"San Junipero"

This particular episode of Black Mirror, entitled "San Junipero,"that I watched late last night, is still etched inside my brain. It's themes continue to echo. This British series on Netflix is almost always dark, twisted and sometimes perverse. I watched the very first episode years ago and thought it was way too perverted and couldn't go back. But then I heard how great the others were, and they are all individual stories, kind of like how The Twilight Zone was, so I gave it another shot. They all seem to have these futuristic technology aspect to them. And they all have amazing twists. Just skip the very first one and you'll be good. I haven't watched them all yet, but most of season 3. This episode though... it was the sweetest and 'happily ever after' ending that they've ever had...considering they don't do 'happily ever afters.'
To summarize, it was about these 2 women, early to mid twenties, that meet at a bar in San Junipero circa 1986. One is curly haired and wild, having fun with anyone who's game. The other is a quiet mouse, who hides behind her fake glasses and doesn't want to dance because she doesn't know how and also "what will people think about 2 girls dancing?" The other girl picks up on her interest and goes for it. They have a wonderful night together and shy girl tells her that it's her first time..."with a woman you mean, right?" Kelly asks. "No, with anyone," Yorkie responds. So Kelly and Yorkie keep meeting up one week later several times... and in several different decades- 80s, 90s, 2000s. Of course they don't age, which doesn't seem that weird, considering the series. But what's revealed is that these 2 women are living in different places... in nursing homes. Kelly has cancer and lost her husband 2 years ago to cancer. Yorkie is on a ventilator. She can't speak or move. She was paralyzed at age 21 when she came out to her Bible thumping parents and they forbid her to be herself and she got in her car and drove upset, crashing and becoming a quadriplegic. So this therapy they both are on is called "immersive nostalgia therapy." They are allowed 5 hours a week to go to "San Junipero" an idyllic beach town where they can just enjoy life again... or for Yorkie, for the very first time. It literally sounds like the best idea ever. They don't say if it's just for seniors, but they limit it so you don't rely on it too much, however when your time comes to die, you can choose to make it a permanent home, not a vacation home. Yorkie is definitely choosing this, but Kelly is unsure, because her husband didn't choose it, plus they lost a special needs child when she was 39. Apparently this is only for the old, who know they are going to die, so they can sign off on it. They don't seem to believe in a Heaven. When you die, that's it. Kelly's husband didn't want it. I guess he wanted to take a chance on wherever you go next, not being 'put' somewhere. Me, I think I would choose this town over not knowing. I don't know what Heaven would be like, but I know what San Junipero is like. They showed it. They live on the beach, there's mountains, it's the 80s! I can't think of anything cooler. But most importantly, she finally found love. Kelly proposes and marries her so that she can be her spouse to sign off on the papers to make this home permanent for her, because her parents certainly weren't going to do it (I guess surprisingly they are still alive). But also she loves her. Even though she doesn't know what to do, take a chance to see her husband again, who she spent 40 years with, or start a new life with the woman she now loves. Thank God she chooses her. I was scared for a second she wouldn't. Like I said, this show doesn't do 'happily ever after.' I don't know if it was the late hour at which I watched it or what, but it suddenly made me hope that even if I don't find love in this life, I can in the next. Or more specifically the after-life. There's lots of shows and movies that poke fun at what this could be like. There's another show called "The Good Place." In it the "good" are those who have reached a high point system by doing good things in life. The main character is there by accident. The actress said in an interview that she's not necessarily bad, but I kind of disagree with that, some of the things she's done are not nice at