decided to go to harbin hot springs. no car, no driver's license. got a ride up from craigslist rideshare with a nice fellow in a biodiesel powered mercedes. it was good, i took the bus over the golden gate bridge to san rafael to meet the biodiesel chariot. i love the golden gate transit over the bridge. you're with other people but you don't have to share your experience with any of them. no fucking obligation. i discovered INTENSE pleasure listening to "marquee moon" by television while looking out the window.
arrived, set up my tent on a platform near the rushing stream, climbed right in, cuddled under my favorite zebra print camping blanket and sleeping bag and slept for 3 hours. my tent is old. i lived in it at omega and i've taken it to so many campouts and burning mans. it's kind of like going home to get inside it.
after that nap, i woke up, soaked in the pools, then slept fitfully warring with the horrible cold outside for 13 more hours. a LOT of sleep. tension draining off me into the trees. i couldn't FEEL much about being at harbin, i couldn't emotionally feel the joy that being there has brought me before, but i know that energetically it did my body some good.
the next day i decided it was too cold to be in the tent, and moved into the women's dorm, which was good because i had been feeling lonely and i was glad to just sleep in the same room with another person. along the same lines, someone that i recognized from san francisco was in the library throughout the evening saturday and i just lay there reading with him in the room and that was also good. comforted by knowing who someone, anyone, is.
walked to and fro along the village path through the forest. the stars were out and the moon was reflecting off tiny northern california clouds, making them blue. i have almost gotten to where i can do the walk from camping area to pools without a flashlight, especially with a half moon in the sky, but for some reason being at harbin alone made me feel like it wasn't fun to do the path without a flashlight. being at harbin alone had a lot of things wrong with it, really.
i met a guy in the cafe who had just gotten out of a 6 year long relationship though that's not how our conversation started out. later i met a writer in the cafe who wears pink sweatsuits and does dances to the goddess. the loud excitable girl who works in the cafe makes amazingly vibrant paintings of bulldogs. i almost wanted to buy one.
my murky green hair and the yellow feathers stuck in it got a lot of compliments, which made me feel like i had something to give after all maybe. my plumage. someone said, it makes me smile every time i see you, and one of the complimenters was an amazingly stylish tranny. yes.
the pools were good, especially the hottest pool of all time in the dark room with the candles below the sign that says SILENCE and an old man who looks so so so crazy wild eyed sadhu-like and dunks himself under for too long so long you watch and count thinking if i reach 30 i will rescue him. but he comes back up. and you see him later in the cold plunge with his far off stare, totally calm. and you sit on the bench near the cold plunge, steam rising off of you, with the statue of quan yin looking on, and you look down at your body and see how its changed since the last time you sat on this bench and since the first time (8 years ago? 9 years ago?) and you try to beam acceptance at it. and then someone comes by ringing the wind chimes.
saturday morning i decided i was antsy to be away from email when there's so much work, plus i was eagerly looking forward to the challenge of hitchhiking home. not sarcasm, i really was! i sat at the gate with a sign one of guys in the office made me. it said "S.F." in red and black sharpie. wasn't an hour before i was picked up by a fellow in a pickup truck who had just had a breakup of a 12 year relationship, two kids. we talked about a number of things, and he reminded me that when things are hard you need to just deal with what's in front of you.
