18 Days

There are 18 days more until the Fire Lieutenant's test. I am starting to feel the anticipation in my body in a very deep way. But I have to remember to breath and relax. Let my shoulder drop and unclench my hand while I am writing. I have to touch into that faith in my own memory and mind. I have to stay focused and as far away from the drama in the firehouse as possible. I have to remember that most every thing I am writing about, I have actually physically done at some point in the last 14 years. This test is in my body and in my mind and all I need to do is relax and let it flow right out of me.

My Michie's Eyes

There are occasionally shining moments in one's life where you are truly proud. Michie hung her first show last week at a local pastry shop. Eleven photos that she took, edited, cropped, corrected, sweated over for months. She put her everything into the photos and it showed. I was a proud partner strutting around the store showing off the fine work that she had created.

Of course, I am proud of her for hanging her first show. But today I was proud of her for realizing that her success wasn't just dependent on how many folks bought her art. She realized on some level that her art has value, just for being her art.

The photos have value because they are Michie. They are an honest expression of all that she is and how she sees the world. There is nothing that makes art more valuable than the integrity that is created by this kind of passion.

The view through my Michie's eyes is beautiful and that just makes me love her and her photos even more.

You can see them by going to:

www.aninfinitejourney.com or
DeLessio's Market and Bakery
1695 Market Street (between Gough and Valencia)
between now and June 30th, 2008

Love this job....

So there I am... sitting in a ARFF Big Rig looking at an aircraft surrounded by fire. Fire on the left...fire on the right. I got fire coming out of two jet engines and a wheel well. It is just me and two thousand gallons of water and foam.... Geez I love this job.

We went to Utah last week for our ARFF (Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighter) Training and this was our scenario. It is a long day but there is always that moment when I get to put out the big fires with a BIG rigg and I just think, "This is the greatest job on the planet." I put out all the fires with just 25% of my tank. Yeah!

Little Boxes

I must make a retraction in regards to my previous post. It turns out I love little boxes. The official format for the Lieutenant's test came out yesterday. Just as was predicted, we are cramming all the info for each scenario into little boxes on one single page. One single page for size up, additional resources (for named purposes), orders to crew, actions, and tools. Oh and we get one more page for diagramming apparatus and hose/ladder placement. It's a little crazy!

But it turns out that this is exactly how I think. In fact, much of my outlined study material from the last 4 months is laid out on a spreadsheet in just this fashion.

I do well in this format. It suits the way I think, even though I have to write very small to cram it all in.

So you learn something new every day. Boxes are just fine by me.

Perspective

A few weeks ago, Max pointed out to me that one of my paintings didn't have a "vanishing horizon line" and that's why it didn't work. He was right. He understood the perspective in a way that I didn't. The minute he said it, I understood how to fix it. I just needed someone to say it out loud to me. I just needed a little objective perspective. Kind of like this...

Yesterday, I found out that the Lieutenant's test is most likely going to be in a limited format. This means that instead of being able to write as much as I want, I will have to limit my writing for each scenario into a little predetermined box. I hate predetermined little boxes. This new information made me very frustrated.

I was frustrated because this wasn't according to my plan. It wasn't consistent with how I have been practicing. I have been writing out 3-4 page scenarios for all kind of scenarios - high rise and residential fires, hazardous materials, civilian injuries and BART. I wanted the opportunity to give everything I had to this test. Now I felt cheated of that opportunity.

But today, like an angel of perspective, my good friend Dave pointed out that this will just give me an opportunity to distill the information down to the most essential. "Get to the heart of what you mean.", he said. What is actually important in an emergency to convey to my crew? vs. What is just chatter that they should already know?

So today my perspective is turning. My horizon is coming into focus and I can envision how to make this new format work for myself.

Married/RDP

Every year tax season descends upon us with a force that compels us to do what we most hate. We are required to tell the government our whereabouts, our income, what we should write off, and our marriage status. Well kind of....

For the last 12 year I have been forced to file as single. I married Michie in front of 120 of our best friends and beloved family in 1996. We vowed to take care of one another for the rest of our lives. We became registered domestic partners with the city that same year and then we took part in the first RDP civil ceremony in city hall the year following that. In 2003, the state of California allowed us to register as Domestic Partners. In 2004, we took part in the mass weddings at City Hall along with thousands of blissed out queer couples...and yet I still had to file single on my tax returns.

But this year was different. Not on the Federal level... we aren't there yet. But this year, with a republican Governor who has vetoed allowing Civil Marriage for my type of family 3 times, the State of California allowed us to check the box Married/RDP.

For the first time in our lives, Michie and I filed a joint return.

It made me so happy and I just wanted to share it with you.

Fish Out of Water

There was a time when I couldn't imagine being in this job. It was 1994. I was at my 2nd probationary house and completely miserable. My classmate had been almost killed in a fire and was just barely surviving on a breathing machine. I was a "probie" firefighter at a house that was a "bit harsh" and not a good place to feel much anything, other than strong and tough and male. I didn't have the skills yet to fit into the style of camaraderie, that I was surrounded by every watch. I was a fish out of water and I knew it.

One day I hit my breaking point and just decided that I couldn't do the job anymore. That I had failed and I would never survive this firehouse or probation. I went up into the women's bathroom (the only place I could have any type of privacy) and started crying. Quietly, so no one would hear me. I knew I was done.

And then a small light went on in my head. I got out a pad of paper and tried to figure out how to make it. I didn't write a list of how to be a better firefighter, or probie, or even person. I wrote something like this...

Dear Cynthia,
Someday you will love this job. Someday you will not be a probie and you will know what the hell you are doing. Someday you will work with a crew of people who you enjoy. Someday you might even work with folks you care about and who care about you. Someday you will come to work and not feel like a total screw up. Someday it could happen. Hold on.

I kept writing. I kept imaging that my circumstances would change. That they would get better.
And you know what....they did.

But right now I feel like I did that day, 13 years ago, but in reverse. This time I am taking myself out of a situation that I love. I am forcing myself into a position of being very uncomfortable. I am envisioning myself as a Lieutenant. I am seeing myself confidently working with folks who are well trained and know how to have fun. I am imaging myself being relaxed in this new position.

So now I have a new letter to myself.

Dear Cynthia,
Someday you will be glad you did all this work. You will be glad you are waking up at 3AM and doing fire scenarios in your head instead of sleeping. You will be glad for all the times you felt like a total screw up anytime you wrote out a truck scenario. You will be glad for the headaches you get from looking at the computer screen. You will be glad you tried and didn't give up.

Someday I will be glad, but for now I am just busy composing letters to myself.

Fearless for the year

I imagine that most folks in my life wouldn't describe me as fearful. But I think that ever since I started this job, I have been more fearful that I would like to be. I am not afraid of going into a fire, being a good parent or being loved. But I am very afraid of other things...

Fearful of being noticed. Fearful of being found out, pointed out and dismissed. Fearful of not being able to take care of my family. Fearful that I somehow won't meet my own expectations for how I should live my life. I am fearful that I won't do things to the fullest and that I will just somehow not be fully me.

Lately I have gotten fed up with fear. I have decided to just live this year like I am fearless and see what happens. Maybe the world will end. I might make some big mistakes. I might screw things up. I might even fail miserably. But I might not...

But I am ready to move on and see what I can make of myself in this world. Go BIG! Maybe I would be a good Lieutenant. Maybe we could have a nicer home. Maybe moving wouldn't be the end of me. Maybe there is so much more out there for me that could be an adventure and exciting. I am not necessarily keeping myself (or my family) safe by not finding out.