all, downright mean to real people, but no she didn't murder anyone, if that's the line. There's houses which are by size depending on how much good you did, and frozen yogurt places everywhere with flavors like "full cell phone battery." And most importantly your soul mate is there. However due to the mix up, it's not their actual soul mates. I don't know if heaven will have beaches and the love of my life, or frozen yogurt and my soul mate, but I'm hoping it has all of those things. I could try to find those things here on Earth, but that seems as impossible as finding a unicorn out in the woods by my house. I wish it was possible, but it just doesn't feel it. I look for connection with anyone I meet. I try to see if hanging out would be an option, to better know if there's anything real at all, even just friendship. But people don't want that anymore. They want to connect online with strangers, speak their mind with no consequences. Kelly wanted to visit San Junipero once a week and have fun, no emotional connections... but it happened anyway. It feels like everyone already has that one person that they are dedicating their time to, to build on that connection. They aren't looking for anyone else. Or, I'm just not their cup of tea. And I'm good tea. I'm like green tea. It's good for you and it makes you feel chill. It's light and soothing. You feel better after you drink it. Heck I've only dated 2 guys and they both wanted to marry me. They audibly said it. That was a random brag, but it was also to prove my point. Anyways. I thought about the writer of this story, the one title "San Junipero." Without looking up who it was, I thought about how it was this woman, writing what she wished for her own life. I thought about how I could have been the writer of this episode. All the stories I write are about myself or a fictitious me, wherein I play out my fantasies of falling in love, making love and spending my life with someone that loves me both relationally and physically. And they are just like this very story I got to see on my big TV screen (that I moved from the living room to my bedroom because let's face it, my Tempur-pedic Breeze mattress is about a million times more comfortable than my terrible so-called couch). To see it play out before my very eyes; something that wasn't real in a sense that it was their actual lives and their actual bodies, but was very real to them and was 100% their own minds, is exactly how I live in the stories I write about myself. It's not real, it's not my actual life, it's not my actual body experiencing all things I'm writing about, but my mind is experiencing it, through writing it. And like the story in that show, everything isn't perfect- they fought; Kelly almost didn't 'pass over' to San Junipero. In my stories too, I don't make myself or the other girl 'say all the right things.' She doesn't say I love you all the time, or 'you're like a beautiful model.' I write realistic. My stories are real to life and life isn't perfect like that. People don't always say the right things or say what you want them to say, that would be called ventriloquism.
I'm glad that it ended hopeful. I was worried for a second that Kelly wouldn't choose Yorkie and she'd be stuck in this perfect world forever, without the woman she loved, after finally getting to experience it in the last days of her actual life... via virtual reality or whatever you want to call it. Or that the server room where everyone is stored, with the robot arms keeping it running, would somehow malfunction and then everything would cease to exist... including your afterlife self. But thank God it didn't end like that. And I'm hoping that's not what the afterlife is like either, a malfunctioning computer system or living eternally without your soul mate. That would doubly suck. Afterlife has to be better than actual life...I would hope. Unless you're a psychopath, then you don't deserve that. You spent your life doing what you love- killing and hurting people. You do not get to do that in your afterlife too. And on that note... butterflies and unicorns and rainbows. Puppies and Kittens... just trying to leave a nice image in your mind before you go. Not go, go. Just go away from this blog. But hopefully not forever. I'll see you next time. Soon, I'm sure. In this life... to be clear.

