Mud Season Months Early

Stuck. Somewhere between day and night and in the center of those three notes colliding. The crash of rhythm and melody. I'm between hope and fear with belief clashing and thrashing and screeching for attention, for definition, for my hand. I'm standing in the middle of honesty, cleansed by its current but stripped down, to the center of everything and nothing, which always seem to be the same. Always the same. Loud and quiet, completely still. Anything but peaceful. Rolling over to emptiness, but sometimes I fill the space, the time, the moments, alone. A crescendo, waves rushing forward. Perfect circles. These seams can't contain that which I push against, wishing for the strength to shove and pound my fists, but honesty crumbles me and moves me. Back to where I began.

[if i knew how to install music to a single blog post, i'd post this song at the top.]

Constructed Lives

We pass over the East River on a bridge different than MetroNorth's.  Roll through Brooklyn in the fog.  The buildings peak but the gray swallows the skyline.  The same gray as my suit.  I convince myself that I have not disappeared and wonder why this internal conversation sounds familiar.  When else did I have to convince myself that I have not yet disappeared?  What was I doing then?

As we pull into Penn Station I'm stringing words together but sitting on my hands.  Afraid I will write myself out of my life.  A constructed life, I remind myself.  It waxes and wanes, but you're okay, I coax myself.  My hands still pressed against the fake leather seat.  Willing myself not to get off the train and run into the warm New York rain.  Feel it rush down my face.  Scrunch my nose at the smell of wet sidewalks and the stench of misplaced garbage. I turn up my ipod, take a deep breath, and text a friend - my fingers need something to do.  Dismiss the thought that this must be what a quit smoker feels like after kicking the addiction.  Dismiss the thought that NYC has become an unhealthy addiction.  Call it back because maybe that will keep me in my seat.

A woman with fast blackberry fingers sits down next to me.  I grab my coffee as we lurch out of Penn Station.  Try to figure out if I started holding my breath before or after we left the station.  Scramble for my pen and paper.  Declare myself in bold ink A WRITER to the pages of my moleskin. "Once In A Lifetime" crawls into my headphones, and I can't help but wonder what this moment means for my life.  We cross what I assume to be the mouth of the Hudson, and suddenly this train ride can't be long enough.

"You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here? [...]

You may ask yourself
Am I right?... Am I wrong?  [...]

You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?" 

[Once In A Lifetime, Talking Heads]

When Music Heals

I left this past year in a puddle of sweat and tears on the concrete floor.  I made sure not to step in it on my way out.  I texted Nicole as we walked back to the car: "That was AMAZING.  I think i birthed myself into a new person. Holy fuck wow." 

Guitar strings poured noted waterfalls over the crowd.  Our hands up, up, palms open, letting the notes wash over us.  The saxophone sang.  The drum echoed my heart - with beat, beat, beat, beat- I am alive.  I am alive.  Lyrical perfection, my story, our story goes unnoticed; the worn map directing this music.  This jam.  This experience.

The sweat rolled, dripped, streamed, soaked.  Both my hands in the air moving opposite my shoulders, hips, sway, sway, swoosh, and feet tap, tap, swivel, tap, swivel, swivel.  Eyes closed, because this is mine.  This moment is mine, alone in a crowd of thousands, and I can't see past the glowing red LIFE alive and vibrant under my eyelids.  I'm watching pain, fear, disappointment slide down my body next to the beads of sweat sliding, sliding, pooling, pooling at my feet.  Cool blues and greens falling way to gravity.  Lightness rising, filling, exhale and inhale.  I might be that yellow balloon floating, floating, floating away.  I've left it all on the ground there beside my feet.  Now a transparent, gray, grime, puddle.

I didn't give it a second look when I stepped over it to walk out of the venue.  I knew it held every. single. difficult. moment. of the past year.  I have memorized the intersection of my bedroom wall and ceiling, shadowed in the one a.m. light of insomnia.  I know the feeling of the hard wood floor after sitting on it for hours, just looking at each other.  Puffy, swollen cheeks that come after things fall apart without a promise of falling together even better.  I didn't need to see any of it again to know I would still remember it.  Honor it.  So I left it there.  I left this past year in a puddle of sweat and tears on the concrete floor.  I walked away lighter.  I walked away a new person.  And I haven't looked back since.

