San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade 2025!

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On the Subway we are wondering how all the groups are going to make a snake costume. We have seen cute monkeys, pigs, and rabbits but are having difficulty imagining a cute snake on our way to the Chinese new year parade 2025.

Coming out of the underground with most of the train, ascending the escalator, we can hear the drums, gaining momentum. The air is festive. It’s friendly all around.

We get to our desired spot and eventually edge our way in to the front next to the fence. Placement at the parade is paramount. At our corner, there are those lining the pavement, others standing on utility boxes, and a bunch of youth on a scaffolding where a building is being upgraded.

As soon as we are in place we begin the wave. We wave at everyone and everyone waves back. It’s agreed. We are celebrating life together. I am waving at beautiful women in beautiful costumes, at little kids playing their drums, at high school and college bands in full regalia with trimmed sashes and white tipped shoes. It is a night of forgiveness. We even wave at the casino ladies and the politicians in red mustangs.

There are illuminated dragons chasing pearls galore and innovative homemade 20’ long snakes. There are cool guys with green rimmed lights on the bottom of their shoes, which make them look like they are levitating as they run through their martial art routine.

The real martial artists are the ones on the scaffolding. I watch them get to the fire escape of the adjacent building. They move up from the first to the second to the third etc. until they are at the eighth floor when the scaffolding changes to a very long thin ladder which reaches the roof. I watch them until they get to the ladder and then I can’t look anymore.

A group of elementary school kids are dressed as Mahjong pieces. It is like the game board is tumbling down the street. I look back up and I can’t see the kids on the scaffolding anymore.

The best fun is to get “kissed” by a lion’s furry eyelash because it’s great good luck. That’s why you have to be up against the fence. I got kissed.

Then the red Lucky shopping cart rolls by. It is way gigantic, so the many people inside it look tiny, like a Gulliver’s Travel adventure.

On the subway home there is a kid in an appropriately sized stroller. He can see himself in the opposite glass. He is waving happily at himself and himself is waving back.

Parking lot circus: CABALLERO

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As soon as I stepped inside to the darkness and the sound of heavy and light feet going up and down the metal stands with seats in anticipation of what is going to be the circus, I was happy.  When it starts, my breath is taken away by the beautiful young people, with their talent in costumes galore, prancing out on the stage in music, song and dance presenting themselves

One by one you get to know them: the two clowns that work off each other, the juggler and the many trapeze artists who are gloriously attired. Two of them missed the catch, and fell to the net below. “Ooooo  Aaaahh”. 

The strong bodies in the colorful skintight stretchy outfits are stellar with bright light bouncing off and around them. They are archetypal. They are an age old tradition. These people are traveling and living in the trailers that form the corral in the parking lot. At intermission, the people serving me Coke and popcorn are the same people preforming death defying acts earlier. They are a family.

After intermission, the big metal globe made of chain rolls out onto the stage and I think “Oh no. I thought maybe we weren’t going to have to do this.” 

But we do. The giant globe motorcycle act. Inside a tent, this act is nauseating from the gas fumes. And loud. The Mexican aspect makes it bearable.

First one guy gets in there and he zooms all the way around the circle; upside down at the top and truly that’s enough, but then a second guy goes in there, and zooms perpendicular to the first guy. Then a third guy comes in. He’s the diagonal track. A fourth one comes in and the fourth one is the smallest in the family and he crosses himself before he starts his ride and his ride is short.

The final act is a love story. A man and a woman balance at opposite ends of the same tightrope. They are doing amazingly ridiculous things in supreme balance. Watching someone that balanced, does something to you.

When home, all I had left of the magic was the popcorn container. On it is a picture of the circus family. It is now a napkin holder, holding my memories and my longings.

What’s punk in 2025?

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On my computer from KQED is a newsletter blurb. The enticing headline was about reviving a punk club from the 70s and 80s. I wondered if I could be the “”Mabuhay’” because I was here then and that was the only punk club I knew. And went to.

