A Day in the Life || Saturday

At the end of the day, I'm hardly sure of how I got here. Sitting on this mini-couch, left here by someone else, my belongings unpacked and strewn and still packed. It's a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a lot of one foot in front of another. All of it.

I woke this morning energized but far from refreshed and far earlier than I anticipated. But what do I know anymore? Showering still requires unpacking and rearranging and repacking in what is both a shoebox and luxury suite at once. If I've learned anything the past few years, it is how to hold contradictions. How to honor both opposites.

I opted for messy hair, red lips, and my blue dress. The first day of my new year deserves a hearty attempt at just being me, yes? It was almost chilly this morning with a strong breeze that had me posing like Marilyn Monroe on my front porch. Or my front stoop. I don't remember which, and like everything else, I'm just never quite sure. Fall approaches, though. Of that I am sure.

I'm embarrassed by the amount of time it took me to get from my house and into lower Manhattan. I counted every minute I spent waiting for the bus and wondered why I never bother to actually check the schedule. Weekend track work (that isn't technically called weekend track work, I don't think, but I'm not sure) made my long ride even longer and I probably should have stayed in Brooklyn, but what do I know anymore?

I arrived in lower Manhattan later than anticipated, but the city was just waking up. I wanted coffee but needed lunch. Stopping to eat is such a kill-joy, at least that much has not changed, but I didn't have much choice in the matter, so I ate an early lunch. It was in the mirror above the Whole Foods lunch counter that I caught sight of my red lips and still blue eyes and realized how much has changed and how little has changed since I first sat down for a meal at Whole Foods over five years ago. How different this beginning feels from my first few days in Maine and in law school. How much more I know of myself now. And how much more I value that.

I walked around the farmer's market after leaving Whole Foods, opting for kale over caffeine. The vendors come from upstate towns I knew from college and my treks along the New York interstates. I had to restrain myself from bounding over and asking about life upstate. Ask about what exactly, I wasn't sure, but I recognized the town names and surely that meant we were kindred spirits. Every third person had a camera in hand, or so it seemed, and I didn't worry at all about being mistaken for a tourist. I didn't worry about anything. I planned lunches for the week with produce I didn't buy and planned which Brooklyn neighborhoods in which to buy based on their proximity to the Union Square farmer's market with down-payment savings I don't have. But dreams come true, right? And I thought: of course. Of course. And I walked and I walked and I snapped and I snapped and the shutter clicked and the people smiled and I smiled. I smiled.

It was then, in the midst of a smile, that I remembered I still had not gotten coffee. Coffee is usually the peak-of-the-peak of the morning event, so off I went. But jetting off now includes pulling out my phone and yelping coffee shops and googling directions and walking in the wrong direction twice. Everything, even coffee, takes twice as long these days. I finally found the almost-five-star-yelp-review coffee shop and walked in with tired legs, ready for an afternoon of writing and sipping. Mid-Manhattan, mid-day, mid-weekend, I should I have known: the coffee shop is full of twentysomethings and laptops. They didn't look up and certainly wouldn't get up, so I decide to get a cup to go.

My mid-morning coffee had turned into almost mid-afternoon coffee. I didn't have a place to write. Plans perpetually gone array, and no matter how much I want this transition to be simple, it simply isn't. With a feeling only slightly less than defeat, I walked back to Union Square to catch the subway and head home. Over an hour home, but home nonetheless. Home, coffee, lunch... I counted the basics and the basics count for something, I told myself.

I decided, mostly out of weariness, to try to find a free spot on one of the Union Square park benches. One lap around the park in search of a bench seat, I promised myself. No attachments to a seat or to happiness, it is what it is and nothing more. Lo and behold, a couple got off a shaded bench right as I walked by. I took their seat and a mother with an infant sat down next to me. As if on cue, a guitar player set up to play in front of us and a photographer dropped a couple of dollars in the guitar case in exchange for photographic permission. The guy with the guitar nodded twice and I took a sip of my coffee. It had finally cooled down. A breeze swept through and the guitar player began to sing.

