We promised we would go to the mstrkrft concert. He purchased our tickets, and honestly, we wanted to go. That first night out in D.C. required something, anything, different from our sweatpants Friday, Saturday nights of the weeks prior. My train pulled into the station three, four hours late. Her flight landed five, six hours late. Broken trains, skin rashes, thunderstorms, and standing room only, we collapsed into our dorm-room apartment with only enough time for Thai food and a quick get-away to the concert. Black lighting, techno beating, bright lights flashing, we had finally arrived in our summer city. Exhilarated until yawns, heavy eyes arrived. A projected three a.m. appearance of the main act sent us in a cab back to our dorm-room apartment before mstrkrft even arrived at the venue...
Our delayed arrivals eliminated the time for our planned Target run. Carefully packed suitcases full of t-shirts, shorts, suits, shoes, didn't allow room for blankets, sheets, pillows, towels. Our beds stood bare in our rooms. Dorm-room mattresses on dorm-room frames under dorm-room lights. Without sheets, pillows, blankets... We stood for a minute, evaluating the situation, chilled by the airconditioned air. And then we did the only thing logical in a situation like that. We unpacked our suitcases, made pillows with t-shirts, and blankets with our suit jackets. We slept under our clothes that first night. Exhausted from a day of traveling, a night of techno beats, and a year of struggles, we couldn't be more pleased with our arrival in our summer city, and nothing felt more right than that first night asleep under our clothes.
November 30, 2009
November 29, 2009
Thankful
I sat on the hard, wooden chair in an almost empty Starbucks, gulping down a pumpkin spice latte, eyeing the comfy chair in the corner, reviewing fiduciary duties, and trying to determine what I actually needed to know of Sarbanes-Oxley. The late hour would deter most people from caffeine, but the looming night-before-thanksgiving-drive brought a crowd to the drive-up window. As the evening wore on, I moved to the comfy chair in the corner, now vacated by the college students in sweatpants and uggs, telling stories of "wild" nights and name dropping types of alcohol. I had moved on to corporate take-over prevention strategies when the manager walked over and asked if I wanted the heat turned up. I politely said no, that I was fine, and he nicely ignored my polite response and turned the heat up. Two years ago, I was thankful for the kindness in the offer to turn up the heat.
Brooke and Andre hosted thanksgiving that year for those of us that were too far away and too swamped with work to travel home. Curry pumpkin soup, moist turkey, and all the trimmings covered the table. I devoured the home-cooked meal, curled up on the futon with a man who prefers men, and fell asleep before the blueberry pie. After dessert, dishes, and a second nap, Brooke sent me home with many hugs and left-overs. Two year ago, I was thankful for the love and care of close friends.
This year, I am thankful for thanksgivings at home with our families.
Brooke and Andre hosted thanksgiving that year for those of us that were too far away and too swamped with work to travel home. Curry pumpkin soup, moist turkey, and all the trimmings covered the table. I devoured the home-cooked meal, curled up on the futon with a man who prefers men, and fell asleep before the blueberry pie. After dessert, dishes, and a second nap, Brooke sent me home with many hugs and left-overs. Two year ago, I was thankful for the love and care of close friends.
This year, I am thankful for thanksgivings at home with our families.
November 21, 2009
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.
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.
November 16, 2009
Other Plans
I make plans. I list. I organize goals, priorities, action-steps. I always have a five week plan, five month plan, five year plan... ten year plan. I calculate course credits, finances, time. And then I dream... in the recent years it is in the form of craigslist.org apartments, realtor.com properties, google maps of cities, potential weekend activities and evening events. My ten year dreams usually include furniture, travel, financial investments, clothing...
At fifteen, my ten year plan included an office with bookshelves from floor to ceiling and a desk with student midterm papers dispersed among my own research.
At twenty, my five year plan included a gorgeous condo in southern CT and an office with views in Manhattan. A publishing hot-shot, I intended to split my time between the states and London.
At twenty five, I spent most of my time in sweatshirts carrying heavy books, drinking too much coffee, cherishing the time spent with friends, and proudly walking across a stage, diploma in hand.
Sometimes my plans unfold as orchestrated. Often my plans meander and morph as new opportunities emerge. Occasionally I run face first into brick wall. Ouch. Although the brick wall collisions don't occur frequently, I have hit them enough to know that I'll eventually get my breath back. So, I still run full force ahead with plans, knowing that the fork in the path and the brick wall emerge eventually.
