be grateful please ™

Holy shit, if you get a chance to see Mumford and Sons, GO. I went last night and I feel like I spent an evening howling my troubles away at the moon.

I’m so grateful for live music and the vibe that runs thick in the air at a concert from all those soulful bodies in one place. That’s my form of organized religion. Amen.

I came across this on my walk to breakfast just now.

I do, I definitely do.

The stickers make their appearance at Sasquatch! Festival 2013

My friend sent me this picture last night of the bartender’s phone.

She said she felt like he needed it so handed him one she found in her purse. He loved it, said it was his motto and showed her his tattoo of “love life” on his chest, but sadly we don’t have a picture of that 😉

*With the title of this post, I hope to get this song stuck in all of your heads: Bartender, T-Pain. You’re welcome!

Yesterday was Bay to Breakers. That’s the event I went to in 2007 that lead to me getting drunk and stranded and locked out and falling off a balcony. Which if you read here, you’ll see is also what started this blog and movement.

Today this article surfaced on my Facebook feed: Bay to Breakers: Man dies after fall from apartment building roof.

My heart hurt so much reading that, thinking of his family. He went out for a fun day in San Francisco and will never go home again. He was doing what everyone else was doing, and he died. Like I came so close to doing.

Tonight my friend (who was with me the day I fell off the balcony) texted me about it, saying how crazy it was that someone fell during Bay to Breakers and died. She said “I wish he would have known your story.”

When she said that the entire picture shifted for me. I’m always saying “be grateful” and focusing on ways people should be grateful when things work out well in spite of negative circumstances, even (and especially) when “work out well” may only mean that you’re still breathing.

But what about the other perspective we can gain from my story? One of caution and safety. One of remembering we aren’t invincible and that life is not to be taken for granted.

I don’t want anyone (especially myself) to live in a constant state of fear, but let’s all take a minute to remember that our bodies are all we have to carry us through this world. Let’s be careful with them and take good care.

Be grateful for your body and your health, but don’t forget to be CAREFUL with it please.

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Tonight I’m grateful for Amy, who was my absolute rock during my recovery and who brought me this beautiful perspective tonight. I love you!

So today was Bay-to-Breakers and I tried to treat it like a normal day. I failed.

Sitting in my apartment this morning hearing the cheers and yells and cops on bullhorns telling people to stay on the sidewalk – I started feeling trapped.  Like there was this cloud of evilness engulfing my neighborhood and I was stuck inside until it passed. (Note: my shrink has confirmed that I officially still have PTSD).

So my friend came to pick me up (hero) and we had a lovely, sunny day in the city doing nothing and I managed to avoid seeing any drunk, swaying, blacked-out girls in jazzersize costumes.

I ended my day here, grateful again to live in this stupidly beautiful city.

And then, to celebrate the fact that I survived another Bay-to-Breakers without having a complete nervous breakdown (only half a nervous breakdown), I decided to plank Cupid’s Span… nobigdeal.  PTSD shme-TSD. (you can really only make out my hands and feet in the picture below… but I was up high, it was a MOMENT).

I take a lot of cabs. I understand that the city charges them 5% for every credit card transaction they have to run. I’m sympathetic to that and always pay cash when I can (even though one cab driver kicked me out of his cab in the Tenderloin in the middle of the night because I didn’t have cash… I digress).

Tonight I didn’t have cash and I mentioned it to my cab driver.  She said “No problem, we love when you have cash and understand sometimes you don’t.  We are just grateful when you do.”

I said “Well since you said that, I have something for you” and handed her a sticker.  She clutched it to her chest and looked back at me, tearing up.  We had a beautiful conversation about gratitude and she asked me for another one for her mom.  She was going to give it to her for mother’s day, and they would both cry.

Then she randomly started telling me about her knitting class on the weekends.  She must be grateful for it 🙂

I’m grateful for her.

Tonight I went to the Goldroom show at Rickshaw Stop and spotted a picture on the door to the guys bathroom.  Without thinking it through, I pulled out my phone and turned the flash on to snap the shot.  Just as the flash went off, the door opened and three guys stood there just in time to catch me taking their picture.  They seized the moment and got loud about this girl trying to snap some d*** pics, and it was too funny for me to even talk my way out of. I just went with it, died of laughter, and walked away.

But on my way out to leave, I just had to try again. The second time was much more successful. I have to say, it was worth it 😉

This is my friend Carolyn at Coachella.

And this is a picture she sent me of a nearby stranger.

~~Some messages are just universally understood~~

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