail rules (everyone yields to horses, bikes yield to people). We didn’t see any horses today, although they are allowed on the path.

There is a section of the trail that travels next to farmland, mostly strawberries it looked like.

You can see the plastic covering some sections. When you get further out into the valley, you can see the beginning on the left of the hills that lead into Raptor Ridge, which peaks out at 1000′ in elevation (not super high, eh?).

There were very few trees on this trail…so very little shade. Summer would be difficult.

Once you get out of the valley and start climbing into the ridge, there is some green and trees to shade you for the first part…

This is also generally where the mountain bikes disappear. It’s a one-track trail at this point, and it climbs fairly steadily from the valley up to about 600′ elevation, maybe a little higher. You can see the San Pasqual Valley from this section.

In the beginning of the hike, I was out in front with about three other hikers. It was a really big group, about 36 people, and it was just too many people and too loud for me. I guess when I’m out in nature, I want to actually BE out in nature. I don’t mind talking, but it was just too many live bodies in one space. At this point, though, when we started to climb, somehow I ended up being first, so once I got into my rhythm, I just kept going.

They’re all strung out on the trail behind me…not too far behind…

More of the San Pasqual Valley, sort of towards the Wild Animal Park.

I wasn’t trying to be antisocial. I just find it hard to hike slowly. Or behind people who are slower than I am. Or in huge groups of people. Sigh.

There are a few viewpoints on that side of the ridge…this is looking up to the peak, although apparently the trail doesn’t go up there…you have to bushwhack it.

We kept going around the ridge to the San Pasqual Valley side looking for some mythical bench that never appeared. Once we realized we had hit 5.9 miles…this is where you remember that however far you hiked out, you still have to hike back…the organizer decided to have us go back to the viewpoint.

So we did…took the obligatory group photo and snacked a bit. After about 10 minutes of drying the sweat off your back and eating something, a couple of people said they were taking off, so instead of being a social butterfly (I’m not), I took off after them.

I was kinda tired of hearing boys tell girls to “work it.” Sigh. Sometimes. People.

There’s the rest of them at the viewpoint…they never did catch up with us…to our credit, we were moving pretty damn fast.

It only took about an hour and a half to get back to the parking lot…about 5.5 miles

I eventually caught up with the three ahead of me (garter snake on the path stopped them for a bit, just to move him out of the way) and hiked out with one of them, who is a high-school teacher…so we had lots in common. That was pretty much the only conversation I had.

I do better in smaller groups. This is a pretty easy section of the trail, even with the climb up to the ridge. Certainly, you could wander the river valley for a while with kids or dogs and have a good time, turning back when you’re ready, although I suspect it gets quite warm sometime in June or July through late October. Someday I will do the next section, across the San Pasqual Valley…maybe with someone to pick me up on the other end. I can do 12 miles…not sure I can double that though. The hips and knees eventually complain.

It was a good workout, a good day for it. Not sure where my next hike is…I don’t have one planned for another 3 weeks…will have to see if I can do something before that.

Make the Head Fit…

I drew…

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It’s not done. I don’t know where it’s going. I had to make the head fit. That was fun. Or weird. Or something. I drew for like an hour or so…like right when I came home…well, after I talked to my philosophical drainage guy, the guy who is charging me more than my car is worth to redo my leach field and quotes Khalil Gibran while I’m signing papers. Exciting stuff. He gave me marital advice. Whoops! Too late. I don’t think that’s on the menu any more.

I drew because my head was in a bad place…had been for a couple of days. Hormones are out of whack…I mean, they’re really out of whack. Love being a woman of this age, perimenopause hitting me upside the head. Body doesn’t know what it’s doing. Fucks with the mind while it’s at it…and the moods. It’s annoying. No way to control it if you can’t take estrogen. You just have to ride it through.

