Octobers

 The healing garden sits off the 7th floor of the hospital. We walk the path slowly. The wooden planks under our feet lay wet, and the sound of trickling water falling down a tiny waterfall at the far side of the garden meets the mist around us. We pass the small bonsai trees and pause at the gathering of stones painted with hopeful wishes. After a few laps, we stop and sit at the far end. A deep fog is rolling in from the harbor and delivering dusk. I can barely make out the tops of the hills that rise above the city outskirts, but the fog hasn't lowered all the way yet, and I can see the yellow leaves of the trees, some vibrant orange too, sweeping the midsection of the hills. A colorful contrasting backdrop for the office buildings and brick row homes lining the streets. This view reminds me of my view of the city on a rainy October day three years ago. I look down and see the top floor of the parking garage. It is the exact view from three years ago, except this time, I have a bit higher perspective. 

I don't know when, exactly, I became a person who listens to Taylor Swift on repeat, but I am. I suppose, perhaps, 13 years ago, and that coincidence isn't lost on me. 2009: the October I spent reminding myself how to breathe -- in and out -- filling my peach walls with "You Belong with Me," while I pulled on my scrunched down gray boots, hair straightener in my hand, a Blue Moon likely sitting on the red porch rail already. A Blue Moon I didn't drink. The October I painted my nails black, watched the rain slam against the window panes then run down the glass like small streams of tears blurring the yellow leaves of the trees in the side yard, an instrumental mashup of "Love Story Taylor Swift meets Viva La Vida by Coldplay" on hour after hour -- breathe in breathe out -- repeat. In November, I traced my eyelids with thick black eyeliner and pulled on my black cap down over my forehead and went out to meet the tide. 

I packed that black cap with me when I traveled to Seattle two years later, in the last weeks of October. It sat in my suitcase the first week and a half, while I unpacked the boxes, filled the name tags, stuffed folders, met with caterers, checked on projectors, laughed out loud and too hard at the joke: how many degrees does it take to get the folding table upright? Up before the sun, my hotel room windows peeked between the buildings and gifted a glimpse of Puget sound that sat dark and moody before the sun rose to the east. I had retired most of my angst, along with my heavy black eyeliner, but my black hat sat waiting for me in my suitcase as I exhausted my warmest welcomes, my cheeriest deliveries, my energy my energy my energy. I danced in empty storage rooms amid empty boxes to fill myself up until the very last night, when I walked into my hotel room, turned off the lights in my bathroom, climbed into my tub and pulled the shower curtain closed. Enough, I knew. The next morning, I woke early, slid on my black cap, found a venti cup of Starbucks, and boarded a ferry headed toward an island full of yellow and orange leaves. 

A year later, I'd find myself sitting on the grassy hill of a Brooklyn park, pulling my thin jacket tighter around me and feeling the fall chill sweep through my body. I'd stay sitting there, on that cold ground, long enough for the sun to drop and illuminate the orange and yellow trees below my spot perched on the grassy hill, and my goodness, I knew. It would take me years to understand, but I knew then, and the trees danced in the light, and I refused to leave until it grew too dark to stay. I left that park not knowing I would move into the same neighborhood six weeks later, or that Superstorm Sandy would flood my home, my neighborhood, my life. I left that park not knowing we'd slide into tiny chairs in front of the takeout counter and squeezed right against the front windows of the best enchilada place in the city, only a couple of blocks down, a few years later. But looking out over those trees, beyond the words to understand it, I knew. 

I'd stand on an above-ground subway platform a few Octobers later and gaze out at the industrial Gowanus canal flanked in metal i-beams. The late day sun beamed unexpectedly warm and sweat started to gather below my coat collar, my arms growing weary under the weight of my two Ikea bags. The two blue bags, almost as heavy as I, filled with photo frames for my bedroom wall, pillows, and a tiny bookshelf that I thought I might have to leave on the side of the road anyway, once it became too heavy. Had I overestimated my strength? Maybe down the road, somewhere between this subway platform and the express bus aisle, I would have to give it up or collapse under the weight of it, but standing there on that subway platform, with the dark gray water holding space below the sparse specks of yellow October leaves, I decided to carry it all one step at a time. I made it home with every item that afternoon, my arms sore and my heart racing and the evening growing too dark too soon, but I made it home. I unrolled the pillows, hung the picture frames, and built the tiny bookshelf before bed, before my cup of nighttime tea, before I surrendered to the weight of it all. 

