Place and Space Live Inside of Us,

in our bodies,

our imaginations,

always alive

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“...but over and beyond our memories, the house we were born in is physically inscribed in us. It is a group of organic habits.”

“...we have moved from a constructed to a dreamed world; we have left fiction for poetry. But reality and dream now form a whole.” 

“In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical forms. A house that has been experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space.”

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Life Without a Handbook

[Excerpt Five from my manuscript in progress - each Substack post includes an excerpt]

I knew that the first order of business was to get a sponsor and start working the program. In my first couple of weeks attending meetings, I’d met a woman who impressed me. She possessed the important quality of being someone I would probably listen to and do what she said. I knew my rebellious nature and wanted to be sure I was working with someone whose suggestions I would follow. Her name was Shay, and her husband’s name was DJ; they rode Harleys. She talked about waking up in a chicken coop in Mexico with a needle in her arm and knowing she needed to get sober. That was hardcore. I was willing to follow her lead. I figured I would listen to her and do what she suggested.

Even before Shay became my sponsor, she said, “I am going to tell you five words that will save your life.” Naturally, I was interested in this formula. What she said was, “I don’t need the drama.”

When she said it, I thought, this is not really a revelation. Furthermore, and more importantly, I didn’t get it. Over the years, I’ve learned to understand it clearly. People can get caught up in all kinds of things that seem compelling and important to engage with. In the treatment center, they had said that adult children of alcoholics think they caused it or have to fix it. So while my impulse is to try and wade into my friends’ situations, it may be much better for me to step aside. Examples of this can include people in the middle of a break-up, people who call for loans or middle-of-the-night rides, and people who seem to be in constant turmoil. Sometimes, it is better to just back away.

From the beginning Shay would say, “There are only two questions: Where are you going, and who is going with you? And if you get them in the wrong order, you’re screwed. The answer to the first question is, Forward.” I came to understand, over time, as I let go of old friends and places, that in order to stay in tune with some people, I would need to vibrate on their plane. If they were unhealthy people, I would be letting go of my ability to grow and move forward by staying connected to them. So, I learned that where I am going has to take priority over who is going with me—as painful as that can be.

Word Play

Summer walked in to to teach yoga and said, “first Poppy got up, then Pickles, then the cat chased the chicken around the kitchen, and I knew it was time to wake up.”

*note, Poppy is her daughter and Pickles is her puppy! Let’s hear it for alliteration!

It’s Art!

Night at the Climb In by Dustin Weatherford, photo taken in Black Rock City

Sign, Artist Unknown, Black Rock City

And it’s music! In heavy rotation for me right now…

And…it’s a book! What I just read…

The Beginning Comes After the End, by Rebecca Solnit

And if you want to know more about Gaston Bachelard and The Poetics of Space

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poetics_of_Space

Photo of Gaston Bachelard Source: On This Date in Photography James McCardle

https://onthisdateinphotography.com/2018/10/07/october-6-childhood/bachelard/

Odds and Ends

The Poetics of Space; My 10 years of Burning Man

My grandfather’s home was long ago bull-dozed. What started as a lean-to, then a two bedroom small home, and then even a third bedroom and den added on, a place of many memories, cruel and kind, lives on. I see it clearly. The rose bushes out front, the hydrangeas and gardenias out back, the slam of the back door, the borax soup at the back porch sink, the tick tock of the kitchen clock, the red gingham tablecloths, the oven door shutting with a thud, playing hopscotch on the tile floor in the hall, all these things are present and alive, three dimensional.

Meaning making, sense making, place memory. Humans have the quality of imagination that creates a sense of connection to an experience, another person, a geography. A narrative. A story. When I was a little girl my family was not safe and my attachment to home was not that of people, it became attachment to place. North Berkeley. The trees, the hills, the Cheese Board, the gardens, the idiosyncratic houses, these were my reference points for my position on the planet.

For some people home is in the Black Rock Desert. Specifically when the desert is transformed by Burning Man and a place called Black Rock City emerges. I worked for Burning Man Project from 2015 to 2026. I learned through the people who love it so much about the meaning making, sense making, and place memory resident in their hearts, minds, and bodies. Riding in a truck on to the mostly bare desert in 2016 with my friend, the incredible Megan Miller, and she was exclaiming with delight over the places she could see in her mind that had not yet appeared. This is place memory. 

