8.30.2004

water water everywhere

In the last four days I have seen more rain than in my whole life. There was rain driving to Charleston and of course dear Gaston (apply French accent here) slammed into our vacation on the Isle of Palms. Saturday was off and on rain. At that point Gaston was a Tropical Depression, we called him bi-polar. I woke up on Sunday morning to a Tropical Storm. When I went to sleep there was a screened in porch beside the bedroom I was sleeping in, when I woke up, there wasn’t. The 11 girls who traveled to Charleston for a bachelorette weekend had to wait out the almost hurricane force winds. Every bridge was closed for hours. We were trapped. We watched movies and went back to sleep, the house shaking the whole time. When we finally left our barrier island we had to wait on the side of the road along with hundreds of others for the main bridge to reopen. And when it did and we launched up the high slope I called on angels to protect us. The winds were wild and the rain was pouring. Driving up 95, I beat the storm. I out ran it. It took me 5 hours to do so. And now, Gaston has caught up with me. I think this Frenchman has a crush. I wish he’d get the clue. I’m not interested.

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8.24.2004

on the road again

I'm traveling. This past weekend was a wedding shower for my best friend. Now, I'm still here helping her shop and type lists and it's crazy the time and detail its takes for a wedding. Whew! Then, I'm off to NC for wedding preps. with my cousin then to Charleston for a bachlorette weekend. This is the last of my summer. I start work on Monday. That sucks. This summer has been awesome, the best yet I'd say. Will blog next week. Blogger back ya'll.

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8.21.2004

happy birthday d.

D-ola, she’s a feisty one. She loves the Humpty Dance and Linda Richman. She is fun and silly and a great friend. We met at our sorority. She was the little sis of one of my roommates, but we probably didn'’t become good friends until my third or fourth year, her second and third. She joined the sorority before I did and eventually became president. And she was a good one, serious when needed and silly when totally needed.

We’ve been in wedding after wedding together and separate. We were neck and neck for while in total number. It just proves what a good friend she is and how people want her to be close to their important celebrations.

She was the first of our group to buy her own place. She’s grown up like that and we are all in awe. She has an important job with top-secret clearance. I like to pretend that she’s a spy and knows things we don’t know. She says she doesn’t read the scary stuff. Still, I like to pretend.

We have season football tickets for our college and I can always count on her to dance to the music on the loud speaker with me. And she is usually the first one to throw her hand out in Indian chop style and yell “and that’s a cavalier first down” with the announcer. That’s my favorite part of the whole game, the whole season.

I love this girl and wish I lived closer to her. I’m so thankful she’s in my life and a part of our group of friends. She rocks and dances like a super freak. She’s smart and logical and definitely a goon, in a semi-secret sort of way.

Happy Birthday D.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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8.19.2004

impression

“You could've met you husband tonight,” he said.

I was already over it. Sure, the beginning was fun and intriguing, a guy approaching me and flattering me with words. He was cute, even hot with dark wavy hair, a cowboy hat and tanned skin. And he was tall. Then something happened. It all turned when he had to show us his old college id to prove he did attend the same school as my cousins. And then again when he and his friend tried to convince us that the movie company who had sent them to across the country to Wilmington, NC had put them up in a huge beachfront house. They tried to convince us to stay the night with them, even going so far as saying we could have our own room and lock the doors, no funny business.

I was done. Ready to leave but my cousins had spotted distant friends in other parts of the bar and I was left alone with these two. Later I would learn that my cousins had stayed away for so long because they thought I was into them. “No, no,” I said, “I was more in agony. I think the dark haired one nearly proposed.” I didn’t mention the fact that when the lighter haired boy stood up he didn’t grow taller. He was short guy. As soon as he stood up I thought I was in a movie, that these things don’t really happen. The short guy who looks a normal height while sitting doesn’t really exist and no man pulls a come on line like “You could've met you husband tonight.”

“I’m sorry, we have to go. We have to get back to our family’s house in Topsail,” was my reply. I didn’t know what else to do. And then when they followed us outside and kept talking, the desperation grew. The dark haired one had gotten the hint, his eyes no longer made contact. Was he really that surprised? He couldn’t have been sincere. That had to be a line to get me to his house. No one really says that.