This October time feels finite. I am gathering pieces of myself -- smooth stones black as eyeliner. Taylor Swift's Midnights on repeat, it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. Maybe I'll find my black cap, pull it low -- enough. A knowing. My fingers find my jagged edges, a relief, a reckoning, a rising. A surrender, but not to the weight of it all -- a surrender to my strength. November is one of my favorite months.

Garage Doors & Deadbolts

 I turn left into my driveway to find my garage door still down. Perplexed, I squeeze the opener on my visor again. Did I not do that the first time? Do I leave the condo so infrequently that it isn't muscle memory anymore? Slow down for the curve, look for the kids playing, raise my hand to the opener, turn left and pull in? The door still doesn't budge. A bit relieved knowing that muscle memory is there, I have called this place home long enough, I try again. Nothing. Uh. Okay. So the front door it is. 

I pull the keys from my ignition and make it halfway up the path before I realize, oh. I don't have a key for the deadbolt on the front door. Not that I don't have one on me, I just don't have one period. And the chain is still locked into place from the inside. This is what happens after 7 years living in Brooklyn. Or more precisely, this is what happens when your Brooklyn apartment gets broken into on a Saturday morning while you're in it. But that's a story for another day. For now, I have three locks I have to get through and only one key. And a broken garage door, apparently.

I find myself standing in the rain with a hand full of keys and yet still not enough keys.

I text her while I wait in the car for help. I want to laugh about this, I'll laugh about it someday, but today-- today, all I can think about is his statement that the pandemic made him reprioritize his life. And he did. He's onscreen from California, and then I'm lost in my memories of the Pacific Coast Highway, the Pacific Ocean to my left, blue water bouncing the sunlight. She texts back and asks for updates and all I can manage is "mundane and overwhelming at the same time." The word mundane scrambles for me. Mundane... the sacred and the mundane? I reach for a phrase I haven't used in years, maybe a decade, Eliade's. No, it isn't the sacred and the mundane. It's the sacred and the profane. Instantly, I think: None of this is sacred. 

None of this is sacred. 

The sacred orients. This, I know.  

When the lockout person arrives, I explain. I explain the deadbolt and the chain. "But how did you get out, if the chain is still locked?" I explain about the garage door. I explain often lately. I explain assignments, I explain technology, I explain insomnia, I explain my expired in-transit tags, I explain my shivering shoulders, I explain the faded rectangle on the floor under my dining table. I called someone last week, and when he picked up the phone, I started to explain who I am. He stopped me, mid-sentence. "Whenever you call, you tell me who you are. You don't have to do that. I know who you are, I know who you are." I know him too, but it still stuns me: to be known, not to have to explain.

When I am finally into my condo, I turn on all the lights and turn up the heat. I put on my warmest socks and warm up my hot chocolate from 5 hours prior. I watch the paper cup spin in the microwave and think: if I burn the cup, no one will know but me. Is this the sacred or is this the profane? I pull out my phone and scroll to the old Dutch house saved on my Zillow account in Hudson, NY, nestled in the rolling farmland, with a view of the Catskills in the distance, standing watch. I'm not exactly sure how to explain that. Except maybe it's the sacred. Or at least, a reminder. 

Rusty. Worse.

How much repair do I have to do? And where do I begin?

Where do I find myself?

Again and again and again.

here

Here.

So we begin.

Again, and again, and again.

You and I. You and I.

I don't know how to be here.

Rusty.       Worse.

Let me type you a sentence of logic and numbers and statistical significance I don't know how to find. Let's cite it and grant it pleasedon'tlistentomyscream don't ask me if I am okay if I can explain to you the logic model the date of the exam whether you should join the military. Hear me, here me, hear me now, I want the novels full of poetry on the bank of the lake, above the door reads:

"You are the hope of the world."

