home. in a way four walls can never understand.

hello friends, school made my postings pause but alas i return. all my thanks as always.

Walk. A walk on the beach breathes life into this body in ways nothing else can. Not a talk. Not a concoction of alcohol or a circle of medicine. Not a piece of chocolate. Nothing compares to when I park my car on the pavement and cross over to the bare foot feeling of damp sand between my feet. Sometimes I go because there is sun I must admire. Sometimes I go to escape. Sometimes to remember. A button to press reset inside of me.

Today I went because I needed a walk. I awoke in the middle of the night with a sinking stomach feeling that signaled I must do something. Before that would have entailed something dramatic ending of things and crossing streets to ignore people and it would have the drama of a middle school play. But today. It just meant something. Needed. To. Change. Inside. Of. Me.

And change it did as I felt the sand play around my feet up to my calves poking out of my yoga pants. I stop to see a possible wave hugging a whale I feel so lucky in all the days I had came here but it is just a rock formation. I dodge the obstacle course of fishermen. Some painted in proper gears others not. One smokes. Another tattooed. The fishing poles grow taller than humans and the connection to the ocean beyond. I walk the furthest I have. I decide to reach the end of these beaches today. I pass a family with toddler and dog bribing both so they stand still for a photograph. Again. And again. And I return to the walk. Then the pause. Of a sip of coffee. And the watch of the waves in and out. I am alone. Here. But do not feel that way. I feel surrounded by people I treasure and memories extended far out.

My mother and father first meeting was along a beach. Long ago. The equation of the randomness of me. And they took me there as I grew from the small me into the bigger me. I remember some visits there. But when I come across a box of photos. I see. Our family. And beach time. I visit my grandfather on this beach. He used to fish here. This being one of my favorite beaches. Also drawn to it. Not knowing until recently that he too was a fisherman here. My grandmother I see here in her formality and fun wanting to go but dressed in the wrong shoes. As I remember her wish to go as she came to the finish line of life. And as I reach the end of the beach for the first time. I know I must turn around. With these people and memories. And knowing that for me that my grandparents and mother. Might only live here for me. This might be why I come here to remember. Who I am. It is home. In a way that four walls can never understand.

When I come here I walk alone. But I walk in memories of us. Who we are. It helps me to remember who I am. I am in this big overwhelming world of so much. That the sand cools my mind my worried my mind. The waves welcome me in the every changing rhythm now comforting. There is a newness in each wave. As I turn around. The warming fall sun hits me. The kayakers with crabs have arrived at shore. The fishermen laugh. The crabs lay on their backs upon foreign soil their legs moving around for freedom. I keep walking and watching. I pick up a few stones. All different colors. As dogs maze around me.

And remember I can believe. I can believe. Things can be different. I can believe in me wanting different things and getting them. I just have to go home and visit. To remember. Believing is what I do best.

the messiness of just being free: the gift my parents gave me of mud pies and staying dirty

What I remember best about childhood was the freedom. The freedom of play. I remember sitting on my tree swing crafted by father. The wood underneath my very tiny boney butt and the two distinctive pieces of yellow rope intertwined together around and around to the top of the tree. That yellow rope was my dad's signature rope. It was on my swing. It was on things he fixed around the house. On our Christmas tree when tied about our blue Volkswagen. And on this swing I would sit and swing and then sit. And just be. Staring outside and up into the clouds. And closing my eyes and taking my legs to my butt and lengthening out past my feet. Over again and again. My eyes closed brought darkness but this light show created in light and movement created colors and shapes. As I moved another show created. I spent time staring in and out and swinging. The freedom of just being there. And doing nothing. But daydreaming and looking and seeing and closing my eyes to create my own freedom of what I wanted to see.

My backyard was covered in vegetables my parents had planted in boxes built by my father. My seeds in with them and the dirt off to the side to place the seeds. And what would happen next. Would it grow? My label put upon a piece of wood and waiting. And in the dirt. The dirt I played. In afternoons of mud pies made for each one of my family and friends. And eaten very quickly and started again. Dumping it out to begin again. The mud caked my fingers and painted on my face and arms and sprayed onto my clothes. The texture of it. The mud. The way to make the perfect mud pie. Grabbing just enough mud and spreading it around the tin. With a design on top. And presenting it to my parents or my friends even if they weren't sitting next to me. The freedom to play in mud and not care if I was dirty. I wanted to be. And no one told me to clean up. They let me play in mud.

And I still like to get dirty. Maybe because I have had issues with spilling. Or it reminds me of what was. And every time I see a parent scold a child for having paint left over from a school project on them or the evidence of an ice cream smeared upon their face. I cringe. Because the freedom of not caring should be given to children. They have their rest of their lives to pretend to be perfect and clean. Let's give them this. The swings and the mud and the messiness of just being free.