As girls, our fantasies exist in a world where the man of our dreams walks straight up to us from a crowd of people and says something amazing and we’re done. It’s over. The white knight has come. But the reality is that we know the white knight is a figment, a conglomeration of fairytales, chick flick movies, and our mother’s dreams. And the thing is, we don’t really want the white knight.

A fantasy exists so that we don’t really grab on to reality. If we hold to the dream, the fantasy of being swept off our feet, then we don’t have to deal with the reality that relationships can be hard. We can brush them off. We can step aside and say, “Well, it wasn’t really suppose to happen like that anyway.” But when do we let the fantasy go?

Women can go from relationship to relationship, plunging in headfirst and then turn and leave. Pain comes with the leaving, but for men it’s different. When they fall, they fall hard. Are we to blame? Are women really snakes with forked tongues? I tell my friend who says this that not all of us, not every woman is out for blood. Some of us, or maybe even all of us, just want a best friend, and then some.

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8.18.2004

sometimes you’re the windshield

Driving back from c-ville today I had many things on my mind. Mostly my best friend’s wedding, but more specifically my maid-of-honor toast. Now, I’ve been in a ton of weddings, but I’ve never had to stand in front of people and speak. The last time I spoke in front of a crowd must have been in 10th grade English for a really bad speech on Thoreau.
Many ideas have come and gone through my mind and my fantasy is that people stand at the end. Not so much for the bride and groom, but because it’s the best durn wedding speech they’ve heard. Um, yeah, narcissism. I own it and claim it. Thanks.

Then when I am less than five miles from home I notice a bug or something caught in my windshield wiper. The wings are flapping wildly because of my speed on the highway. I try to slow down on the off ramp and when I get to the spotlight I realize it is a bug. The thing that was killing me was that his legs were still moving, even at 60 miles an hour, and not from the wind. When the car was stopped, he was still struggling. So, I crawled slowly to my parking lot so that his little wings wouldn’t flap so much. I parked and got out to inspect, but it was too much. He was so crammed into the thing that there was no way I could free him. He was big and possibly a bee. Normally I would want him gone. I’ve certainly smashed my share of bugs before, ignoring the guilt I’ve felt for the killing. But today, I couldn’t stand the suffering. And now there is a violent thunderstorm about and I’m thinking of that little bug, struggling to be free and now drowning.

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8.17.2004

bangers and mash

I awoke this morning to banging and stomping. At 8:30 am I thought, “well, that’s nice, the new person upstairs doesn’t have to be at work like the girl before who woke up at 6:30 every morning.” I thought that it would be nice, we’d be on similar schedules during the school year and if I overslept, which does sadly happen, maybe the stomping could be my back up alarm. Then, 45 minutes later I was cussing and actually picking up a nearby stick and banging on the ceiling. I couldn’t believe I had stooped so low. I have never banged on the ceiling. Stomped on the floor, yes, cause the prick below me likes to play his guitar and sing off-key and well sometimes I stomp to the non-rhythm to show him how much I enjoy his songs.

The stomping above my head happened a few weeks ago too when the girl upstairs moved out because she was, that’s right, getting married. I was not invited to the wedding (and thankfully, I have enough) because we never became friends. When I first moved in I had some neighbors round for a friendly little “let’s be friends” party. It turns out that the girl upstairs seemed totally normal and much like we could be friends. But, it think is all went south when I did two things that may have put her off. First, when she was the first to arrive we chatted about where we were from and boyfriends and what not. When she said she had met her boyfriend at church I asked what church she went to. I said that I had been looking for a church and since I was new to town, suggestions would be nice. But, when she told me it was Baptist I believe I said something like “Oh, well, I’m so NOT Baptist. So, I think I’ll keep looking.” Hm, was that insulting? Then, while chatting with the neighbor across the hall and the girl upstairs I realized about 15 minutes into the conversation that these two people did not know each other. Um, they’ve lived upstairs and downstairs from each other for 6 months, I’d been there for a week. So, I apologized and introduced them then tried to pick my mouth up off the floor and take my foot out of my mouth.

So, it’s no surprise that the girl upstairs and I never had girls night or dinner at each others place or even coffee. Shame, she seemed so normal, was it me? Hm, wonder.



For the last two days my dad has been in town. This means free dinners. This means a happy Anna and wasted food. My dad likes to come to town and forget to tell me and then call that day. That means that there will be fresh produce in my fridge bought the day before that will go bad in the next three days, precisely the time that he is here. Oh well, free dinners equals the spoilage in the fridge, I guess.