Although I knew I had been to the Mabuhay I couldn’t remember anything about my experiences there and wasn’t sure whether I had gone with Vincent before the fall or Linda after the fall. I texted Linda. Yes, she remembered going there and thanked me for the memory. Then I asked her about the 181 club which she didn’t remember to my astonishment. I texted back “You and I had been to hell and back when we met but compared to what was going on at the 181 we were innocents.”

A few hours later after riding on BART and emerging into and navigating through the low life on16th between Mission and Valencia, I walk a mile to the gallery where I will sit for four hours watching people and selling art.

Two people walk in. I think they’re guys and I say “Hey guys” when I realize that one of them has breasts and is probably not technically a guy but then I recognize that “guys”. although perhaps politically incorrect, is often said referring to an all-around person and not just a male so I’m not too embarrassed about the fact that I’ve used a masculine term for a couple. Then I think the Spanish language does this all the time. All of these thought processes take less than a second.

When the person with the breasts speaks they have a much deeper and fuller voice then the guy with the beard. It’s of no business of me or mine what the pronouns are. I’m never interested in that. I’m interested in who the person is, not what sex they like or are.

We greet each other, and after I ask them how their day is going, and hear their answer, I tell them that I have them trying to figure out who owns PayPal. This is a true icebreaker. We are at it right away… with Musk, Amazon, Airbnb: billionaire bashing.

These two people are so young and beautiful and alive and smart and all sexes at once, just so. This is in someway innocent compared to what they were doing at the 181 in the tenderloin of SF 40 years ago. That was scarier: more dangerous and vulnerable

But hey what’s going down for vulnerable today if not now everyone?

A woman in a hat with the dog comes in. The white dog is named Julian. Julian is so full of love, all I have to do is look at him, tilt my head a little, and he starts to wag his tail.

The woman with the hat and dog mentions the news. We together lament the news as I had been doing earlier in a different way billionare bashing with the guys.

This woman is more pointedly directed towards fascism. I wholeheartedly agree with her and say something hopefully stupid like “Still, it couldn’t happen like it happened in World War II“

She says “It’s already happening. They’re already taking innocent people and putting them away“.

All I could do is agree.

She bought a set of my heart card images. She paid cash and she, after tax, didn’t want the 72cents change. Told me to keep it. The heart cards she bought I originally made in February as “Valentines”. After February I call them “Love cards”.

Who doesn’t need a little more love?

LOVE

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 We were in Barcelona, so we were going out to dinner at nine. We finished around 10:30 and then we walked down to Barceloneta because it was the feast day of Saint John in late June and there were bonfires on the beach. The bonfires would burn all night long. None of us were going home before sunrise.

I was looking for a special someone. I had been single about six months and was still furious that my last boyfriend had broken up with me. What made me most angry was he didn’t have much of a reason. When I thought about it truthfully I didn’t have much of a reason for getting together with him in the first place. 

My girlfriends and I were drinking sangria on the beach and with each glass we got louder. Some people had a beach ball and we began throwing it back-and-forth. Someone made a makeshift fence and we were playing pretend volleyball. A person started drumming on an upside down plastic bucket and someone else started to sing.

It was a joyful scene but I was sad inside. I was so sad that I walked towards the water’s edge and then I walked along the waters edge. It was around midnight and there were so many people on the beach. I felt like I was in a crowded bar even though I was outside. 

I looked around and then I saw him. He was standing in a clearing all by himself looking up at the moon. I recognized him. I recognized in him what was in me. It was like I was looking at the other half of myself. It was strange.

Just as I was thinking that, he turned to me and smiled. At that instant, all of the anger within me drained out the bottoms of my bare feet into the sand. I felt like the stars we’re inside me pulsating new hope home. With that tingly feeling throughout my body, listening to the sound of the sea, moving back-and-forth along the shore, I started to walk towards him with more certainty than I had ever felt before.

He stared at me with a serene presence, and I could hear a voice inside my head that said, “I know you.”  I wasn’t sure who was talking to who.

Bicycle King and the gumball machine

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Once there was a bicycle king. He was the best bicycle person. He had the most authenticity and genuine earnest enthusiasm for being kind and fair to all.