What I remember best of my childhood was this freedom my parents gave me. In the chaos that was my home sometimes-this place this gift they gave me-when they weren't in the abyss of figuring themselves out. Somehow I had the freedom and the responsibility of adultness as a child in the worrying and caregiving and anticipating what would be next. And as much as I sometimes wish for a different childhood, I can't ignore what my parents gave me. The freedom to be a child. Sometimes. That allows me to be light and be free still in ways I know that without that swing to be swung made for only me or the mud pie tins filled with mud never needing to be cleaned-I might not have grown and flourished. Into who I became.

my grandmother still tucks me when she visits me in my dreams

The place where she felt the most comfortable was in a bed. A small twin bed next to another in a room where the cars say a quick hello and goodbye as they travel up and down the street. The comforter was dated probably from the 70's near the time of her birth and there was a starchy feel to it. But underneath-no underneath-there were sheets and blankets touched by fabric softener. The softness of a night light illuminated the room even when she reached adulthood. You need to be able to find the bathroom, her grandmother told her. 


 But the best part of this room, this room away from home was what would happen before she would sleep into the morn. You see she would be tucked in by her grandmother- even when its expiration date of adulthood- had occurred. The talking and the love of warmth of someone tucking you in. I was able to have that gift into my mid 20s. My grandmother, my mother figure since my early days of elementary school, she tucked me in . And never did I feel so loved. Never did I feel so comfortable. I learned from her how to love and care and have strength in caring for someone. You could be both motherly and feminine and have strength to stand up for yourself and others. Her fire became mine. Her height mine as well.

I had forgotten about the feel of her hands against the side of my body pushing the blankets perfectly to hold my body into comfort, into love, until I dreamt of it. The other night, I was again in that guest room, my borrowed room, and there she was tucking me in. I felt the warmth of her as I opened my eyes to daylight and felt her touch my side as the dream fading and I felt as if she was still there, comforting me. Fear started and then relief. Don't be scared. I told myself. For those who have loved us and left us not because they wanted to but because they had to-sometimes come back. Come back. In memories. And in dreams.

And I can't help but think that my most comforting moments of my life were delivered to me again by the woman I love and miss so much. A sign. A message. And comfort that can still extend through time. And distance. And death. Her comfort, her love, her example of strength and care lives and breathes inside of me. The dream is just a reminder of the comfort that lives on beyond the confines of life and death. I can't help but think she visited me to remind me, remind me before my birthday, that I am still comforted by her and she, she stills lives inside of me-in memories and in traits and in sayings. As I look down at my fingers and look at her mother's ring with one stone for each one of her children- my uncle, my aunt, my aunt, my father-and the the cladding ring, I can't help but think she is with me now. She gave me gifts and now she is watching to see what I will do with them.

i just had a good argument with a punching bag

A good argument. I just had a good argument with a punching bag. I can say I won but let's see what happens when I wake up tomorrow. Will I be able to move? Will my hands stretch above me for the awaking my body to the morning? Will I lay there thinking maybe the wrapping of the hands in yellow and putting on the gloves too big for my tiny hands wrinkly the same make as my mother and brother might have been a better idea than reality.

I had a good argument with a punching bag. I won. For I can still move this am. And it felt really good to just take my fists into something heavy and hit hard. The jab and the hook. Sometimes more powerful than I expected sometimes weaker than I thought acceptable. My friends face on the other side cheering me on but I still fear I might sock her. You are supposed to dance around the bag. You are supposed to block your face. You are supposed to wait for the buzzer. You are supposed to call out the numbers. You are supposed to do a lot of things. But a good argument with a punching bag. That should be prescribed. A great way to get out what you can on an object that can't fight back expect for a swing your way. I guess you could fall over. But still the risk or pretty low in a world where we unload our truck or empty are bucket on the wrong person all the time. Sublimation at its best.

I used to be scared of punching. Well let me take that back. My father used to stand in front of me on the grass in front of our yellowish house next to my tree swing and have me punch his hands-left and right left and right-for I should learn how to punch and I should not punch like a girl. Strength I felt in my chicken arms as I pounded against the weathered hands of my father.

This was before I feared punching and fights and the temper that lived inside my father. My father the sweet man he was, he is, had been raised in the don't ask don't tell of baby boomers so many emotions trapped inside and anger and sadness and desperately shy at one point all mixed into the perfection of him being a fighter. My dad used to get into fights. Street fights. I don't know when it all started. But I do know there in the story telling there was always some type of justice. That guy called my teammate the n word. Or that guy stole from the store I worked at. But somehow the justified crossed over to someone cutting you off in a car, to little league, to a nephew during a drunken poker night. See there might be justice in fighting in protecting but some fights are not about the punching of the opponent. Its the punching of ourselves.