In the past year, craigslist and realtor searches have spanned multiple cities, and calculations have accommodated many altered finances and time frames. Five week and five month plans remain in tact, but the one year plans change and fade... The one year plan fades, and the ten year plan becomes abstractly more vivid - a comforting occurrence. The forks in the road, the detours in life, the brick walls - they may change geographical locations, budget restrictions, and short-term time frames, but they do not change goals, priorities, or dreams.
I plan. When life directs me, I readily alter my course, but I plan again. I will always be a planner. My dad constantly tells me, "Emmy, life is what happens while you're making other plans." And I'm okay with that.
At fifteen, my ten year plan included an office with bookshelves from floor to ceiling and a desk with student midterm papers dispersed among my own research.
At twenty, my five year plan included a gorgeous condo in southern CT and an office with views in Manhattan. A publishing hot-shot, I intended to split my time between the states and London.
At twenty five, I spent most of my time in sweatshirts carrying heavy books, drinking too much coffee, cherishing the time spent with friends, and proudly walking across a stage, diploma in hand.
Sometimes my plans unfold as orchestrated. Often my plans meander and morph as new opportunities emerge. Occasionally I run face first into brick wall. Ouch. Although the brick wall collisions don't occur frequently, I have hit them enough to know that I'll eventually get my breath back. So, I still run full force ahead with plans, knowing that the fork in the path and the brick wall emerge eventually.
In the past year, craigslist and realtor searches have spanned multiple cities, and calculations have accommodated many altered finances and time frames. Five week and five month plans remain in tact, but the one year plans change and fade... The one year plan fades, and the ten year plan becomes abstractly more vivid - a comforting occurrence. The forks in the road, the detours in life, the brick walls - they may change geographical locations, budget restrictions, and short-term time frames, but they do not change goals, priorities, or dreams.
I plan. When life directs me, I readily alter my course, but I plan again. I will always be a planner. My dad constantly tells me, "Emmy, life is what happens while you're making other plans." And I'm okay with that.
November 14, 2009
State House
[originally written 2008]
2-12-08
Warm, yellow, light wraps its arms around me. Almost gently whispering, encouraging, a distant dream that I crawl towards on scraped hands and knees. Warm, yellow, light raises me to my feet, an arm around my shoulders, it provides support, absorbs my chills and uncertainty. It bounces off the marble floors, as if it pours straight down from the high rise dome. Softly encouraging a path not clearly marked, pointing out how far I have come already. In the warmth and embrace of its arms, I can set aside the doubt and appreciate the grace of this house, the pages bound in maroon, the decades of framed photographs, and picture the rocking chairs on the balcony. Surely wide-eyed, and infatuated with the architecture, the people, the issues, even the coffee in the Styrofoam cup he hands me. Reluctant to depart, but encouraged and uplifted. A loosely connected goal dancing in the distant future. For a moment, I could almost reach out to it, in the warmth of the yellow light.
4-9-08
I find the steps myself this time. The clank of my heels almost familiar, but the Appropriations sign hangs above my head, and I have to spiral up one more flight. A sea of faces, I scan for familiar ones, but I find none, so I take a seat in between. In between the House and the Senate.
This time I don't notice the light of the third floor, until we travel down a floor or two, stopping in the doorway of a darker hallway. A familiar face, and it takes me a little while to place why. A familiar con law issue, and it takes me a minute to remember why. A familiar admin term, and I know why. We pass through the doorway. Upstairs, I now have a friendly face to sit with, a reassurance that I understand more than I think I do, and a place in a conversation about a Bill I had never heard of. Sitting between two attorneys, I am not an attorney. Do I want to sit here as an attorney?
When they depart, I am left to watch my own thoughts run a treadmill race. Division into legislators and onlookers. I am somewhere in between. Lost in a sea of their pilot language, I try to translate with involuntarily squinted eyes. I know the importance of understanding the language, understanding the process, even if I never plan to stand in their place. I do not want to stand where they stand. Do I want to stand beside them - not on the floor, but in theory – helping to shape the conversation?
We leave for lunch, and I willingly sink into the familiar, concaved, red couch and look around. A coffee machine that that leaks water, books filled with rainbow highlights, and a hanger that probably once had a home in the car. Familiarity became an understatement as soon as we passed through the doorway. I wait for a comment about the lack of protein in my lunch, but he lets it pass. We let our conversation wander. To others it may seem like our own pilot language, but this one comes naturally for me, no need to translate. With two people it seems impossible to sit in between, but even when an additional friendly face arrives, I'm not worried about the in between.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure where I belong, but not I'm entirely lost either. At least I can find my way to the stairs.