People who’ve returned to the desert year after year see what has not yet arisen, but once was, and will be again. Over here where the artists check in, over here where the Man will be built, out there where the trash fence is, back here the airport, the stakes in the ground indicate where road signs with whimsical names will be posted, where camps will be set up, the little pink “floofies” where art will be placed, there are indicators of what is to come. A friend and colleague, Sojin Kim, from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage said of festivals, “we gather together because we know we’ve been here before and we will be together again.” She shares that festivals are where and how we hold culture and community.

Black Rock City is a world of contradictions, extravagant exuberance, passionate work, common cause, kindness and curiosity. It’s not for everyone. In fact when I started attending people often would say to those who are interested, “stay home, it’s terrible”, even as they said to each other, “next year was better!” always believing the best is yet to come. There is no Black Rock City without the humans who make it so, who create the bountiful, generous, wild, and wonderful world that rises and disappears each year. The playa restoration crew led by DA, the infrastructure and city building led by Chaos, the art support services team led by Weapons Grade, the Metal Heather welding team, the Emergency Services Crew, the Airport, the Fluffers, the Rangers, ZenDo, Mutant Vehicles, Artists, Theme Camp leads, thousands and thousands of people who commit to each other and to themselves to bring the most that they can and build together. I cannot name them all, or all the teams. I can easily tell you what’s disenchanting about Burning Man, but why? The sum of its parts is glorious and intended for the greater good. The rest will be learned over time, because if it’s nothing else, Burning Man is a learning by doing experiment that is happening worldwide. 

This is me! Coming to you live on a regular (ish) basis. With gratitude, Kim

Look for the Good, it is everywhere.

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Life Without a Handbook

[Excerpt Four from my manuscript in progress]

Before I went into treatment, I still had my gigantic German shepherd, Flash, to think about. A friend named Dave agreed to take him while I was away. I was thirteen days sober when I checked in. I had never been hospitalized, and although it was a foreign experience, it was also relieving. Nothing to do but focus on healing. One day, I was feeling angry with another person in the program, and the social worker suggested that I start keeping a journal. They said that writing it out would help me gain perspective. This suggestion, over time, became a great source of comfort, pleasure, and satisfaction to me. I have a long-running dialogue with myself now. It offers a way to both release and hold the emotions inside of me. Journal writing goes with me everywhere. I have written in everything from college composition books to beautiful journals with leather covers that I found while traveling. They are my treasure. This inner dialogue, this time to reflect, is one of the most powerful tools I have for gaining clarity and finding a way forward.

Treatment was a good experience. As the end of my thirty-day stay was coming near, the hospital staff recommended that I go into long-term care. There was no way I would do that. I belonged with my dog, Flash. He was my friend, my guardian, and my responsibility. They warned me that they felt I had significant trauma and that I was in danger of relapse as my nervous system began to clear and I got further in touch with my trauma history. I didn’t know what they were talking about. But, I was willing to commit that if I ever relapsed, I would go into long-term care.

Fresh out of the hospital treatment program, I headed back to the first meeting I had attended. I was dressed in a short skirt and a matching top with high-heeled snakeskin pumps. I was looking fly and feeling good. On my way, I went to get Flash, but the dude wanted to keep him, so he proposed that we stand far apart and both call the dog to see who he chooses. Bad boundaries had me agree to that plan, but never fear, Flash was definitely my dog, and he came running to me. Off we went! Everyone at the recovery meetings came to know me because of Flash. He was with me everywhere I went, tied up outside or in the room, when he was allowed.

Flash. Still. And Always. With Me. Rest in Power Puppy Dog!

Word Play

Luxury is walking slowly down a sunny street with a full belly.

It’s Art!

And it’s a little glimpse of my little house!

And it’s music! In heavy rotation for me right now…

And…it’s a book! What I am excited to read…

The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski

…to be fair I read this book some months ago. While the sub-title speaks about learning from death about life, for me its a book about deep presence. About abiding. About the gift of being with.