This week was extra special because he stayed at a hotel and I’ve spent the last two days at the pool and the hot tube. Then tonight, my dear dad, on Atkins, bought a roasted chicken and two small things of green beans and mashed potatoes for me. My dad, he’ll make the early morning stomping go away just by adding carbs. to his grocery list when he can’t have them. Sometimes, it’s just the little things.

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8.14.2004

mount olympics

I’m a bit of an Olympics freak. I dig these games. I’m really not a sports buff. I don’t follow teams in any sport during the year. I have no idea where the Packers hail from nor do I truly understand why the Dodgers went from Brooklyn to LA. That just seems sacrilegious. But, it also proves my point. Commercial sports, while filled with hard work and talent, are fake. I don’t understand why people become obsessed with one team. I can understand you like the Cowboys because you’re southern and until the Panthers came along you didn’t have a southern team to cheer for. But really, half that team ain’t never been to Texas before they were drafted. I don’t get it. College sports I can handle though I still spend no time following teams unless I’m sitting at my alma maters football games. And even then I’m just people watching.

But, when the Olympics come around it all changes. The Olympics is something I can get behind because every one of these athletes play for their country, not some rich millionaire. They aren’t drafted, picked from a lineup and paid huge sums. They work their tails off and they’re making their international debut.* They are the people I can get behind because there are personal stories of triumphant and defeat. And I love that everyone gets a chance to compete if they want to. Like Eddie the Eagle from the UK and that runner in ’84 Olympics who finished his race dead last with injuries and said “My country didn’t send me 5,000 to start the race. My country sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.” Now, people, I don’t care how you try to dress it up, no scantily clad cheerleader or ultimate dance mix on the loudspeaker can beat that. Let the games begin indeed.

*let’s all ignore the pro basketball players please

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um

Ya'll, badminton is an Olympic sport. Who knew?

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8.12.2004

richmond's worst

I wish I didn’t love Starbucks. I wish that I could hate them just based on the fact that they are a corporate cow. But, when that cow’s milk mixes with coffee and chocolate it tastes so damn good, I have to buy it. And I would buy everyday if every time I went there I wasn’t thinking that I could buy a whole freaking gallon of milk for the price of one tall latte. Corporate cow indeed.

This morning at Starbucks there were the usual suspects participating in the corporate mooing. There was the cute mother and daughter who got a double mocha for mom and a decaf frappochino for the girl. At least mom isn’t doping her daughter on stimulants just yet, but a Starbucks habit at the early age of 8 or 9 is a lethal thing to inherit. The boys or men who sit outside at the tables and use the newspaper as cover for their eyeing the coming patrons make me nervous. The beefcake guy who orders a soy latte because we all know he’s compensating for something he doesn’t have. Then there was the businessman sitting at a table with his laptop, brow furrowed, looking intently at the screen. I wondered if he was really doing work or just trying to look cool. And I wondered what his forehead will look in 5 years after all the furrowing. I wanted to walk over to him and tell him that whatever it was, it wasn’t worth the wrinkles. And I don’t know if you really get street cred for laptopping it in a Starbucks.

I’ve been trying to find a local coffee shop where I can go and read or write and I usually just end up at B and N, which makes me want to cry. A few days ago I went to a local place down the street. It was Sunday around 4pm. I ordered an iced latte, found a corner table near the window, pulled out a journal and starting scribbling. Even though laptop boy was sitting at the next table I felt like THAT girl. The girl who doesn’t know that taking your journal to a coffee shop went passé 2 years ago. I felt like a cliché, especially since it was the beginning of this journal. It looked like it was the first time I’d taken a journal to a coffee shop or even ever opened a journal. I decided I didn’t care since there were only 3 other people in the whole place. At 5 o’clock the place closed down and I then understood the lure of Starbucks and the corporate late hours.

I miss Seattle. I miss Seattle just for the fact that you can go to any coffee shop and sit and write or read for hours and no one looks at you because they are all doing the same thing. And the fact that Starbucks and Seattle’s Best reside alongside local coffeehouses excites me. I loved the choice of submitting to a corporate cow or going local without having to compromise for watered down lattes. My favorite days in Seattle were the days I picked a coffee shop, whichever one looked the grungiest and plopped down, book in hand, and read and drank. Does this make me a bad tourist or a great when in Rome girl? I don’t really care because it was fabulous to look out on a gloomy day, coffee and book in hand, and feel satisfied.

