I'm Still Here! (Promise!)

Gah, I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in FOREVER. And I'm months behind on replying to comments. (Is it still lame if I reply months later?) A big thank you to Nicole, Alivia, Meg, Kristina, Suzy, T.J., Sammie, and Mel for the awesome comments the past few months. I love, love, love that you comment - thank you!

Confession? I'm a little bit looking forward to after the holidays so life can get back to normal. And by normal, I mean having time to write. And by back, I mean to last September. (Seriously, these last few months my time/energy/attention has been focused elsewhere... Where does time go?)

But in the meantime, I am oh-so-loving the holiday season. I thought I'd post a few iPhone photos from the past few weeks.

I try to keep this space for writing, but I haven't written anything in weeks (!!) and I wanted to stop in to say hello and happy holidays!

[I do post more frequently on my tumblr, this also could be joy, and I'm on instagram (emilykaatherine). Feel free to visit me over there also, if you're dying to know things like, oh, what cookies I'm eating and what my coffee mug looks like at the moment.]

Decembers

I got a new planner today. I filled in every date I could remember for this upcoming year. Crisp white pages and black lines. Pen and pencil and highlighter almost-but-not-quite smudged. I haven't used a planner in a few years. While I was thinking of it, I updated my google calendar and deleted old categories: classes, study group, exams, gym. I decided I didn't need them but then thought twice.

 

Yesterday's 5pm coffee; a rambling, panicked email; and finally the meltdown that had been brewing all day. A mini meltdown, but only because she knows how to defuse them - she has years of practice - years of Decembers and Mays. Almost a decade.

 

I have old-time comforts now. I fall into them without noticing. That playlist on repeat, vanilla lattes rather than seasonal specials, three squash soup and corn bread from Whole Foods, that old hooded sweatshirt. The hours of the day blend with the days of the week - I shower at almost midnight only to wash away anxiety and throw my wet hair into a bun. Disheveled.

 

One December, six years ago, I hung holiday decorations, planned thoughtful gifts, made Christmas cookies, wrapped presents, talked with Santa at our holiday party. I spent my evenings with carols and Delilah's everyday miracles. I sent cards that year. That felt like a miracle.

 

I haven't since. Done any of that. Felt any of that.

 

There is peace, though, that comes from my own December traditions and rituals. The coffee, the soup, the nights that consist of only a few hours, the days of marathon writing or studying. Accidental traditions and rituals but nonetheless orienting. A final push before calm and then change. 

 

It came again this year. Unplanned and unexpected. A December closer to anxiety-filled Decembers of the past but also closer to the familiar, the known, the soothing comforts than I have been in months. A soft reminder that these years, these Decembers, strung together built a life. I built a life. This December, that feels like a miracle.

 

I'll over caffienate and undersleep. The cashier at Whole Foods will worry about my blood-shot eyes and incoherent greetings. It has really only been a few days. It will only be a few more. But I've already settled into it, welcomed it back like an old friend stopping by for just a cup of coffee while passing through town. I have to ask, though, will you return again, soon? This time, maybe for good?

 

My planner and I would like to know.

A Beginning (of Sorts)

He and I sat facing the sun. Squinting at the last game of box ball before the June evening sent us all home. The last few kids laughing and screaming in outdoor voices; our voices quiet, quiet, silent. After the screeching and the chasing and dodging balls and snatching afternoon snacks and teasing and tackling - ours, not the fifth graders - we finally knew how to be quiet with one another. I would leave shortly. Cross the stage with diploma in hand and flash a smile for the camera on the way down the stairs - all of it faster than I expected. All of it coming to an end. Across the blacktop the newly reunited, on-again-off-again, wanna-be class couple, his best and my whoknows went home for the evening.

"I am going to be single for the rest of my life." I could have been reading the dictionary out loud, it came out so dry and factual.

He was 16. I was 17. I said a lot of ridiculous things that year. He ridiculed the majority of it, left some of it alone, and every once in a while, let me know everything would be alright. He took me to prom and danced with me like it wasn't awkward that he was over a foot taller than I or that I spit out justasfriends following the yes. He let me slide under his arm and fall asleep on his shoulder during the ride home.

"Emily." He said it quietly. I knew he was waiting for me to look at him. I took my time. He waited. He just watched my face for a moment. Let my eyes fall comfortably on his. "You won't be."

It was calm and quiet and assuring. But it had an undercurrent of sadness. It moved between us and had an energy stronger than my dry delivery. His eyes fell to the pavement before mine and I realized the weight of my words. He stood up and walked inside. I turned back to the sun and the kids. Their screeching and the bounce of the ball not enough to lift the weight.

I held this belief for so long that I did not realize how heavy it became. How often I refused to let anyone take it from me, take it from me and throw it away. Haphazardly, I tossed it in his direction but refused to let him throw it anywhere other than safely back into my hands. I felt safe with it in my hands. But in that moment, when he held that belief and my eyes, I finally realized its weight.

Somewhere along the Atlantic coastline that summer - the summer that gifted days of neither past nor future, but spilled over with hours of just and only and evermore this moment - I moved that boulder, that weight, those words off my shoulders and cast it into the ocean. Somewhere along the Pacific coastline that summer, I learned how false that belief was - my hands were empty; he slipped his hand into mine.

I might have carelessly tossed that phrase around in the years since. But it was airy and light, joking and teasing. I didn't believe it. It held no weight. If I strung those words together during times when I didn't have another's hand in mine, whomever I tossed them at bat them away, effortlessly.

I wrote an email howevermany weeks ago under the influence of disappointment, sadness, and exasperation. I threw that phrase onto the screen with the intention of making it stick: "I am going to be single for the rest of my life." It did.

I read her response on the edge of the platform waiting for the metro ride home. "Tough love," she began. My declaration had weight again, I realized. I believed it. She knew I believed it.

She continued with everything I needed to hear. That I have to put myself out there. That I have to take risks. That it is going to suck. That it is going to be awesome. That she'll be there no matter what. That "everything great in life from love to friends to jobs to EVERYTHING- these great things come with great risks."

I let her email sit. It, too, had weight.