I don't know how to be here.

But I think it starts like this.

Again and again and again.

8 | 1 | 2016

He's an older gentleman in a three-piece suit, holding a cane. "We're not moving, not moving, are we?" He asks without expecting an answer from me. I smile and pull my earphones out, two pieces of pizza on my lap and a pile of garlic knots stinking up the space, gratefully the bus nearly empty despite the 5 PM commute, but I don't say a word. I leave the earphones out as the bus hums with stillness before lurching forward towards my stop, the best I can offer. When I gather my things up to leave, the man points at the store on my block corner and says "That's a good place. Go there." "I will. I will," I assure him and step off the bus.

This evening the sun sets under the clouds and night arrives the earliest it has all summer. The heat and humidity of July finally gone and in their place a damp coolness. Relief. I grab my keys and walk through the dark apartment without turning on the light, close the door behind me without locking the deadbolt and I go there, the good place on the corner. The florescent lights yellow against the dark blue sky, and the store empty other than the sounds of my flip-flops hitting the floor. A cool breeze flows through the door as I put two dollars on the counter. He's young, looks hardly sixteen, has his earphones in, and asks if I want a bag. "No, no, no thank you," and I turn towards the breeze.

I walk down in the sidewalk with lemon seltzer in my hand, in the still-blue night and the cool breeze, and it's enough. The moment is enough, and that is everything.

Summer Rain

Friday evening, I chose the rain jacket instead of the umbrella. Tornado watch and gray skies and not enough energy to fight the flight of a cheap umbrella, if and when.

I chose the light blue NorthFace rain jacket I bought in the LLBean flagship store, because of course, and packed tightly in my overnight bag for my Spring Break 2008 trip to DC. The one that got wet even in my bag, when we got caught in a downpour in NYC while running for our train at Penn Station from our train at Grand Central, because of course. A downpour so drenching it soaked through our bags and flooded our clothes. We ran blocks in this rain for the train, worried we would miss it. Two blocks in we laughed and turned our faces up to the rain and screeched. A release. When we arrived, still wet, in Annapolis, we put all of our clothes in the dryer, including the rain jacket, because of course.

Friday evening, on my seven minute walk home from the subway, the sky spit a couple of times and then burst open. Within less than a minute, my rolled up pants soaked up all the rain and then proceeded to drip down my calves and puddle around my feet. My sandals went from slippery to sponges, pooling my toes in rain water with every step. I shoved my bag under my rain jacket and hoped my phone in my pocket would repel at least some of the water. It occurred to me that I had never actually worn the rain jacket in the rain. I didn’t know if it was water proof or water resistant and it seemed to be raining so hard that it almost didn’t matter.

I thought about running. But there wasn’t really a point. I could not get any wetter. The strand of hair hanging out of my hood dripped onto my jacket and rivers ran down the front creating an almost-waterfall into the sidewalk. The puddles at intersections too large to jump over, and rivers of rain flowed against the curb, so I walked through them.

I walked home with a slow step and enjoyed the rain. I could not save myself from the it, I could not get any wetter, so I walked home and enjoyed having the sidewalk to myself — everyone else huddled under overhangs with their umbrellas in front of them as shields.

I remembered the early years of high school, before we had cars, when we would walk in the rain to the beach, hoping for a downpour. How we planned to walk on the rainiest days, miles downtown, miles back, in the warm rain and drenched clothes. How alive it made us feel — squealing, faces turned up the sky, tiny streams flowing down our faces. The warmth of the rain cooling the hotness of our skin and the steam rising from the pavement. The smell of the first downpour of the day. The heaviness of our clothes wrapped around us, clinging to us, how the fabric feels so differently when it’s warm and wet and heavy.

I walked home and let my jeans be warm and wet and heavy. I let the streams roll down my legs and waterfall off my jacket. I thought about turning my face up to the sky and squealing, the way I did when I was 14.

