in which i carry on

I thought that having time to let my mind wander might bring about more words, more deliberations, pontifications, or observations. But, all this time hasn’t made me want to write about anything but you. You lurk for me in the quiet places even though I’ve tried my best to tell myself that you need to leave my mind. You’re just so perfect there. I know you’re not really perfect but it’s what I want most, the imperfect parts. I’d like to help your through them or just accept them. It’s the desire that makes you perfect, the glossed over effect of faraway vision. And there is this wall, this insurmountable barrier that even though I want to flail against it, I’m kinda glad it’s there. Because perfect (or imperfect) is easy from far away and always less painful. So the choices I have could be made simple. I could give myself a deadline. I’m good with deadlines, goals. I know how to reach them or let them go. I’m good with finite, or I’m just more accepting of it. Maybe that’s the answer, a day, a time to know for good if good is what we could be.

i'm already losing

I thought about those pesky New Year's resolutions today. I don't like making them and yet this year I went out on that limb. And a wobbly weak one it is. I almost have no plans to keep any of the ideas I thought were so fantastic a few weeks ago. Take Obama for instance. It's pretty exciting to me to hear all the good news coming from his camp. I believe in him the way people first believed in Bill Clinton. I was never swayed by that smoothe talker, but Obama looks like what our future should be. He's all shiny and pretty like a new penny. But, my working for him seems like a dream and a far distance wish. And yet the idea I had was simply somethink akin to making phone calls for him with a high pitched excited hope lingering through all those fiber optics and cell towers. I barely have time to shower these days. My world is spinning just a little too fast. It's not a bad thing, just a hurried thing and I can't imagine adding one more thing to the growing pile. It's time for things to slow down, for me to take time out and smell the fresh scent of new babies being born because it seems like they're starting to come out of people's ears, but I can't slow down and I don't really want to. We'll see about Obama, but for right now the writing has lost hope and exercise- what's that? It's why I don't make those resolutions in the first place. But then again, if I hadn't what would be lurking over my shoulder rather than bettering myself?

why i haven't written

"Maybe he'll be a writer," said my friend's husband about their brand new baby boy.
"Why a writer," I asked.
"Don't most writers have really bad childhoods?" he asked.
He was joking about the horrible life his child would live if he didn't automatically love water. This river guide and whitewater daredevil assumes that a child of his who doesn't swim on command is down for some real disappointment and better learn to pen those frustrations. I offered my reading abilities. And then his sentiment coalesced in my mind.
I've just been so darn happy- so up that writing has no misery to nourish it. I'm sure that my contentment has even put some people on edge. It's hard for me to harbor sadness, regret or angst anymore. And sometimes I can't listen to other's. All was glistening and tinged with the music of the spheres. Then tiny things starting creeping in. Not all humanity is good. Not everyone serves to better this world. And this, this is what nourishes my melancholy now- the disillusionment of reality.

It's our duty and our right I think to go through pain, to live in it and survive it and when we come out of it we're changed so that we vow to "do no harm." And I caution this with the fact that I do not mean that you begin putting bumper stickers on your car about angels flying and whirled peas. I mean that you think before you speak, you include those you don't want to and you surround yourself with those you respect. And I do this and I did this and life was a giddy. And then it backfired. I won't be deterred from my hopeful selflessness. It's hopeful because it's not perfect. I will simply have to be more cautious and let the disappointment be penned rather than stabbed. And since it takes a sad and reflective moment to make me write, I can't help but as the question "What would I rather be; happy and wordless or melancholy and prolific?"

a new year, a new you

You guessed. The ubiquitous, but let's hope this one keeps you entertained. I usually don't do resolutions. I'm one to view the reality of the situation: that instead of a new year's resolution it's a new year's let down. I never keep to the list of ways to better myself and so I don't keep those lists, but this year feels different. I like the 8 at the end. It's all curvy and soft and even. I like even numbers. They remind me of symmetry and safety where no one gets left out. I like including everyone. And so, for 2008 I will make a wishlist and there will be no pressure, no self-induced panic over completion, no self-hatred for lack of completion and by no means will there be any "what if."