"Why aren't you dating?" he asked me later that week. I stumbled through an answer, citing lack of energy, lack of time, uncertainties in my life, not the right time. I tripped over every word. "It's not that I wouldn't if I happened to meet someone; I just haven't..." I tried for a strong coherent honest finish. I failed. And flailed.

"So he asked me why you were single," she narrated the next day, "and I told him you have high standards." I interjected quickly with a series of half-words that amounted to a partial, unbaked thought. Surprised I had to wrestle with this topic for the third time that week and surprised she thought I had high standards, I could not put together a complete sentence. Mostly, I was surprised that I didn't have any answers.

I still don't have any real answers. But here is what I do know, for what it is worth:

I know I do not like internet dating sites. 

I won't sign up again. 

I know I want something more. 

I won't give up on that. 

I know I have to throw away that weighty belief that I will spend the rest of my life single. It has gotten too heavy, again. I know it is the only way I'll ever have the room in my hand to hold to hold someone else's. And for now, that's enough. It's a place to begin.

And I am beginning.
I am beginning.

On Tickets and Birthday Wishes

For my twenty-eighth year, I wanted tickets.

"Tickets: tickets to board planes, trains, buses even; tickets to enter music venues, art venues, performance venues, sporting venues..."

And thus far, yes, there have been tickets:

Chris Cabbarra (Dashboard Confessional)

Matt Nathanson

Jukebox the Ghost

There have been other types of tickets, too. But right now, I am oh so loving these types of tickets.



[photo credits to my roommie]

The Battle Cry - The Reclaim

Florence + The Machine beats through my every step these past few weeks.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

It's a battle cry. I am ready. The time is now. To stand, to fight, for this life. This life this voice this time. All mine.

It's a rush of power. This declaration. As though I have an army marching on both sides, over the crest of the hill and across the fields. We're approaching. An army of drums, voices, a sea of bright colors and black, a celebration and a reclaiming of power. A reclaiming of the land.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

Black nails and black hat - rituals of claiming this life - a defiance and a determination. I painted them last weekend and pulled the brim lower.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

This army. The ones who pick me up each time I trip. Comrades for years, for weeks, for days. They have waited until I am ready. I am. I have an army of self. We are marching over the terrain. The mundane, the monotony, the day to day underfoot. We light fires with each step. Balls of yellow flames bursting against the night sky. Torches held high at mid-day. I am here to reclaim. My voice. My agency. My life.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

I am here to reclaim my life.

Revolutions are born in the underground, in the dark of night, a rumble unheard below the surface.

[I wrote this last weekend on the bus ride back to DC but this past week was exhausting. I suppose it will be like this for a while. Energy and exhaustion, while I change the future but leave the present as is. Or something to that extent. On which, I will be mostly silent. For now.]

Dextromethorphan & Other Thoughts

Years ago, a doctor prescribed me a high dosage of cough medicine at a L.A. walk-in clinic. I told him I was sensitive to medicine. He probably should have known that by just looking at me. (I am tiny.) The walls were cinder blocks painted a puke green. They listened better than he did. They reasoned better than I did. I took the full dosage later that evening. My days-long, high fever had broken, but a small cough remained. I just wanted to feel better. I swallowed the prescribed dosage and went to class.

We had class in a large conference room a few buildings down from our apartments. The complex held more people and buildings than our campus. The rug was a rich chocolate brown that matched the leather chairs. I learned about L.A. architecture and L.A. history. Until I realized I could not feel my legs. I found this hilarious.

We went out to L.A. as only a handful of students. I went to learn about grass-roots, urban policy campaigns until the lead professor switched the program around and then I went to learn about writing in the entertainment industry. I didn't learn a whole lot about that, or perhaps I did and didn't like what I learned, but either way, the semester wasn't anything like we thought it would be. We had a grad student teaching us about architecture, and pretty much everything else we learned that semester, and I didn't want to make him uncomfortable by laughing too hard at the fact that I could no longer feel my legs. I counted to thirty over and over again until class ended.

When it finally ended, I used both hands to move my legs from their cross-legged position onto the ground. I worried that I would not be able to walk - I worried more about how I would explain that I could not walk than I worried about not knowing why I could not walk - but found that my legs still moved my body forward easily. I found this hilarious and burst out laughing by the time I got to the back of the room. A few people shot me uncomfortable glances. My best friend asked, "What is wrong with you?" This was not the usual way she responded to my bouts of laughter.

I managed to somewhat hold it together until we got out of the building and onto the sidewalk. I laughed so hard I cried and she kept asking, "Are you OK?" "What is so funny?" I couldn't answer. I thought my abs were on fire. I could hardly walk; I doubled over with laughter. "You don't sound like yourself," she finally commented. This sombered me enough to tell her I could not feel my legs during class, which prompted a new round of laughter. She didn't join.

When we finally got back to our apartment, I knew I had to pull myself together. I went into the bathroom as a precautionary to avoid wetting my pants and to take a few deep breaths. It took about thirty seconds before I realized I could not stop laughing. Which finally scared me. I promptly burst into tears. Lots and lots of tears. Hot rivers flowing down my face and heaving sobs.

I emerged from the bathroom almost hysterically crying. "What is wrong?!?!" She flew to my side. "I.. I... can't stop... laughing." I choked the words out and upon hearing them - burst into laughter. Again. The tears still streaming.

The next hour went on exactly like this. She finally figured out it was the cough medication I took before class. I finally figured out that going through my cell phone contacts was a bad idea. But not before she took the phone away from me. I don't remember exactly who I talked to that evening. I do remember a hushed conversation in the other room with our other roommates on the merits of an ER trip. I remember the bread she tried to feed me and spitting it back into her hand. (She shall be deemed a Saint, yes.) The glass of water got more laughs than I usually offer to a stand-up comedian. She, the brilliant thinker she is, grabbed a photo album full of our college friends and sat down on the bed with me. She spent the next twenty minutes having me identify each face in every picture, which calmed me down, focused me, and eventually lulled me to sleep.

I didn't take another pill and, miraculously (note: sarcasm), I didn't cough again for the rest of my time in L.A.

A few years later, we identified the crazy in the cough medicine as dextromethorphan. A common active ingredient in cough suppressants.