When I got home, I squished up the stairs and left my sponge shoes at the doorway of my apartment. I peeled off my pants in my bedroom and learned my rain jacket, after all these years, is waterproof and not just water resistant. I didn’t have a drop of rain on my top. I took it off anyway and thought maybe it was a bit of a waste — this rain jacket that worked so well. I took my shirt off anyway. And I missed the feel of the warm rivers of rain on my face, falling over my shoulders, and drenching my shirt.

I missed the feel of the total immersion in a downpour. The kind that drenches you from head to toe and even the rain jacket, packed so carefully in the middle of your overnight bag. The laughter, the squeals, the release.

Showing Up

I’ve spent the majority of today in bed, inhaling Momastary.com, The Racial State, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream — chocolate therapy, thankyouverymuch — and salad. It’s allllllll about balance, I told him.

I’m slightly obsessed with Glennon Doyle Melton — I’m re-reading her book Carry On, Warrior even though I just finished it about a week ago. That’s what I’ve been doing this past year though: finishing a book and then immediately starting it again. Sometimes the first time around isn’t enough to learn even a fraction of what it is one needs to learn.

Glennon says some version of this (see, still haven’t really learned it all): Show up, be brave, be kind, do the next right thing for you, rest, repeat. So that’s what I’m doing. Brene Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert and Martha Beck and Rob Bell and Oprah all seem to be saying the same thing. I know because I’m reading and re-reading and listening hard — podcasts and super soul sessions are the same thing as reading, right? This day in age, no? I’m old, I’m learning. (I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.)

Last year, on this weekend, I watched fireworks in front of a cornfield and thought I knew things. I almost want to laugh out loud at that thought now, except I’m trying to be kinder to myself — a year: what a difference. All the things I got wrong, and hopefully a few I got right. I got a couple of the most important things right, that much I know.

I know because I’ve been very quiet. When I’m unsure now (which is often), I get still, I get quiet, immediately. Or as soon as possible. And I move through the next few minutes. Sometimes I take a large leap and move through the next few hours. That’s it; that’s all I’ll be doing for a while, and I’m so very good with that. (Good with it, not good at it — there’s a vital difference.)

I’ve made a thousand mistakes in this past year. I’ve said and done and been hurtful things. And I’ve been forgiven. I’ve been loved anyway.

Last summer, I learned that every cell in my body is actually made of glass and every cell can actually shatter. Those shattered glass cells can prick and poke and scratch and pierce every inch of your skin from the inside out. But over time, they melt and become heavy molten and although it feels far too heavy to carry on most days, you can, in fact, carry it. And eventually, ever so slowly, it drains out of you, and becomes less heavy.

As it drains, it takes away all the old and leaves wide open spaces for new. New feels as new is — uncomfortable and uncertain. But it isn’t the hot, heavy molten glass, and all the empty space is a bit airy, a bit light, and there’s plenty of room for the uncomfortable and the uncertain to hang out and just be.

That’s what I do now, mostly. I just be.

And I listen for myself in the stillness, so I can show up as myself.

It’s that simple (and yet still, always, hard — I’m good with that).

(And there is love, too, also, as well.)

—————

As a reminder to myself, if/when I should need it again, and to anyone else who may need it, this helped me get still and quiet, so I could hear myself:

1. Therapy
2. Yoga
3. Meditation
4. Routine (with a strong emphasis on sleep)

Other things that helped:
— Reading (Brene Brown — Rising Strong, Martha Beck — Leaving the Saints, & Pema Chodron — Things Fall Apart, over and over again)
— Coloring
— Watching the bears for hours because there’s something about nature that’s healing (http://explore.org/live-cams/player/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls)
— Saying yes to myself and no to everyone else

Hope & Yoga

"And hopefulness is really, for me, is not optimism, that everything’s going to be fine and we can just sit back. And that’s too much like pessimism, which is that everything’s going to suck and we can just sit back. Hope, for me, just means a Buddhist sense of uncertainty, of coming to terms with the fact that we don’t know what will happen, and that there’s maybe room for us to intervene. And that we have to let go of the certainty people seem to love more than hope, and know that we don’t know what’s going to happen."  - Rebecca Solnit in conversation with Krista Tippett for "On Being"

On Saturday mornings, I pour my coffee into a paper cup and take myself to yoga. Hair disheveled, almost the way my pillow left it, on winter mornings the same leggings I slept in the night before, warmer mornings a pair of cotton shorts, an oversize t-shirt perhaps still wrapped around me from the night before, and a clean sports bra, always. To get there by 8am is the only goal, "Get onto your mat, Emma," I prod gently to avoid the whirlwind of morning demands. 

