Journal entry...Summer Solstice in SF

6/21

Summer Solstice today and I am sitting across from Pick Me Up Limo Service in Russian Hill, sipping a glass of French white wine outside of Sarah’s restaurant on Hyde St. and scribbling these words. The air is warm and breezy, and reminds me of the quality of warm, doughy bread for some reason. I’ve visited the city many times in the past year and each time, it seems the weather is unseasonably nice. Sunshine and clear skies, and even warm! I feel spoiled and blessed to be here now.

Could I do this forever? I mean, how could I make this my lifestyle, my modus operandi, how can I build a life around making journeys, taking notice, being open, immersed, writing, painting the world with words? Visual art and creative living…because really, there are few things I love more than a jaunt, a communion with my friends, exploration of some new place, my journal and a glass of wine. What more is there? A community to go home to—a heart to reside in, one that provides me meaning, depth, spiritual support. What is lacking in that? Hmmm.

My ode to the day! I remember that I used to only be able to write from my dark heart, from the pain that motivated me out of a paralysis of fear, with an intensity that burned away any lack of confidence. The darkness still creeps and recedes, fogs over and clouds my vision often. It still does. Even now it does. I also used to think that I couldn't be this happy if I was feeling depressed and dark a week before--as if the happiness must not be real because the sadness was there to prove it false. And somehow, I trusted the sadness more, rather than thinking that it perhaps was the false one. But now, the pendulum swings wide and full in both directions and I know that neither is more real than the other. Both are just passing storms.

But today, the day is long and clear and warm and it is perfectly balanced against the dark. The streets beside me are humming, clicking and ticking, the tracks alive with an electric energy of movement—either already passed or yet to come. The streetcars chug past. They are full and ancient; they look dense, as if heavy with people’s imaginings and a history of continual ups and downs, somehow chugging along up impossible angles with dated technology, and all the passengers bunched up and clinging on with their cameras and their bags, wide-eyed.

Sarah just brought me some warm olives, which is good because the air is cooling down as the sun starts to drop. I’ve gotta walk myself back to the Wharf soon to get my car and see if I can meet up with Marissa to watch the sun set on the longest day of the year...

Earth holidays are my favorite!