His voice was smooth and melodic. He played songs I could have found on my itunes and I wondered why they weren't there already. A live, acoustic guitar. A cup of coffee. A photographer at work. A content infant. A cool breeze. It was better than I could have ever planned. There sat my happy heart, content and bursting.

That is my New York, right now. Unpacked and disheveled, twice too long, tired legs, and a happy heart, content and bursting. All of it, better than I could have ever planned.

I Call This City Home Now

So much more to come...

On Advice and Thoughts Before I Begin (Again)

The summer before law school began, all of the incoming students received weekly emails from the law school in preparation for the next three years. A handful of these emails included advice, such as tidying up our personal life. If we had a relationship "on the edge" we should "fix it or kill it". We should read as many books "for pleasure" and stockpile sleep, sun, and vegetables. During orientation, one of the keynote speakers was from the state organization that provided confidential consultation for attorneys, judges, and law students regarding drug abuse, depression, and other mental health issues. We were told the grim statistics of the number of marriages and long-term relationships that do not make it through law school. We were told of the high rate of substance abuse and depression. We were told of the seemingly unavoidable pitfalls of law school and, ultimately, the legal profession. (And this was all when the economy was booming, so low salaries, the depletion of law-related jobs, and hard-to-pay law school loans didn't even enter into the conversation.) This was all in an effort to help us cope with academic and personal challenges and thrive in a high-pressure environment. It was done with the best intentions. Many of us ate this law school framework for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not all of us, but many of us, and I'm pretty sure I had it for snack and dessert also.

Which I know now, I should not have done. At all.

I had a bit of a unique law school experience in that I also took classes for a Masters degree while carrying a full law school course load my second and third years. However, I don't think that impacted the foundation of any of my thoughts or actions during law school. It just amplified everything I did or did not do. I won't go into the gritty details of everyday life of law school, but I will say this: I ate, breathed, and slept (or didn't sleep) law school and I didn't do much else. Yes, I had some awesomeamazingwonderfulfabulous times with loved ones (law school and non law school) but I certainly didn't do a whole lot of reading for fun, writing, exercising, baking, coloring, movie watching, shopping, dancing, sledding, etc. at the rate I normally would. (Which in some cases - ahem, exercising - is rare, but it's nice to have the option.) I hardly slept, I drank a lot of coffee, I ate primarily for health purposes but not nearly enough for pleasure, and I worked hard to remain close with some of my best friends. And that was about all I managed to keep in tact. As a result, huge chunks of my personal life fell apart and I waited far too long to piece them back together.

Why do I tell you all this? Because I've started to hear the same rumblings of advice for us soon-to-be PhD students. The "stockpile books, sleep, and vegetables!" mantra and the "be aware of your relationships" warnings, and the "know where the mental health services are located" advice. As someone who has been through the classes that cause crippling anxiety, handled the professors and students who become the catalyst for feeling like the dumbest person in the world (not in the class, but in the entire world) (i.e. impostor syndrome - google it, it's kinda a thing), and conquered the massive amounts of work that felt like climbing the tallest mountain on earth and drowning on the deepest lake on earth at the very same time, I say the best thing to do is take a nap, read a book for pleasure, sit in the sun doing nothing, or spend some time with the relationship that's teetering on the edge.

Take a break. Re-focus. Rejuvenate. Take care of yourself. That is what needs to come first.

This is more a reminder to myself than anything else: I am excited to start this PhD program. I have nothing I need to prove. I'm going to be anxious sometimes. I'm going to feel like I'm the dumbest one in the room. I'm going to feel like I can't finish all the work assigned. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. This time around, I want to layer it with a new t-shirt that says "Excited!" and "Engaged!" and "Thoughtful!". I have questions I want to answer and I want to collect better questions to ask. I'm looking forward to the readings, the classroom environment, to teaching, to researching, library time, late-night coffee, study groups, paper writing, presentations, even finals week.

