i think i've moved

Oh this little space has done me well, but everyone needs new walls sometimes- fresh paint. I think I'm moving shop. I don't know if anything will be permanent there, but follow along if you will or wish or are completely bored with life...
And then there was one.

clear as mud

Of course nothing in my life is as easy as snapping your fingers. Take glasses for example. I learned that I would have to begin wearing them fulltime 10 days ago. I've kinda known this for a year, but my old quack doctor said I had nothing to worry about until the good eye went bad. I thought that sounded funny. So did my new eye Dr. one year later. It turns out that I have an astigmatism in one eye that should have been corrected 10 years ago. Funny, I've been going to eye doctors fairly regularly for 10 years. Hmmmm.

The things is, when I hear that I am blind in one eye, my mind starts to think that I am blind all over and I start to obsess and begin to think that I cannot, in fact, see anything. This is and was not the case, but I wanted my glasses and I wanted them yesterday. So, upon gaining access to my prescription I went about getting some "in about an hour" glasses last Thursday. And when I first put them on I thought the world was better, wonky, but better. It turns out- the world, was not better.

I had heard there would be an adjustment period and that my depth perception would change, but I just had a gut feeling that what was happening to me was not happening to the rest of the four eyed world. My bad eye was hurting, I mean hurting and my good eye could no longer compensate so that things from far away were clearer without the glasses on. Hmmmmm again.

I went back franctic to my eye Dr. this morning and after much attention to my whining he lessened my prescription and baby the world is better and not wonky. I love my gut instinct. I love that I was right, that glasses should make you have an "aha" moment and not and "aaaaaahhhhhh" one when you put them on.

Oh yeah- and I might have bought more pairs than I need and my everyday ones might have diamonds (faux) on them.

blind in one eye

It's big news to me. It's the confirmation that I am, in fact, getting older. My eyes have gone. Well, one eye has. I have to get glasses, all the time glasses. I've worn reading glasses for years. I like them. I like the idea of slipping on something that brings a book even closer to me and makes me look a little smarter too. And I like glasses. I think they are beautiful and a great fashion addition, but there is a difference liking glasses and truly needing them. My reading glasses are more of a psychological frill. They are such a slight prescription that they don't carry them in drugstores. I have to have them made and do I really need them, well, no. But now, now I know that one eye is 20/25 and the other eye is sooooo not. I've known actually for about a year, but the last eye person was a bit of quack and never figured out a true prescription to help me so she just sent me on my one eyed way. I wised up to her and this time I went to see a very caring eye Dr. and he was so patient and thorough and that little precious bearded guy fixed my one bad eye. God love him. So now is the task of finding the frames that ascert my personality, subtlely show my flair for whimsy and make me look brilliant at the same time. Right now there are three contenders and Lord help me if I can make a decision. When all is said and done I might even show you a picture of them.

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.

refreshing this itch

I've just been busy. It's the worst excuse. It satisfies no one. But, it's true. When you get busy, your priorities change. Sometimes that's good and sometimes not. This blog is a priority that I shouldn't let slip and yet I have. And reading, it's gone by the wayside too. And now there is time to ponder, time for naps and TV and blogging.

I went through all the links yesterday on the side of this blog and it was like going through old photos, remembering times and sentiments that used to be a part of your everyday. Like the daily photo blogs of London and New York. I forgot that I've missed them. They felt like old shoes, all comfortable with a tinge of homesickness. So, blog world, I hope I'm coming back to you now. I hope this is more than a day or two fleeting feeling. I want to spend some time with you again and I hope you'll do the same.

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.

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.

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.

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.

it feels like the first time

Spring! Every. Single. Year. I proclaim it to be wonderful. It's like my memory lapses and I feel like I have never seen green budding on the trees, have never smiled at the hint of honeysuckle in the air, have never opened my windows, have never seen the sun. And yet it's what I think about when I look outside, am outside. I can't believe that I get to witness this beauty, that green can feel like life. And I don't even love Spring. I like it, but Fall and Winter have my heart. Spring is a mistress, my flirtatious interlude to the horridness of Summer. If Winter has my heart, Summer has my...

I've been so enthralled with Spring that I haven't yet cracked the air conditioning this season. In fact, I don't plan to until mid May. The weatherman says that cool will hang on in the evenings until at least the 10th, so with small fan whirring and windows open- let the savings begin.

But it isn't the first time that the miser in me has taken over the thermostat in my house. This Winter I might have turned on the heat 3 times. Might have. I have some things going for me in this instance. I live in the middle of my building- in the middle from top to bottom, left to right. I like to imagine that this helps the insulation factor. Also I like cold. I like candles. So, I mixed the two and often settled in with soup and tea to ride out the perpetual draft coming from the windows, and they're replacement too. The guise was the money issue. I could survive with socks and another shirt, but my bank account could not survive the blow of heat in Winter, one thing had to give so I chose the heat. I got flack for this, even started a family fight. Visitors complained, but I had forewarned them to deal and so I felt not guilty. I soldiered on, sometimes with a knitted hat on my head.