And I do. 

I get onto my mat and stretch and reach and let myself be. Cranky some mornings, bone-marrow sad on others, lightly refreshed, energized, scattered, sore, head-chatter too loud, weak, tired, annoyed with myself, all of it, I let myself be. Reach into the pose, not able to reach as far as..., let it be. To reach is all I ask. Let it be. Balance on the tiny places my body connects to the earth, the right foot, the left hand, falling, trying again, falling, laughing. "Play here," she instructs, and I listen. I play and laughter follows, and it's more than I could ever wish to ask for on some mornings. I play with the greatest stretches, the most tenuous places to find balance. "Find your down-dog,"she guides us to find the stability. I breathe in, I breathe out, release it all out, release, out, out, release, move into child's pose. Rest. 

Let it be. Reach. Play. Rest. 

I walk home on warm mornings, with my yoga mat slung over my shoulder, and headphones in my ears. The volume low enough to catch the hellos from the stoops and the good mornings from the sidewalk and toss them back. The week gone and only the block ahead in front of me. On each block, hope finds me well. 

Not Just A Paper

Three cop cars, a van, seven police, two undercover, arrested two boys under my window this afternoon. Mid-sentence, typing, at my desk, The Racial State section of my dissertation, a few paragraphs above the role of defense counsel in juvenile delinquency court, I heard the woop-woop of sirens that don't intend to travel far, feet against the pavement, a scuttle, a man's voice command, "Get him down," and a boy cry, "Why would you do that?" 

I made a bee-line for my window. They had him down on the ground in handcuffs. Pinned tightly to the pavement below. Shoving hands in his pockets and patting down his thighs. He cried, "Why would you do that?" I held my breath, waiting for the gun. There wasn't one. 

Two undercover cops wearing bullet-proof vests walked the other boy within feet of the one held against the ground. "Why would you do that?" "Why would you do that?" The seven police officers put the two boys into the van and drove away. 

Boys. 

I sat on my bedroom floor, under the window, and exhaled the tiniest sob. Without tears. Without a second. Walked myself back to my computer and continued typing. 

The racial state. The role of defense counsel. Boys. 

Two boys. 

Values

They're written on a pink post-it note on my bedroom mirror. Only three of them so far, hard earned already – I'm turning right, they're steering left, bringing me to my knees, I have to show up for myself as myself, again and again and again -- hard earned. And yet, when I live them, with integrity, despite fear paving the way, they hold me, calmly, sweetly, gently, giving me back to myself.

Look for the Light

Cold, rainy day. Not enough layers to wear and too many for May. Chocolate ice cream for dinner, but when I step out the front door the mist looks like snow in the streetlight. The drenched sidewalks glowing golden under the streetlight, forgetting to be gray.

“We can do hard things,” she shares time and time again, these past months. I match my breath to my movements, let it unravel on the mat, and follow her lead, this wom_n who walks the same path, the one lit by the starlight in the darkest nights.

We can do hard things. We can show up in the dark, in the rain, and look for the light.

Stoops

I sat on my stoop last Friday, with a cup of coffee from the coffee shop down the street, “Good to see you, my dear,” she said as she passed me the cup. Soft and steady and without needing a response. A warm morning, summer steady on spring’s heels already, my favorite season in this neighborhood. Open car windows and 90s hip-hop and the trees with tiny leaves, we’re all emerging again. These blue-cracked-paint steps and a tiny promise to sit here on summer mornings, sipping coffee, letting the sun warm me, letting my neighborhood warm me. With gratitude for a summer without a 9am office time clock. And last Friday, with gratitude for the black car that rolled up with the window down and a life-force smile. With gratitude for the second cup of coffee from the coffee shop. “Black please, I’ll add the sugar.”