I'm also looking forward to walking around the city with my camera, blogging frequently, going to yoga, reading novels, watching live music, spending weekends with my friends, even dating.

I'm not planning on eating, breathing, and sleeping this PhD program. I will be a thousand times a better student, better teacher, better researcher, better person if I don't.

The past few weeks I have not been stockpiling books to read for fun or taking inventory of my relationships. I'll finish Just Kids before bed in the first few weeks of September (thanks for the recommendation, Amy) and start a new book after I turn its last pages.  This fall (and all the seasons following) I'll give my attention without reservation to someone I care about when he or she needs it and find room in my life for new relationships. Life and death and love and heartache and everything in between keeps going despite enrollment status. I learned that in law school. I'm making room for all of it this time. I'm embracing all of it.

Sunday Morning Coffee

Almost everything is packed, so I pulled on the old, very old, stand-by hat this morning before I went out for morning coffee. The hat with the red B on the front that matches my fire-truck-red lips still stained from the night before. Untamed hair bending and curving and trying to fly away, all shoved under a baseball cap. Protesting for freedom, not from the hat but from the hair straightener and tight buns of the past two years. Uncombed, mostly undried, lightly tousled the night before, "I like it." "I like it." I like it." And now it wants nothing less and nothing more.

Its protests are in vain; my eyes are on the red B. It's an instant. It's a flash. Of the Atlantic crashing against jagged grey rocks, of the New England coast, until the sound of the waves turn into distant chants. Of "Red. Sox. Yank. Ees." and I'm in Dodgers' stadium watching the Rockies score, homesick and madly in love with the nomadic rivalry. It all travels with me.

I pull down the brim and the red B and step outside. It's fall-like but here that means warm still, and the leaves won't change until November. November, when the snow falls in Vermont and when I'll walk the streets of a grey-brown New York City, remembering glasses of wine on the front porch with guitars and no mosquitoes. The only November I spent here; I'll remember it warm and full.

The streets here are filled with manicured nails and manicured hair, grown on manicured, green lawns. The women come to buy diamonds, neon flats, and chevron printed maxi dresses. Men only a handful of years older than I chase toddlers down the sidewalk. My B now too red and too bright, my clothes too muted, my hair too unruly. When I am too much and not enough, I slip away.

It's routine, I fall easily into a day dream's facade - a neighborhood of my own. Brownstones and coffee places and storefront flower bouquets on the corner, the freshest and brightest sights on the block. Iron stair rails leading up to front doors, each a little different, the grooved designs and the details of each knocker. Concrete sidewalks and the sound of my feet walking block after block. The sound is the same there as it is here, I could be there, there could be here, here could be there.

It's routine, but this morning, this morning there's an abrupt realization: this is the last of this Sunday morning routine. Within days, there will be coffee in New England and then coffee in Brooklyn. There will be many Sunday mornings with coffee in Brooklyn. If not among brownstones, at least a few steps closer. So I drop the facade and open my eyes. This is the last of the Red Door Spa and the last of the Cheese-Cake-Factory-Sunday-brunch-goers-with-tables-for-two-on-the-sidewalk and the last of this Starbucks stand at the entryway of the mall.  "Grande iced coffee with room" and she doesn't ask my name before scribbling it on my cup in black marker.

There are ones that know me here. My name in black marker and much more. I called this place home. There is comfort in knowing that. And there is comfort in knowing that in time it, too, will become an instant, a flash. It will travel with me. It will be my name on the side of the cup, the warm November nights on the front porch, the sound of guitars. It will become the beginning of untamed hair, uncombed, mostly undried, lightly tousled the night before, asking for nothing less and nothing more. An exhale of freedom among perfection. It will become the first sip of morning coffee with last night's stained red lips.

Recently

Or not so recently, as it turns out. This is a bit of what the past month (or longer?!) has looked like:

Feel free to follow me on instagram, where the updates are a bit more frequent!
(EmilyKaatherine, of course...)