Odds and Ends

Happy Birthday to me, and SPARKLES

Yes! It is my happy birthday LEO month, both my natal birthday, August 6th and my recovery birthday, August 15th. And, wow! What a life. Today, I wrote a note to a friend about the sparkles that glitter and gleam and give notice that I am following the right path. The bread crumbs if you will - that led Hansel and Gretel back out of the woods, or would have, if not for birds, but that’s another tale!

I find that life is giving me gifts every day. Like this orange dragonfly in my garden today.

Or these pelicans flying in flocks north yesterday when I was at San Simeon.

My niece surprised me by posting on Instagram about my book.

That was incredible and delightful and totally unexpected.

Even better, are the many opportunities disguised as someone else in need that are actually gifts for me because they offer me the chance to do something of value to someone else. Remarkably, these, usually chance, encounters, feel like direct delivery from the universe, that says, this, this, you can do today to be kind. I always feel so grateful when that happens.

“All that glitters is not gold—often have you heard that told.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Thinking of that now almost clichéd trop, I would underline it because it’s golden wisdom. Gems, gold, sparkly special moments surround me. Happy birthday world! I am so happy to be here.

This is me! Coming to you live on a regular (ish) basis. With gratitude, Kim

A Little Sparkle Before I Go!

Tell me, tell me, tell me true, what is a friend after how do you do?

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Sweet Summer is

Whispering Secrets

Life Without a Handbook

[Excerpt Three from my manuscript in progress]

My life is not a once-upon-a-time story, but there is magic in it. After my first recovery meeting, I went to coffee and kept going to meetings. My life had a lot of uncertainty and difficulty, but I had my administrator job at the engineering firm, and I was starting on a new path. One stumbling block I had to clear out of the way was unpaid parking tickets and a “failure to appear” warrant, probably from a speeding ticket that I didn’t even remember. I went to the courthouse to try and sort it out, and clerks sent me from one line to another line to a hearing room. I was melting down and unable to deal with the bureaucracy and authority issues at play.

I called a woman named Chris whom I had met in the recovery meeting. She came to the courthouse, picked me up, took me home, and made me a Caesar salad with dressing made from scratch. I’d never had a Caesar salad. Then she went back to the courthouse with me and stood in all the lines with me, went to the hearing, and helped me sort it out. What a gift. We used to call her Bread Truck Chris because that is what she did—she drove a Hostess bread truck and made early morning deliveries.

I began attending recovery meetings regularly, especially a Sunday night women’s meeting. I was staying sober, and I was falling apart. I felt like I was caving inward, all my insides were crumbling, and I was in tears most of the time. One evening, a woman said to me, “Maybe you need to go into a treatment center. It seems like your problems might need bigger help.” I listened and somehow managed to call a local hospital. I discovered that they had a treatment facility and that my small administrative job had a big health benefits package that would pay for the treatment. I made a plan to go in. What a miracle it was to have that health coverage.

I had been working on a debt consolidation loan from the Co-op grocery store credit union. My mother was planning to co-sign, and it was a big deal. I don’t remember the exact amount now, probably around $6,000, which was a lot for me. I knew if I were going into the hospital, I would have to call my mother and tell her before she co-signed the loan. She said, “Don’t lose your job, and take some Bufferin. It’s good for stress.” She was not in favor of my plan. My major insight at that moment was, “This is bigger than Bufferin.”

It wasn’t looking that great for me circa 1st grade. It got a lot better!

Word Play

It’s hard to see when you’re standing in the spotlight.

It’s Art!

SoulCollages®️ by my friend Anna Taylor Blumberg Mehlfeld;

Golden Apple Feng Shui

Refuge: Remembering a special place and time.

Joy of Movement and of trying new things.

Anna creates her own personal deck of collaged cards, using the intuitive, expressive arts practice of SoulCollage®️. Anna is part of a global community of SoulCollage®️ facilatators who offer workshops in creating and consulting these cards. The method was developed by psychotherapist, Seena B Frost, in the late 1980’s.

And it’s music! In heavy rotation for me right now…

What You Don’t Do

Lianne La Havas

And…it’s a book! What I am excited to read…

Having really enjoyed The Piano Tuner and North Woods is the new book by Daniel Mason Country People, it’s just arrived and I am looking forward to digging in!