My second year of law school, I ended up sick again. (Two, maybe three, significant illnesses in a four year time span isn't too bad, right? Go-go gadget immune system.) I had a cough this time. A real cough. That disrupted my real professors and my real learning. So, I bought a children's bottle of cough medicine and took a children's dose one evening - just to be on the safe side - and took a nap.

I woke up panicked. I knew Nicole wasn't home, but I wasn't sure where she was. It became imperative that I find out immediately. I grabbed my phone and called her. She answered, told me she was running errands, would be back in a couple of hours, how was I feeling? I burst into tears. I sobbed into the phone, "It isn't fair! I have been sick for days. I am never, ever getting better. What if something is really wrong with me?" The panic in my voice prompted her to turned around, drive home, and bring me to the prompt-care at the end of the street. The intern working at the clinic diagnosed me with a bad cold and I went home and swore off cold medicine for the rest of my life. A child's dose of a child's medicine should not result in tears. Even I knew that.

I recounted this tale to a friend recently, who happens to have some knowledge of medicine etc. Apparently a high dosage of dxm is similar to an acid trip - it bonds to the brain and creates a dissociative sensation. Not being able to feel my legs? Check. I more or less knew this. But he also said a bad experience with dxm is like a bad acid trip. The brain remembers dxm and each time it enters the body, the brain will flashback to the first initial experience.* 

Oh. So that is why I was a hot mess after just the small children's dosage.

The brain remembers and acts according to the past rather than the present.

A fascinating concept until I realized, even without dxm,

I do this all the time.




*Please don't quote me on this because I have no real knowledge on anything related to biology, chemistry, psychology, etc. at all. 

The Ones

"Why do you always fall for the bad guys?" he asked me. I didn't answer for a while. I had the cover of the 3am sky and the last drink descreetly ordered without alcohol. I could say anything. We stopped at a light and I rolled down the window, waited for the car move forward again and for the wind to hit my face. We sat in silence until the light turned green.

 

I said it on an inhale, facing the window, the darkness, with a mouth full of air. "I don't."

 

He made a noise. As though he could release the air in my cheeks. It came out with a swoosh, a pffffffft, a disapproval, and a dismissal. And we were quiet again. The night air turned damp and heavy. The web of disappointment I spun hung in the space between us. Except. I wasn't disappointed.

 

"I don't." I pointed my words at him this time. "He isn't a bad guy."

 

His eyes were on the road but I'm sure he rolled them. We dropped the conversation.

 

It has been years.

 

I didn't. I don't.

 

I can say that now and point to data, charts, graphs, powerpoint presentations. Of sorts. A collander of years strain the the marrow from the bone. I have evidence.

 

Now.

 

Promises kept. Goals persued. Values upheld. All whispered secrets I always held under the ticking clock, while the crowds critiqued armor and swords.

 

I fall for the best listeners. I fall for the ones who tell the truth, who act the truth - the messy, complex-simple truths. The ones who face the peaks and the valleys with open eyes. And a sturdy hand on the center of my back. I fall for the ones who see me. Years ago and years ahead. This point in time will always be a just point in time.

 

The ones who know time folds in on itself.  

 

For all of us.

Thanksgiving 2012

This has been a year of gratitude.

"Thank you thank you thank you for this job."

Expelled into the morning air every single day I walk to the metro. Every single morning. I am so grateful for a job. In this field. Health insurance, grocery money, and student loan payments. A beginning and a place to stand with steady footing. And there wasn't a morning that went by that gratitude did not bubble up and out. I am so thankful.

"I still can't believe I actually live here. Thank you."

Murmered each night as I crawled into bed. They dissolve the long days and brighten the ones without enough hours. They fill the hours with laughter and comfort. Melodies and harmonies - we have both.They let me be me. Whole and undefined. These four walls and a roof - they are so much more. So much more than I could have hoped for. I am so thankful for these people. For these friends.

I am grateful I found some balance this year. I somehow managed to work, sleep, write, socialize, plan, travel, and spend time with friends and family with only twenty four hours each day. Without stress, anxiety, or adrenaline. That is a first for me. A first for which to be grateful. I am.

I am grateful to have found someone here, everyday, who is precisely where I am in life right now. I am grateful to have found someone to share the moments of the day, big and small.

I am grateful for the people who stand next to me from miles away. Hold me up, lift me up, let me stand on my own. I am grateful for the constant of friends and family. Always.

I am grateful for you. For the time you spend reading my sometimes too long, almost nonsensical (but I hope not quite) strings of words. For the support, encouragement, and love you leave in comments. For coming back time and time again.

Thank you.

All That Binds

That last year, I drove to Nicole's on Thursday nights. The week in the rearview mirror, I finally learned how to drive away without looking back. (It helped that Friday mornings promised to be gentle.) Some Thursday nights it was us three; some Thursday nights it was just us two. I'll always remember it as three though, no matter how inaccurately that memory paints itself.

Curled up in a pile of pillows, we watched Grey's Anatomy each Thursday night. I through finger tips and squinted eyes - ears plugged on occasion. Graphic medical scenes too often end with someone standing over me and my uncertainty as to why the room stands at a different angle. (Ask any of my high school peers whose laps I have landed in during science class.) Yet, I watched Grey's each week though my fingers (it has been a while since medical graphics have cause me to pass out) because they watched and they and I were a we. We watched.

The same we that talked each other out of hyperventilating in the bathroom before oral arguments and spent Friday nights in Whole Foods trying to decipher the federal tax code. The same we that plastered index cards with UCC clauses scribbled across them to her blank apartment wall, typically reserved for movie projections. The we that rotated seats in during our study groups when the hours in one place grew too long. The we that delivered coffee and cookies, breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the carrels we shared and didn't share and weren't ours but we sat in anyway. The we that learned to give each other pep talks in our sleep.

We were the same we that bore witness to each other falling in love and out of love and out of fear. We were the same we that crawled into each other's arms in tears at the end of trying days and flew into each other's arms at the end of best days. We danced and sang - with a band in front of us or just us around the dining room table. We laughed until we had to make a run for the bathroom and held each other when the tears wouldn't stop. We held each other up. We helped each other fly.