Battles

Last night the lightning woke me up before the thunder. I know it’s supposed to be the other way around. But that’s what happened. A flash of light bouncing off the walls, I could see with my eyes closed. It snowed in Maine this afternoon, and we had 80 degrees and sunburns here just a few days ago. “New England weather,” we’d grumble, but I no longer can lay claim to that title, have laid it down among the sharp swords of battles lost.

Losing battles I’ve walked away from, crawled away from, pulled my bones by their skin far enough away to feel the flames of the battlefield scorch only second degree burns.

Or perhaps battles won. So often the destruction looks the same.

Shattered Glass

I danced, a skin-bag of shattered glass. 

Left weight-shift, right weight-shift, arm raise, big smile, shake shake shake with the bride.

The rest of me somewhere else.

Lying in a bed with a heavy quilt over my head.

Shake shake shake twirl.

Small plans to grieve, promises to myself, to cocoon for as long as, maybe forever.

Right foot left foot find the beat laugh laugh.

The glass shards shift and scrape and clang and gash with the rhythm of my hips.

I am not there. I am watching myself dance from somewhere outside my body. I am making a cup of evening tea in a quiet apartment. I am standing in front of the classroom bearing the weight of this grief. I am typing my dissertation with a pile of tissues in my trash. I am collapsing into my bed in sobs on early February nights. 

Keep going just move my feet shake shake shake spin spin twirl laugh. I keep going.

I danced, a skin-bag of shattered glass.

Kickboxing & Birth

I go to free kickboxing classes in Harlem and joined the BedStuy YMCA. I haven't seriously worked out... ever. I listen to pop music, angry pop music, exclusively. On Spotify -- I can't even fathom diving into my semi-indie iTunes account. Katy Pery, Ciara, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Destiny's Child -- hard punches, one-two, jab jab jab cross. I care only about protein in my smoothies now, could care less about greens. Strength. Go to bed hours earlier than I ever have to make up for the five am wake-up-can't-fall-back-to-sleep roughest hours of the day. Feel a sense of relief to slide into a desk in an office where nobody knows (terrible and wonderful), same desk, same office, same great people, for the third summer in a row. Part-time because I thought another summer in an office would kill me. Now I'm the first one here each morning, almost every morning, despite my part-time status, breakfast in hand. I eat breakfast now.

"Push" came the text message instruction, in response to my mid-meltdown-trying-to-breathe-through-it-please-help plea.

"Am I in labor?"

"You are birthing a new you."

I am, I am.

American Pharoah

American Pharoah won the triple crown. I cried for blue green grass I thought I’d see with your palm against mine. For the first gust of air through the open window as we pass over the state line and your face turned out against the country side, summer air, fall, winter, spring air, year after year. The mile markers and radio stations I’d memorize. Your fingers intertwined in mine, stolen kisses at stoplights after miles and miles and years and years, still. 

I can’t imagine fall without you. After a hot, sweaty summer, with office air conditioners, us curled into each other under my fan, an almost-ocean breeze coming through your bedroom window, walking in the wet sand where the beach meets the ocean each morning, condensation dripping off our ice coffees as we walk by block parties in my neighborhood, even after losing every moment of this summer, I cannot imagine fall without you. The flicker of the television screen against the dim light of the basement, me propped up against you, your hand in my lap, each play rundown, each touchdown, every word I write on my dissertation, chili cooking in the crockpot upstairs. The train rides into the city together, afternoon coffee between meetings, falling into your arms on a dark Brooklyn corner after teaching — you waited, the train ride home together, hand in hand. Friday night high school football games with hot chocolate. Saturday night city lights with whiskey and wine. After the loss of this summer comes the loss of this fall the loss of this winter the loss of next spring, next summer, next fall, winter, spring, summer… 

Promotions, birthdays, high school graduations, and college graduations — a cupcake, a cake, streamers, balloons, cheers, and hugs, celebrations of accomplishments and love, always love. Hospital visits, emergency midnight drives south, nursing home arrangements, first broken hearts, make it better, make it stop, we will, we will, we will together, side by side. 