Odds and Ends

Generosity of Spirit

Twenty years ago (or so) I came to the realization that Friend and Friendly are not the same. Prior to that I took most people at face value. As it happens, friendly can mask duplicity, unknown personal agendas, and a grab for the upper hand. Nice is not the same as kind. Nice is a persona energy shield. Kind is from the inside out.

So what then is a friend? Where do friends come from? (This feels like a child asking where do trees come from). There appear to be only enigmatic answers. My practice then is in being a friend. Asking myself, how would a friend be in this circumstance.

Becoming friends is intentional. It takes time and persistence. Schedules don’t match up. Schedules do match up and then the schedules change. There may be asymmetrical needs, I have drama, you do not. Then we switch. I will get on your nerves. You will muster up the courage to tell me so. We risk being vulnerable, we risk rejection, we make ourselves available to loss and disappointment.

Friendship is for giving. 

Friendship is for giving attention and listening. 
Friendship is for asking do you want my opinion before I offer it. 
Friendship is for big hearted love. 

I made a friend last year when I was backing out of my driveway. If he hadn’t stopped it’s quite possible I would have hit him. When I felt his presence, I stopped the car, I thanked him for his still quiet presence. We became friends. He’s an Augustinian priest who was moving to Pakistan just before turning 90 to help local brothers rebuild a monastery and retreat center. We write and when he comes back to town, we dine at Momma’s Meatballs restaurant.

Recently, a friend who is a new friend has not been available to spend time together. We had a time set to finally connect and that morning her text messages sounded stressed. I called, we talked, and I suggested that maybe that day was not such a good day for her. She wanted to honor our commitment. I told her I wanted to be her friend. Friends show up for each other. On that day, showing up for her meant not holding her to the time we agreed upon. There will be other times. It was important to love first, to have spaciousness and ample room for what she needed rather than what I might have hoped we would do that day.

Recently at breakfast in Santa Barbara the server made mention of taking on extra shifts to handle tough expenses. A college student who had just had to pay tuition, buy books, pay rent, and now needed a medical procedure she was strapped. She only made an offhand comment. It was me who asked to know more, which is how I know the details. My friend and I, the one I was having breakfast with, looked at each other. We both pulled out our available cash. As it happened we each had $50- so we were able to give her $100- with assurances that all would be well, we believed in her. That was being a friend. It’s quite likely I will never see her again.

When I first got sober, my sponsor’s best friend shared this with me, “There are only two questions, where are you going and who is going with you? If you get them in the wrong order you’re screwed. The answer to the first question is forward.”

Not all friendly faces will be friends. Friend is an action, like love, a verb rather than a noun. Tip the kid in the car wash tunnel $5- they will be blown away and happy. Be a friend. First to yourself. Feel the love and spread it around.

There is an idea called complex reciprocity, it is the notion that if we all give to the network, the system, to each other, without expectation of return, there will be enough for all. This is what we might call serendipity - when what we need shows up when we need it. I am so very grateful when fortune provides me an opportunity to be a friend. Some friends are in passing, some are for life, some come and go. We are lucky to be and have friends.

My friend Anna, yes, the artist featured above, is my very first paid Substack subscriber. I had no idea, no expectation, that she would become a paid subscriber. She simply did it. I was so very pleased, suffused with gratitude at that act of kindness. I am grateful for my friends.  There are so very many ways to acknowledge the abundance of love and care I have received which has redeemed me.

Here’s Anna!

This is me! Coming to you live on a regular (ish) basis. With gratitude, Kim

I find this photo amusing - and…

I want to always be real!

Moving along with a quickstep and a song, heart beating with joy, come in, let’s play!

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Coming right up!

Life Without a Handbook

My manuscript in motion - excerpts from the work in progress known as:

Life Without a Handbook, How I Got My Sh*t Together

These are the threads of my beginnings. Where I want to take you is into my late twenties and early thirties when after years of struggling with depression and an ability to only function sporadically, I finally let go of drugs and alcohol and began to learn how to live and grow and realize so much more of myself than I had been able to do through my adolescence and early twenties.

I’m writing about my new beginnings and the things I learned how to do. Simple things. Get out of bed and pack a lunch type things. Things that can be referred to as “Left foot, Right foot,” just put one foot in front of the other and it will add up.