LISTEN HERE

Maybe He's Right

He says that I'm looking for somebody to devour me.  Maybe he's right.  I'm looking for somebody to look at me the way you do.  From a distance.  Across the room, the table, the empty space between us that feels like miles. Even when it's not. Because you've found my eyes.  Holding them.  Like that.  Only, I'm not that cliche 'swimming in your eyes', because that requires movement.  Bodily functions that I can't manage, because I'm held. Still. Locked.  Eye to eye.  With you.  Drowning, in the unromantic way.  Shallow breathing, a scream that can't escape.  The room also becomes still.  I'm reminding myself to breath in and out, but my lungs have stopped expanding.  Unable to look away.  Until I do.  Scared to look your way again.  Until I can't think of anything else, my muscles weak and tight, and I want to laugh because I feel 'weak in the knees', but my muscles are too tight for that type of release.  I gasp for breath but the loud room stifles any noise that would have escaped my half-open mouth.  So it turns out to be not a gasp at all.  But a smile.

The room spins carelessly now, and I can't find a soul who noticed the pause in time.  Chaos until I'm drawn to you.  Again.  I'm trying to weigh consequences, but the syllables of the word trip me up, and I'm looking in your direction.  Again.  Scared to find your eyes.  Scared to feel the room stop moving again.  Scared that all the fingers, of all the people, will point at me.  For stopping time.  For interrupting their dance step and the band's high note.  Scared that your eyes will no longer be there.

You're moving in my direction. It's hardly fast enough.  But too fast all at once, my stomach back-flipping, and my fingers tingling.  I want to run; it should be away from you, but I'm certain that if I moved a muscle it would be in your direction, so the best thing I can do is stand still.  While the room blurs and you come into focus.  Your hand on the dip above my hip.  Gently, firmly.  Steady.  Your mouth on mine. 

He says I'm looking for somebody to devour me.  Maybe he's right.

Hallelujah

The tears came somewhere in the middle of Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah when the snow-capped peaks came out of the sky to stand in front of us.  Majestic power and strength all mighty.  THIS LIFE summoned; it gripped my chest and captured by breath until I gasped sweet release on the exhale.  Tears percolated and brimmed in the same instant.  Gently held pools of holy water reflecting revelation that I cannot harm this life.  Majestic mountains will stand for eternity; I am irrelevant in the shadow of their jagged peaks.  And this is my release, my permission to exhale.  “Love is not a victory march; it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

February

This always happens in February. September's hope rots into November frustration that I pick up off the floor in February and cradle with murmured lullabies. When the days grow noticeably longer, after I have "the best single valentine's day ever" (which always happens in the most difficult years), I start to love the cracks that let the light in.

I always surrender in February. By now, I have the placement of the brick walls I keep crashing into memorized. I stop trying to run through them. Instead I run my fingers across them, gently, slowly, noticing their small grooves, sharp pieces, smooth indentations. When I'm not throwing my weight against them, trying to push through them, climb over them, move them - so exhausting and defeating - I notice their intricacies and strength. I look around at how they have created my place, and I lay down in their protection. I collapse under their watch.

N's at the grocery store picking up children's cough medicine; her four year old charge sits on the couch, giggling, coughing, squirming, in front of Tom and Jerry. I respond to a work email from the kitchen counter in my pajamas sipping cold coffee and aimlessly wonder if we'll get snow. I'm not in class often enough to care about a snow day, my office consists solely of my laptop, I have to check the right hand corner of the screen to identify which day of the week it is. It's a futile curiosity and a futile identification - everything has been so different these past few months, I'm not certain where to lay my concerns. So I spatter them out and watch them evaporate.

I count the minutes that pass and take note of what fills them. Stuffed with vacancy or the core of what matters - when all is stripped away, I live the moments in extremes. Notice how little Tom and Jerry speak and remember how selfless and gratifying it is to love a four year old. But I hardly know this four year old. These days I can't carry the heavier things, so they effortlessly sustain me, while I watch vacant thoughts come and go. They're visitors in my home, walking through the front door, entertaining me for a moment and passing through the back door. Not noticing that I am on the ground with my hands admiring the wall. It is February after all.