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8.11.2004

nada surf

I did shit today. Nothing, nada, not one thing. Except help J. download and navigate iTunes then make a mix CD. That took 2 hours over the phone. She doesn't know mix etiquette and if you yourself are unsure, go watch High Fidelity. So, nothing got done today and I mean nothing. Except that I've found I like Coupling, a British TV series that is Sex and The City meets Friends. You can watch it on BBC America. I get on DVD from Netflix. Now, go people, watch something on the tube and think of me.

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8.10.2004

pisser

When your dinner guests are about an hour late and when you call them and they call and you try to adjust your cooking time but things just get overcooked then cold, it sucks. I'm just saying.

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8.08.2004

happy birthday g.

G.L. is what we like to call her, but it’s not her favorite. She prefers just G. When I met her and she was introduced or referred to as G.L., I thought that was her first name. I knew she was from Texas and then Tennessee so the idea of a double name is not uncommon. I didn’t know for at least 2 years that G. was her whole first name and L. was her last name. And I still can’t help from yell G.L. when I see her, elongating her last name with a smile on my face.

G. is amazing. She has a gazillion friends in all walks of life. She is especially good at finding boys who like boys, but don’t know it yet. Several men have come out of the closet under her friendship. And she has no idea why this keeps happening. We think she’s just good at letting people be who they truly are around her. She’s good like that.

This past February she ran a marathon. That’s right, a marathon, in New Orleans. She raised like $2000 for her run to benefit AIDS research. She rocks.

But the best thing I love about G. is that she has such a full life with work and friends that she will often fall asleep on you. Late at night, talking girl talk with a group of friends, there sits G., eyes closed, head bobbing. We love her. We love that she is so tired and yet doesn’t want to miss what we’re saying. We love that she tries with all her might to stay awake and when we call her on it, she denies it or just laughs and we know that’s just her. That’s G. being an amazing friend.

Happy Birthday G.L.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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8.06.2004

an almost perfect day

I awoke to a beautiful day, an almost California day. The sun was bright, the temperature was in the 70s, no humidity. and the sky was impossibly blue. I took a walk through the neighborhood and smelled the fresh cut of grass and heard the wind pushing the leaves around above me. Then home for a quick shower and a short walk to lunch with a friend. Then playing in the pool with the kiddies. Then home to open the windows and cook dinner, hot and ready when my parents arrived. My parents brought loads of fresh tomatoes and squash and green beans and bell peppers and parsley and basil, all from my father’s garden. Some tomatoes were cut and frozen, some made vibrant, fresh salsa and many are left for tomato sandwiches or still to ripen in a windowsill. And now that the day is done and the dishes are washed, I just wish I had someone to kiss.

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8.05.2004

things unsaid

After a day of mostly napping, I talked to a friend for a while about her troubles. Since her troubles don’t stress me as much as her I can, of course, look at things objectively. And I often offer advice, ways to fix things, how to handle the next thing, so on and so fourth. But, as a girl, I know that sometimes we don’t want answers or fixers. We just want someone to say “that bitch” or “that sucks” or just “I’m here for you.” So, sometimes I feel a little bit like I’ve jilted my sex and stepped in as the clueless, helpless male. I step back and try to slow down the advice and I leave the conversations thinking “maybe I just should have listened more.” Then tonight, hours after our conversation I return home to a call that never happens. My friend L has left a voicemail message to say that she has two things to tell me; 1) that she doesn’t mean to pull me into the crap in her life and doesn’t mean to be fishing for ego boosting and 2) that she calls me because I help her put things into perspective and look at them in a different way and then she adds and a third, thank you.

We don’t get these calls enough, or give them. How great does it feel for someone to leave a voicemail saying how much they appreciate you? It’s priceless. I need to do it more too, to let people know they are important in my life. Because even though we might talk to each other every week or every day or go to dinner or give presents at Christmas or birthdays cards or celebrate weddings, it doesn’t mean as much as the words do. There is something in hearing that you matter to someone that makes you feel it, more than any present ever could. I need to tell the ones I love that I love them because I do, I love the hell out of them. Thank you, L.