2-12-08
Warm, yellow, light wraps its arms around me. Almost gently whispering, encouraging, a distant dream that I crawl towards on scraped hands and knees. Warm, yellow, light raises me to my feet, an arm around my shoulders, it provides support, absorbs my chills and uncertainty. It bounces off the marble floors, as if it pours straight down from the high rise dome. Softly encouraging a path not clearly marked, pointing out how far I have come already. In the warmth and embrace of its arms, I can set aside the doubt and appreciate the grace of this house, the pages bound in maroon, the decades of framed photographs, and picture the rocking chairs on the balcony. Surely wide-eyed, and infatuated with the architecture, the people, the issues, even the coffee in the Styrofoam cup he hands me. Reluctant to depart, but encouraged and uplifted. A loosely connected goal dancing in the distant future. For a moment, I could almost reach out to it, in the warmth of the yellow light.
4-9-08
I find the steps myself this time. The clank of my heels almost familiar, but the Appropriations sign hangs above my head, and I have to spiral up one more flight. A sea of faces, I scan for familiar ones, but I find none, so I take a seat in between. In between the House and the Senate.
This time I don't notice the light of the third floor, until we travel down a floor or two, stopping in the doorway of a darker hallway. A familiar face, and it takes me a little while to place why. A familiar con law issue, and it takes me a minute to remember why. A familiar admin term, and I know why. We pass through the doorway. Upstairs, I now have a friendly face to sit with, a reassurance that I understand more than I think I do, and a place in a conversation about a Bill I had never heard of. Sitting between two attorneys, I am not an attorney. Do I want to sit here as an attorney?
When they depart, I am left to watch my own thoughts run a treadmill race. Division into legislators and onlookers. I am somewhere in between. Lost in a sea of their pilot language, I try to translate with involuntarily squinted eyes. I know the importance of understanding the language, understanding the process, even if I never plan to stand in their place. I do not want to stand where they stand. Do I want to stand beside them - not on the floor, but in theory – helping to shape the conversation?
We leave for lunch, and I willingly sink into the familiar, concaved, red couch and look around. A coffee machine that that leaks water, books filled with rainbow highlights, and a hanger that probably once had a home in the car. Familiarity became an understatement as soon as we passed through the doorway. I wait for a comment about the lack of protein in my lunch, but he lets it pass. We let our conversation wander. To others it may seem like our own pilot language, but this one comes naturally for me, no need to translate. With two people it seems impossible to sit in between, but even when an additional friendly face arrives, I'm not worried about the in between.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure where I belong, but not I'm entirely lost either. At least I can find my way to the stairs.
November 11, 2009
Suits
In my closet, I have a row of suits. Black, navy, gray. Dark and light. Tailored to show tiny curves, with sleeves that hit below the thumb joint, and pant legs to just above the high heel. Heel height no more than 2 inches, with a slight point for elongation, but not enough to make a fashion statement. Comfortable and confident in a suit, I automatically feel capable and successful.
In my closet, I have a shelf of hooded sweatshirts and beside them a pile of jeans. Pullover, zipper, plain, and letter imprints. Some sizes too large with room enough for another person and sleeves well over the finger tips. Jeans of different washes, many worn in the knees, pockets ready to fray, but always the clothing item of choice. Below them sneakers I never bother to untie or consider replacing with heeled trends. Comfortable and confident in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, I automatically feel lovable and safe.
I have spent weeks in suits. I have spent weeks in jeans and hooded sweatshirts. I have come to love my bipolar wardrobe. This year, the suits emerge once every few weeks, usually for a trip to the Capitol's judicial center. Jeans and hooded sweatshirts emerge on weekends and the occasional weekday, usually for meeting-less days spent researching, or before class due dates. The other days I spend blankly staring into my closet, looking for a business casual wardrobe I do not own yet, wishing I could grab a suit from my right side or hooded sweatshirt from the left. Missing that comfortable confidence.
