I drove North on the 101 into the mountain past those Santa Barbara adjacent towns that make their own chocolate bars, like Cambria. The ocean sighed on my left while the forest threw shadows on my right. I drove down the middle with an eighth of a tank, about eighty bucks and a grocery bag full of stripper snacks: string cheese, apples, hummus and carrots. My loudest thought was “I don’t deserve this” the emotional leftovers from a disconcerting year of financial hardship and a friend’s sudden death. Before that, as a kid with two working parents, I was filled with longing but knew I was a burden. The kernels of what it was to desire and deserve rose to the surface like scum. Something great happens and I’m plagued with “This must be a mistake” followed by “They’ll know I’m a fraud.”

I didn’t know where I was going, but I did know the road was winding and empty, leading deep into a beautiful mountain and that writers would surround me compliments of The Sun Magazine. My Navi battery died a few miles back, I lost all cell reception and the sun fell.

Esalen Sunset

I pulled over into the only gas station I’d seen in ages, which had a grocery store where two men leaned over a counter, speaking quietly to each other. “Excuse me, where is Esalen?” I was that obnoxious tourist asking the same question they’d heard fifty times already.  “You’re 25 miles away.” I know Northern California like my own bones and I’m a hot spring junkie. I’ve marinated in the egg-y pools in the bowels of Ukiah and doused myself in the pristine baths at Harbin Hot Springs. I’ve slutted around Desert Hot Springs, sampled the digs there for years, but Esalen made Orr look like a chicken coop. It was holy.

The wooden “Esalen” sign was small and unassuming on the road. I hung the hairpin left down a driveway towards a gate where a tanned fellow peaked inside my car, as if sampling the estrogen there. “I like that song,” he said. He pointed me in the direction of the office, which was also a bookstore. Inside the office I figured they’d point out the mistake, tell me the scholarship wasn’t mine, and I would have to pay or go home. That’s not what happened.

In the office, a woman booked a massage and another stood around reading a book, like we used to do when there were bookstores and people hung out inside them, chatting about books. A man with a gentle face and scraggly silver beard knew my name and he led me outside.

“It’ll be quieter out there,” he said. He showed me a map of the grounds at Esalen, where my room would be up a steep hill overlooking the ocean. He made it sound like I could read maps and understand his directions, as if this weren’t middle earth and I wasn’t lost in a sea of adrenaline coursing through me. I think I asked him to repeat the directions to my room three times. Until the “I don’t deserve this” voice stopped.

Holy Esalen

 There were buildings named Huxley and paths to the place Frances Lefkowitz would lead a workshop called, “What’s Your Story With Money” where she asked us “Write about where you are wealthy” and then “Write about where you experience poverty.”

My poverty was the big lonely after my Mom died and I was in jail. It was a four a.m. lonely. A cold sweaty, clausterphoice motherless, fatherless, brotherless, sisterless, boyfriendless, friendless lonely, shoved in an unmarked white Van. An I’m-going-to-miss-my-flight lonely. A who-is-going-to-feed-the cats lonely. I was looked at like a feral animal, referred to as a prostitute. I was handcuffed so long my wrists ached behind my back. I sat on a bench next to a woman in slippers, waiting to be booked. The woman was black and maybe fifty, also handcuffed with burns along her arms and a broken, misshapen thumb. She moved slow like time in the yellow- light lonely, the smell of puke lonely. I didn’t ask why she was there. She didn’t ask me either. The other women there laughed and talked too fast. They had pimps inside too. It wasn’t their first pony ride and they slipped into the routine and cracked jokes with the officers that hovered above us.

At Esalen, the ocean was the whole world and half the sky. The sun was an enflamed apricot; its outline burned the horizon. It was on top of a hill near a fence that seemed to drop off a cliff into the sea. I found the room and opened the door where two other women sat at a desk with computers, typing away. There were 4 bunk beds and I tossed my bag down on one of them. I walked down to the lodge in time for dinner with my bag full of unnecessary snacks, embarrassed because I didn’t realize we were going to eat like Mayan royalty with food made from the farm on the grounds. We would be anointed with spicy dal and mushroom soup, beet and feta cheese salad and fresh fish. 

Sunset Esalen

What happened was, I melted. Thanks to Tim McKee for his prompt.

As a stripper classically trained to let people slide over me, but not allow anyone to stick, I allowed myself to be held in the room by Sy and the other writers. I nailed myself to the spot, looked in their eyes and read my work aloud, even though I wanted to bolt out of the room. They shared their wealth and poverty stories. We were asked to write letters that would be answered in Cary Tennis’ workshop “Dear Stranger.” The letters were breathtaking, both in question and reply. One of the letters asked this: “I’m afraid of dying. Please give me advice.”The person who received the letter was a huge hearted bright lady who had worked as a hospice worker for years.