He made bicycles with parts from Australia, France, Italy, China and even parts from the United States. Much attention was paid to detail and the bicycles were like none other and became popular.

The bicycle king was a very likable, lively guy. He had gathered around him 13 employees. No one ever left the job. His employees had been skaters, they had been surfers, and they were musicians and photographers and bicyclists.

The shop where they assembled and sold their bicycles was super cool. It was in an airplane hanger with lots of musical instruments on the walls and black-and-white photographs that the staff had taken of each other. There were flowers around the outside.

The bicycle king was passionate. He was passionate about one thing one season, and the next season he was passionate about something else. However, one object that continually fascinated him was old fashion gum machines full of brightly colored little balls.

He collected the gum machines and had them all over the shop. He filled some with gum. In other machines he put blueberries, grapes, cherries, raisins, peanuts, chocolate covered espresso beans etc. He put macadamia nuts in one gum machine.

The bicycle king and his crew had fake money coins that worked in the gum machines. The macadamia machine was different. It didn’t operate according to the rules. The rules being: you put in a coin and you got out an object.

The macadamia machine after having received a coin sometimes didn’t give anything and other times gave five. It was unpredictable.The bicycle king had the machine thoroughly investigated by himself and others. There was no rhyme or reason to it.

It was the talk of the shop because there was one employee who always got five out of that machine, and no one knew why. It wasn’t about him cheating. It was about something else.

A Bug’s Life

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With all the rainy weather, the ants have come inside. They are all over my kitchen counter. Even when I have nothing that they can possibly eat on the counter, they are running around looking for food. If I do spy a bit of even avocado, covered with ants, I take the plate outside, get rid of the avocado and before you know it, those guys are clean gone.

I once had a spiritual teacher who said that if it was only himself and an ant after the nuclear holocaust he would do everything in his power to make friends with that ant. The statement made an impression upon me. Now almost a decade after that teacher has left his body, I look at an ant and I wonder how can I make us friends.

Ants are not the only evidence of insects in my house. My high school senior son has been doing a report on insects. He has a shoebox with a styrofoam square on the bottom. In neat rows, there is a grid of dead insects with pins poking through them. They hover over the Styrofoam, still as can be: dry, beautiful and intricate.

He has another shoe box of butterflies. I was looking at the butterflies today, and I said out loud to myself, “They are so beautiful, it’s too bad they’re dead.“ In my mind, I heard a voice say, “But I am not dead.” 

I knew I hadn’t been getting enough sleep but still this kind of hallucination was unusual. I’ve never heard voices in my head before. I looked at the box more closely and saw that one of the blue butterflies wings was maybe slightly moving. Then I thought I saw an antenna jerk. I looked around for some kind of validation of what I was seeing but there was no one else in the room. I wanted to ask my son but he was gone at a friend’s house. I looked more closely at the box. For sure the wings were moving.

There was no wind I was inside with no heat and no air-conditioning, no open window or door open. No breeze. I heard the voice again, “I am not dead. You just think I am.” The voice was coming from the box. I looked a third time. The blue butterfly’s wings were definitely moving. I pulled out her pin, and she flew away.

The Imbolic

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Today is the kind of day when you don’t want to leave home. It is a cold day and the sun is not shining. It is raining lightly all day long. It’s a perfect day to stay inside, work at my desk and look out the window to my lovely garden, soaked in the grayness of winter time.

Today is the imbolic, otherwise known as Saint Bridgid’s day. It is the day between the winter solstice, and the spring equinox. The pagans had a goddess for it, but she got translated to a saint in the fifth century, and somewhere along the line, it became groundhog’s day in the United States.

It’s an in between day. A day of question: is it going to be more winter or is springtime starting? Curious that the movie had the day repeating itself ad infinitum stopping time.

Generally, Imbolic is considered positive and a move towards the light from the dark. We saw that a bit in the news today. Hostages were released, and contrary to the popular line, the revolution is being televised. People are looking at large screens in big squares, waiting for their person to show up and be freed.

