Finding Balance and Going Home to the Redwoods

I’ve been in crunch-mode the past three weeks. First there was “drop everything and get the house ready for Dara’s family to visit” which included hosting an overnight guest in our narrow living room on an air bed (we moved everything from the “staging area” into what will eventually be our office/guest room).

Then there was spending lots of time with Dara’s family, which was lovely and we love them. We also hosted our first Seder dinner and it was approximately 500 times more work than we planned for even though we knew going into it that it would be a lot of work.

Then it was crunch time to finish my tea blends and get them out to the folks who ordered in my first pre-sale. Dara said, “I have never seen you work so hard.” Seriously, pulling 14-18 hour days blending, packaging, writing labels, designing labels, printing, dealing with printer issues, buying last minute supplies I ran out of, packaging, going to the post office, etc…

THE FIRST EDITION OF THE LESBIAN TEA BASKET IN REAL LIFE! I’m loving doing these in batches because I can constantly adjust the composition and the aesthetic. It’s like an art project meets tea and I’m really loving it. Everyone who ordered their tea should be receiving it this week!

So I haven’t been blogging like I want to be and I am now circling back to “balance.” I find that creating balance for me involves a lot of constant trial and error.

I picture my life as a two lane highway through gorgeous countryside/forest/oceanside (those are my favorite roads). Being on the pavement is “balance.” That’s feeling like I’m getting things done, going in forward motion and taking care of myself in the ways I need–mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

Everyday is a winding road.

Life happens and I’m constantly course correcting back and forth across the pavement until I sync up with it again. And then the road starts curving or somehow I veer off the road and then I am doing it again, course correcting until I get back on the pavement.

Life is inevitable forward motion and inevitable curves. I’m just always working to make sure that the road is pretty, mostly enjoyable to drive and that I make sure to appreciate the view. I’m not always on the pavement.

Macy’s first time in the redwoods. She found them too prickly to walk in.

After three weeks of crunch time, not even seeing the pavement, we took a trip to the Bay Area on Friday. It wasn’t optional, otherwise I would have put it off again to try to stay here and get centered. Dara had work meetings and I really needed to get stuff from my mom’s house. We paid movers to send stuff down in February, but mom forgot a couple of tubs of important to me photos and I wanted to harvest some mint*.

It was a whirlwind trip, we were back by Sunday night. We stayed with my dear friend Leo, who lives in the redwoods on the mountains along the coast on the Peninsula. As soon as we got on the seriously winding road up her mountain I felt immediately at peace. It was an energy that felt super familiar to me and very soothing.

Leo has had that coffee cup since I’ve known her. It is superior to all other travel mugs because it has a caribiner clip for a handle. Let me know if you find them for sale anywhere!

Pretty soon I realized that we were in the woods that housed a lot of outdoor memories for me. My first summer camp is 10 minutes away from Leo. The campgrounds my Girl Scout troop would frequent is right next door to that camp. I spent a lot of time up in those redwoods as a kid.

In California most kids who went to camp only went one week per summer, not like on the East Coast where lots of my friends (of higher economic access than I had) went for the whole summer. What a dream that would have been! Luckily I got hooked up in Girl Scouts and my troop from 7th grade through 12th grade was super outdoor focused so I got to go weekend camping a few times a year as well as summer camp sessions.

This photo is over 20 years old and Leo lives 10 minutes from this hotbed of Girl Scout outdoor skills competition activity.

I was not spiritual as a child and though I now know I was sensitive to energy I was not conscious of it. But as a fat, working class weirdo girl who moved a lot and didn’t have a ton of consistency or experiences of unconditional love, shit was hard for me.

I am so grateful to the amount of outdoor experiences my mom enabled me to have because there was something so freeing for me to be in the woods. I would go to camp and feel more okay about being a weirdo, I would feel loved and held in ways I couldn’t articulate then but were vital to my survival. It’s like somehow in the outdoors, with less people and less societal pressure, I felt free to be me long before I could find it in myself to feel free to be fat and weird and queer and confident–no matter what my surroundings.

This outdoor grill is outside of Leo’s house and I learned how to cook out on one of these when I was a young person at camp.

Camp mail from Spunky I found while going through a box at my mom’s.

Now that I’m spiritual and developing my abilities and sensitivities, I can go into these places that were so vital to me and understand a bit better. I have often wondered how I survived my childhood. Because I survived I now feel a calling to make the world more survivable for other people.

This weekend was incredible to realize, “Oh, hey, the energy of these woods helped me survive.”

It was a true homecoming for me. It was a feeling of safety and regeneration I couldn’t have identified as a child, and I really appreciate all the work I’ve done on myself so that I can be present and be in wonder at how amazing it is to stand among redwoods.

Leo surfs now.

Leo lives in this extraordinary upstairs apartment with skylights that look up into a canopy of redwoods. She’s a good friend of mine and her apartment is also basically a giant altar full of great energy. I went up to the Bay Area thinking I was “not getting done” what I needed to get done, but I found in it balance and recentering I so deeply needed.

Some of the photos at my mom’s place included this gem we recreated. I was about 6 years old–that was 31 years ago!

We have to go back up there soon, there’s still more to get from mom’s house (she’s downsizing so now I get tomato cages, a bunch of additional herbs and pots, and a garden table), and there’s still more hikes and adventures to have in those redwoods with Leo!

Leo got a special Lesbian Tea Basket with a redwood tree ribbon.

*We moved into the house when I was 13. I moved 13 times by the time I was 13. The mint was the first thing I planted and it has been acting like a weed at her house ever since. It pops up everywhere and I cannot wait to cultivate it on my tiny land here in Los Angeles. It’s kind of the one literal thing with roots that I have if that makes sense, and now that I’m starting my own tea business I know there is some deep magic in that specific mint plant and I can’t wait to use it!

With Leo at Duarte’s. You have to stop if you’re ever near Half Moon Bay and have the “half and half” soup.