It was not easy to find my way forward. I had years of wanting to “get it together” swearing that tomorrow would be the day that I would do it all - stop smoking, eat healthy, do yoga, no more drugs, only healthy sexual relationships, don’t drink, tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out tomorrow, did not work for me. It also did not work for me to try to “be more disciplined.” I have so much healing to do that be more disciplined sounded like punishment and I rebelled against that type of approach. “Just do it” made sense but really only served to feel like shame when doing “it” felt impossible. I still had deep trauma and unresolved issues. I was often unable to get out of bed, and still struggled with addiction.

Over ten years I would go to things like the Whole Life Expo, read wonderful books by people like Shakti Gawain, Terry Cole Whittaker, and Wayne Dyer. I was on a path to try and save myself. On one extreme I was reading incredible self help material, going on long runs, eating garlic and juicing wheatgrass.

On the other extreme I was doing drugs all night, making unwise sexual choices, and spending time with people who sold drugs and guns. On one hand, I was reaching a point of no return, in spite of my efforts to learn and grow, and on the other hand I had a growing belief in my ability to make it. I was walking on a dangerous precipice and it wasn’t clear I would survive my own self-destructive actions. There was a combination of growth and self-destruction happening at the same time. Two paths. Save myself. Destroy myself.

I was really trying. I remember driving in my car and thinking, maybe this is it, maybe it’s like having a growth or something I simply cannot get rid of, I have to get high, I cannot stop, maybe this is my life. I felt deeply sad and scared. Helpless. Hopeless.

Shortly after I got a call at the office from someone who sold toner for fax machines. His name was Rainey. Besides selling toner he was a poet. I wrote poetry. We shared, we talked, we flirted. We fax’d poetry back and forth. Yes, Fax! It was the 80’s! I liked him. We met, we hung out, I wanted to be with him. He seemed wise and good. He told me that if I wanted what he had, he got it in recovery. He was consistent with that. I followed his direction and went to a recovery meeting.

There’s a whole bunch of little stuff I’ve learned. Today, just for today, I want to share the essentials. The way I learned to function, to cope, to believe in my own resilience. I want you to have what I have and everything you want for yourself. I believe, absolutely, that you can do it. I heard early on that you only have to change one thing: everything. In a way that is true - in another way you don’t have to change anything at all, at heart, at essence, you were there all along, simple, pure, beautiful, and full of possibility. We just have to work our way back to that essential self and build again. Eventually, I landed on making the best possible next choice. One choice at a time. I learned a lot of strategies over the years to set up the possibility of making a good choice.

I am writing this because I am hoping whatI learned will be helpful to you, the person who is reading this. I want you to have the benefit of what I have learned. I want you to feel my love and compassion. I want you to believe that you can heal. While you may not wake up and be perfect tomorrow, you are already perfect today. It is totally reasonable for you to have arrived at this point. Now, how can we make it better? Slowly, slowly, if it happened for me, it can happen for you too.

Word Play

Libidinous and Licentious met Pious and promptly took a nap.

It’s Art!

Odds and Ends

She’s Let Herself Go

Kim Cook

There was a time, a phrase from days gone by, a whisper behind a hand, a murmur between two women, an intake of breath and an exhale, “she’s really let herself go,” at the sight of a woman who wasn’t holding up the bargain of aging invisibly. Was it in the movies, on tv, at social events? Somewhere I heard this language and understood the implications. Keep it together. Do not let yourself ‘go’.

Go where? Now I know.

I am letting myself go.

Without a bra.

Without shoes.

Without make-up.

Eat with my hands.

Say what I think.

Pants with elastic waistbands.

Sit on the floor, the chair is uncomfortable.

Fart.

Oh my.

I’m a liberated goner.

This is me!

Coming to you live on a regular (ish) basis. With gratitude, Kim

Let’s get this party started!

Major insight and maturity download in progress,

normal operations suspended…

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In the midst of a new imagination~

Life Without a Handbook

My second book, Life Without a Handbook: How I got my Sh*t Together was finished some months ago. I sent it to my copy editor, pleased that this book, which has been a driving desire for me for twenty years, was now done! The rude awakening came when she sent the edits back to me. Not the edits. The writing. Her edits were focused on commas and grammar and such. Some word change prompts or questions - all reasonable. As I read through my words with a fresh eye I could see that there is a need for an overhaul of the structure - and that is on me.