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things undone

So, the list I made yesterday got completed up until lunch and then it all went south as I decided that is was raining out and I was tired and just needed a little rest. So, I popped in “Talk to Her” in the DVD player and when the first scene opens I realize I’ve already seen it. Oh well, I decide I’ll use the subtitles and see if I can figure out the Spanish on my own. About 30 minutes in, I crash. And it was the kind of sleep where you’re exhausted and just want your bed, but so tired that you can’t move. And it was off and on sleep. At one point, my mind fully alert and awake, I wanted to get up, but my body was still asleep so I’m trying with all my might to move an arm and nothing happens. It’s not a dream. This vegetable like state has happened all my life and I believe there is a name for it. It’s not a condition and doesn’t happen often, but the feeling of being paralyzed yet still awake is scary. Eventually I give up trying to move and drift back into R.E.M. Sleep being more peaceful than the fight.

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8.04.2004

Things to do tomorrow (for Thursday)

-tutor precious cancer boy
-workout
-lunch
-clean car, take it to be vacuumed, use oxyclean to scrub stains from coffee spills, organize all the teaching supplies and put in the way back so as not to encroach upon passengers in the back or front passengers seat any longer
-organize office so that there is actually a desk to use as a desk
-wash clothes so that you can even walk into the office
-setup airport so that I am not confined to my living room anymore
-dust and vacuum because the dust bunnies are breeding, fiercely
-write thank you notes to R and B, and B because I stayed at their house and/ or received a gift from them like 3 months ago (or longer)
-make CD for K and J because they rock and they need the “I’ve Come Along Way” by Michelle Shocked running through their heads as they drive around L.A and also feel my pain
-wrap wedding presents for L and for S because L is already a Mrs. and I need to give S’s present to my parents this weekend
-email about bach. party for K because invites need to go out soon and we don’t even know what city it’s going to be in (I suck as MOH, aka Maid of freakingHonor)
-somewhere along the line, when I can’t take the stench anymore, take a shower

As you can see, a busy day ahead. Let’s just see how much actually gets done. And no, I have nothing else in my head to write about. Sorry.

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8.02.2004

if the devil wears prada then i’ve been to hell (an LA chronicle)

Stuart Weitzman . OhMyGod we have to go in. They’re having a sale.” I say to K.

Poor K has no idea what or who Stuart Weitzman is. “Sure,” she says and we enter.

The store on Rodeo is small yet two salespeople greet us at the door. They actually talk to us and welcome us and tell us about the sale. We have just come out of Ralph Lauren across the street where I found, but did not buy, a pair of purple leather mules on sale for half price at $495. I knew Stuart could be much more affordable in department stores, but I expect the Rodeo store to have sales where shoes were still $200- $300. I am wrong. Every shoe on the sales rack is $75. “Hot damn,” I think “I just might buy something on Rodeo Drive, baby.”

K and I try on several pairs. I find some fabulous black satin high heels with an impossibly cute bow covering the toe. K finds some strappy white heels that she considers for her wedding day. We each buy nothing, coming back to the reality that even at $75 a pair; we don’t live a Stuart Weitzman life. We leave, the salespeople shockingly bidding us a good day.

We are tired by this 2nd hour on Rodeo. We have seen José Eber outside his salon, a woman clutching her toy dog in Chanel, huge canary diamonds at Van Cleef & Arpels, a rail thin blond model standing as a bored yet beautiful greeter at Dior, and the back, private entrances to Armani and Gucci. We are heading toward the car, parked in the sun in a free space in front of someone’s small bungalow and perfectly manicured green lawn. I am thirsty, having downed my bottle of water noisily in Gucci while walking among the fur trimmed dog beds covered in Gs.

We think we were done with the pseudo shopping and the mouth gaping staring and then all of sudden we walk across Plexiglas ovals in the sidewalk. Below the “windows” were human size ant holes with manikins ironing or just posing. There are three of them, two girls, one boy. “What the hell,” I think. K and I look above us and there is no sign, just a massive metallic rectangle as big as a Mack truck above us. People are milling about in the opening to this, store? The entrance is set back and it is all open, there are no doors, but there are two huge human sculptures with no heads resting just under the ceiling. They seem to be holding up the second floor yet they don’t quite touch it. K and I walk in, we don’t know what else to do, we are transfixed.