I learned early on. To try and calm my dad down. I learned early on how to break up fights. One of my first memories of college was me breaking up a fight between two soccer players one from Berkeley the other from oakland. They all had a few lbs on me. But I jumped in. I learned early on that I was scared of anger. Scared of anger and fighting and punching. I learned early on not to touch it or taste it or play with it because it would lose control. But tonight. As I punch this bag. With my wrapped hands and red gloves. I pound out anger. Anger in a way that doesn't scare me. Only scared party is that bag, of the hook. And as I end class I can't think how much I want to call my dad. He would be proud I could punch and not punch as a girl. We all get to choose how our family lives inside of us. As I punched that bag. And had a friendly argument, a good argument with anger.

built with love: the safety of a picture window

Dreaming. I lay upon my back upon the small piece of grass in front of my duplex home in the f section and stare above. Above me- the clouds move. Just watching the movement of the clouds- cotton balls that I always dreamed I could walk on. My younger self- stared up wishing to walk upon the clouds even though I was told I would fall through. That the clouds would not hold my weight even as a small child. But somehow I thought if I ever got that high I could walk, walk upon those large drifty cotton balls. Cotton balls of cotton candy pinkish sometimes when the sun is drifting away. I dream of jumping between the clouds not falling through. Where to. I didn’t know. Then or now.

I still find my self looking up at the clouds. Today. And stopping and watching the quickness of the changing canvas along the blue. I alert the kids to the good clouds ahead while driving up and down the hills to our next destination. At the stop light, I say I have always wished I could go up to the clouds. K responds, you can you just need the right ladder. Dreaming.

Dreaming. I used to dream there were witches under my bed. And in my closet. So often that I couldn’t sleep in my bubble gum ice cream pink smeared room. Pink everywhere upon my request. Then. I couldn’t sleep and found refugee down the long hallway in between the two parts of me- my mother and father. Darkness around me. I thought. But the nightlight never forgotten to be put on by him or her after my reading. I found them each time.

Dreaming. Of witches. My witches dream. Became a problem. They kept coming. And my father did what he could to bring me comfort. In my closet- one of the locations where they would come in my dreams. He built the safety of a picture window only a father could. In it was a picture of trees and sun and clouds. Drawn by him in pencil and then in color. Lined in the only color I thought should exist pink, pink window panes. He pulled down the string of the light he had lengthened so my five year old hands could reach.

And there was my very own picture window. My own blanket. My own safety. From the witches. See Katie he said you don’t have to be scared anymore. My picture window. A picture window from my father. Was the only thing that kept me from the witches in my dreams. And got me to dream. Again. In my own bed. In my own room. Light on in the closet. So I could keep the window. In my view.

there is no regret in wearing a dirty shirt to watch baseball at a bar

hello friends- thanks for stopping by. enjoy the double whammy of the world series and halloween. if you live in san francisco it is most definitely on. . . all my thanks-always!


There should be no regret in being a sports fan. No there shouldn’t be. But a few weeks ago when this all started and I donned my bright orange shirt woman’s make in the mission I stood alone. Except a few rogue guys. There is something about the mission that had made its residents think that being monolithic included not caring about sports, but the arts, and fixies, and coffee you pay 4 dollars for, and the next foodie food cart. But the reality is you can rock the mission lifestyle with a giant’s shirt as a female. There shouldn’t be regret in that.

And now now with the change in the climate. I am not alone but in a sea of orange and black. People strangers yell at me go giants and the score without me asking. I am not alone. I stand with the others in the sea of the underdogs. The abyss of my family’s team, the history of the forced games I watched while growing up and dating now by I watch by choice. By choice I have sat at a bar by myself to watch. The history of my father sneaking in our very own hot dogs in a thermos to save money but taking us to the worshipped game. And explaining the ins and outs. I still call him to clarify when I am confused. Sometimes I might know more than my male counterpart bar neighbor- only in the mission- only with the band guys.

But there is a strange sense of community that brews in feeling connected with strangers, with neighbors, with people you might never have high 5ed or picked up or spoke to. Isn’t it strange to believe in a team that dances around dirt and grass and slides and jumps and hits and breaks enough to make us forgot ourselves for a moment and remember we in fact are connected? Connected we always have been. Community in not just the orange and black but everyday, everyday but now we wear our uniforms and say our hellos and I just don’t want it to stop. To have everyone return to looking down at their personal devices or talking loud about nothing or just pretending not to see those next to them.