So I drew and made dinner, and then I traced Wonder Under for over an hour…

Because I could. I mean, I could also grade, but there’s only so much suckiness a day can hold before it can hold no more. And I had reached my limit. The problem is that I don’t have moments of joy at the moment…I just have more or less of the suck. So I have to do things to make it more on the high side of the sucky wave instead of the low side. Artmaking. It’s what’s for dinner. I traced through about piece 240…so about 100 pieces to go. I need more Wonder Under (errands…hate errands). I need to stop being sick, even though it’s really low-level sickness…it’s messing with my head.

I put feet on them…

The two on the left are almost done…they need outlining around the eyeballs. Not sure what the one on the right needs. A life? Oh no…that’s me.

I don’t really know what it means…

But you should watch it anyway.

Yeah, it’s long, but you know what? Most of the good stuff is longer rather than shorter.

Art opening at VAM tomorrow…I will be there. Hopefully I’ll be well enough to hike on Sunday. I’m sure there’s other things I have to do. I’m trying not to think of them.

A Gesture of Release

Girlchild got me sick. I knew it yesterday, felt it lurking. This morning, I felt spacey…all day, spacey…but not really sick. Still a sore throat, headachey. I’ve had my flu shot. Think this is just a cold, but it’s holding off…maybe I’m actually fighting the damn thing. Maybe I’ll feel like shit tomorrow…maybe not? I don’t know. I debated going to the gym…for two reasons. (1) I didn’t feel great and (2) I didn’t want to infect people. In the end, I went. I needed it for my mental and physical state, and honestly, I felt better after I went. I disinfected every machine I was on (but I made sure I touched every kid who is annoying at school…OK, not really…but we did joke about it). I got to work out and read, and I came home and felt OK for about 2 hours before the spacey/sore throat stuff came back. We’ll see what tomorrow feels like. If it’s going to take me down, I want it to do it quickly, so I’m better before my weekend hike (priorities).

Girlchild had a soccer game, but she didn’t go to practice because she was sick yesterday, so she didn’t play…I did watch the sky…

It was beautiful…although apparently I should have been looking behind the bleachers…

I stitched during the game…

I think these two are almost done…I think all I have to do is stitch around the eyeballs and put the eye buttons on. Oh wait. They need feet. Damn. That’s a bunch of bullion knots. That’s time. Then there’s only one more of the Month 3 birds to finish. Then on to Month 4. Yes, I’m slow, but guaranteed I was the only person stitching palestrina knots in that stadium. It’s progress…on something. I measure my entire life a little tiny bit at a time, progress on this project and that project. I got one stitch done here. I got 30 minutes done there. It’s proof that I have things to do, to keep me going.

Some days are like that. What’s the one thing I can work on today that will let me feel like I’ve accomplished something decent? Not grades. Not dishes.

I came home to this…

There was a phone number too. It was shoved in the door handle. I too need joob and don’t know where to look. Lupe needs to be more specific.

After dinner (late), I organized all the financial aid paperwork; I’m missing three signatures from the boychild and then everything can go. Then I ironed his interviewing clothes…it’s Columbia tomorrow, he hopes the last interview. Probably true. Who knows. Then we wait. Apparently my brother and SIL are placing bets on what schools he will get into of those he’s applied to…better than the woman I hiked with who was the Queen of Negative Thinking about college apps. Whatever. He’ll get in somewhere, and that somewhere will have to be good enough at least for the first year. Am I worried? Of course. I’m mom. I worry. I’m Kathy. I worry. I will worry less in a couple of days when these damn envelopes are gone.

I meditated. That was not-so-good. I’ve spent the last 10 days trying to visualize a point of light in the center of my chest, warm and bright like the sun, which is supposed to expand and spread to fill my whole body. I suck at this. I start the spread and then black tarry stuff from my fingers and toes starts to encroach on sunny brightness and swallows it. Yesterday and today it was tears, oceans of tears, turning the sunlight into steam, covering it up, drowning it. I was trying so freakin’ hard to force the light to spread, and I finally stopped. I let it just sit at the size it could be in me right then, about the size of a cantaloupe. Interestingly, this is supposed to be an openness to creativity, which is not something with which I have a problem…so there’s just something about that meditative avenue that is causing me grief. Seriously weepy grief. Sometimes you just have to let the mind do its thing and you watch it and try to learn from it, but trying to force the change is not going to be a successful endeavor.