That being said in 2008 I wish to:
- publish
- read 30 books
- write every week
- buy something big
- love someone
- get small
- work for Obama
- fly somewhere fancy
- just be

And I also hope that you will embrace the 8 at the end of this year and be soft and suptle too and in your softness just be.

in which i'm thankful

My favorite time of year when the trees look like paintings and the air (should) feels like a cool dip in fresh water. This year has been one for the books and one of my quietest ones. I can't say why I've been so quiet, why the yearn to write out loud stilled inside me, but I wouldn't take back what's happened in the real world. I found that happiness and contentment is a place I'd trade for writing any day. Maybe there is something to artists and pain or maybe there are just moments that I want to keep all to myself, wrapped up for me to remember or forget. I want to return to writing, to make it a daily habit and it might be a goal I set up shortly. I'd like to see what writing looks like with my newly wired mind. And I'd like to know what it wants me to share or hold back. We'll see about that.

Right now I'm thankful for the time I get to spend with my family this week, and I'm a little sad for all the family that won't be around this year. There are babies and babies and babies to come and my dream, my absolute wish is for a Thanksgiving where all the people I love come together and spend the night under one roof. That roof would have to be big, really big cause I got a lot of love up this heart and I'm so giving thanks for all ya'll.

in which i mourn my melancholy

I want to be sad. I want to wallow in it. I wish I could cry, let it out, release the blockade. But nothing that bad has happened. It's just the tiny little things that after some time start to make me wish that crawling into bed were still my default answer. Bed sounds wrong right now, so sedentary, so almost permenant and that isn't who I am anymore.

Plans got canceled, juggling was done and still people let me down, machines let down. I've had this thought before and it's come up more recently. Sometimes I just want to be someone else's priority. The me, the now, the independence is good. It's great actually, but sometimes- like when my car dies -I want to be the destination that someone runs to, the person that someone wants to rescue. It's the just little things I need help with sometimes and that sometimes is now.

because sometimes i think it

In some ways I feel like a stranger to myself. Because constant contentment has never been part of me- never even a fleeting thought- that sometimes I don't know if it's real. But it is. It all is. And yet nothing has really changed. A friend on the phone tonight said, "You sound sad." "I'm not," I insisted. Twice. It's just such a knee jerk reaction- from me, from my friends- to assume that I am melancholy. What I am at this moment is me, whatever word that describes me (is there one?) I just am. I feel like now, like this day, this moment- even when the tiredness in my voice is read wrong- that I can finally just be still. I guess it's a little like a Buddhist feels after so much meditation- calm, OK with the now. And yet I've done no meditation. I haven't even changed my diet. Should I call this Nirvana or Enlightenment? I don't know. I think what I really am right now is normal. I think I finally feel what most humans feel from the day they are born. It just took me 30 years to get there. So is this my rebirth? In some ways yes. I finally understand that days flow like a river through our lives and that conscience movement of time does not have to be an obstacle, but a serene knowledge of consistency. I've been a time fighter, but now time just is. If I go on a walk, great. If I spend an hour watching TV, awesome. If I finish a book, good job. And stress- I hardly know her. Sure there are things on my plate, deadlines, commitments, friends, family- and my answer to them is "OK, I've got stuff to do, let's do it." And that is the part of me that feels so foreign, so other. I've always been a procrastinator, a tomorrow-is-another-day, even (mostly) a dreader. I'm now a today girl and today and tomorrow and even yesterday are good, really really good. And hope that this feeling, even now when I just want a nap, is something I can hold on to for much, much longer. And dare I say- share it.

baby mine

In a word- explosion. It’s the best way to describe it. I was sitting at my dining room table when the tiny trickle started. I sat listening for seconds thinking that it was just a new sound in another apartment. And then it was a gush, a flood, a waterfall and it was close and I ran and I screamed.

In the same chair tonight I sat while my best friend said, “Are you sitting down?” At first the thought was a tiny trickle in my mind and then the words she spoke confirmed the gush, the flood, the waterfall.

In one week two things in my life have cracked wide open. The first- my bathroom ceiling. The second- my social sphere. You see, the Object of my affection (or better my old affection, my sometimes wanderlust, my sometimes passing thought) is moving across the country to reside within a very short afternoon drive. This spins my world around, maybe even more so than my bathroom ceiling spitting on me when I pee.