My own fashion has suffered- I have two giants shirt in rotation and wear my shirt clean or not every time they play. People talk to me. And sometimes there is an edge to their words. Sometimes the go giants especially after a 4 hour game and more beers thrown down their throats slows down and tries to be a come-on. Go giants in this sloppy sultry eyes staring attentively- go giants they say. Those guys outside of the bars. The number one pick up line is go giants for now. The mixture of winning and belonging and beer makes them want to score too. A man tried to exchange numbers with me through a closed window of my car. Go giants. I have been shocked by the ability for the homeless folks to have giant’s gear and wear it on the right game days. Impressive to say the very least.

My city has changed. Maybe only momentarily. But enough for me never to regret wearing dirty shirts to watch baseball games at bars by myself. By myself I won’t be for long.

the real nanny diaries- they don't call me the help, they call me family

hello friends- all i can say other than the lovely post below is i believe in you giants!!!!

Learning how to love someone as your own and care in ways you didn’t know possible. Changing your schedule just to pick up a forgotten guitar, for there will be no lessons without that guitar and there will be no surprise and hug and run around the school yard, thank you, thank you, I love you Kate, you are the best.

Somewhere along the line I forgot this was my job. I do things because I want to not because their parents pay me. I go to their plays and talk to their teachers about their progress and their friends know my name and to their parents about how to negotiate in the task of raising kids. Raising kids together. We are learning how.

Because with one house with mom and another house with dad and me in between I am learning how still how to be just their advocate and their foundation. It is not a role that is foreign. Because there once was me in the middle of my parents not in the same way. Between houses. But between them. While they were married. While they fought over us. While I bounced from one relatives house to the next. We never got to the back and forth between houses part. No we skipped that.

Learning how to be there and welcome the attitude I might get from the almost tween. No I am not saying goodbye. Or when the 7 year old refuses to eat his food without coaxing. I know, I am learning that this is part of what happens when you move from being the help to being family. You see more and get more both the good, the bad, and the ugly. If they never said an unkind thing to me they would show me they loved me less. Because in being real, you might not be sugary sweet like the food they desire daily.

I know that when I pick them up after a long day of high school of highs and lows of being a teenager, of heartbreaks, and how to get into college, or how to be a NCAA athlete. Do you want this apple Ms. Bueler- one students offers. I don’t take their food- I give them food- because they usually are hungry. Hungary for so much more than I can give. Than I can give with these almonds or strawberries or z bars. I know that when I see these two faces. I warm up with happiness and the day whatever happened drifts away. Away for a bit. I am there with them. There right now. Right then. Just skipping down the street or chasing the next snack or adventure or game to watch. Or how many of their meal worms have made it at school.

I know, I am learning that they know they are loved. Loved in a way that all children should feel. So when Y states don’t worry Kate will protect us. She is strong. And she would never let anyone hurts us. I am learning, still learning, to love someone as my own. And learning her safety she feels with me might be the greatest gift of all.

alcoholic bones: kate-0 asphalt-1

go enjoy that heat if you are in sf! i don't care if i have to take multiple cold showers a day and my only refugee is water and the beach. this weather is needed. it will be in the 50's by friday. so take that look off your face and go bask in the sweat of it. . .

here is a quick write for the phrase- humor me-about a new years eve gone terribly wrong.


Humor me and tell me I’m not like the others. The other drunks out there. Go ahead. I might have believed you. I might have. I crossed the line over drinking too much early on in my career with the bottle and finding my head in a toilet and to the bed and to the toilet and to the bed. I would drink in such a fashion that my mixing, my escaping would put me completely out of commission. There was no ‘a few drinks’ in my vocabulary.

So the first time it went to physical violence, I was at a New Year’s Party just nearly out of the supposed grownup stair of college. The party was the type that costs 100 dollars but there is no food in sight but with an open bar to boot. I was having a love affair with vodka cranberries. I was hanging out with my older cousin and her friends-they my 5-year seniors. No food -me humping vodka crans all night after the infamous double-parked break up of my last boyfriend. I asked if he wanted to go to LA with me. He told me he wasn’t in love with me anymore. While double-parked in front of his house. Nice. That kick to the gut hurt. Hurt so much that my pain could be only minimized by you guessed it- that stupid open bar.

Fast-forward to I am now staring at my own reflection with blood all over my face. I stared at my bloody mary version of myself and I had no idea what had happened. I had no idea how I had got to that bathroom or how I was injured. I was staring and crying and women around me staring. Staring. Because who comes to a 100 dollar a ticket party and gets into fist fights. Something must be wrong with her their thoughts not spewing out but mixed inside their heads below their perfectly done hair dos. No blood was on their faces. But bloody mary I was.

