An Apology

Thats the thing about life, sometimes you get a chance to set it straight, make it right, say your piece, make your peace, bend a knee, and ask for forgiveness.  And that is the wonder of Facebook, your old friends find you, and give you that chance.  Today I wrote an apology that was 28 years overdue, today I wrote an apology with no hope for redemption, but because it was owed:


Dear ___________

You are so sweet to write me, so sweet to spend the time to share this with me.  Its a lot for me to read, and absorb, and I want to pay it the attention it is due, so let me first start with this:

wow.

Reconnecting with you after all this time has been nothing short of amazing.  I don't even know where to begin to talk about all the things I want to say to you.  Maybe if nothing comes of any of this, its that I had the opportunity to be in contact with you again.

I am quite certain that I owe you a profound apology.

I am quite certain that I hurt you and for that I really am truly sorry.

You were one of my closest friends and I was very very much in love with our friendship.  Senior year was a disaster for so many reasons and I am very very sorry that you had to suffer due to anything I might have done.  I am still not entirely sure how it all happened, what actually happened, and where my responsibility actually lies, but I know that I was in inordinate pain and that I surely caused upset for many people, you amongst them.

I don't know where you went after high school, what you did, how you ended up where you are.  I know nothing of your path.  But to be here, in contact with you, reunited, with some measure of perspective, seems lucky to me.

Please don't take this as an "apology bomb", and please do not feel under any obligation to forgive me, if forgiving is indeed needed, until you are ready.  I just didn't feel comfortable launching into a talk about my current life without setting the past life in order.

I hold you in my heart.

With much love,

Simone

Paris, avec moi?

From http://www.fairytalesaretrue.com/

I know how much I love you when I see photos of Paris and think, I can't wait to stroll through her streets with you…..

I want to see the world with you by my side.

Perfect.  Silent.  Ageless deep love. 

A hand to hold, while I breathe in deeply, the scents and sounds of this life.  

Lifted from the fog I have seen a new horizon. 

We. Me. She.

How on Earth did I find you through the clutter and noise.  

The rattle bang whiz is fading to silence

and all I hear is the hum of my heart

the flow of my breath

like a leaf blown on a breeze

satin over skin

I hear what I feel

slipping into the silence

of your love

Multnomah Falls

C. and I are in Portland for a quick summer vacation before I start back to school. We drove up the gorge to Multnomah Falls with some friends man oh man is it gorgeous up here.





We of course failed to bring appropriate clothes so we borrowed....

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Paris anyone?

One of my daily reads, a blog called Oh Happy Day, has an amazing contest going....



Oh Happy Day Goes to Paris




Check it out!

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Love

If this is all there is
If life deals me no more triumphs
If I never see the Yucatan
If I never have another new pair of shoes
If I never see another flame red African sunset
It will have been enough
For now I have you
And you are all I will ever need


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The last of the broccoli

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Wow

It's been ages since I posted....weeks that have felt like months. School has entirely taken over my mind and all my time. An injury has sidelined my running and studying sucked up all my yoga/me time....

But today we are home, baking bread, and hanging out with the not so feral kittens...








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Being Seen, again

As I was leaving class today I checked my voicemail. C had called and halfway through her message she interupted herself, saying, "oh you must be taking your anatomy test right now". Such a small thing, but such a huge thing. That someone was paying attention. This relationship was born out of visibility, paying attention. It is nice to be reminded that she is out there, noticing.

Finally spring break is here. My brain is so fried from studying and worrying about studying (which is more taxing I can't guess) that I can hardly think straight. This thing I do, this ideal I establish for myself, it is starting to become tedious. Have I forgotten that I am human? Fallible? Flesh and name that bone? can I really be worrying about what my father, who lives in the southern hemisphere and never calls, really never calls, is going to think if I get a B in anatomy? What does it mean about me? After a lifetime of being told how special I am, how talented and smart, I am face to face with having to work for my grade. And worrying about it. What if I fail them? What if I fail myself?

And then my love, she tells me she never expected that of me. That she never asked that of me. That I did all this just for my own private pressure cooker.

Learning to allow myself is hard. Allow myself to enjoy, to be messy, to allow the unfettered madness of real life to spill over into my well ordered existence...to finally draw outside the lines. And to know that the lowest grade will be dropped.




And now for a few days of nothingness.

Good Morning Friday

Lots of rain, lots of gray, the Smiths on KCRW, baking bread today

Support System

I spent the better part of the day in the torrential rain supporting my friends running the LA Marathon.  Glad it wasn't me running out there, but what an amazing accomplishment!

For Japan with Love

Good morning

Barbossa and Wetherby hanging in the sun


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Good Morning

Starting the day's list

A few more onions for good measure

Soon to be Broccoli

Busy day today…C is home for a month and we are blissfully re-aquainting… a new fridge arrives today and I have to bake 48 cupcakes for a three year old birthday party…two tests next week, lots of studying.  The sun is out and we are rain free for a few days.

Good Morning

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Anything but studying

Procrastination my new BFF…today a 5 mile run with MJ, the studying, then Oscars.  Aside from the fact that it is FAC (Freezing Ass Cold) - I guess I shouldn't complain it's 54 degrees to some of my countrymen that would be cause for sunbathing right now - today looks to be a good day.  But the coffee fail doesn't bode well.