My toes cracking each morning, the always misplaced sunglasses, the constant reminder to go to bed, the too much coffee and always dwindling sugar supply, half-eaten meals, the messy hair and two attempts to get my clothing on the right way, the terrible navigation assistance, the need to get everywhere too early, the back-up plan for the back-up plan, yours, the tiniest parts of me, without grandiose declarations, yours, always yours. 

American Pharoah won the triple crown and I cried.

On Repeat

It’s Katy Pery’s Roar blaring through my headphones, on repeat, over and over again. Walking through Grand Central one day later, feeling like I just walked into my best friends’ arms. My home. My city. This part has not been taken from me. Will not be taken from me. A power that comes from walking across the same floor for the past twenty five years and all that’s happened and I’m still here. I’m still here. I live here. This city is mine. A beaming smile and rush of endorphins, I could run a marathon, I just ran a marathon.

It’s fleeting, but it’s enough to know that I will survive this. With power and strength.

It’s the text she sent me on the way to the bachelorette party, “Tonight you are… Anna! The happy go lucky “25” year old! Anna is still in grad school and recently got back from Spain.” I have to go to the party, life goes on I decided immediately, but it’s nothing short of becoming another person that will get me through the night. The ones who don’t know, who I can’t say a word to, about the beginning or the middle or the end, gush about how wonderful he is, sipping cranberry vodka through penis straws. I escape to the bathroom, “Leave. Now.” she replies. I hesitate, “Anna doesn’t know who he is…” But even Anna can’t keep the fake smile plastered on my face and I leave.

It’s the sob on the Queensborough Plaza subway platform.

It’s the hooded sweatshirt I’ve had since 14, pulled on over my dress, as I slide onto the train seat, curl up against the window, teeth chattering in the air conditioning. I reach for my phone and write him the email. All the words that I couldn’t get out on Friday morning. Angry, hurt words.

It’s Ciara’s Like a Boy.

Second by Second

I call her and cry. Hysterically. She lets me. Tells me to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. “Minute by minute” she says, I tell her it’s too hard, too long. “Second by second” she says, and I breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth between sobs.

“Deep breaths,” he texts me. I think of his terrible breakup over ten years ago, him on the side of the road. “It’s amazing what deep breaths will do.” I trust him.

I breathe in. I breathe out. It’s the only thing I can do right now.

She sits with me while I fall asleep. For a few hours, I don’t have to practice breathing.

“You don’t have to eat today, but you do have to eat tomorrow. Water for today. You have to drink water.”

She handed me the slice of pizza enough times that I took four bites. Half a glass of water to down the tylenol to cure the pounding headache.

It’s five am and the sun looks like it might, miraculously, rise again today. I cannot fathom how.

I tell him I am so scared I will not survive this. He tells me I am the strongest woman he knows. I am layers of shattered pieces. There is no strength left here.

They are literally holding me together. These people who love me. Who love me.

When I write, I do not have to remind myself to breathe.

These are things one should not post on the internet.

And yet.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

I moved to New York City because I knew it could hold my sadness. Vast avenues, tall buildings, longer, taller than my eyes could focus on, space and strength not to feel burdened by my sadness. I moved to NYC to make a home for the person heartbreak had shaped. Too many, so many, so very many, all those years ago, one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, like waves shaping sea glass, it turned me into who I am today. Equal parts heartbreak and love. I will always be equal parts heartbreak and love. There will always be sadness. If other cities could not hold my sadness, I could not expect them to shoulder my grief. And there would be grief. Without grief there is no joy. I moved to New York for joy.

A hundred well-thought out reasons, professional, personal, a goal without a plan, a blog titled “If Ever I Could,” a photo of the city sky line all those years ago, five years ago. And then a plan, a timeline, first and second and third steps, and I was here, in NYC.

This city has held my sadness. Effortlessly, with grace. It handed me joy, effortlessly, with grace. It gifted me love. And I thought, maybe I could.