My cousin appears and asks me who had done this to me. I don’t know I am breathing now through blood and tears and guilt and embarrassment. I didn’t know. Kate you have to tell me. I have to kick their ass. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what had happened. I knew I was in a fancy place and my love affair with vodka crans was done for now and I had an awful gash across my nose. My cousin gave me the first aid of family and of backup and putting pressure on my nose. I am going to figure this out as she stomped out of the public restroom. I didn’t care what happened anymore. I just wanted to go home.

My lawyer cousin became the investigator outside those doors of my protection. I wanted to go home but to go outside in the middle of a fancy party seemed like death to me. I might have, I might have broken my nose. Holy fuck. I am screwed. I hated the color red of my face, of my drinks. I hated the party for people not supplying food. I hated that guy for breaking my heart. I hated myself. I eventually would hate my cousin for keeping me there with a gash on my nose and then making me take public transit-the N home. In the bright lights of the train- everyone could see me, no bathroom where I could hide. I just closed my eyes and laid on my good friend’s shoulder. If I couldn’t see them-they couldn’t see me. It wasn’t real.

The facts came rolling in little by little not like a news station alerts more like calling someone without call waiting. It takes time to get through. You had to wait sometimes for the truth. So it turned out after my cousin had asked everyone there she knew and didn’t that I had gotten in a fight. A fight with the asphalt. Her friend replayed the torture of I was outside smoking a cigarette talking to him. When I came falling down like a tree in the wilderness. He thought I had blacked out. I hadn’t stopped myself. But he couldn’t stop me either. I had repressed all of it. All of it had. The worst part was I had to face my mother’s family the next day- a family I didn’t know very well- with a fucked up face. I had to come up with a story and quick. Humor me. Tell me the story.

the quest to stay out of the fog in my island of home

hello all-thanks for reading! this was inspired by the lovely word paradise. enjoy and have an amazing weekend- i am signing off for a spa day of sorts tomorrow. paradise will be mine. again.

i want to give a shout out to my former professor and dept. head at Columbia's Teachers College. I am humbled to know he reads this thing i call a blog. he was brave enough to tell me. i am glad to be expanding my target audience- Aaron Pallas- sociologist i will always be. . .


Paradise. What was paradise yesterday is not my paradise today. My paradise before was a beachfront property in a miami style vice house. My paradise was falling in love with bloody marys. It was the first time we took a run on the dance floor of drinking. I loved them so much- I took the orders from all the family members- first one then multiplying until one day I had more glasses lined up in a row, bartender I had become. I tried to perfect it each time. More family members kept coming back for more. My cousin’s husband said my final one rivaled zeitgeist. I took a moment of silence. A comparison to a godfather of bloody mary makers. I only was in the ring for a week.

Paradise for me was waking up eating and coffee along the lake and then reading, swimming, and making a bloody mary for me and co. Then repeat again. And again. That was my paradise. Paradise was swimming in the lake so much it became my bath. I was a mermaid again on my back floating-my hair back and forth-the heaviness of the hair weighing me down and freeing me all at once. My childhood habit of being a mermaid still mine as I lay on my back floating and my head and the weight of it to and fro. It was my paradise to sit along the hot shore with a towel small or big and the waves crashing rhythmically as the screen doors opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes. I sat there by myself. I laid there and could have laid there forever sun beating on my irish german skin brown. I took off one of my 5 bikinis to see a tan line I hadn’t had in years. It was my paradise. Bloody marys and swimming and white bottoms and family and kids running around saying they are robots and wrestling on the damp grass.

It was my paradise until I came home. Home to a forgotten feeling of despair and anxiety. And after I was able to shake the familiar feeling away. I found paradise again. Again I did. Today while driving. I left my friends home in the richmond the fog melted away into the sun of the haight. As I drove, I saw two kids on their bikes on the corner bubbling with summer. I drove behind a person with a red party cup plastic type out the window. I slowed down. I saw a tall man walking a toddler across the street. Paradise again.

As I sat sitting in the sun no bloody mary but a espresso with spice. No beach but sun. And my companion the laptop. I sat and heard. Heard paradise again. I had saw paradise. But paradise was listening to three different people talk about boobs in unison. Paradise was talking to a man from cork. Paradise would be getting proper cocktails with friends and searching for sun tomorrow. I had left my paradise-my lake-my love but now I found home. Paradise all along. All long it was. I just had to drive to the sun and leave the fog. The fog that is.