Then it was late and I had to choose…sleep? Or artmaking? I learned my lesson last night…I didn’t spend much time tracing, but I did spend some…

I got motivated after working on that drawing last night to finally restart the tracing on the mammogram quilt. I think I just need to have multiple projects in the works so I can pick and choose when I’m in a mood…something easy, something hard? Something that is totally engaging vs something that is more light and simple? Tracing isn’t usually easy, but it is engaging. And it helped. I was already a bit distant and numb from the gym experience (too many days of crying at the gym lately), so I guess I’m even more into that hole, but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing at the moment. It just is.

I committed to another challenging hike in March…looking forward to it, although I’m a little nervous about it…less so now that I know it is less elevation gain than San Miguel, but I don’t kid myself…it won’t be easy. It will be worth it, though. I made a comment on the last hike about dispelling demons from the tips of my fingers as I walked, and I think maybe I need to think of a way to do that for real, like a symbol of that maybe? I think this would be a good hike for that, although I don’t know if I feel comfortable with doing that with a bunch of mostly strangers (I know a few people who will be on the hike, but not well). We’ll see. Maybe. It’s on my mind…ritual to remove sad? Not a wake, not a memorial, but something more in the dirt. Thinking about it. How to persuade the brain to release things…a gesture of release?

Meanwhile, my gestures are in the art world…releasing grief and sad and even anger through the drawings. The guns, they’re about anger and pain…not hurting myself, but trying to mitigate hurt done on me. Trying to make it hurt less by drawing hurt? I can’t really explain how my brain is working…but it is trying to work through some of these things with symbols, images of things that hurt…thorns, cuts, tears, wounds…another gesture of release? Who knows.

Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve Hike

On Saturday, a beautiful day in February in San Diego, I went on what ended up being over a 10-mile hike in Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. We started out at the western entrance near Sorrento Valley. There is a parking lot, but it had rained Thursday and a little bit on Friday, so the lot was closed (although it had opened by the time we returned). This meant having to park in a nearby residential area…by nearby, I mean almost half a mile away…this is coming down the hill to the entrance.

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You can see the start of this end of the trail, plus the trail off to Lopez Canyon, down below from the road. San Diego is full of canyons and open-space areas like this…

I’ve lived here for 25 years and still haven’t been to even half of them. It was a bright and sunny day…

This is the view of the hillsides from the parking lot. The entire preserve is surrounded by office buildings and houses, although they are fairly unobtrusive for most of the hike.

Here is a link to the website for the preserve, which includes trail maps. We hiked from the western entrance to the waterfall and then out towards the eastern entrance, where one of our members continued to her house, and then we looped back on a different trail to the parking lot.

Someone had placed rocks on the fenceposts…

These are typical California rolling hills, very dry at the moment, as we’re in yet another drought…even with last week’s rain, there is not a lot of green popping up.

You can barely see the houses on the ridge to the right.

There was some mud on the trail, but mostly it was dry. We encountered lots and lots of bikers, some in huge groups of 30, and a few runners.

There was actually water in the preserve. Here’s the official group photo, minus the organizer, whom I’m hiked with before.

It was a very fast hike…there weren’t many hills, but the organizer was also a superfast person…you can see the rest of the group way far behind us (yes, we did stop and let them catch up occasionally).

That’s why I’m sore today…speed exertion, not hilly stuff…although there was a little of it on the way to the waterfall.

This is one of the areas where we just had to stand aside to let all the bikes go past…the trail wasn’t wide enough for both of us.

When I lived in Britain for a year, this is the landscape I missed…that brown and olive green color, rolling grassy hillsides, California live oaks, the green showing where the stream lies.

The waterfall is in volcanic rock…

Not rare in San Diego…

The foam in the water was somewhat disturbing…especially when it looked like big blobs of detergent. Gotta love that after-storm effluvium.

