loose change

it’s monday morning in big bear and i’ve begun writing while s makes breakfast. the house in big bear faces east and every day it is filled with the purest morning light that reflects off of the white walls of the kitchen. it’s extremely pacifying to sit here wrapped in a blanket with my coffee while sam sautés onions and tomatoes for our sandwiches. i’m almost moved to tears about it. today’s special is a three cheese piece (boursin/parm/aged goud) and i’m boldly considering going open-faced! but in large part because i toasted my bread too much yesterday and shredded the roof of my mouth.

we survived the first week back at school! we moved through the week pretty seamlessly until friday afternoon at dismissal, when two different parents approached me apprehensively to ask if their kids were doing okay. i’m still getting used to the parent conversations. i was kind of taken aback–both of the kids in question seemed to have great first weeks back and were their usual giggly selves in class. apparently at home they’d been complaining about going to school in the mornings, really begging not to go, saying it was too boring, or saying they didn’t get enough free time. the irony is that this week, i felt guilty for giving them too much unstructured free time. this might’ve contributed to their emotions being all over the place. i reassured the parents that i’d not noticed anything but would keep an eye on them in the coming weeks.

i got back into the Y in montecito on tuesday and swam tuesday, thursday, friday, and saturday, and by friday i was mainly doing front crawl which feels really really good. on weds i had my first boxing lesson (!) which was actually an insane workout and a really cool thing to learn. it requires both extreme mental and physical coordination and in a way it’s meditative because your mind has to be entirely locked in to your body’s next move. joe told me i was forgetting to breathe. he had me say the combos out loud in order to ensure i was exhaling on every swing. 1 2 3 4 2 uppercut. i’m really excited to do it again this week!

with swimming and now boxing i’m keeping a bunch more shit in my car so i’m using my big quilted bag with a divider in the middle to keep my shampoo and conditioner and soap and lotion on one side and my wraps and gloves and swim cap and goggles and earplugs and swimsuit and towel on the other. it was really exciting to put the whole bag together for the first time. the most beautiful thing about the YMCA in montecito is that it opens at 6a and so if i can get myself to wake up by then i can go swim in the morning before school and then use the sauna and shower and maybe on a good day stop and get a coffee on my way in to work!

i’ve not swam routinely since college. i first got into swimming routinely in 2019, which was coincidentally the last time i felt like i was really being a good friend to myself. i can feel all of these tiny reinforcing changes happening in my brain, my awareness is getting clearer and i’m slowly freeing up space in my mind. my hope is to fill the space with outward thoughts instead of centering myself within it all of the time. swimming is one of those things that removes me from any self-perception. now that i’m finding my footing in teaching, i think it accomplishes the same displacement. i feel very incredulous about both things when i try to envision myself within them. like, i can’t believe i decided to start swimming in college, and can’t believe how much i enjoyed it, couldn’t believe i had done that for myself. and i can’t believe i am a teacher. these aren’t things about me that i regularly factor in to who i am as a person.

katie got back home on friday, and the first thing we did was go to sunburst for one to catch up. it was so good to see her–i love how naturally we can delve into the deep stuff and exchange questions and answers. it’s impossible not to laugh at things when we’re together no matter where we’re coming from, so things that are heavy to carry alone become so much lighter in conversation. on sunday morning we met at the health food store and walked down to the beach. it’s so funny that we maintain these routines that originated in middle school, and it’s funny how little has changed in our hometown–the most significant changes are coming about now, with rite aid closing and the public market development and the new fancy restaurants, but the bones are all still there. re: last monday, when i said i was nostalgic about everything–that feeling was only amplified saturday morning as we walked through town and talked about life and love and i acknowledged in the back of my mind how much has changed in our lives, and how much change is yet to come. it feels so easy to approach change with such good friends around.

everything is changing! i read our socal weather guy (daniel swain)’s blog yesterday and in it he discussed the unpredictability of our prematurely guaranteed el niño year. right now it feels like the entire country has been experiencing gnarly weather patterns and volatile storms while southern california has existed in this creepy bubble of 65 and sunny. there’s speculation that any storms we might have gotten into february are going to be kept at bay off the coast and pushed up north, missing us entirely. the scariest part is that he and thousands of other climate scientists are pointing out that the reason for this instability is the warmer ocean temperatures throwing everything out of whack. so even though our el niño is still out there in the ocean and in alignment to hit land, the foundation for it to do so is so uneven that alternatives can’t even be projected. i’ve been reticent all year about fire season, and the prediction of a dry january doesn’t ease that.

music is finally incredible again–i don’t know what ended the slump i was in at the end of last year but i’ve been big on jackson browne this weekend especially, some of the deep cuts from saturate before using, and as i was driving up to big bear yesterday i was thinking about how much he’s influenced my writing and understanding of the world. his lyrics were some of the first i came to memorize as a child, and his songs were some of the first i learned to play on piano. i’m so glad i made my dad come see him with me in la this year–i gave sam a list of my goals for 2024 and forgot to include making it to see jackson again.

i played a lot of guitar yesterday and i’ve been playing a really slowed down rendition of RaBi from bon iver. like so many of his other songs the lyrics are full of stunning words and are impossible to decipher, but so easy to sing with intention and meaning. it’s fun to cover a song and totally change the mix of it. i’m already thinking about songs i want to sing in chorus at camp this summer, not that this would be one of them, but it’s fun to ponder as i play.

january’s going by really quickly! and so is this year. it’s already been seven weeks of monday pieces! i’m so thankful to be able to write and even more to have my writing be read. it’s been so cool to hear interest expressed from my most loved and trusted of people and it’s an insane honor to be read by such thoughtful minds! and it’s really nice to know that writing this is beneficial to me with or without an audience.

anyway i think that’s all i have! we’re treating this day like a sunday, since we’ve got the day off and nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company. we’re beginning the perennial conversation of things we could do in the future today, which is exciting and crasy and comprised of many different intentions and dreams and ideals! i’ve got no idea where i’ll be or what i’ll be doing a year from now! but it’s very cool that when i make it there i’ll be able to look back and read this writing.

so i will sign off until next week! we shall keep learning and growing and crying and laughing! thank you to anybody who’s read these words. maybe next week i’ll talk about politics ha ha