Granola {Part III}

I arrived back in CT just before midnight frazzled and panicked. My mom met me at the door, ushered me in, and promised we’d figure it all out in the morning. She already made up the couch and suggested I just go to sleep for the night. The sight of the couch covered with a sheet and blankets startled me. Of course… my bed was no longer in my bedroom. I told her I would change upstairs. The bedroom I grew up in was nearly empty. The curtains hung above an empty floor, billowing outward ever so slightly in the night wind. My furniture waited for me in Vermont, while I slept on the couch in the family room.

She and I made a plan the next morning over hot cups of tea. I dunked my tea bag over and over while she listed my problems on a scrap piece of paper. I wished fifteen-year-old-me could have had even a glimpse of that Saturday morning. Our plan hinged on her returning to Vermont with me and staying the weekend. She hated the idea of having me there alone without any form of communication more than I did. I would reschedule the cable company to arrive on Monday and she would be there to meet them while I went to my first day of work and then traveled north to attend my four-day pre-service training. We would stop on our way to Vermont to see if I could find a solution to my lack of cell service. An attachable antenna maybe?

Feeling a little less panicked, I called the cable company. I explained the situation for the fifth time. But I could not get the cable company to agree to come out to my place on Monday. I begged. I pleaded. I got angry. I tried to be sweet. I hung up the phone and cried. “It’s too far out of the way,” I spit out finally. “They only service that area once every few weeks and I missed the service window.” My mom took the phone from me, along with the tiny book that held the cable company number and my address. She dialed calmly, explained the situation thoroughly, and demanded a solution sternly. The cable company booked a service call for 8 am Monday morning, and I wondered if I would ever be able to solve my own problems. But, we were in business.

I took a hot shower. Long and soothing. I stepped out refreshed. Confidant. We climbed into our cars and caravanned north. The windows down, sunglasses on, and the radio turned way up.

I waited at the first cell phone store for an hour before anyone would talk to me. When my turn arrived, the salesman laughed at me. I hardly uttered the phrase “attachable antenna” before he burst out. “Uh, no Miss, there is no such thing as an attachable antenna.” I turned around and walked out. The salesman at the second cell phone store was surprised I didn’t get any service at my place in Vermont. “If you have a couple of bars, you should be able to place and receive calls,” he reasoned the same as I had. He said it might just be that my phone needed a service update. In fact, he was certain it just needed a service update. It would take five hours. Five hours meant we would arrive in Vermont after dark, but I didn’t have any other choice. Five hours later, we were on the road again.

It was about 11:30 pm by the time we crossed the border into Vermont. We appeared to be the only ones traveling the highway that night. I welcomed the solitude. The temperature had dropped quite a bit, so I had my windows rolled up and the volume turned down. I had popped in the CD he made for me. It was melodic and calming after the past 48 hours. I led the way and set the pace; I could see her car behind me in the rearview mirror. With only about an hour left, I felt as though I had at least handled, if not conquered, my problems of the past thirty-six hours. It was hard to believe it had been less than two days, but at least I could finally take a deep breath again.

My car struggled going up the foothills of the Green Mountains. This was nothing new; it always struggled through the Catskills also. But that night I noticed a tug I hadn’t felt before. Or perhaps I had felt it before, I just couldn’t place when. I turned the volume way down on the third steep incline. I could tell something wasn’t right. Three fourths of the way up the side of the tiny mountain, the gas peddle lost all resistance and I heard a thud.

I knew immediately. I threw on my hazards and pulled over to the side of the highway. She pulled up behind me with her hazards on also. I reached for my cell phone to tell her what happened. I didn’t have any service. The road was empty but I didn’t want to take any chances, so I climbed over to the passenger side and squeezed out the door without hitting it on the guardrail. I ran to her car and jumped in. “What happened?!” she asked unusually more panicked than I felt. “My transmission went,” I said matter of factly.

[To Be Continued...]