And we were a part of a larger we. The we of heavy books, multi-colored highlighters, complicated codes, socratic method anxieties, bloodshot eyes, late nights, early mornings, pots of coffee, briefs too long and too short, homes made in the library - the we of dream chasers. The we of sordid secrets, inside jokes, times of sheer insanity, moments of brilliance. All that binds.

We watched Grey's Anatomy on Thursday nights. We watched their we; the ties that bind - professional and personal, interwoven, desired or despised - they don't let go.

I only watched Grey's that season - that last year.

The we dissipated after that year. I dissipated the we after that year. Passive and active. A critical need to relocate the I, the first person singular. But those ties that bind don't let go.

Now, on occasion, a roommate will put on Grey's Anatomy. I watch with caution, but for reasons other than not wanting to witness the insides of a human being prodded with metal instruments. There is a pull and a dull ache and a reminder that even if I never tell another person that I went to law school, I will always be a part of that we, a part of all the we-s from those three years. There is a heart-cry for Nicole and those Thursday evenings when we lost our week in the cushions of the couch. Those Thursday nights when I felt a part of a larger whole. Like it or not, they had me and I had them.

I wonder these days, if I could make that identity all disappear entirely. I think I could. And then I wonder if I want to. Perhaps not.

But then what?


Related Post: Thursday Night Drives

{ Photo of the Day }

Stolen Summer Night

It reached at least 70 degrees today. I was a brat about it all day, "I don't think fall actually exists in DC." On the way home from work, I forgot to get off at my metro stop, hopped off at the next one, and walked home in the dark. My coat unnecessarily buttoned. Unnecessarily on. I had been distracted - all day. Unsettled. Off-balance. And I thought fall always meant crisp air and warm clothing. 

I crossed my street and started up the walkway to my front porch. They were sitting under the porch light with a guitar, a book, a bottle of wine. I changed, located dinner, a wine glass, and joined them. Recently, Monday nights have guitar strings and melodic voices. A glass of wine. Harmony. Tonight we shared a few hours of a stolen summer night on a mid-November evening. I always thought fall meant crisp air and warm clothing. Tonight, I'm so glad it doesn't.

Lessons in Honesty

My phone buzzes twice; I pull it out of my pocket. Breath held as I long-await a response of no significance and too much significance, with too much space in the between. "Hey I love you," the screen reads. Tears well up and threaten to spill. Amid these strangers and their casual conversations.

"It must be more than an interest," he comments, "you must have a devotion." I think of the years wrapped up in, held by, rocked by, steadied by this quiet love. This quiet love that holds my hand and leads the way when all I see is the chaos of my life swirling, when I close my eyes and wait to collapse. Should I, I should, shout this from the mountain tops.? Or at least, these days, to myself in a strong whisper: I love I want I care I am devoted. Honest declaration. If only in a strong whisper. Begin here.

After years, this is, perhaps, the only place I can begin. This is, perhaps, the safest place to begin.

It had been lifetimes since cologne-crushed tears fell. Burning, hot and acidic. A litmus test that would read: eyes diverted and hands dropped, the heart that has clawed its way into the throat plummets - falls into vast empty space.

To be shocked by these acid tears, this unexpected litmus test result - I have been eagerly dishonest with myself. A self-preservation method with an acidity level that eats away faster than realized. I didn't realize. Any of it.

She, too many miles away, practiced in letting me cry until the red rash appears on the tops of my cheeks and supporting my weight and my head on her shoulder, feels just that - too many miles away. A seasoned expert on me, she knows it is coming before I do. She holds my honesty when I am not strong enough to carry it.

I'll announce in a strong whisper to an empty room that I am building a career in a field I love. I love I want I care I am devoted. Honestly. Tangled or purposefully intertwined, the rest I cannot claim in a whisper to an empty room. I'm drowning in the divide between no significance and too much significance, filled with my own tears, into which I tripped and fell because I wasn't paying close enough attention. To my heart as it squeezed up and out of my rib cage trying to get to his. To how high it had climbed. To how far down of a drop it faced.

"Hey I love you," she texted me because she knew and she knows. And now, at least I know.  All of it.

{ Photo of the Day }

Untitled, a photo by Emily_Katherine on Flickr.

Just Caught

It feels familiar now. The grooves of the metro platform, the greeting each day "Good morning, Miss Emily," the strumming guitars before bed. I have less to prove now. To myself, to this city. Four seasons passed and more. A life lived here. I, too, walk by my old buildings and old memories. From years ago and days past. What we once were. And what we still are.

Slam dunk and strike out. This balance never seems to change. What I chase and what I catch. How much I wish to be, just caught.

Things Forgotten

 I forgot my camera. My moleskine. My pajamas.

*

I walked through the doorway and slung a string of expletives against the back wall. They shattered and crashed. Landed among the piles of life I suddenly, and not so suddenly, wanted to shred. Midway through a sigh, I returned to my day-long chant, "Universe, give me a sign. Please, a sign." I finished the sigh still not sure I believed in signs. I looked around and over my shoulder, at the anger and frustration piled and dripping down the back wall, like raw eggs slammed and cracked and dripping yolks on pristine white paint. What more of a sign did I want?

I decided not to decide. Too soon, too risky, too scary. But. I arrived with questions. Questions they couldn't answer. So I began to walk. Too hard and too fast, I ticked off blocks, climbed stairs, flashed smiles I could never stand behind, wrote down names and addresses, covered 80 city blocks; my feet slamming the ground. You must want this, I noted as though I could make an objective observation.

I arrived as the sun set. I turned the corner to a forgotten building, suddenly remembered and familiar. I was 16. I had already decided this. Declared this. Expected this. Entirely different yet the same. This building entirely different yet the same. It washed over me quickly: here's my sign. Undeniable. My feet slowed.

I'll look back and see them arriving all at once: the sign I wasn't sure I believed in, the answers, and the decision. Life is too short to decide not to decide, I finally acknowledged. And I made the decision I should have made the moment I realized I had forgotten my camera, my moleskine, my pajamas. Myself.