Inside there are concrete walls and before us a massive staircase that spans across the room leaving narrow “halls” along either side. We walked down the left side and set into the wall there seems to be a concierge of sorts, a young brunette manning a phone. “Is this a hotel?” I think. Just past the concierge’s window there are low tables and set into the concrete walls are lit shelves at hip level. Things are strewn about. Bags, shoes, just stuff covering everything, but with no sense of order. I look closely at one of the bags and see the distinguishable triangle with the word PRADA. I turn, “K, we’re in Prada,” I gasp, my face looking quizzical and amazed at the same time. K doesn’t say anything. We keep walking. We come around to the back of the room and there is another set of stairs mirroring the ones in the front yet opposite so that the staircases make a large triangle in the room. We decide to go up, but have to navigate around shoes and the legs of manikins with no torso. “What the hell,” keeps running through my brain.

At the top of the stairs we turn left and enter a room that runs like small hallways just above the space below so that on the right and left are narrow halls and in the front and back are slightly wider rooms over the stairs. The walls are green and look like swiss cheese. But, there are no smooth surfaces on the walls. There are only holes. I don’t understand it and I follow K’s hand to the wall. It’s plastic, green plastic swiss cheese, “What the hell?”

The rooms are created with the swiss cheese walls on one side and glass on the other to keep you from falling down the stairs. There are metal racks of clothes along the swiss cheese walls with exactly 5 items on each. Thin, tan, bleach highlighted men in black walk around carrying an item or two. They are barely noticeable in this room, the fade, into the…air. When we turn the corner and hit the larger front room I spy the dressing rooms on the right side, above the stairs, I see two little girls playing inside, through the glass. I think, “I know Prada is weird, but who tries on clothes behind glass, in front of strangers?” Then, one of the girls hits something on the wall and the glass goes frosted. “What. The. Hell?”

After I touch some $1500 mini skirts, we leave. K and I don’t understand what we have just seen. Was it real? It will be the topic of many conversations with K’s fiancé that week and it will be the first story I tell friends when they ask about L.A. I’ll say, “I’m going to tell you about Prada, but you won’t understand.” And when I’m done telling them about the swiss cheese walls and the frosted glass they’ll say things like “Weird,” or “Are you kidding?” And I’ll tell them that “yes, it sounds weird, but you still don’t understand. You really have to go. You have to experience it. Go to Prada on Rodeo. It’s worth the plane ride.”

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8.01.2004

happiness is a mat that sits in her doorway

I used to collect quotations. I’d culled them from quotation books or magazines or friends or even the daily email from Oprah’s website. I’d write them in a flowery printed journal in my best handwriting. I wanted to the believe the lines like “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow,” but, Helen Keller never saw a shadow though she lived within one. I wanted her words to show my how to not only look at the sunshine, but surpass it and become it. She did, why couldn’t I?

For years my favorite quote was “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” When I found it I thought Oscar Wilde was my soul mate, that he understood my plight. I even wrote it in fancy scrawl across a painted wooden board that held a curtain rod and hung it over 2 different bedroom windows. But, looking at the stars does nothing for trying to reach them and if you don’t come out in the daylight, the gutter must be a hot and miserable place.

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do,” wrote Eleanor Roosevelt and she was right. You must in fact do the thing you think you cannot do. She was strong and brave and I trusted her words. She was the original Nike slogan, “Just do it.” These words pulled me through many papers and exams in college, but nothing, nothing in college or life could prepare me for what lay ahead.

My first years teaching I was energetic and naïve and ready to take on the world. I loved what I did and felt absolutely called to do it. I thought that my teaching kids with autism was who I was. I thought it defined me and that everyone should revere me for the work I did. Those first years threw me into a tailspin of hatred and anger and bitterness and disappointment and fear and illness. I complained constantly and to anyone who would listen, but friendships and life were slipping away. Quotations and words of wisdom wouldn’t pull me through and there were many nights I just cried and prayed.

I finally sought help and through a counselor learned that my life was full of unhealthy patterns and that I was the only one in control of what could happen in my life. I didn’t believe her and for 3 years cried and complained about all the things that happened TO me. Then I began to use her advice and let the control go. I had to learn to let go and forgive. I had to learn to let life take me where it would. I had to learn to do the thing I thought I could not do.

I faced the shadows and the gutters and I’m still learning to leave them where they are, in the past. You can’t see the sunshine or stars clearly until you face their opposites. And no one and no quotation will help you truly get there. They can point the way, but you, you have to do the digging and nail biting eye to eye combat with all the bad things before you finally appreciate all the good ones and let happiness if not land, at least aim, at your doorstep, everyday.

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