 

{part i, part ii}

[Disclaimer: I always have difficulty determining how much of "the story" is mine to tell. This series on my year in Vermont is my version of the year. I am erring on the side of caution to not tell the stories of my friends who journeyed through the year with me. Names, places, details, etc have been changed or omitted for the privacy of the people I care about - and yes, I care about all of them. It's a bit of an old story, really. Most of their journeys have taken them down paths (in Vermont, out of Vermont, some having never set foot near Vermont) that make that year only a distant memory. It is for me, too. But it's such a good memory - a full, rich, important memory - that I want to share my part of the story here.]

You Can Be, I Am

Starbuck's Treat Receipts are back. I submitted my HUGE summer project to the designer this morning. I have someone who wants to come pick up my bed. I am thisclose to dancing in the streets. Seriously, I just wanna dance. Let loose. I want to let loose.

This past month everything has felt tight. Tight muscles, tight deadlines, tight budget. I've kept a tight grip on my every movement, my every thought.

I know - This is exciting stuff! Moving to a city I love! A city that already feels like home! A city with excitement! Starting a PhD program! Knowing precisely what I want to get out of it! Living close to family and friends again! Plans to visit northern New England in the fall! Dinner plans for the first few days I'm in the city! So exciting! All of it! And there's so much of it!

I am excited. Each morning on my walk into work, I burst into a spontaneous smile during my last few strides before the door. In the fall, I'll be walking the streets of NYC every single day. That thought, it spontaneously combusts into a wide, toothy grin I can't hide. A grin I don't want to hide.

There's more to it, though. Of course there is. Thank goodness, there is. More to it means I might actually be finally getting something right. I might actually be getting this right.

Of course, with every transition come the logistics. What to do with my bed. How to pack up more belongings than I need or want into some vehicle and drive them miles away. When these miles include northern New Jersey highways, it becomes even more nightmarish. There is first month's rent, last month's rent, security deposit. Idealistic attempts at assessing commute times, neighborhood safety, roommate compatibility. This transition includes backpack decisions, book purchases, first day of school jeans. Jeans? Annoying logistics, frustrating logistics, pain-in-the-ass logistics. Nothing I can't handle and haven't handled before. So what's with the tightness?

Go deeper.

I want green morning smoothies next year. Yoga on a regular basis and the courage to try an adult gymnastics class. I want to see the city through a camera lens, drop into a space beyond words, beyond my mind's running analyses. I want uncontrollable laughter with friends I'm so comfortable with that I'm not even worried if laughter becomes wet pants. Snowflakes on my tongue in December, the head space to write regularly. I want to raise my hand in class and become the-one-who-talks as often as I am the-one-who-listens. Conferences, statistics, and theories - an authority who still knows the importance of questions. I want a neighborhood and a home. Wrap me up in comfort at the end of the day, release me rejuvenated each morning. Peace and quiet and color and energy. I want to fall asleep and know what he dreams. His hand still in mine.

I toy with the word forever. I'm ready now, I am.

The tightness comes from terror. Fear of failure. Thoughts of: I can't do this. "This" doesn't even exist. Idealistic, naive, immature - those words rattle so loudly. I keep a tight grip on every thought, every movement. The tighter the plan, the less room for failure. The tighter the expectations, the less room for disappointment. Efficient movement, efficient decisions, efficient life. Except, I'm making this move because I want more. So much more.

It's time now. To let loose. I did what I needed to do. It is time now to release. I'm giving myself permission to release. I'm ordering myself to release. To let loose. To dance in the streets and sing in the shower and cheer too loudly for the Olympic athletes and pack the rest of my stuff by throwing it into duffel bags (or into the trash) and buy fresh strawberries for smoothies and stay up too late and take the yoga class and sign up for adult gymnastics and talk too much in class and kiss the boy and burst into snorts of laughter over bottomless mimosas and spin with my arms out in the first snowfall.

It's time and I'm ready.

[quote by Danielle LaPorte]