Cali

 The girl in the room in San Francisco:

 

The window to my hotel room is open. The perfect breeze blows in from the bay. The sound of the trolley bell dings as it goes by…ding…ding…ding. A jazz saxophonist plays his heart out on the street corner below. These are the sounds I hear on this perfect night in October. The view is not as pretty. The view is a small space between the walls of this tiny hotel. They make the shape of a triangle. I could practically reach out and touch someone, if they stuck their hand out their own window as well. If you look out of the open-ended triangle you’d see across the street, another building. The windows are open as well. People live in them. I can see straight into their apartment from here in the daytime. At night I just see lights. 2 people have yellow lights on. And two others have red curtains. The light shining through them make it look so colorful and happy. One room at the bottom corner has a bluish tint to it. I love the sounds more than the sights. It’s all dirty below, I can’t even look down that far to see. I might fall or my glasses will fall. There’s no screen on the window. No air conditioner, hence the windows that open. They don’t open all the way, but a thin body could fit through if squeezed. The paint is peeling from the side of the hotel. There’s a ledge that looks to be falling apart as well, that connects my side of the building to my neighbors. I’m in 611. Whoever is in 609 is the room catty-corner to me.

I imagine there’s a single girl in there. Like me. She came to the city to get away from her job and her life of loneliness. To take in the sights of a new city. To escape into a new world, one where anything could happen. One where when she walks down the crowded street below, she doesn’t feel so alone. I wave hi to her. She waves hi back. We both smile at each other before closing our drapes and go to bed...

It's crazy how you can have the most perfect setting, one that could've come from the pages of a book or a scene in the movie, yet unlike in both those places, nothing happened in mine. Because the real world isn't a book or a movie. We are tricked into thinking they could be, because they say "based on a true story," but in reality you have to remember it's "based;" it's not exact. The writers made it more exciting, real life isn't as exciting. Well, at least not for me. That first paragraph was 100% true. That setting was PERFECT. Like I said, straight out of a book. From the lights to the sounds, to the adjacent window. It was so magical. But apparently I live in a world where magic doesn't exist and nothing good ever happens to me. The second chapter was just the beginning of a story I started. One where there was a girl in that window and we did talk and...more... but I'm not sharing all that here. It's just for me. Gotta have something just for me. My time in San Francisco was ok. It was fine. It was good. It wasn't magical, I didn't connect with anyone. Even when I tried to talk to someone, I discovered they didn't speak English. Getting a picture taken, was through pantomime. I swear no one around me ever spoke English, it was the weirdest thing. I heard Russian and French, Italian and other languages I don't know what they were. I would try to talk to them, thinking they were American, but discovered they weren't, and they couldn't respond. And that's fine, I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just saying it was a bit of a bummer. It would've been cool to make a new friend. But those days are behind me, I guess. This isn't college. No one is looking for friends anymore. Everyone is too busy raising their children and desperately fighting to keep their relationship with their significant other alive and well. No one has any more time or energy for anyone else. I wouldn't, if I had that. I get it. I don't hold it against them. That's how it should be. Raising a child in this world as it is now takes everything you got. Keeping a marriage strong with all the temptations that are right at your fingertips, takes every ounce of energy and effort possible. Without those people in your life though, it all seems kind of pointless. Maybe that's putting too much on those particular people in one's life. You definitely need your own life and I do have that, it's all I have. I would definitely go hide away one Sunday every so often and just write and tell my family, 'sorry, fend for yourselves today, I'm doing me.' Everyone needs that. I would give that to my significant other. I'd tell her- go! Be with the wolves! Or wherever you want to go. I'll stay with the kids, or kid, or dogs... whatever we have. If you make your life only about those other people closest to you, then A) they are going to let you down and you are going to feel like the world has ended, or B) you're gonna burn out from overexposure to their needy little asses.