Another group photo above the waterfall…most of us are sweaty at this point. It wasn’t hot, high 60s, low 70s, but we weren’t moving slowly. I think I said that already.

The leader took one photo of me talking while walking. Yes. I do actually talk sometimes. I had discussions about blogging, bad job situations, negative people, colleges (I tried to avoid that one), kids, being outside in nature, SEO, website traffic, and books about the Pacific Crest Trail…this group was fairly diverse.

There were shady areas on the hike…this will be a hot hike come summer, but the shady bits might make it doable.

That’s one problem with Southern California, is that there are about 4-5 months of the year when certain activities like hiking aren’t particularly easy or pleasant. I think this is when normal people go to the beach. I’m trying to get in as many hikes as possible before the heat comes…I don’t do heat well.

And there are lots of stretches of dry, hot, treelessness on this hike.

It was fine today though. We did a couple of stream crossings, some more wet than others…

I told you it was a gorgeous day, didn’t I? I took lots of deep, cleansing breaths, banishing demons from the tips of my fingertips out into the brush.

The peacefulness of these groves of sycamores and oaks was wonderful.

And even the vast expanse of trail and sky was soothing…

It’s even better being out front with nothing human messing with the view…

I love the sky…

The trails were a variety of straight, wide, and flat, with some rocky bits, and some narrower rocky trails near the waterfall. Usually we could walk side-by-side, and didn’t have to go single file. You had to keep your ears open for bikes coming up behind, though.

This stretch had very few bikes…

When we finished, we still had to hike the 1/2 mile up the concrete hill to our cars, but it wasn’t too bad.

The actual hike that we did in the preserve was about 9.4 miles, and we added another 0.9 on the hike to and from cars. We did it in just over 3 hours, so pretty fast (and that included a couple of stops). It was a nice day for it. If you go look at the trail maps, you can get a better idea of all the different access points to the preserve and the mileages involved. There were lots of little kids and families out for walks or rides in the space, and many mountain bikes. There’s also a historic adobe on the preserve, although we didn’t see that on this trip. Those living in the Penasquitos area have a great resource nearby in this preserve.

Vacuuming the Brain

Another no-posting night. I was drawing instead…

I’ve done drawings of the bent-over figure before…but she has an umbrella this time. These are people who are weighed down by life, I think. My people are always damaged and cracked these days. Not surprising, I guess. Drawing is a way to move stuff out of my brain…to dust out the corners, vacuum the floors. I really should draw every day (time! not enough of it!).

Once I was done drawing, there was nothing left in my head but sadness, so I took that to bed, tucked it in, and tried to get it to stay asleep for a reasonable amount of time. It likes to wake up around 4 in the morning and torture me. Sure enough, it did. I told it to shut up and rolled over, put the pillow on my head. That got me another hour or so of not-pain. That’s what these weekend mornings are now…painful. Work mornings are such a rush of having to get up for work and all that, so I can’t get bogged down in moody crap. Weekend mornings don’t have the same urgency. I’m tired, I want to sleep in, maybe lie about in bed for a while, but it’s a depressing place, so I don’t do it. Which in itself is depressing. Vicious cycle.

I get to this point in my head where I just say to myself that everything is depressing…move on. If you’re moving, maybe you’ll see something that’s not so bad. Maybe you’ll even FEEL something that’s not so bad. Standing still? Depressing. Don’t do it.

Whatever.

So yesterday I did a long, semi-painful hike (in that I am still feeling it today…it wasn’t hard, just fast), I did a lot of financial aid forms, I wrote three blogposts for groups I’m in (although I’m waiting for info on two of them to be able to finish), and I finally finished cutting out all the fabrics for Ivy’s Memorial quilt…

Wool on the left, which actually needs to be trimmed down, and cotton on the right, which will be appliqued (yes, by hand) down to the wool bits. It took just over 4 hours to pick everything out, longer than normal for me, but I think that was because of limited wool options slowing me down.