My motivation? A house. I want to commit. I'm ready for the plunge, the long ride into night, the settling of old wood, the settling of my soul. Plus I'd really like to be able to paint the walls.

If my desire to nest wasn't strong enough when I was 18 then I don't know what it's doing now. Everyone (with the exception of 2 people) has told me that buying a house is difficult and that you should search and search and search, but something tells me that my gut is my Google and I trust what it gives me in the number one position. I start hardcore looking this month. I plan to put a bid on a house in June. I hope to move in in August.

I'm poor now with no heat or air conditioning so that I can afford to buy a house. When I actually own one, what will be my excuse then?

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.

an easter miracle

Yesterday I woke up to snow- everywhere. It had beautifully fallen and stayed on almost every surface. And it was cold outside. I called it an Easter miracle, snow in Virginia in April not having happened for 24 years. I was six when the last snow came and I remember it. I still wish for a snow in April, a freak little thing when spring lets you know it’s not completely let go of it’s winter coat strings.

The snow yesterday was nice, if short lived, and coated roofs and trees. The trees were the strangest, freshly sprouted with bud and yellow pollen- a white coating of snow was out of place. I played with my nieces and nephews, throwing snow balls and making snow angels. It was perfect snowball snow, the kind that packs so easily and firmly and can hurt when it hits.

By 4 o’clock when I finally got to my errands started it was gone, like it had never been there. I’ve been hoping for snow since November. Hoping would not be the correct word- more like longing, gritting my teeth and praying for it to happen. It took ‘til Easter for my wish to come true. EASTER. And then it was gone. Maybe it wasn’t a miracle, maybe it was tease, an in-your-face from nature to me. Whatever it was, it was beautiful and magical and perfectly peaceful, like every snow should be, like every snow is.

in which i actually write a post

I skipped two major events in my posting this February. I'm making up for that now.

Most people don't like February. They think of it as a month that drags on in the middle of winter full of crankiness and visible breath. I've always loved February because it holds my birthday. February to me is like a jewel, like the best month every invented. It's different, spicy, unconventional with its 28 days and sometimes an extra. I like a month with spunk and I like February.

This particular one brought on my 30th year which means I was born in 1977 when disco was dying and Madonna was not yet the rage. I don't hold much to age in years and what the societal conventions say about them. But, the things that bother me about age are the things I can't stop, like time. I can't postpone the fact that at some point I will be past the age of having children and at 30 I still have no idea if I even want them. That is what bothers me about turning over a year. I'd just like time to hault and wait for me to get all pulled together, then let's start back up at 21, that was good year- and a good birthday.

The second February event, of course, occurred yesterday and I so gracefully floated over it because V-Day to me does not mean flowers and chocolate (If someone was here to give them to me I would not want them. Valentine's Day is lame-o and meant for middle American men who don't konw how to show love every other day of the year.). I've decided, through some events I haven't shared with you, that I want nothing to do with dating. Maybe it's because I'm so into this single life or because I think I've found the one I want yet my love is unrequited and I'd rather live in the moments I have with him then in the lifetime I could have with someone else because when I look in his eyes it's like every place I want to go and all the places I've never been.

in which i write to you

It seems that my thoughts lately are about “what ifs,” “what isn’t,” “ what didn’t” and tonight I felt a big sense of “I didn’t,” and “why?”

Anxiety has been my companion lately, keeping me on my toes and ever presently worried. I can jump at the sound of a door opening, someone coughing, or a door closing. Maybe it’s the doors I should be studying so intently, worrying about their openings and closings and how I can better not miss them. I’m talking in circles a bit and I’ll talk it out a bit better soon. It’s too close, a door too freshly in motion to determine if it is a closing or an opening.




In other news, don’t miss the opened blogging door that is my true cousin love, Rebecca. She’s a New Yorker by way of the south. She writes poetry and has a bit of my heart. Read her.

on forgetting christmas

I've let Christmas go quite early this year. At the turn of the new year I began packing things up and decidedly not turning on the lights on the tree. Then, of course the ornaments began to go while on the phone to a friend. I've let Christmas go quite easily though lamenting it's loss none-the-less. It is my favorite time of year and one month of wonderfulness is never enough even though I know I just have to wait 11 more. But, so much could happen in those eleven months to ruin or spoil the magic of the Christmas past or even, yet, keep it from coming altogether.

The tree is gone, the jingle bells taken down and even with the plastic lids of the storage boxes snapped shut I look up to see shiny little packages and glittery red star garlands hanging from the window treatments. Oh Christmas, I knew you couldn 't let go either.