Happy Autumnal Equinox!

If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you’ll know how much I depend upon the wheel of the year to guide me. It’s a funny thing to realize how much I value structure when I spent so much of my young adult life going on about how structure just wasn’t my thing. Bullshit. Being controlled isn’t my thing. Being told what to do isn’t my thing. At 35, I can recognize that I have issues with authority; not structure. Especially not structure dictated by the rules of physics. That is structure I can believe in. So today, once again, I am pausing to appreciate balance. To enjoy a brief precise moment of Equanimity. I appreciate that an Equinox comes twice a year, because, really, it’s pretty fucking impossible to feel that way on a regular basis.

I’ve just returned from the Symbiosis Gathering. Holy shit do I feel old. In a good way!!! There was massive amounts of music and art and community. Swimming, dancing, walking, drinking, teaching and laughing. People watching and random stranger high-fiving. I met parents everywhere. Single parents, married parents, commune dwelling parents. I feel great about feeling too old for it. That being said, really, this post is dedicated to the technological wonder of porta potties. A ring of porta potties crowning a hill, a row of porta potties standing sentinel in a field, armed with hand sanitizer dispensers and two-ply paper. I appreciate the fuck out of porta potties, infrastructure is a beautiful thing.

I feel like I’ve been waiting to be 35 for a long time. Like I’ve been wearing shoes a few sizes too big for a decade, and now they finally fit. The waxing phase has passed. I have just reached the point of full strength. It will last for as long as it can and then I will wane. And in waning I will have the wisdom gained from so many full moon adventures. I do not have wisdom yet. But I have strength.

I watched the Harvest moon rise from the sidewalk in front of my building, waiting for my ride to the festival. All my camping gear gathered around. The boys hugged and kissed and told I love you about a billion times. I waited and a yellow light caught my eye through the trees that line the freeway. The moon. My metronome. The cycle I measure the beat of my life to. Many hours later, we arrived at out campsite full moon blazing in the sky, reflecting on calm lake water, alive on each new face.

35 feels like entering the full moon phase of my life. Not waxing or waning, just full. I can see so much there’s no point in pretending I can’t see. And I feel like I’m being seen in a way that there is no room for pretense or apology. No poker faces, no half measures or false gestures, just the sweetness of what you see is what you get. And I’m excited. I have a lot to do with my full moon face.