A Month In

It's been a month.

 I'm happy I'm still there. Counting is relaxing. On the stress scale, it is so far from the stress of being a teacher or working in Washington DC for yellers. I know what I am supposed to do, and I do it. The job is well defined. The metrics are clear. I show up and do what I am supposed to do.

When I go home, this job does not come with me, unlike teaching, where I would wake up at 3:00 am (a favorite time of insomnia for teachers) with thoughts of the most troubling child in my head. After teaching for many years, and having to think in 40 different directions through the day, it is gratifying focus on one thing. I am good at it. I needed it, not just for the money, but for the escape from the craziness of current events these days. Throughout the day, I rarely think of politics, which makes me feel so much calmer.

I work with interesting people, many of whom have done other really stressful career things, like me. James started when I started. He used to be a counselor for people undergoing gender reassignment surgery. He said as crazy as it can get, working at VHHC is a day at the beach. LJ worked the drive through at In-n-Out on weekend nights. Again, another day at the beach.

The amount of product is amazing, not to mention the continuous movement. Restocking and shelving goes on daily, and it boggles my mind how Sierra, the buyer, and Yelli, the manager, keep it all together.

This week, a woman about my age came in and was overwhelmed by what greeted her when she entered. It was her first time in a dispensary, after years of illegal cannabis consumption. She full out cried. I gave her a hug, because I remembered my first time, as did several other customers. She couldn't believe how easy it all was.

My first visit to a dispensary was in Colorado. I googled dispensaries in Fort Collins, and my GPS took me to an anonymous industrial park strip mall. It felt like walking into a conventional doctor's office waiting room, except for the floor-to-ceiling windows looking into a huge crop of growing cannabis plants. I sat in the waiting room, waiting to be called into the actual shop, like I was waiting for the dentist. I bought flower, an indica and sativa. Each came in a prescription bottle, and was put in a stapled bag.

Walking outside, I felt like the cops were going to get me, until I remembered how legal it all was. It felt so liberating. I stopped at dispensaries in Vancouver, Washington, and in Portland, Oregon. In the interest of seeing the different interpretations of cannabis shops, I bought a joint or two in each place.

In Vancouver, where I was visiting Jane, a jewelry store had been rehabbed into a chic, all white boutique, where the cannabis was displayed in the jewel cases, and on shelves in glass bottles. Again, I bought a joint. We crossed the street and went to a funky tea room, the walls covered in framed mirrors, for lunch. Later, we smoked the joint in her garden, as the sun was going down.

I drove most of the night to get to Portland from Astonia, a beach town far away from Portland. I thought I would be able to find a place to eat and sleep, but since it was October, the place was shut down and deserted. After a harrowing several hour ride, I stopped at a coffee shop to recover from a stormy night on one lane roads. One of the presidential debates was that night, and the politically themed shop was having a watch party later.

I googled another shop called Vertigo, and, once again, let my GPS guide me. In its previous life, the space had been a saloon. It still had that whiskey and cigar feel, as well as a great name.

When I got to Vallejo, I got myself a medical marijuana card and went immediately to the place where I now work. I felt just like the woman this morning, but I wasn't quite as emotional.

It is a big thing for people in our generation to walk into a pot super market. When we were coming up, we could never imagine it even being legal. Not only is it now legal, it is a booming business.

For most of my life, using cannabis has been illegal and forbidden, which added a certain cachet to it. Now it's legal and above board, and the San Francisco has a cannabis section in its Sunday paper, as well as a wine section.