Goosebumps

[9/4/07]

Goosebumps tickle,
a hollow stomach cavern forms,
from resistance to shivers,
traveling up and down and out,
head to toe.

Air conditioned dark space wide open almost empty,
and too cold for late August.
Thunder claps outside, and he sees a flash,
but rest assured, it's not lightning.
I am - lightening.

My heaviness evaporates and rises;
I would follow it up,
into the bright lights,
but shivers hold me to the floor.

Rock to the guitar's rhyme,
three melodic voices,
and an out of place "shaker."
From Cuba?
Cold shivers and music's tingle combine,
inseparable.

An arm around my shoulders -
warmth to the left, warmth to the right.
Familiar friends -
it has been too long,
a new tune in an old soothing voice,
highlights of new sweetness,
sugary touches of chorus.

The old and the new,
sweet combination of warmth and chill.
Lightning outside.
Lightning inside.

Red

Red fires blaze through dreams each night. Dancing flames spreading, contained. Smoldering embers glowing. I watch without fear as flames take center stage, enveloping my nights and perplexing dawns with meaning unknown.

Red walls of a teen's room, lined with records and charcoal artwork, flicker on-screen during our Tuesday mornings with the DVR play button. Red lining of our black coffee mugs match the on-screen walls, passion, blood, fireworks, love and lust. Centered Tuesday mornings in the arms of red.

Red background peeks out from behind my inbox until I lower the screen... corner to corner crimson appears with painted black streaks, notes, lyrics spattered in the crimson galaxy, random and aligned. Notes, lyrics, rhythms, beats umbrella the room from the deep red ipod reflecting my crimson desktop, and on certain evenings playing the same black painted notes across the crimson spread. Steadied, steadied, steadied by red, red, red.

We're Still Our William Smith Life

I still read Cisneros with a pen. Contemplate starting a paper at 11pm with a fresh cup of coffee. Try to catch the moon beams reflecting off the water with my lens. She'll tell me "We don't have to make sense," and I'll sit in her passenger seat listening to that song. Time as only a suggestion and convention only a passing thought.

I still search for the right words and bright colors that soothe. Eat ice cream for dinner. Think of life in terms of circles, journeys and stories. She's still the person I call at 2am while the world sleeps and we never do. Sleep as only a hassle - altering perceptions and dreams - and nights as an extension of life rather than a mimic of death.

I still tape up lists made on white paper with colored magic markers. Write to understand what I know. Crawl into an open lap. She and I escape and return together, flee and face it together. Life as an experience and the passing moments only as opportunities to feel alive.

Untitled

I can't breath. The reflection in the mirror, the eyes staring back at me that usually keep me steady, steady, steady... are held open in panic. I recognize the face, but vacancies stand where softness once called home.

She's in the doorway, evaluating my red-rimmed eyes. She could have moved away, carrying her own stage of grief. But she asked me if I was okay. I had to say yes. I had to breath to speak and breathing equated with okay. So I was okay. Breathing. In and out. Even when it felt like I couldn't. Despite my vacant, red-rimmed eyes. She told me it was okay to cry. I felt the tears slide down, fast and with momentum. Built up sorrow. She told me she would be upstairs if I needed her.

I didn't dry my hair before I crawled onto her bed. Examined the re-arranged furniture and her personal stages of spite and sorrow and healing. I felt safe. With her. My vacant stare now fixed on the television with the softness returning and my rib cage rising and falling.

Realities

Sticky, sweaty, elbows jab. Strangers lean against each other, and the crowd sways in required unison. You're up there, on stage, and I'm down below. Trying to close my eyes, feel the beat, move alone, experience alone. Down here below your seldom gaze. Bodies packed tightly, the crowd steals my shut-eye-balance. So I look down at my feet, laugh at my worn attempt at polished nails, and promptly get dizzy, disoriented. Toes, heels, rocking, springing up, inching forward, tapping to the beat I'm searching for. A failed attempt, I look up. Face up the band, to you, with a strained neck, petite has not served me well this evening. Giving up on solitude, I join the masses watching your fingers hit note, after note, after note...