In Germany people showed up in mass to voice their disapproval of Elon Musk and all that he stands for. That’s a step towards the light. Those people have seen this shit go down before.

Meanwhile on the border between the United States and Mexico there are planks of wood long enough to go through spaces in the fence. A Mexican child can sit on one end.

The US kid is on the other end. They can play seesaw on the wooden plank despite the wall between them. When one is up, the other is down. When the other is up, the one is down and so forth, following rules of harmony and balance.

The rain continues to wash down. I am getting up from my desk to play my guitar. Even though I can’t play it well and certainly never in public, I find it soothing. It is an inbetween activity. 

I play some Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan, now more famous than ever, is simultaneously 83 and 21 in our consciousness.

“I’ll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours.”

Leaving HOME

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From my studio west facing window, I see an overly abundant apple tree. An overly abundant Myer lemon tree is outside my east window. Their branches bend to the ground with fruit. I live in the hills.

Leaving home to go to the corner store or the art store or the subway station, I go downhill past the new age church which used to have cars lining the road for blocks and blocks on Sundays. I wind further downhill past the Catholic church and the Catholic school. I avoid this around 8 am and 3 pm.

I go down past the huge historic cemetery which used have wild foliage on the edges. Now that is manicured and cleaned up, hardly any deer cross the road; however the deer sign still stands in it’s bright yellow.

Continuing to go down, the cemetery morphs into the country club golf course on both sides of the road until I get to the closed art school and open art supply store.

Leaving home in another direction, towards the swimming pool, I take a left at the end of my road. Just after I go under the pass and before the light, I take a curly sharp right and end up on a big freeway. The freeway takes me to a tunnel which has water it it year round.

If I pass by that curly right and go into the town I will find two groceries, a post office, several cafes, a dispensary and a giant CVS that no one is in.

All of these getaways parallel Highway 13. 13 can be a lucky baker’s dozen or unlucky. It is the earthquake fault line. I live where it is all going to rumble. Seeing LA’s fires, I know northern California is going have that quake. Maybe not when I am around but it’s going to happen. 

Until then, I drive these roads. I take caution and ride through the part of the tunnel that is less wet. Why is it always wet? 

Day and Night

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There an element in the mind that can keep me up at night. Not all the time, but sometimes. Anything almost can do it: taxes, old boyfriends, current work competitors, regret long lasting towards my mother. This last one can especially go on forever as she left her body years and years ago so it’s a no ending one sided conversation. A way I torture myself, I suppose.

In the daytime, all this disappears. No such psychic monster exists on waking. It’s as though the light of day has washed it all away.

There’s an in-between, however. YouTube helps in the middle of the night. If the thoughts become too overpowering, I turn the power over to the phone. I can listen to anything, anytime. My favorite is High Fraser reading Agatha Christie. It’s amazing how many people he can be in an audiobook. I love him.

Sure, maybe murder isn’t a great springboard into the unconscious world of sleep and dream, however Christie has no sex, no violence, no gore or torture. Mostly just intrigue in rich people’s houses.

I could listen to someone on YouTube who is spiritually enlightened. Lord knows there’s an infinite quantity. Problem is I have been on the spiritual path for so many decades, that the path has worn to dirt and walking on it creates clouds of dust which make for hazy vision.

I never saw my school at night. As a child, I left school at 2:30 and I made it home for dinner. We all did. We went to our friends houses or the park. Judy had a long haired dachshund and I had a short haired one. She was my best friend and her house was between school and my house. When time came, dinner bells sounded and mothers yelled. Judy’s house on Winterberry and my house on Maryknoll weren’t too far apart and I was a fast runner in those days.

Only once in 2nd grade did I see my school after dark. It was lit up for a book fair. It was magic. I got a book about dragons and I felt omniscient as I’d just learned to spell.

Now kids are in aftercare till after dark during daylight savings time. No magic in that.

Later as a young adult, I enjoyed pools at night with the round white light coming from the walls underwater: Magic. Walking hand and hand on a golf course under the moon: Magic.

Now, as an older adult, I sit in the hot tub very late at night hearing the owl say “who?who?who?” Magic.