My first reaction to both was a lot of bad words along with the feeling of unsteadiness like trying to water ski- the feeling of gliding, of skimming along- was within my grasp, but a little painful to achieve.

The Object has just been so perfectly out of reach, so perfectly placed on a pedestal that resided across the universe. He has been a routine for several years, a once a year face-to-face meeting, a fluttering chasm of feelings, an unhealthy amount of obsessive time wasted and then slightly forgotten. I’m a creature of habit. I like my bathroom with a dry ceiling and I like my un-gettable gets to stay un-gettable. My bathroom will be fixed, that’s what I pay rent for, but my brain pays my heat in panic attacks and that’s not good for anyone.

things being what they are

I've been standing on a cliff dreading the descent below me. I don't want to jump but I know from somewhere deep that the fall is inevitable. In the space between the knowing and warding off of these fellings I do my rituals which amount to breathe blowing in a strong wind. I can't stop the force that's brought me here. I can't unstep my path and yet I want nothing to do with this cliff. I don't want to jump. Not even the lure of a free fall is exciting. I want solid ground again where everything is monotany and calm, where a sneeze does not equal the push that sends you headlong into the void. And yet I know this place well, have stood here many times before- sometimes even willing the wobble on the edge, coaxing the feelings of balance to last a little longer. But this time, this day, I don't want the cold that is barreling down my throat no matter what days off it promises. I want health and sunshine and to enjoy the beginning of fall that is coming, just glinting through the trees.

me, myself and i

There are moments in my life when I realize a true fact about myself- when an entire emotion or trait takes solid form and sits down right beside me. Yesterday it was sadness and insecurity.

Happiness, contentedness and ease have been my norm, my everyday for most of this year. And after such a long stretch of almost bliss I thought maybe my emotions had been turned off. Maybe I was numb.

Sadness has been a constant in my life- my security blanket, my commonplace. I even say I like the word “melancholy,” that to me it is not negative, but simply descriptive and alright. And “despair”- I know it well. And “funk.” And “low.” But, I don’t have depression, never have. I’m just low key. And for a long time I thought everyone else felt the same way, but that they were just better actors than I was.

Happiness- I know now- feels better, it wears better, it even walks better than melancholy ever could. My doctor asked me recently how I had managed to lose 10 pounds since my last visit. I told her I had no idea and that I wasn’t even trying. I knew I liked my state of mind and how my body was reacting to it. That even if the even keel I was going through was really numbness I didn’t want it to stop.

Yet sadness crept up on me yesterday and shooed away months of what I thought was non-feelings. And part of me was even glad in the sadness because it meant the all my emotions were there. It meant I was not numb. It meant that I really have been happy and even joyful and that I now have a reference point to work my way back to from the gutter whenever I fall in. But, don’t worry- I’m already out.

my new mantra

I was raised in a very conservative household. This being said there was also a lot of chaos. You know the kind- "We put fun in dysfunctional." It's your almost typical American story, but recently I've begun to try to turn the heads in my family from perseveration to meditation. My new saying is "Let go and let Buddha." I'm not Buddhist though I respect those who practice it. It's more of my own version of the classic 12 steps "Let go and let God." The sustitution for me is all wrapped up in family dynamics. When I plug my mantra into a conversation where someone is certainly being analyzed and torn apart, laughter comes out. Laughter because we need it, because comedy is alwasy better than tragedy and also because God is too serious. If I used the classic saying then I'd get things like "That's right. Those demons should be banished." Wah! Yeah, I know. So I choose Buddha as my comic relief buddy. Buddha is my little fat comedian. He helps lighten the anger, sometimes even helps release it. And I am the happier for it. You should try it too. It's easy. When something is grating on your nerves (like I don't know, your entire family) just let go and let Buddha.

the thing is

The thing is is that I just am like a top spinning. I'm not sure when the wind resistance will slow me down and cause my spinning to stop, but in some ways I don't want it to. I like not knowing what end is up when those ends are surrounded by beach, breeze, full moons and flip-flops. I'm off to Nantucket and looking forward to every flip-flopping minute of it. Of course, up there flip-flops are a little on the "common" side. The thing is, I don't care.

in a grown up world

Before I left for the beach a lot in my life changed. 1) I almost put a bid on a condo, but the prospect did not turn out so good and now my homebuying status is in limbo. 2) I chopped all my hair off and gave it to Locks of Love. 3) A good friend left for the left coast and I didn't even say goodbye.