From the Archives: Hollowed Out & Lit Up

The temperature drops after dark, after dinner, on the walk back to the library. Chili spice still hot on my breath vaporizes and vanishes. I trip on the mismatched bricks, too busy searching for gum to notice. My toes too numb to care. Turn the corner to see the Cat in the Hat and a toilet paper mummy. I shove my hands into my pockets and remind myself how much I dislike Halloween. Keep my eyes on the law school, my fingers wrapped around the sandwich bags of candy, count the pieces through the plastic, one, two, three, four...

Front door locked, back door open, bright lights, and concrete stairs. The table under the clock is always empty. Except for the times I’m always sitting there. They’ll stop by to say hello, as they make their way to the bathroom, the front stairs, the book that we’ll never pick up again but need for this assignment. When it’s quiet, when my nose has stopped running, when my cheeks are rosy but not raw, I pop a found piece of gum and head upstairs. To the quiet corner where I’ll deliver the treat-sized candy and my fears. We’ll murmur quietly even though the floor holds only us and the hum of the heaters blowing lukewarm air. I sit on the floor, against the metal shelf, looking up as he smiles down. Looking at my shoes as I wonder how much is mine to take. Quietly, I’m breathing in and out. Hallowed out and filled.

****************************************

I skip out of the early round of daylight trick-or-treaters, promising to return for the late-night stragglers. Grab a handful of candy and forget how much I dislike Halloween. The air, my car, and I are all warmer than expected. I keep the heat off and that song on repeat. It plays two and a half times before I’m parking my car in the back of the building, running up the stairs, and tossing my books onto the carrel’s top. Flop into the chair. Get up and move the bucket under the dripping ceiling. Think about using my own carrel rather than theirs. See their smiling faces and mine in photographs taped to the back of the carrel and decide against it. In the next couple of hours I inhale most of my snatched candy, manage to get only three shades of highlighter between my fingers, and nearly lose my appetite by the time he comes down to get me for dinner.

If the frozen smiles of my friends bear a warning, I don’t see it. I shove open the doors on our way down and scowl when he tells me I need more protein. We both know how heavy that door is. I’m stronger than I look - I’m still walking this hallway, aren’t I? I’m still here. Inhaling candy and dinner and him, spitting out the new wedding ring. Sitting across from, next to, in front of... his foot always on the rung of my chair. We’re bickering and he teases and we’re relentless, as I wonder how much I am breaking. I’m carefully within the lines but with abandon. I’m reckless with only that which I can claim as mine, and I leave everything else alone.

Until I’m walking through the dark parking lot, spooked by ghosts of the future, and I lay my head down on the steering wheel, careful not to blow the horn - although I’d like to wrap my arms around it and squeeze. I want to hear the horn blaring, and alerting, and breaking the silence and my smile.

Tears don’t come, so I drive home slowly. Pick out a dragon and a princess on separate streets and pair them together in my head. Fated to be together until I realize it is the prince and the princess who have the destiny. It’s the dragon who breaths the fire. I laugh or scream, I can’t tell which, as “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” clicks back to its beginning.

They’re sitting on the stairs to the driveway in the dark. Drinking pumpkin beer, with a sound system set up - notes and screeches, and ghosts, and chains echoing into the night. Harmonizing with mine. I’m still somewhere in that lost land between tears and laughter, but the night’s still warm and with them I know I am safe. So, I join them on the stairs, my hand in the candy bowl, reeling in the rest of myself from the dark. Counting the pieces of candy through the plastic, one, two, three, four... but I’m gritting my teeth and forcing my breaths in and out, hallowed and full. Structured, controlled breaths, and perfect posture on the steps, even though I’m bursting and soaring and screaming and weeping in silence. Even though I’m out there somewhere scattered or shattered or whole in the dark.

So I get up and I start to dance. And they let me. Alone in the dark driveway, I’m collecting pieces of myself, scooping and reaching and bending and stretching. Until the hour comes when the street is empty and the kids who never came never will. Until I’m panting, and they gently collect me, and bring me inside. Where I fall into my bed with all of my pieces finally mine again. At least until he and I crash through them together once again - scattered, shattered, and whole. Hallowed out and lit up.

[ originally posted here ]

October Rolls Into November

Tomorrow, on Halloween, I won't have to dress up to be a zombie. I think I might have to spend the month of November recovering from October. Which I will forever remember as the month I got sick, went to Seattle, and got sick again. I can't shake the exhausted, drained feeling. I can't catch up. On the conversations, emails, plans, goals, events... On where I am right now... On my own thoughts.

We're watching Twilight and I'm fighting an urge to return to Seattle tonight. To find some space for a little while.

I think I'll pick up my Twilight books when I go back home this weekend. To fall into a story with an ending I already know. To fall into a story from another time in my life. Another life, in some ways. Before and before and before, when it was all still possible. What if? What if I had turned it upside down then? Followed the whispers before they became shouts? But it was already too late, and much too soon, at the same time.

And now?

I'm exhausted, with bloodshot eyes and a sniffle that won't disappear.

On Seattle

I watched Mount Rainier out my window as the plane ascended. The sun rising above the horizon, just below the rain clouds. I silently said a rushed goodbye as the plane broke into the clouds and I waited for the sadness to arrive. Unexpectedly and not a moment too soon, the plane busted through the clouds, now white and below us, into blue skies with a light yellow horizon, Mount Rainier to my left. I didn't have to rush this time; I didn't have to gush. Rainier and I both knew, I will return.

Although, that is the ending and I should start at the beginning.

I fell in love instantly, as I do with most cities. But Seattle had the feeling of arriving home; a comfort rivaled only by New York City, which some some ways is home. We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, zipping down the highway, the signs aglow overhead; the 5 and 405 screaming for my attention. Los Angeles, of course, I noted without paying them the attention they craved; the only city with which I have ever fallen out of love. 

A dark shadow against the night sky held my attention instead. A tall evergreen tree stood still and quiet, strong and gentle, behind the signs and the almost-empty highway. "Welcome," it almost greeted me. If it could have, it would have nodded once; its eyes on mine from chin-fall to chin-rise. 

I traveled to Seattle for work, for the large, national conference we organize and execute once a year. I spent most of the nine days inside the hotel wrangling boxes, organizing materials, answering questions, and playing hostess-with-the-mostess. Already exhausting feats for an introvert, I began each day at 6am and worked until 9pm each day without much more than a deep-breath break. I didn't have a lot of time to spend with Seattle, but I did my best to get to know the skin and the soul of the city. 