The hotsprings at Esalen

By the end of “Into the Fire” at Esalen, I felt churned, and invigorated, opened up and provided for. I felt connected to other writers. 

That became my new wealth, and I deserved it.  

    The day after I quit the hand job gig, I felt dazed. I paced my apartment, and stared at my hooker go-phone on the table, which was turned off and destined for the trash. I thought about deleting my ads, but didn’t want to look at them. Yet.

Hounded by my screaming sugar addiction, I snatched an apple from a bowl in the kitchen and watched the clock. My ride was late. Money anxiety seeped into my skin like fog, but I shoed it away and ran my hands along my thighs instead.  

It’s really over, I thought and let that sink into my gut. 

One year ago, on October 14^th, I was shoved into an unmarked white van by undercover vice. I was stuck in jail for nearly twenty-four hours,  missed a flight to New York and left a friend (the client who bought the plane ticket) waiting for me at the airport. I couldn’t call him from jail because, in case you don’t know, they take your purse and your ID and when you’re jacked up on fear, what numbers can you recall by heart?  

I couldn’t call my Dad and my Mom was dead. My ex boyfriend was on tour. I sat crouched in an airless, dark cell with underage black prostitutes; one rested her head on my lap. I closed my eyes, hoping this was a bad dream but the pepper spray lesbians were real. We covered our eyes and coughed, put our heads between our knees.  They glared at us and kissed. That was the best part of the night. The rest was panic, terror and pissing in public.

In my cell, someone had scratched “I love you Mom” into the wall with her acrylic nails.  I stared at it for hours with my leather jacket as my blanket that smelled like vanilla sweat. The girl underneath me, a skinny black tattooed hooker was called to court. But not me. “I guess you’re staying the weekend,” she said. My breaths were shallow and hot.

I rang the buzzer and yelled, “Let me out of here!”

“Negative,” a woman’s voice said. 

Hours later, my friend Laura showed up to visit me. She placed her hands on the glass. “You don’t belong here,” she said. “I’ll get you out.” I put my hands up and surrendered, touched my hands on hers on the glass partition. 

Much later, I was released OR, because I’d never been arrested before. 

After my arrest, I jumped when I heard footsteps behind me and cringed when someone touched me. I Recoiled when friends hugged me. Some of them cried when I told them what happened, but I couldn’t cry.  I went to Annie Sprinkle’s wedding and borrowed money to pay my rent. My Dad was in the hospital and I drove around in my car in circles, not knowing what to do or where to go, so I parked in Gold’s Gym parking lot, the same parking lot I sat in for hours when I broke up with my boyfriend, the same parking lot I parked in when I got the call about my new job at the law firm.

 I fled to New Orleans each month: my safe haven, stripper nest and I kept writing my book.

Which brings me to sacred ground, the road trip to Ojai for the all women’s sweat. The thing is, I don’t sweat unless I’m close to a cardiac arrest. I despise Bikram. My body hoards heat and doesn’t give it up. Ceremonies were never my thing either. I’m from the tip of Northern California and we have tons of Native American tribes: Yurok and Hoopa. I’ve got a tad of Algonquin blood, but I’ve never held a medicine stick or blessed a rock. Never prayed on the ground with a shaman. 

My running partner pulled up in front of my house with her three friends and a coconut kale smoothie. “Get in. “We’re late,” she said and handed me the green froth.

Blaire drove us to Ojai

 I threw my  towel, bathing suit and some snacks into the back of her Prius and squeezed in the back seat next to the beautiful girl with Angelina Jolie lips and a Mohawk.

Of course we giggled about boys and school and goals and our outfits, a carload of girls and the words “You’re ready for the sweat” in my ears. I clasped my hands in my lap for the drive. I pictured headdresses and smoke, a TP. Warrior women in feathers would tell me I’m too pale and too inexperienced. The shaman would tell me to get lost. I’d get my period on the way there and be banned from the land to the parking lot. But none of that happened. I’m not sure what did happen, but I burned the pain and loneliness of my clients for the last twenty years. I stood in Sage and let the smoke swirl onto the soles of my feet, my belly, my face, armpits and neck. I burned jealousy and rage and insecurity in sticks and put them into the firepit with the stones that I held to my heart and set into the fire. Tears streamed down my face when I heard the prayers from the women’s voices in the black smoke. I began to melt. 

Sacred Ground (not the coffee shop)

The mountain was quiet and sunny and calm. Squirrels ran along the branches of Eucalyptus trees and oaks. We sat on the ground in the dirt and listened to each other talk and pray. Owls hooted. I was soaking wet when I crawled out of the lodge on my knees, soaked with prayers.

P.S.M. Petro interviewed me for Bitch Magazines blog. We talked about sex work and the media here: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-h-word-paper-crane