But anyway, like always, I diverge into the lonely existence of the single white female. It's not important. Nothing is. But my godchildren are. They're important. I got to spend precious time with them on the first half of my trip: snuggles and endless stories and playtime. I got to sing to my newest and only goddaughter. I sang to her Billy Joel's She's got a way and James Taylor's Something in the way she moves. They kept popping into my head and it was fun after singing to 3 baby boys, Dixie Chick's Lullaby and Godspeed (sweet dreams), which uses the male pronouns, being that they all had baby boys. I loved singing to her, it was probably the best part of my whole trip. All I've ever wanted was a baby girl of my own. She could be crying and I would sing to her and she'd go right to sleep. Or if she was awake and just fussing, I would sing to her and she would watch me and smile, quieting down and then sing along with her own coo's. I've bonded with all 4 of my best friends' children this way... through song. It's been my thing. I don't think there's anything greater than singing to a baby, because even if you don't know the words, just that way your voice sounds when you sing quietly, not perfectly, but the rhythm and cadence... it's just so beautiful and soothing. Babies really take to it. I wish I was back there now to sing to her. I must've sung to her 4 or 5 times, in the few days I was there. Between that and my best friend intently listening to me read my latest story out loud to her, it was even better than San Francisco. I had people around me then. I heard endlessly "hi sissy" from a 2 year old and the other two fighting over who gets to play with me. Like there wasn't possibly enough of me. I made the 3 boys a scrapbook just for them, so they'd know even with a new baby sister and the attention she would get from me, they were still incredibly special to me. I caught them looking at it on their own, without a parent reminding them to. It was filled with pictures of the 4 of us and lots of stickers and special memories documented on the last almost 6 years, since the oldest is about to turn 6 next month. My bestie texted me when I was in San Francisco that she caught the middle child looking over the scrapbook and insisted it stay by his bed that night. The fact that I am that much a part of their lives, that they want me there right by their bed, that means the world to me. They treat their stuffed animals that I gave them like family members, taking them everywhere and crying if they were left behind. This makes me cry. I know it's not the dinosaur or the turtle. It's that they're from me. I would be in their lives everyday if I could. I love them as if they were my own. Not that I'd know what to do with 4 children, that is a lot. I'm seriously good with just 1, if I'm so lucky to be blessed with 1. So was my trip just fine? Good? It was great. My loved ones were a part of it, so it was wonderful. I loved the city I love the bridge, I loved the weather and the redwood trees at Muir Woods were absolutely intoxicating. I wish I could've spent longer there. I will definitely be taking the boys there next time. They would love it. It was the freshest and best smelling air I've ever experienced. The tallest trees I've ever seen. It was cold in the forest, while down in the city it was much warmer. In the woods, amongst trees, I was in heaven. That's my place. I love being in nature and I have a thing for trees. I want to see those big sequoias you can drive through, next.

So the girl in the room in San Francisco didn't get to experience exactly what she would've wanted, but she is lucky to have gotten to be there at all. I'm lucky to get to board an airplane and fly somewhere I've never been before. Many people never leave their hometown. It's just not feasible. I know I'm lucky, in that respect. Where will I go next? The Grand Canyon? Sequoia National Park? The mountains of Alaska? Who knows! But it will be amazing wherever I go. Because I have the ability to make it so. Just me. By myself. I always do...

 