Seattle gently coaxed me out of my quiet interior, asked the best questions, and listened intently as I spoke. The tall evergreens represent Seattle's people well. 

I met an older man selling his friend's paintings at the Public Market. He spotted my camera around my neck and asked if I had gotten any good photos. He was a photographer, offering advice when solicited and encouragement when I self-doubted. He didn't mention the painting and prints lying across his table until I asked specifically.

He was stepping in for a friend who came to the Market almost every day for the past thirty-four years. Both Brooklyn N.Y. natives, they met in Seattle, where this kind photographer came to visit for two weeks and ended up never leaving. He smiled at me knowingly when he said that. I squirmed and reminded myself how much I love the snow in the winter.

I asked about the artist and the paintings. I pointed to one I liked and he picked it up. The sign for the Public Market stood at the top, overseeing the people and colors below - just as I found the Market when I first walked down Pike Place to visit. The hands of the clock point to seventy-two, the age of the artist. Rachel The Pig, a large bronze piggy-bank designed to collect donations and utilized by tourists of all ages as a dual place to sit and a photo-op, stands below the sign. The image of the old man who plays the piano on the corner of Pine and the cobbled portion of Pike Place reminded me of the half-hour I stood in awe the humility in which he delivered a concierto - his melodies promising stories to tell and wisdom to share. He with his long white hair, worn in corduroy pants, and his plain, small brown piano, held in place at the bottom of the hill with wooden blocks. The painter put himself into the scene, and by the time I happened upon the painting, I already knew the Pike Place Market had a community of artistry and tales - a community that will now hang on my bedroom wall.

The most popular, loudest, and most visible vendor is the Pike Place Fish Co., which sits directly under the Public Market sign. The man I met the first day handed me samples of smoked salmon and teased me about my shutterbug behavior. He had a chiseled jaw, knit hat, and kind eyes. Almost all the men from Pike Place Fish Co. wore the fishing pants with suspenders, I will probably never know their proper name, and boots made for the deck of a fishing vessel. Most of them wore knit hats. I reminded myself not to get too attached and that they probably smelled like fish at the end of the day, even after they showered, and rolled into bed. But their voices boomed and their aim was impeccable and I watched them as long as I watched for the flying fish. 

Seattle wears gray well. I saw both blue skies and gray, but I will always think of the city as donning comforting shades of gray. The painting I purchased spills over with vibrant colors, nothing like the city proper, but everything like the colors of the Market. Vibrant bouquets of flowers, fresh fruit stands and artisan crafts; the Market gushes colors, energy, and vitality. 

 

Through the Market and down the stairs sits Puget Sound with Mount Rainier at attention to the left and the Olympic Mountains to the right. I unintentionally gasped when I first stepped out of the Market and into their view. Majestic, royal, and commanding, while the tree-lines of evergreens gaze at you from across the Sound. We took advantage of a clear day and rode to the top of the Space Needle, where we snapped photos and located the lake where we would have dinner on a houseboat later in the week. Grilled salmon, vegetables, and rice. On days without rain and conference attendees, we walked down to the piers and watched the sunset. On my one free morning, I rode the ferry to Brainbridge Island and walked the coast for a bit, stopping for soup in a coffee shop. 

I decided to buy books in Seattle. I decided to buy books while I was in Seattle and promised myself to buy books when I arrived back to D.C. Remember how much you wanted a library when you grew up? You need books to have a library.  Seattle grabbed me by the hand and firmly reminded me of so much I had forgotten. There are still book stores in Seattle. The kind with creaky wooden stairs and the kind that sell local zines. Vonnegut is held behind the counter and I had no idea Howard Zinn had written another book. I spent at least an hour in one small bookstore not worried that the mismatched wooden shelves would fall on me and yet probably not minding if they did. 

In yet, another book store, I managed to weave together extroversion and introversion, striking up a conversation with the employees and stepping back into my own thoughts seamlessly. "The pace of life here is so much more relaxed than the east coast." I would hear this countless times and wonder if my blood-shot eyes and tired smile gave away the fact that I am an east-coaster who struggles with work-life, stop-go balance. "Enjoy your Saturday in your office," she said to the eastern seaboard, "I'm going hiking." It was an acknowledgment and dismissal of a lifestyle east-coasters create and then embrace. A lifestyle I forgot standing in those bookstores.

I intended to spend more time in coffee shops, reading and writing and watching the rain. But I was short on time and the sun shined brilliantly on the hours I had to sight-see, so I kept moving. I popped in and out of a few coffee shops and made plans un-kept to spend more time in one with an industrial looking barista station amid a dark-wooded library, resembling the early 1900s. The walls shelved books from floor to ceiling and donned wooden ladders that wheeled from corner to corner. A promise to spend more time there, unfulfilled but not forgotten. The same sentiment applies to the entire Capitol Hill area's vintage clothing boutiques, art galleries, skateboard shops, trendy but unpretentious small restaurants, and of course, the unexplored coffee shops. 

I left too quickly and too early. I left feeling I had not yet met the person who would change my life, the person who would teach me to slow down and listen even more closely - to myself, to others, to life. If that person is another version of myself, I only got a glimpse of her and that is not enough. I left with stories untold and I know I will return.

Upon departure, my greatest hope is that I can carry the gaze of the evergreens with me until I return.

I promise to post a full recap of Seattle tomorrow. I can promise this, because I spent two hours on the plane today writing a recap in my moleskine. For now, I'll leave you with a shot from my "real" camera.

I slept past 4:45am this morning, which was a treat and gives you an idea of what my week has been like. It's raining and I'm going to head out to have coffee and read a few pages of a book before taking on the city. The rain is cozy and comforting, but I'm glad to have it pass as scheduled in an hour or so - I have big sight-seeing plans and my camera doesn't like the rain as much as I do.

I forgot to bring my camera cord to upload photos, but I have managed to take a few with my iphone. I'm slowly coming out of the intensity of crazybusy the past few days and I have so much to say, but for now I just wanted to share a few pictures, put it out there that I love this city, and I will be sad to leave. More to come soon....