I can’t say this piece thrills me…I mean, it’s a memorial to a dead dog that we miss a lot, and maybe in the mood I’m in, memorials to dead things are not a good plan, but it is something I wanted to get to the next stage, so I did. Usually I take a photo of all the fabrics used in the quilt, but this one isn’t really one of my art quilts and I couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out what in this pile (including cat) I had actually used…

So I didn’t (I used a lot of it). And then I took all the wool bits and zipped them into one of those plastic bag things that bedding comes in when you buy it…I love those bags and never use them. I don’t use wool that much in the stuff I do, but I do want to keep it all together. I don’t want to waste a drawer in my office with it, though, and honestly, it was going to be two drawers, and I need those for cottons (which are taking over the space), because I use them so much more…so I think I will store this under my bed with the crazy-ass flesh-colored crazy-quilt fabrics. There is sometimes an issue with storing under the bed, in that you forget they are there, so that’s a problem, but when the kids move out, I am just going to turn this whole house into a scary Hoarders episode of fabric stash, so who cares?

OK. Not really. OR! If I do that, then you know I’ve gone completely off the deep end. Note to kids: good luck cleaning mom’s stuff out when she dies. I’m not making it easy for you.

I finished the second book in the Zita the Spacegirl series, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke…

These are quick reads for adults, and really are meant for elementary-school-aged kids, maybe middle school. I actually liked this one more than the first one. The story seemed to hold together better.

There’s a robot that pretends to be Zita and the two try to save a planet. There is a third book, but I didn’t get it from the library yet. I probably will, just because now I want to know what happens (and yes, they both end on cliffhangers…if you’re like me, you can’t NOT read the next one).

We do have a 3-day weekend (thank you, Lincoln), so I have an extra day, which is good, because the to-be-graded pile is deadly, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much yet, and I still have a to-do list that is a mile long. It starts this morning with a trip to the gym, which is a good thing…the muscles from yesterday are complaining and the best thing for them is to make them do more. Plus it’s good for the depressed part of the brain…well, people keep saying that exercise helps with depression. Then again, there’s a lot of things that people say about how to fix depression, and sometimes I think it’s just not a fixable thing. It’s there and if you’re lucky, you’ll figure out a way to live with it or persuade it to go away. I can’t take a screwdriver to it or make a list of things that make me happy and have it just disappear.

More drawing tonight I think. Hope. It’s like vacuuming the dust bunnies out of the brain.

Dig Deep

I was going to write this last night, but couldn’t. The tired finally took over. It’s always a clue when I fall asleep in meditation.

This week has been mentally rough. I don’t really know why, but I knew Friday had the potential to be a mental clusterfuck, so I woke up and told myself that it wasn’t going to be that…that I was going to be productive, focused on a goal, and I wasn’t going to let that sad bitch inside me fuck me over. It was a test day, so the kids are super quiet, yet the unprepared ones are more demanding than ever, and it’s often just a difficult day anyway, but it leaves me too much mental space to wallow. I often get in a really bad place on test days, and they’re usually on a Friday, and then that fucks the weekend over.

But I didn’t. I made it through and I wasn’t in a shitty mood. I got lots of things logged in. I had a couple kid issues and I handled them. For once this year, after 12 years of teaching, I felt like I had it, I was in control, I could do it.

I cried in counseling, but not like the world was ending. Just trying to suss out what I’m depressed about exactly so that I can attack that and make it leave. (I typed “make it leaves”…now there’s a drawing popping into mind…I really need to make time to draw this weekend.)

And then I got home. And the toilets are still backing up, so I had called the plumber, and he told me to check something on the septic before he committed to coming out, so I did, and then called him, and he said to call the septic people, and yeah. We think it’s the leach field. Like it’s done. Like it needs replacing. Like thousands of dollars.

And I lost it. I mean, it’s understandable. I have too much on my plate, I’m financially not in a great place, and I’m depressed. It does often feel like the universe is out to get me at the moment, that everything under the sun is conspiring to fuck me over. I know notionally that is not true, that I live in an older house and it needs to be maintained, and I don’t do a great job of that due to time and money, but that sometimes things just stop working or need to be replaced, and those things cost money.