It seems I thought once I wrote it down it would be good. It isn’t. Yet. I am so pleased with this shock of recognition, the reminder of the work of the work. There is the creation process which is all free flowing and personal. Then the turning it into a manuscript. That is a process for making it worth sharing. Soon I will discover if it is even a book. I will share that discovery with you in excerpts along the way.

At the moment I can say there is good learning and good storytelling in the midst of a lot of extraneous material. Except for the very beginning, the bulk of the book is about healing, recovery, and learning to function, and live well. Here is how it starts:

To Begin

The hurting did not begin with me. I was molested, sexually assaulted, beaten, lived off and on with one alcoholic parent, the other parent had borderline personality disorder, chaos was a constant and I went to sixteen schools between kindergarten and twelfth grade. I dreamt of the house on fire and overflowing toilets. I ran away many times. I acted out with rage and outrageousness. I was using drugs and drinking by age eleven or twelve. The family agreed I was the problem.

The problem began long before me. My mother was raised by a gentle mother who was beaten by my grandfather on a regular basis. I know this because long ago my grandmother’s sister told me of nights in downtown Fresno when an outing to the movies turned into my grandmother being beaten in the street. When my mother was accepted into Stanford from high school she was not allowed to go. To escape she got married. And while my grandfather was prone to fits of violence that kept us all petrified and on edge, I heard that his father was called the meanest man in town. So where did it all start? Long ago in Denmark before my great grandfather got on that boat and went off to seek his fortune?

My father was no solution for my mother. An alcoholic steeped in shame and misdirected sexual resentment, he was my first perpetrator. Sorrowful, angry. He was also charming, athletic, attractive, and simple in the way that being simple is an honorable way to be. Up at 4am for work each day he did what he thought was right and sat with his drink and his shame over the things he did that he knew were wrong. His father went off a cliff in a car when he was 17 and he had to take care of his mother and sister and brother and who knows what the backstory was there.

So all the things that happened to me had roots. Generations of wounds. Something I hope I am healing not only for myself, but back through time. Maybe I can love and compassion myself enough for it to reach them.

Word Play

I like rummaging around for big and seldom used words in the cluttered attic of my mind.

It’s Art!

Playing (and cleaning) in my garden led me to use this bowl, in a pot, with rocks, and then shells and more rocks as a home to this Buddha statue which once belonged to my mother. The little orange flowers are a gift from a recent college grad who was helping me take care of the garden. He left these for me as he went off to his first job.

Odds and Ends

This is a time of reflection, learning, writing, and sharing for me. A time when this language of a new imagination is compelling. I am not 14, I am not 40, I need a new imagination. A way of being that will be an expression of who I am now.

This is me! Coming to you live on a regular (ish) basis. With gratitude, Kim

Let’s get rocking! Tell the truth, spin a yarn, and share some stuff I’ve learned that just might be interesting or useful to you. Or maybe we will just have fun!

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Here’s how I plan to go about it…

Life Without a Handbook

Where I share how I learned to function (confession - that was not always the case). While the not functioning had something to do with childhood trauma and early drug and alcohol addiction - that is not the content ahead. Rather it’s the somewhat rollicking journey that begins with making your bed. As the saying goes:

One Day At A Time!

Or maybe we should sing Put One Foot in Front of the Other!

Word Play

I have a love of language. I like to make up phrases that go along with words that sing and bounce and feel good in the mouth as we roll them around before sending them out. Sometimes it’s based on what I see, and sometimes it comes from words that are pleasing to me. Here’s an example:

The natural not unpleasant urgency of morning rising into day, found me throwing food at my mouth like an elephant’s trunk tosses hay.

It’s Art!

Everywhere I am, everywhere I turn, I see poetry and beauty. Starting in my home and looking beyond, I plan to share what I see and the story that goes with it.

Odds and Ends

This is where I begin and end, with so many possible tales to spin, better to leave room for what arises from within (and such). And…Here I am!

This is me! Coming to you live on a regular (ish) basis. With gratitude, Kim