Hello, Seattle

Just want to let you know that I am already in love with Seattle. And I've only seen the highway in the dark on the way from the airport to the hotel - so I'm betting on a GREAT time once I get to sight-see next week. But I wanted to tell you that I'm uploading photos from my phone to instagram, which also posts to my tumblr. So if you're interested in seeing the view from my hotel (pretty sweet!) or anything else I may stumble across in the next few days until I can do some real exploring, you can at

http://emilykaatherine.tumblr.com/
https://twitter.com/EmilyKaatherine

or find me on instagram: EmilyKaatherine

p.s. yes, i have my real camera here too, but probably won't get a chance to upload photos until I get back to d.c.

List #487

Things I start writing about that I can never seem to actually find the words for and end up sitting as unfinished drafts (hardly started drafts, really) in my gmail account:

- I work in non-profit! Undying hope to save the world! (kids! poverty! rural! difficulties opportunities, and strengths!) And the harsh realities of working in this sector. And how that dichotomy shapes my. entire. life. (almost.)

- Have you seen Matt Nathanson live? Every note, lyric, movement, joke is saturated authenticity. That’s hot. And inspiring.

- Online dating. #omgpleasedontmakemeagain #iwantsomethingmore #imkindofahypocrite #sigh

- I love my roommates. The end.

- I changed my “about” section. Let me know what you think? I have big plans for small changes to the blog design but I just can’t seem to get my act together to implement them. And I had this grand plan to change the “remember this?” link each week, but, um, I haven’t changed it since I put it up. Which I did without mentioning it weeks and weeks ago, because I’m not the best blogger when it comes to that stuff. But that’s okay, right?

- Hey, stop calling us the “lost generation”! It’s not over ‘til it’s over. And not everything is measured by bank accounts, mortgages, marriage certificates, occupational titles, and 401ks. Yes, the economy changes everything for us (devastating, yes, it is) but that doesn’t mean we don’t still have so very much to offer.

- Sometimes I can’t tell if I am 28 or 22. This current phase of life is... interesting. (In the best possible way.) And probably much-needed.

- There is one tree in my nine-ish block neighborhood radius that has even considered changing color. I miss New England. And the season formerly known as fall.

- I am going to Seattle for nine days for work and I have one day to sight-see. Any suggestions for Seattle must-sees?

- Also, I have no idea what is going to happen in this space between now and the end of October. Consider yourself warned and expect the possibility of loopy, sleep-deprived posts. (See above.) (See also, the past two days.)

- I think you’re pretty awesome.

Hilarious, I Tell You

Today was a long day. It has been a long week. Next week will be even longer.

On the walk home, I decided to go to the grocery store and buy the carnival flavored popsicles. Because it was October-night-time-dark and June-afternoon-steamy and what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-life. You know? But they didn't have any. So I bought draino and a frappucinno instead. And left my sanity lying on the conveyor belt.

Thankgoodness.

I accidentally pocket-dialed my brother 5 times on the way home. I found this hilarious. Hilarious, I tell you; hilarious. Oh, it felt so good to laugh. Especially a little too hard over something so small. "Oh dear," I warned her, "I'm losing it." And I did. I laughed at everything, things I can't even recall at this moment. Community pulled a ground hogs day and I (kind of) watched the same events on repeat and didn't realize until she pointed it out and, of course, found this hilarious. I hopped on facebook and somehow managed to accidentally sign into the chat function and then not be able to figure out how to sign back out. Hilarious.

It's a release, a way to shake things up, an exhale. It means I've been holding my breath for too long, buttoned up, and under pressure. Spending too many hours outside myself. It's a misalignment, an absence. A desire I keep an arm's length away.

I am so silly. Ridiculous and absurd. 

Except lately.

Because there have been too many beginnings and something to prove and no one to notice.

I'd like to take a walk at midnight in the rain and laugh and cry and squeal and puddle jump and fall asleep under an old apple tree.

It's permission to shake things up a bit.

So I am.

These Lives I Choose

I could live in a wide open field. In a house on a cliff above the ocean. Or at the base of a mountain. A dirt road winding its way by the mailbox six acres from the front porch. I could live in a house with a porch. And a garden out back, where I would grow most of our vegetables. I would finally have that compost pile I have been talking about for years.

I could live in a town that gathers at the post office on Saturday mornings and leaves front doors unlocked, car keys sitting on the dashboard. "I left the lunch on the counter by the microwave. Could you grab it for me on your way to town?" Cars with dirt splashed up the sides would roll down the driveway, unannounced and ready for Saturday afternoon pie. I would bake pie from scratch. The mudroom would have a splash-basin and the family room a fireplace. By the ocean or by the mountain, summer days will pass by the water and end around the firepit. Winter days, he and I would out-sled children and swipe each others' marshmallows while we wait for mugs of hot chocolate to cool.

I have, at times, decided to move to wide open spaces, the woods, and ocean cliffs. I have, at times, decided to open the shutters of the oversized windows to let the sky and the wind roll through the house. I have, at times, decided on rural life.

I could live in an old warehouse loft-apartment. With high ceilings and brick walls. A roof deck and a view of the city and the patch of grass we call our backyard. The fire escape would hold potted plants and bread baked too long in the oven. Bookshelves to the ceilings rivaled only by the windows, panes measured by feet.

I could live in a city with corner grocer who puts flowers out front and a coffee shop with old wooden tables down the block. A subway ride to the gallery exhibit, lunch at a cuban restaurant. Intricate, interwoven, idiosyncrasies. Saturday night theater and Sunday afternoon walks through the park. The couple across the hall, the street performer at the subway stop, the hellos we give away and the ones we keep for ourselves, without consequence. And quiet mornings when it is just us. My cold feet tucked under warm calves.

I have, at times, decided to move to vibrant metropolises full of street art and artists, suits and ties amid poets and musicians. I have, at times, decided to build a life that is mine in a place that is mine in a city that belongs to everyone. I have, at times, decided on urban life.

Time can only tell which life I choose and how many times I get to choose.