And so I tried to call my parents and they didn’t answer, which is probably a good thing, because I would have lost it. The phrase, “I can’t do this any more,” has been in my head so many times over the last 6 months, and the reality is…I DO do it. (huh huh huh…she said do-do). I do. I get up off the fucking ground and I do it. I researched home equity loans and I have my tax refund coming in (which was going to get me through the summer), and I will just have to make it work somehow.

Then the girlchild came home in tears and bounced back into crazy hyper after I fed her (she’s like a puppy sometimes, because then she falls asleep), and she said something about needing an adult and here she has me, the crazy depressoid (not her words…mine), and I said that I had called my parents and they didn’t even answer (it’s OK…I dealt)…and she sent me this…

That’s it. I need an adultier adult. Like, dammit…I’m the adult. There’s no one else here but me. I’m pretty capable though. I got the septic guy to feel sorry for me (not hard really). The drainage guy (who is the fixer guy) is coming this afternoon to see if he can figure out if it’s just the leach field or if it’s something else. I just dumped all the sand out of my hiking boots from last week’s hike so I can put them on for this week’s hike. The girlchild got herself up and out for the ACT this morning. Boychild has some scholarship stuff to do, especially now that there will be even less money and UCBerkeley sent him an application for a scholarship for low-income students. Fuck. Now I’m low income…which is funny (not really), because compared to a lot of my students, I’m not low income…although they have iPads and I have a mini that was a gift…but the boychild qualifies. He has another interview next week for the college of his choice…so I hope that goes well. Who knows, though? There are no fucking guarantees for anything, as my life has slammed down on me over and over.

Which brings me to the title of the post. Girlchild’s soccer team yells this out as one of their cheers during games…Dig Deep! It’s amusing to me, because I don’t think most of those girls really have to (or choose to) dig deep for anything, even the physical demands of the game. You can see a few giving their absolute all, but most of them don’t. And some of their personal lives may require them to dig deep emotionally…we can’t ever know, but when I got up this morning after a longer than usual night’s sleep, after yesterday’s slump, I heard them yelling in my head…Dig Deep. Yeah. I am. You know I am. Every day.

Buried in Fiber

It’s OK. I did art stuff tonight. I probably should have gone to bed earlier instead, but…I wonder which will prolong my life more? More sleep or more art? I’m voting for the latter. Trying to balance the two, but really? The art is more calming. Sleep isn’t restful. It’s full of bad dreams and nasty sad. I’d rather be playing with fabric. I started cutting out flower parts…

which is complicated by the fact that there are wool parts of flowers and cotton parts of flowers, so I’m cutting all the wool first, and then I’ll find cotton that works with it, since I have a fairly limited stash of wools and a vast stash of cottons. I made it through almost all the flowers…at least the wool parts…and there’s a squirrel and a bunny in there too.

I need to figure out the banners and all the cotton bits. There’s not a lot left…maybe tomorrow night? Except financial aid is still a mess and school stuff needs to get done too.

I stitched at soccer…

I forgot to take pictures of the girlchild playing. He played her tonight, for real. That’s good. She did well. They won. Another game Thursday. It’s kind of a routine now…two games a week, one Academic League match a week. I keep having to remind myself what day it is…do I bring my stitching to school? Do I bring my Uggs and sweatshirt to school? Will I have time to go home first? Too much thinking. My brain isn’t good at thinking any more. It’s obsessive about the bad stuff, runs over and over it, trying to make sense of it, having conversations with myself. But give it a real task? Yikes. It’s done.

I went to the gym. I meditated. I finished two books…The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon…

who is only 22 years old. This is her debut novel, the first of seven in the series. It’s called a supernatural dystopia, and definitely has sci fi overtones, whatever that means. I liked the idea and most of the book, but kept getting lost in vocabulary and this foreign race, the Rephaim, and some other race, the Emim, which sometimes didn’t make sense. Plus the setup of clairvoyant levels is supremely complicated. But it has promise…I would read another one.

