The day after something started.

I went to my first session of "English 1" yesterday. I was nervous. I took a "plumcot" as a snack. I turned off my phone and panicked a little. I found a typo in the syllabus. I realized that my professor, who is probably at least ten years younger than me, resembles every man I had a crush on and/or dated or almost married from the age of 14 to the age of 22. He's probably a Leo. I can tell. 

The question of his attractiveness aside, I think this is going to be a fun class for me. We're going to be reading a lot (the full title of the class is "Reading and Comprehension") and writing a lot, and I like those things.

Except for one other guy, who like me, is returning to school after a long absence, the rest of the class is straight out of high school. Maybe some of them have taken other college courses. We went around the room and introduced ourselves. 

The professor made suggestions of the types of things we might say: where we work, the last film we saw, a book we hated, a “fun fact.” “The Lion King” was a movie some of my classmates watched recently. Also “Beauty and the Beast.” Also, the last “Despicable Me” movie. So many of the kids in the class responded with, “I don’t read books.” One guy only reads manga. More than one person had read so few books that to find one about which they held any feelings at all was impossible. One girl only reads “self-help” books but when she described one (because she couldn’t think of a title) it turned out that what she really only reads is true crime. True crime is way cooler than self-help. More than one person decided to talk about a book they loved: “Night,” by Elie Wiesel. Now. That’s a great book. But do you “love it”? No. No one LOVES that book. That book gives you nightmares. That book makes you cry. That book crushes you and then brings you back to life like a butterfly is blowing on your wings.

(I shared some of this description with a friend of mine, and he didn't quite get the last sentence there. It really doesn't make any sense. I just like the picture. I want a butterfly to re-inflate my wings. Maybe a team of butterflies.)

The cool part is, our professor didn't seem judgmental about any of these answers, and if it seems as if I am, I apologize. I didn't mean for it to sound that way. Honestly, I was just happy to have felt like talking about it. 

My next class is Wednesday. We're supposed to read three movie reviews by A.O. Scott. I googled them last night and realized I had already read two of them in the New York Times. Didn't see any of the movies, though.

It felt good to be back in a classroom. I really appreciated it. Is that the right way to say it? I can't wait to get to work. 

Something.

In 26 days, after something like 22 years, I'll be a student again.

A one-class-a-semester, not-gonna-graduate-until-I'm-80, student.

And I say "again," but the thing is, I wasn't a very good student the first time around, so let's just look at it this way:

In 26 days, I'm going to be a student.

After thinking about it for a long time, trying in 2010 (and then apparently forgetting about it until just recently), talking it over with my therapist and friends and Patrick... I went to Long Beach City College (LBCC) and took a test, met with a counselor, and registered for a class.

The test was harder than I expected (my response about the math? "Was that math even human?? If I could do that math, I wouldn't need to be here! I'd be working at Virgin Galactic! Elon Musk would be recruiting me!" I described it to my friend at work, who used to be an engineer, and she identified it as trigonometry. OK, look, I know normal people can do trigonometry. BUT NOT ME.) but the end result is that I am qualified to take entry level english and math classes with all the other freshmen, and I start on August 28th.

The same day J. starts first grade. 

Anyway, it's something. I've been needing a something, and this might be it. Who knows? 

You're going to be okay.

I took a friend with me to a sound healing session today. My new Long Beach flute teacher (is it fair to call her "new"? I've been seeing her for, I think, at least two years now?) is also a sound healer, and we had a private session in her studio.

My friend and I met because our boys went to the same preschool. Her son is about six months younger, and the two of them get along really well. She and I get along really well, too. 

I started doing this sound healing stuff kind of trepidatiously. Is that a word? I don't really know if I believe in it. There supposedly is science involved and people who really believe in it, but honestly, I've kept doing it because it's beautiful. And Lynda, my teacher, is very good at it. I believe in her, for sure. The rest of it will probably come along at some point. I like the actual music. I like the vibrations - not because of their cosmic meanings or whatever but I like music you can feel.

It's why my left knee always rests against the door in the car: so I can feel the bass in that speaker when I'm driving. 

(You know, this, my first blog post in ages, on a new site, is not really going very well. I'm not sure how I wanted this to read. Not like this, I guess.)

Anyway, my friend was very open to the whole experience, so we went. Lynda was awesome. My friend had a pretty deep experience, it turns out. I did not. I rarely do - I don't think this is anyone's fault. Well, maybe mine. I struggle with this whole "mindfulness" stuff - I try but I guess I don't try hard enough. But I got something out of it, and I remember laying there on the floor (protected by a super soft rug and a gorgeous handmade quilt), hoping my friend would enjoy it, thinking the thing I usually try to think when I'm anxious or nervous about something. That thing is "everything is okay," or some variation of that phrase. 

That happened this time. Except this time I was thinking it for my friend.

When we were done, she told me she could hear me saying that to her, in her head.

Now, whatever, that's crazy (crazy beautiful, crazy whatever)... but it was kind of a big deal for me. 

Somehow I helped this woman feel safe. I've done that with my son, and didn't really think twice about it. Keeping that kid safe is my job. I did it, probably badly, with my mother. But with someone like this - a woman I admire for all the things she's accomplished and her smarts and open heart and man, I don't know how else to describe it, what I see as her purity: I made her feel safe.

There's something really nice about that for me. I like it a lot.