On a hot summer night in July of 2010, unemployed, a recent and official “failure”, broke, saddled with law school debt, long-term single, living at my mom’s, I watched a CMT special with Keith Urban, who belted out the lyrics to If Ever I Could Love and handed me a tiny, small package of hope. Hope. If Ever I Could…

I moved to NYC. I fell in love. There was a love story and I didn’t write it here because it is hard to write when I am happy. Sweet dreams at night don’t make any sense when paired with words over coffee the next morning. “Forever” whispered under the covers in the morning light sounds hollow when announced to the crowd at the dinner table. In this person, I found what I have not found in another person and I wanted to keep him forever. He said the same.

Past tense. Only hours later, already past tense.

With joy comes grief. This city won’t explode against the weight of my grief. The weight of my heartbreak. Vast avenues and tall buildings, they won’t shatter, even as I am shattering, even as they are picking up my pieces and storing them away for me.

“If Ever I Could” — there is some small, tiny package of hope in there. I’m not sure what it looks like or what it contains, or if I have the strength to look for it, but it’s comforting to know it’s still in there.

This is now the story of a heartbreak. The kind without the love story attached.

Begin Again

Begin again.

Always, begin again. Slowly, quietly, with hope.

The past twelve months, how many? Count them and name them one by one: January, February, March... More months than I have fingers, fewer memories than I have fingers. Let that sit.

"I know you're too busy for me..." It's a tease, but I text back quickly, "I'm bad at priorities!"

Last year's priorities: Sleeping. Dating, the dinner and a movie kind. Work. Finances (hahaha! but true.) Family. Not in that order. Maybe sometimes in that order.

Some shoulds and some YESES but mostly moving through the motions, the past twelve months.

Begin again.

Words in marker, written on white paper, taped to my wall.

Intentions. Hopes. Truths.

My best promises to myself usually involve less sleep and more caffeine. An irrational disregard for risk. Playlists on repeat and lists on the wall in marker. The hard, the messy, the impossible.

The years I remember best, I write the most. The best years I write the most, even in the worst years, which end up the best years.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." (Zora Neale Hurston) For the first time in over ten years, I have no idea whether the past year asked questions or gave answers. I haven't even thought about it. I hardly remember it.

Begin again.

October Rolls In

October rolls in and my lips chap every third hour, the patches of skin below my elbows grow rough. I throw split ends into a low braid, warmth for my neck, knots from my coat collar. My Brooklyn apartment suddenly feels too big, a vast wide open space, the couch not enough to fill it. I forget to worry about shoebox bedrooms and kitchens comprised of no more than a short row of cabinets. I forget, sometimes, that this is New York City, this is Brooklyn, this is how I learned to breathe in and out. "Do you ever just run across the floor in your socks? Slip and slide, you must do that all the time here." I forget I am the silliest.

October rolls in and the night arrives sooner. I don't finish my cupcake, the icing too sweet, and I bite my tongue. When will I learn how to exhale? I knew once. "You are a pattern," they say, all of them, but I don't even recognize myself. Some days I climb the stairs, pressing hard into my heels, and feel the strength in my legs. Muscles built by this city, I built these muscles, they carry me, and some days I think I need nothing else. Exhale.

October rolls in but I think it's spring. A change of seasons. An ending, the summersault, head over feet of the school year concluding and the brand new buds blossoming. I am waiting to lose something, someone again. A chilled park bench conversation, sweat dripping down my back on the subway platform, a song on repeat, over and over and over again. Octobers give, a harvest, a bounty, a cornucopia, I am not ready to receive. November will come, brown leaves, bare branches, dried weeds along the ocean banks. I wonder what will burn. Red embers and gray ashes.

Dark night windows and tall ceilings, everything echoes, my quiet, stockinged steps. I spin and spin and spin and lay myself out across the hard wood floor. "Fall in love whenever you can," we called it Practical Magic Crying because I was unconsolable. I've always mixed hopeful with hopeless, sweet and sour margaritas, dizzy. I am asking for magic. To circle time and tie its ends together, to bend the earth like it's a map, I step forward, I step backward, I roll over and we are together, to put the world into a snow globe at midnight, to stand at the edge of a lake deep enough to hold our dreams and drown our fears, to feel strong and soft, young and wise, to find heartbeats in the darkness. October rolls in and I ask for magic.