Somehow I put all that out of my mind, packed for the beach and have been in a lazy beach mode since then. I've read a book and half already, floated in the waves twice (a big deal for me- I hate saltwater and I immediately have to shower after exiting), watched a movie, fought with my brother, played with my nieces and nephew, hosted a murder, cooked dinner for 12 people and just forgot about time and the ringing cell phone. I've become a hippy. I've tuned in, turned on and dropped out.

But no matter how much I want to push the grown up world away, I have to face it. I have to make some big financial decisions today and I'd rather not. I'd rather someone tell me what to do and let my trust in people be the right choice, the one that keeps me safe and makes me happy. And the ironic thing is is that I don't like to listen to what other people think I should do. I am fiercely independent. And yet.

reaction

I need you sometimes just to be what I fall into. I don’t want to mutter in the low times anymore. It’s too dark there and I’ve been there too long. I like this lightness now, this floating I’ve been feeling. It doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes need you to be the blanket, my wrap around. Because we all need something that makes the ground softer just like moss on a forest floor that dampens the fall of acorns or pinecones- being the equal and opposite force that stops their fall. And it is what I need now, just something I can curl into and lie still with, something that only needs me to be still and quiet- my equal and opposite.

in which i say something i shouldn't

It's been a while coming and I know that you could see it. And it's time for me to own up to it. I'm taking a blogging break. It's not a stopping or a quitting. It's just a break, not a break down or even a break up, just a break.

I'll be back. When the blogging bug bites again and the writing wells up in throughout the day, flooding my mind with things I have to write down and send into the void that is the Internets. I just don't want writing to be forced and now it is not coming. It is not fluid in me as it has been and I don't believe in fighting that fight, making something of nothing- I've tried that tactic in my life and it never seems to be what you think it is, but it always disappoints.

In the meantime- go read a good book, teach a kid to sing while hanging upside down, blow bubbles in the bathtub, dress in you most comfortable clothes and love the sunshine and the green grass and the smell of the people you cherish when they come near you.

insider trading

I didn’t go to bed on Sunday night because of a boy from London. When I heard London, my ears perked up and my attention remained on him searching for an accent. There was none. He’s American, but a boy who loves London is a boy I could listen to. And he had kind eyes.

We stayed up- a group of us –until the sun came up. I watched green appear on the trees outside the window as I squinted against the increasing light. The notion of sleep was silly. I was still reworking all the words, all the questions, all the answers.

We turned the night into generalizations that turned personal. It started easily and innocently with a hypothetical, a question about what lies behind the curtain of a boy’s mind. He spilled all the secrets, said he shouldn’t be divulging so much. We ate up every word, hung on them.

“Why him and not me,” he asked at one point.

“It’s just a personal choice. It’s like why her and not me,” I replied.

“OK. I get it,” he said and with that I let him go, but we kept talking, almost endlessly about everything.

“I’m sensitive, but straight,” he cautioned us.

“I’m quoting you on that one.” He didn’t know how serious I was. I thought about leaving him my card- an arrow to this blog- a window inside my head. I hinted all night to him, but we had entered the friend zone. I could have- so many times- just slipped in beside him, turned his face to mine. I didn’t- claiming all the insecurities he had released in his conversations. In three hours I knew more about his heart, his feelings, his fears of love than I know about my closest friends. And that felt good. And he made me laugh. With his frankness and openness. I wish that I had said more to him than “bye,” in the morning- more than, “Have fun in London.”

i was the snow

and you scooped me up.

I don't understand the girl who needs to be with someone. I don't understand dependency. I don't understand how the absolute resolve to stand alone is unique. I don't fight the push and pull anymore in my mind. I accept this independence. And yet, I like to watch things like "The Bachelor" and I cheer for the girl who shelters her heart then lets the walls down in the ninth inning. I know that girl. That girl that makes the boy fight for her with everything he's got. But those boys, those boys don't come around very often and when they do I think sometimes I'm more than steel. Maybe I'm titanium. I just know that you won't find me being snow anytime soon. I am not some easily malleable sustance that could melt on contact. Although, I think- somewhere inside me I wish I was.

in which i talk about the pain

I believe in being truthful. I believe in being honest. I also usually tell everybody everything or anybody anything. I’m a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of girl.