The crowd roars. Sometimes in waves, sometimes steadily. A constant reminder that I'm not alone here, even when lost in thought. And I am, lost in thought. What could be your reality - years of screaming, waving fans? Stampeding affirmation of crowds and wanderlust love thrust upon you - regularly? Yet, perhaps you love toast or despise olives? Crinkle your nose at sour milk? Common and everyday. Death and love, they must feel the same to you and I. As same as to you and he and to he and I, to us all. Most things must feel the same; a paper cut doesn't hurt less in front of a screaming crowd or from within the masses.

And then I have myself thinking, that I should ask you these things over coffee. I'd like to listen to your thoughts on realities and love and death and toast. Are you older than I? I could ask you so many things, and I, too, could tell you stories... And I have myself thinking that it's too late for caffeine; I'll have to have decaf. And I look up smiling. To you up there. And I realize I'm still down here. Is that it? Our realities?

Cappuccino Brownie

Today is the type of day where I had to have my delicious, rich, heavenly, cappuccino brownie before dinner. I intended to have only a bite, just to take the edge off - my edge, not the brownie - and accidentally ate the entire thing. oops. Oh, but it was so heavenly, so relaxing, yet euphoric. Of course, now I am sitting with a Whole Foods take-out-box of shepard's pie in my lap less than halfway finished. I knew this would be the consequence when I took that second and third bite of the savory, sweet, chocolate love (otherwise known as a Whole Foods cappuccino brownie), but by the time the fork met my lips for the fourth and fifth time, I was a goner. There was just no turning back. It was worth it. For about thirteen blissful bites, I forgot entirely that I have a midterm, a paper, a presentation, and so many other things due in less than 48 hrs, and I melted away with the espresso chocolate in my mouth. Mmmmm... if I could only go back to those thirteen bites....

Later, I will be finishing the shepard's pie (so no worries those of you who are concerned that I consume too much sugar and not enough protein), drinking coffee and snacking on edamame. Who knows, maybe I will come back here raving about my late night snack, but I'm pretty sure that not even the coffee will meet the bliss of that cappuccino brownie...

Afternoon Sun

I love afternoon sun streaming through the window, even on single-digit afternoons. Falling over my shoulders and spilling onto the desk top, it comforts and warms. From this tower window, the snow and ice sparkle, forming an enchanted kingdom below. Inside, the retro yellow bookshelves reflect the light and warm the space more than the humming heater beside me. The sun soothes and dissolves caffeinated anxiety. Years at this carrel, I have come to treasure the warm blanket of the afternoon sun.

Thursday Night Drives

dark streets with blinking traffic lights, billy bush's hollywood over the radio, always the perfect companion to my thoughts on my thursday night drive across town. meredith grey's closing statement hanging in the air as i try to fit, compartmentalize, box in, failures and successes in life, love, and learning. vermont memories and l.a. moments collide. so many years later, and they still creep into my thursday night thoughts, along will billy bush's voice and a pop tune not heard in years. on thursday nights the thoughts sprawl out on the dark pavement and dark night in front of me, finally free from the restraints of casebooks, to-do lists, and daily routines. ten minutes, across town, are all i have to watch them in an orchestrated ballet, each move intentional and precise, but with a meaning i can't quite make out yet

New Year of Last Year

Champagne glass full of bubbles from last week's new year, a pair of orange tinted nerf glasses, a boa from halloween... I bounce around the kitchen while she perfectly places the lasagna strips over smears of ricotta cheese. Slippery socks on the smooth kitchen floor, the champagne ignites a twist and a twirl and a dip and drop, bounce, bounce, twist, twirl, twirl. Guitar picks aimlessly at the strum string as I tip the champagne to my mouth. A moment of silence, held, held, held, until a unified explosion of guitar cords, beat, pop, rock, lyrics emerge from the basement. My bounce, twist, twirl, dip now have a beat, a rhythm, a pattern and a head full of champagne bubbles. Lasagna baking the oven, music below my feet, the new year starts on an upbeat with an orange tint and a feathered boa.

January 15th, and I can't wait to see how 2009 finally begins...