Fried eggs and Religion

It's early Saturday morning and my older Vietnamese neighbors are having some kind of prayer circle. Other older people dressed up in Sunday best, despite it being Saturday have been coming and going while I sit on my porch eating my fried eggs I splendidly prepared. I'm still in my pj's but some say 'good morning' to me and I smile and reply the same. They are chanting in Vietnamese, in monotone speech. Obviously I don't know what they are saying. There's a Vietnamese Catholic Church at the end of my short block, so it's no surprise they are all meeting here. In fact it's why this older retired couple lives here in these duplexes. I talk to them sometimes. They speak broken English.
But it got me thinking about religion. I believe you can worship whatever God you want and in any capacity. As long it's not one of hate or killing. However we all know there are several "religions" or branches of them that believe in this very thing. That it's their God-given duty to rid the world the of whatever they feel is "bringing the world down." When in fact, it's THEM that's bringing the world down. I'm grateful to have been raised in a Baptist Church in Texas that didn't preach hate. If it did, I didn't hear it. It wasn't until my teens that I really started to listen and I remember taking notes on the side of the bulletin. Of course that wasn't every Sunday. I still passed notes to my friends and doodled in the margins, or wrote my own stories wherever I could fit it. But I think I would remember if my Pastor preached hate. That would be pretty obvious. Being someone that was raised in the church, I could be a completely different person right now if I wasn't raised in that particular church or not in one at all. I think I held on to God for as long as I could and longer than most would. It was life. I spent Wednesday nights and practically all day Sunday, there. I spent weekends at retreats, weeks at various camps and mission trips. It was my whole life outside of school. And now for years it's been practically nothing- to nothing at all. Why?
I guess I've become that stubborn child who is holding their breath until they get their way. Not that I was that child when I actually was a child. I was pretty easy going. Taking the backseat to the drama of my younger sister. I obeyed and I was quiet and shy. I took everything I was told as the truth. It's not that I don't believe it all now, I still do. It's just that I don't know that I believe the cornerstone of Christianity which is that God loves you. Or maybe I don't believe he does because I don't have that in human form. He's supposed to be there for you all the time, but all I want is someone else to be there for me all of the time. (Physically, not literally be at my beck and call). I just want someone that chooses to be in my life on a more consistent basis than a couple times a year. That chooses to live in the same house as me, walk my life with me, good or bad, present or distant (metaphorically speaking). But at the same time I want to be left alone until that does happen. I don't want to waste my time with people I don't have anything in common with. I don't want to pay an annual fee in order to hang out with strangers at some restaurant or concert or event. I don't want to email strangers that sound like they have potential, only to be rejected by them without even saying a word (or typing a word). I guess I want the impossible- someone to walk into my life at work, at the grocery store, at...I can't even think of a 3rd place I go. In San Francisco next week...
This all goes back to God not providing for me. Leaving me out to dry, literally and physically and emotionally and metaphorically in every way. I love the solitude though. At this point in my life, even though it would be quite impossible to have 4 children unless I adopted them all at once; I don't even want that anymore. I can't imagine the noise. Thinking about it overwhelms me. Listening to a baby scream for an hour is more than enough for me, and that's in my day job. I do want a kid, but only one. Sometimes I think back on what my life would've been if I had married my first boyfriend, from college. If he hadn't broken up with me after we made silly plans of honeymooning in Disney World in those little cottages because I didn't like the idea of a hotel room where people could hear you through the walls. I could have 4 kids right now easily, if I had gotten married at 22. I had a friend who has 4 or 5, I've lost track and she got married in December before we even graduated. At only 21. I wonder how overwhelmed I would be. I wonder if I'd be sad and lonely still. Longing for someone I couldn't have. Something he couldn't give me. That would be miserable. More miserable than still being single with no prospects at 35 and no one for the past 10 years now.

"God is good," came into my head just now. Whether or not I believe it, I know the saying. I think it's good to believe in something. Even if it's just the Universe and it's own plan. It doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to. My best friend is Mormon and that would never ever keep me from loving her just the same. People who are passionate about their beliefs, (when they are loving and kind beliefs) are just fine with me in my book. I will put the opposite in a box, I will. I will lump any religion or belief that some people are less than you and deserve to be killed or hurt or taunted just because they believe in something different than you or live a different lifestyle than you, into that box and say "you are wrong." What you are preaching to your children is hate and there is no God out there that would agree with you, if you were to meet them face to face. There can't be. It goes against what an "God" or entity is supposed to be. How could you preach "love one another" or "thou shalt not kill" but then make exceptions for that and say, "oh wait, but you can hate and kill these group of people?" It does make me think about that certain "Baptist Church" you know the one; the one who does this very thing everyday and publicly I might add. Loudly. I've thought many a time that God should smite them down, just strike everyone in the church. But saying that out loud makes me no better than them. Ok, well, a little better, I don't go out and preach that that should happen. But you know what I'm saying. I'd be just like them, hating a group of people and wanting them dead. So I don't think that way anymore. I love the people out there that stand around those funerals where these other people are protesting, and they stand there not in violent outrage, but in quiet unity. They hold hands and create a barrier against them. That's the way it should be. Hate doesn't cancel out hate, it just adds to it. It just makes it grow. (I mean obviously; it is why we have wars). Quiet love. Unity. Connectedness. That's the way it should be. Well enough on that.
I hate summing things up. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I just end my blog. Sometimes I just run out of things to say and it doesn't have a nice little ending. So that's what I'm going to do now. I'm going to end. Go enjoy my Saturday. And I hope you do the same. And tomorrow, go to church or don't. Worship or don't. But like Ellen says, "Be kind to one another." It's not as hard as you think it is.