Right now, I hurt. It’s real pain and it’s lodged in the general area of my ribs. I’ve had this pain since middle school, but then we had no idea what it was. It was undiagnosed pain that would awaken me in the night and would only be relieved by retching. My poor mother, who had to work the next day, would often wake up with me and rub my back until it subsided and I drifted back to sleep. Now, as an adult who loves her sleep, I realize that must have been a pain as well.

It wasn’t until 6 years ago that the cause was found. A Generalized Anxiety Disorder was the diagnosis. I took it with gusto, loved putting words to something as abstract as feelings, unexplained emotions even. Mostly, I deal fairly well with the anxiety. I have the tools now to keep it in check, but every so often I’ll let down my guard, or just become a little sensitive and the pain comes nestling in my ribs like rat burrowing for a home.

There is no more retching these days, just lots of calming self-talk, retro-active thinking to pinpoint the worry spot because I worry. A lot. About anything and everything. Again, I can now put most worries aside, tell my intelligent brain what is rational and what is not (this one is more common). Today though, I know the pain is about deadlines and things undone and things coming round very soon. I don’t know that I’ll sleep well tonight. I don’t know that I can calmly talk down the worries about time. I do know that while I toss and turn and hazily watch TV, I’ll wish I had my mother, half asleep herself, rubbing my back and worrying about me just like I worry about things I cannot control.

because words sometimes say enough

After a week away, a week of suspended reality, it was difficult to come back to the harsh truth of a daily routine, of people depending on you, of your absolute grown-upness. And all day on Monday the only thing I could think of was that picture window in Brooklyn on that rainy last day, the late flight, the typical New Yorker in my southern town who couldn’t get a taxi at 3am, my father’s 70th birthday and my nieces, my nieces and nephew. Then I heard the news of college kids being shot, but it didn’t register. I had copies to make, a schedule to keep. And then I did listen and I watched as the whole world of news came to my backdoor. My first reaction was to shoe them away, to tell them that this was a Virginia ordeal, a tragedy we needed to take care of, to understand. And yet I wanted to know all the facts. I’m sure it’s how Columbine felt, like the world was looking at something only you knew about, a little pristine part of earth secluded from the real world. It’s like a prying eye you didn’t expect, an unwelcome guest in a time where you barely know up from down. Virginia Tech. will always be to me what is has been, a huge school in my hometown’s backyard, a rival college, a school with unfortunate school colors. Except now, I plan to wear orange on Friday because we are all Virginians. We are all human. We have all lost something.

thinking inside the city

I thought you had to be hard to live in New York, like you had to come here with grit already under your nails. You don't. People here are soft, filtered around the edges like any other place. I’ve had more doors opened for me in New York than I would ever in Virginia. There is a collective spirit here, a bond that automatically links everyone. It is the decision, the absolute resolve, to be alone in a sea of people. That decision of isolation, ironically, is the link- because New York is isolating. So vast, so filled, and yet you can end your day with emptiness in your heart.

"It’s because you don't have really deep relationships here. You have a lot of friends, but the connections are not the same," say the 20 something girls sitting in a pub listening to friends play Irish music. I would argue that what they say isn't true. The closeness they talk of- that exists in college, on common halls, in shared rooms. It doesn't happen outside New York either because of the paring off, the coupling that is inevitable. First you have a friend and you are close and can sometimes finish each other's sentences then that friend gets married - step one in the distance between you. Then that married friend has children - step two in the distance between you. You see your friend, you still love her, but there are now complications, messiness, and babysitters to arrange. And there you are, single and wanting a big city to get lost in, to decidedly be isolated inside of. So, this closeness that New Yorkers want so badly. It isn't an anomaly that is only lacking in Gotham. It happens everywhere. It just looks different.

Maybe you do have to be hard to live here, but that grit under your fingernails is really just grit in your heart. And maybe I have that and that is why I love this place, love this city, with it's noise and brittleness and it's softness, just around the edges, like the Hudson and East River rounding the edges of the hard land.