Bridge Walks and Porch Sitting

I walked the Brooklyn Bridge two years ago this weekend. I walked the Brooklyn Bridge on a warm, crisp, fall day that seemed too good to be true. The sun poured, the breeze cradled, and I took a deep breath of fresh air. (A deep breath that I thought I would never be able to take again, as I began to drown in murky, dark waters that fall.)

I walked the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time and snapped too many photos and entertained the thought of living in Brooklyn and forgot to think about the practicalities and forgot about everything. Two years ago.

I planned to go this weekend. To New York. To walk the bridge again (perhaps) and to forget a few things, but not everything this time, and to photograph the skyline and make friends with the sun again after this hot, humid summer. Mostly, though, to feel not so far away from the life I inadvertently started living that day but have yet to step into, actually. 

Last week, I caught an October cold that turned out to be more than a cold and that stole my voice and my NY weekend plans. 

But the sun was warm here too and the breeze almost crisp. I packed my camera and headed out Saturday morning to see this city as a tourist - an arms length away from this place I am both living in and visiting.  Weak after only a few blocks, I bought a pumpkin spice latte to show the green leaves the shades of orange and brown they should be wearing and turned back for home. 

Home. 

We have a covered porch and a lounge chair with a cushion. Old trees and a front yard before the sidewalk. I put my pumpkin spice latte down next to an empty corona bottle atop an old cooler, more evidence that summer hangs on a little longer down here. I only had to reach into my bag to pull out my moleskine and pen. She walked out in her pajamas to ask how I was feeling. 

Evidence that I am living this life, too. 

The Girl Effect

I met her a few months after her 13th birthday and a few months after I graduated college. I met her in the room next to the one-room office we worked in, all five of us. She arrived for the Kids Against Tobacco meeting dressed just like most of the other 13 year-olds - short skirts with heavy-eyeliner. They wore their budding sexuality like a billboard. She had, they all had, a softness masked by skateboard shoes and mascara. She squealed when I told her she had been chosen to go to the Kids Against Tobacco conference and threw her arms around her friend. Even if they tried to forget, I could not - they were only 13. Still children. Strong children, but children.

Sometime in late September, I began spending an hour a week with her, just the two of us. She bounced around the room and talked over me and climbed over her friends in our afternoon meetings, full of energy and life. But when it was just the two of us, she gave her all to whatever project I had concocted for us. She gave her all to our conversations. She gave her all to her troubles and then to her hopes and dreams.

And she had so many. Troubles. Hopes. Dreams.

She could tell you stories of what it is to go without. She could tell you stories that would break your heart. Those are her stories to tell. I will tell you of everything she had and continues to have. 

Strength

Compassion

Ambition

Intelligence

Warmth

Talent

Gentleness

Humor

Insight

Courage

Love

I floundered a bit that year. Trying to find my place in a new town, a new environment, a new role, a new life. Without knowing it, she pulled me into the very best of the community and the very best of myself. On days I woke in the morning feeling uncertain, insecure, and scared, I swung my feet to the floor and began my day because I wanted to show up for her. I wanted to be my best for her. She deserved no less. And over time, she showed me that I, too, deserved no less.

The Girl Effect is a movement to invest in adolescent girls in the developing world. I encourage investment in adolescent girls in the "developed" world, also. Because they have both so little and so much. Because they deserve the opportunity to be the best they can be. And because we deserve the opportunity to be the best we can be. That opportunity works in both directions. That's one of the very many life lessons she taught me. 

More on the Girl Effect here. 

Link your Girl Effect post here.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

I am so sad that the world has lost Steve Jobs tonight. 

We will certainly cherish his innovation and his wisdom.

Rest in peace. 

[ entire transcript ]

The Journey & The Destination

I measure the differences between giving up and letting go.

What is the difference between giving up and letting go? An exhale of release, a quick glance upward, pursed lips, a gentle nod and then the small smile, a downward gaze and shoulders relax? Or an inhale held while the small knot at the nape of the neck forms and the shoulder blades rise to almost meet? To let go means I’m ready, to give up means I’m not? Does the difference lay in a sense of power? A sense of agency? But what’s in power and what’s in agency? And who are we to claim either? And what happens if we don’t?*

Too often (particularly these past few years), I have locked my eyes on the goal and stumbled along the rocky path, hitting walls and then scaling them or taking the long way around. My sights so far ahead, I can’t see the wall, the rocks, the footprints I’m walking in that don’t quiet match my shoe size, the signs with the small print.

It’s about the journey, not the destination.

Buddhism 101. Or 201, as it was for me. How easily I wrote that sentence that year. How easily I lived that sentence all four of those years. A fluid destination, a fluid goal that took different shapes, but still held the same elements – dreams and hopes and soft realities. A fluid destination I held out of focus – I wanted to pick up each stone, hold its weight in my hand, run my thumb over its smoothness.

I chose those years based on what I loved in those moments. I picked flowers along the path and laid down for hours to watch the moon move across the sky against a backdrop of stars. I trusted, without realization, without effort, that I walked the right path (and it was right, for me) without concern for the corners, crevices, crannies of the goal, then out of focus and amorphous.

I read and wrote and loved and played and built a life every single day with a trust that the future would take care of itself. And it did. Every single detail took care of itself. All those details, I love. I would not change a single one.

Too often, particularly these past few years, I have locked my eyes on the destination and stumbled down the path. Too focused on a career title to pick up a pen in late evening. Too focused on rolling over years from now to the same heartbeat to ask the swelling questions or tell the most important stories.

I make plans. I put in the work. I expect difficulties. I have goals.

I am letting them go. The plans. The goals. The destination.

(Different from giving up. Although, I have a difficult time measuring the difference.)

These days, I want to love the minutes. I want to read and write and love and play and build a life every single day with a trust that the future will take care of itself. I want to love the details.

“Emma, you have to shake it up a bit to really figure out what you want.”

“I know.” It came out as a sigh with vowels. 

The career. The relationship. The financial security. I am going to trust that I will get there. Or even more, I am going to trust that I will crash into each somewhere along the path I have chosen to walk (because each step is full and fulfilling) and I won’t even know if I have arrived at the destination or the destination has walked down that path to arrive in front of me. And it won’t matter.

It’s about the journey, not the destination.

*Written February 20th, 2006, 10:43 pm.