Episode 60: Dad Vibes, Lost Bags & Orgasms!
BRITISH COLOMBIA!!! Stripper names!!!KELOWNA!!! VANCOUVER!!! GETTING STUCK IN TORONTO!!! OLIVER TWIST!! Partnership?!? BACK AND SOFTER THAN EVER!!! THE BEAUTIFUL HEARTS OF SO MANY STRANGERS!!! Thrift shopping!!! JUCY CLIFFHANGERS!!! The number 44!!! A DIFFERENT KIND OF WOMAN & a whole bunch of my heart but in musical form….
Excerpt:
“Alright well since you all have been listening to reruns for the last few weeks I guess it’s my prerogative to give you something juicy. Alright, folks YOU READY?!
Y’all really should do some antiracist work… if you were waiting for a sign this is it… go show up in your communities different. I dare you. Hope that was juicy enough for you all! Alright well let’s talk about my sex life… just kidding you know we’ll get to that later. Alright so I’m back AGAIN, this time from beautiful British Colombia, and wooooweee can I tell you. Being there was wild. I feel like I came back a different woman. In so many ways. I’ll get into that more later too. Just dangling these cliffhangers out there for you. But first I’ll lay it all out for you. I went from Boston to Toronto, and got stuck in Toronto in the world's longest and slowest moving WestJet customer service line (during which, like a crazy person, I sat on the floor for hours). I missed my flight, re-booked it, and then at midnight (still in Toronto) the pilot shows up at the gate having gone into overtime and unable to fly our plane. So there I am standing in yet another WestJet customer service line, wondering again, what is wrong with the universe… And I called my people and we found a hotel room, and I took an Uber to my hotel, which was stunningly beautiful I might add. And then finally booked in a 4 pm flight to Vancouver the next day I took a bath and I slept till 12. Now, this weird thing has been happening to me for the last several months. I have been seeing a repeating set of numbers. Now I know there’s a lot of superstition around this stuff. And honestly, I’ve always made a wish at the rare 11:11 I catch. But I’ve never seen repeating numbers so much in my entire life. So this repetition of numbers has been 44 or 11:44 or 1:44. For months now. Every time I look at my phone to check the time, it’s something 44. And I didn’t realize until I was standing at the door to my king suit in my hotel in Toronto, there I was at room number 404. And it couldn’t have been a more perfect ending to one hell of a day. Weird. I know. But sometimes it’s the littlest things. Remembering to put teabags in my carry-on, and my mug, so I had tea when I got to the hotel. The kindness of strangers. The guy who laughed hysterically as I accidentally yelled “Ohhh NO FUCK THIS…” when all 150 of us were sent to yet another WestJet help counter again. These little moments; of where ever you go there you are. I have been living for them.
So finally I head to my flight to Vancouver and now — knowing the Toronto airport like the back of my hand — I sit in a massage chair, grab some kombuchas, and relax before my flight. I get to Vancouver (after flying through the snow-capped mountains for a while) and pick up my rental car, and finally make it to the Airbnb. And it was the sweetest kitschiest little lovely place I could have hoped for. I felt right at home. Had scheduled a grocery delivery for right before I got there. And I collapsed with a bitters soda and some Brooklyn 99. I had a couple of days in Vancouver and finally got to go to foot torture. My favorite pastime. By that, I mean traditional Chinese acupressure. A luxury only found in cities these days. And one I used to love when I lived in New York City. And I bought myself some knitting supplies. And I reveled in my freedom. There I was, again in a place where no one knew me, no one cared what I did or didn’t do. I was free once again from the small town I’d lived in all my life. And the air was clearer, and my heart was lighter. And I put on my headphones and danced across the sidewalks. From Vancouver, I picked my partner up from the airport, and we took the car and drove through the wild mountains, waterfalls, 4 double rainbows, cascading rock formations, and winding roads. Thoroughly entranced, and wildly in love. With everything around us. In awe of the wild and beautiful place we inhabit—this ever-evolving earth. We listened to bad late 90s emo music, screamed songs at the top of our lungs, and were stunned again and again but yet another rainbow.
We got to our Airbnb in Kelowna, an apartment on the 21st floor of a high-rise apartment building, and stepped out on the balcony and stared at the unbelievable beauty before us. The houses built into the sides of mountains, and the city laid out in the rain at night. Sparkling. And we rested and loved on each other, and went thrift shopping together, and I twirled awkwardly in sundresses, out of my element. Where were my trusty work boots and iron forge hemp overalls? I miss my truck. And we planned our wardrobes around summer BBQs and family dinners. And then my partner left for the airport, back to South Dakota to pack their life into a car and drive it across the country, to me, to their family, to a new version of our lives together.
And I went to the dorms, of the UBC Okanagan campus, and I met all the people I spent months looking at in the little virtual zoom boxes. And I spent a week deeply immersed in hardcore community. Holding down my corner, like I always do. And watching wild interpersonal dynamics unfold and resolve, holding space for lots of complex conversations with other white people about race and power, and the depth of the learning and unlearning we get to do. And celebrating and laughing and crying and doing healing sessions, and driving us all out for sushi one night, and dancing salsa in the streets and having deep and profound conversations with my roommates about life and love. And finally when it was all over the few of us that were left after the retreat ended went to our teachers’ house and we were welcomed in with open arms, fed, and drawn a bath. And I remained shocked and awed at the open hearts of so many beautiful strangers that now felt like family. And finally, I convinced my 3 classmates that were left to come to acupressure with me — the perfect ending to our harrowing journeys. And then we went out for tapas and charcuterie in downtown Kelowna. And then my magical new friend and I went to the Airbnb next to the airport that I had booked and we slept for a couple of hours and got up and went out separate ways, them to a bus back to Vancouver and me on to my many flights home. And finally at 1 am I got in my car at Boston’s Logan International Airport, and hugged one of my closest friends for the first time in a month. And after a long long drive, I arrived home at 4 am, sans my luggage… which was still of course in Toronto, a whole different person.
Slept for a whole day, and then fell into the loving arms of my partner the next day. And, well, now we are all caught up, on my wild life. And one thing I can say for certain: is that I never imagined that this would be my life. I never imagined a love like this. I never imagined snow-capped mountains and rainbows. I never imagined a community this deep and strong. And my heart, oh my heart, was full falling sleep last night. With love pressed to my chest, and the summer rain pouring down, and my dog curled up at my feet. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I would live every second of pain, every moment of agony, every heartbreak, and every hospital visit again if it meant I would make it here. Grateful beyond words. Grounded in myself. Present in every moment, alive fully, truly, madly, deeply.
So with that, let’s listen to some music.
Here’s ‘Come And Get Your Love,’ an old classic and one of my favorites from the band Redbone, one of the first world-famous all-native bands. And a song that we yelled at the top of our lungs driving across mountains and valleys of beautiful BC.
And I’ll follow that with a driving music request from my partner I had forgotten about long ago. ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers, a song that held me through most of my younger years.”