The second book I finished was Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke…

Yes. This is a kids’ graphic novel. A group I’m in has a graphic novel/comics book club, and I have never been to the meetings, but thought I could try to read the books at least, and maybe someday swing one of the meetings. I had a hard time with this book…not because it’s written to a younger audience, but because I got confused by events in the story. Plus I honestly didn’t like Zita much…she’s kind of an annoying squirrel, to use a term I use on some of my students. I don’t know if this book would appeal more to a younger audience, like a late elementary age? Maybe. I do have the second book as well. I did like the giant mouse and the round monster thing, and the spider robots were cool (even though they are evil). It was kind of an eh.

Kind of like my life. Eh. Which means it’s probably time to go to sleep. The later it gets, the sadder I get. I did find another hike for the weekend, I think. I actually found two, signed up for one reluctantly, then found the other one and switched. Seems like with the three-day weekend it would be lame not to go on a long hike…so that’s what I aimed for in my planning.

Ugh. I’m hoping with more regular influxes of art activity the days won’t feel so shitty. We’ll see. I’m tired of the shitty feeling. I keep doing things to improve my mood, trying to think positively about my future. Yeah. Well. The fun thing about depression is that it makes it very hard to think positively about anything, and when past experience is slapping you upside the face, pulling your feet out of the mud long enough to even Stand the Fuck Up and Go Make Art is difficult. I can’t be that depressoid who does nothing but sleep. I can mope and iron fabric at the same time if I have to. There’s some chance of surviving this if I keep my hands buried in fiber.

San Elijo Lagoon

This is another one of those…is this really a HIKE or a WALK? I think the latter, although it’s a very nice walk at that. We did about 7 miles…there’s a group picture somewhere, but only my arm is in it (not quite on purpose, but you know how I am about pictures). Here’s the trailhead in Solana Beach (California, by the way…I often forget most people reading have no idea where I live)…

I’ve always wanted to do this walk…driven past the lagoon on the freeway and said to myself that I should go do it, but it never happened…I mean, like for YEARS I’ve been saying this. It is a long drive from my house. That doesn’t help. I can’t just pop up there after work and do a quick walk, although many people are using it for a quick run.

There are many birds in the lagoon, including this Great Blue Heron…who posed…

Yes, I am beautiful. And then flew…

But not very far…just enough so we could get his/her good side.

I do not know how to sex a heron. Sorry. Apparently it’s by size. Well. There we are.

The walk was mostly flat, with only a few minor hilly bits, nothing challenging. There were also some rocky and narrow bits, especially going under the freeway bridge, but most kids and seniors could handle it.

There were about a million ducks.

This is the view towards the freeway and housing areas that surround the lagoon.

This is the view back towards where we started.

And the lovely view under the freeway.

It’s strange to hike with all that freeway noise, but eventually we got out into THAT below, and the noise faded away.

There’s less water in this section, fewer birds as well, and still lots of flat.

That’s the thing…it’s 7 miles, but a flat 7 miles, so we hiked it in less than 2 hours.

And it wasn’t very challenging. Sometimes that’s OK…apparently I felt like I needed a bigger challenge? Who knows. I spent most of my time walking with a Russian yoga instructor who had saved a turtle in Malaysia by massaging it. We talked about the mind-body connection, even in turtles, and lots of other enlightening stuff, from kids, to travel, yoga, Seattle, college, financial aid, self-employment, art, and men. It was entertaining at times, depressing at others. She and I walked fast, ditching the strollers. Again, walk? Or hike? Or run?

There were Torrey Pines about…

And it was definitely a beautiful day for a walk or a hike…

San Diego is great this time of year for such things. There were many flowering plants, even in the “dead of winter”…I sucked at taking photos of most of them (moving too fast), but got this acacia…

And a view of the clouds reflected in the water…

I bet this is a really popular walk during the summer, when East County is unbearable.

We made it back to the trailhead quickly and finally gave up on the rest of them…which was probably a good thing, because they stopped to take a bunch of group photos.

I’d do it again. I might run it though. Put it in the file for summer evening walks…