Rain is over for now

Baby Bialetti doesn't like me today

Tail Cozy

Spring in my step

Today I am loving these beauties

• Miu Miu high heel, 259 GBP
• B Ella high heel, 99 GBP
• Shoes, 190 AUD
• Valentino high heel, $745
• Gianmarco Lorenzi stiletto heel, 859 GBP
• River Island wedge heel, 80 GBP
• Steve madden sandal
• Seychelles wedge heel, $161
• Giuseppe Zanotti high heel, 505 GBP
• Giuseppe Zanotti nude heel, $870
• Lanvin espadrille sandal, 300 GBP
• Rene Caovilla flat sandal, $855
• Miu Miu wedge heel, $495

Things I am loving right now…..

Feeling Pink by Simone Pier Heymann on Polyvore.com

Valentino floral strapless dress, $11,000
FLuXuS champagne dress, $119
French Connection baby doll dress, $92
Nina Ricci long sleeve dress, $2,590
Tiered dress
Dress, $339

The barely visible Hollywood sign

On my way to the hematologist to check the hemoglobin levels. Normal now for two months and counting….



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Panic

What ancient part of my lizard brain rears its ugly head when, three hours early for class, I pull into the parking lot at school and see the ominous sign indicating that both lots are FULL. although I have hours yet to study, which could be done in my car as easily a a desk in the library, and I could park and quietly wait for a student to show up and deliver me this prize, I panic.  My adrenal glands show me their mettle, and off we go sailing down the highway of hyperventilation.  They make drugs or this sensation, but I am not taking them, not today.  Because this should not be happening.  I should be smart enough to realize that within the half hour a spot will open up.  The planets are not aligning to deprive me of a place to deposit my car.  But panic I do.  With all the self talk, all the common sense, all the logic in hand, I devolve into a 7 year old freak out tantrum.  It is not pretty and I do not admire myself at all when I do it.

So why do I do it? What fear drives this intense physical, emotional, psychic reaction to something that I know will soon pass?  What on earth is the threat? And why such an intense response to this perceived threat?

I have not run in two weeks.  I have not taken yoga in a month.  I have not meditated in six months.  I am too busy, too happy, too tired, too anything….

Go figure.

Coming Home

Since C. travels for almost all her work there is a lot of coming and going in our house.  Lots of airport hugs, sleeping single, hotel shampoo, long skype calls, small heart breaks.  Today she is coming home and this day is always the same for me: change the sheets, vacuum the house, pile up her mail, make a lovely dinner, infuse the house with love, welcome.  The re-aquainting is lovely, tentative, almost like courting, and I make the most of it.  But today is different, today it will not be me at the airport picking her up, but a car service.  For the first time in our relationship, I will not be available.  I have started school (more on that later) and will be in class.  She will arrive home to an empty house, something I am deeply sorry for.  We knew this day would come, knew that I could not sit at home waiting for long, that life calls, and I am not one to be idle.  So I will make the bed, dust, smooth the towels, run the dishwasher, and then I will leave.  At least Jack will be here to welcome her

Zero Waste Valentines

I have been reading with relish a blog I found recently, which proposes, in a lovely and accessible way, a zero waste (no trash) life style.  She keeps me thinking, a lot, about my trash impact….so in Bea's honor, don't send cards this Valentine's Day..send these Virtual Cards from Kate Spade.

With Love, Love, Love.

Simone

A lazy Sunday Morning with a friend

Jack kept the house up last night with his toy chasing and bed hopping…now he is napping in the sunshine while we take our coffee and chat.  Ah the life of a cat.

Up Early looking for Birds

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When things get crazy - I get baking

Proust may not approve, but these are some tasty Madeleines

Love

So strange, love is.  Hard to pin down, categorize, frame and put on the mantle.  But I know I have it everywhere.  It doesn't alway look the way I would like it to.  But I found this in my daily blog visits and thought I would share it with whomever is out there reading.  This makes me think of my father.  

Deconstruction Continues

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Achievement?

I thought I would wake up with a laurel crown, with a proud chest, held high, and a new strength in my stride.  I had been training for this for months, put in lots and lots of miles, dragged myself out when I was cold, bored, tired, sick of it, but I did.  I showed up.  And on Sunday my legs showed up for me.  People keep telling me it's amazing, what I did, and so fast! So consistent, so strong, and yet I feel blank, sad even, humbled.  How could I have lived so long with so little faith in myself.  So little belief in what I could do, what I could accomplish? But did I accomplish anything? Really? My world has been turned upside down. Broken down, rebuilt.  In this moment 6 men are under my house, jacking up my foundation, tearing out the 80 year old wood, installing stronger, longer, thicker beams, tougher bolts, bringing us up to 2012 code. I sit here, watching the bubble shift to plumb, and the cracks buckling in the walls, the base boards separating from the floor, the creaking, shifting, earthquake noises, clanging, banging and sawing, and I realize the insignificance of this thing that I built up so much in my mind.  So much of how I live is in my vast and vacant mind.  Whole universes reside there, I break them down, build them up, fret over them, make myself sick with judgement, concern, fear.  and yet, when they come to pass, you would think I learned a lesson once in a while, they always turn out to be less than I expected, less than I worried about, like the kid in a monster suit, harmless, toothless, funny even.  For a smart girl, I have a block of wood for a brain.  Oh to live free, without all this noise.  To break it down, and see it for what it is, a long run, a sunday morning spent with strangers, a small achievement, not to be made grand, but not to be dismissed.

13.1

What a girl will do for a free bottle of water and a space blanket...

Race Day

If you had told me a year ago, when I was training for the Tour Decatur, a one mile run around the high school, that today I would be driving to meet 13,000 other runners to run the Surf City Half Marathon, I would have laughed, no, chortled. But I am. Life is truly an amazing mystery.


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Location:Huntington Beach, CA

Our little farm

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Recycled

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Good Morning

A very sunny morning here in Southern California