In my closet, I have a shelf of hooded sweatshirts and beside them a pile of jeans. Pullover, zipper, plain, and letter imprints. Some sizes too large with room enough for another person and sleeves well over the finger tips. Jeans of different washes, many worn in the knees, pockets ready to fray, but always the clothing item of choice. Below them sneakers I never bother to untie or consider replacing with heeled trends. Comfortable and confident in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, I automatically feel lovable and safe.
I have spent weeks in suits. I have spent weeks in jeans and hooded sweatshirts. I have come to love my bipolar wardrobe. This year, the suits emerge once every few weeks, usually for a trip to the Capitol's judicial center. Jeans and hooded sweatshirts emerge on weekends and the occasional weekday, usually for meeting-less days spent researching, or before class due dates. The other days I spend blankly staring into my closet, looking for a business casual wardrobe I do not own yet, wishing I could grab a suit from my right side or hooded sweatshirt from the left. Missing that comfortable confidence.
November 8, 2009
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.
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.
November 4, 2009
These April Days
[originally written 4/09]
Powerpoprock in a hip, bright, warm venue. Ginger ale in hand, surrounded by twentysomethings on the crowded dance floor. "Have you met..." and "Who are you here with?" Sans ring on the left hand, increasingly friendly, small talk over loud music, "Are you from here?" until he abruptly walks away. Apparently, an hour drive from one small city to another overwhelms any possible interest. Merely amused, I laugh out loud, a chuckle carried away on guitar strings and belting lyrics. Friends on stage and another in the audience, I'm not here to meet my mr. right. Or my mr. right now.
*****
Crisp, cool, night air with a promise of spring, and the sound of the crashing waves up against the city walls, even if only in my head, prompt an involuntary smile. I return a phone call as I walk through the well-lit parking garage, and the smile disappears. Break-up despair, I can hear it in his voice immediately. I can only respond with that sinking feeling of knowing any words I utter can never make it better. I listen. I can only listen.
******
A wall of white dresses, dressing rooms built for two, and seating to accommodate an entourage of familial females bound by bloodlines and heart-lines. A bride with a flush and a smile, expectantly overwhelmed, she twirls and scowls. Perhaps finding her perfect dress will not come as easily as finding her perfect man.
******
Mincing garlic without the warning that my fingers would radiate the smell of garlic for days to come, despite numerous washings. I can offer no authority on the progress of the cooking chicken, but I can stir the two cans of diced tomatoes and chop the basil. We are feeding four a balanced meal, a delicious meal, a meal from scratch. A meal without the fear of salmonella.
********
With perfectly pressed seams, this suit makes its first re-appearance since last summer. Tailored to fit my petite portions, it adds years to my youthful appearance. The click-clack of my heels echoes louder than I remember, and a momentary inspection reveals metal poking through the heels. I wore through my heels last summer. This jeans, sweatshirt, sneaker lover wore through her high heels last summer, most likely walking through the halls of Rayburn. Now, walking through the halls of the district court house, clickclack, early for a meeting, clickclack, I run into a classmate. Court administrative week, we are both surprised to see each other. I am swept in and out of a chaotic meeting-type, waiting in the hall for the next time slot, hoping for less chaos, when a friend clickclacks down the hall towards me. Surprised and relieved to see her, she offers a stress alleviating hug, chats for a bit, calls me a champ, and resumes her meeting. Hours later, with unintentional creases now apparent in my suit pants, as I clickclack out of the courthouse, I run into another classmate I have not seen since last semester. Court administrative week - what are we all doing at the court house? Dressed in suits, on official business, I see as many classmates in the courthouse as I do in the round hallways of our school building. A transition out, certainly.
******
Still overwhelmed with assignments, due dates, rainbow highlighters and a pile of books. Early evening turns into late night, early morning comes too soon. A swat at an alarm clock, a sleepy 5:30am phone call to the broken-hearted, and a fast shower pries my exhausted body from sleep into the land of the awake. Or semi-awake. An 8:45am Conflicts of Law class means semi-awake at best. Another day of clickclacking through the courthouse in a suit, means an honest attempt at fully-awake. Fully awake and exhausted.
*****
"This must be for you." He hands me my banana-chocolate milkshake with a smile. I nearly melt with gratitude. Clickclacking out of the colorfully decorated whimsical haven, I know how out of place I look in my conservative navy suit, but I could care less. I am too busy inhaling my perfect chocolate banana milkshake.
****
A 1:30am phone call from the new mother, because she is breast feeding and thought I might be up. I don't have the heart to tell her that I collapsed into bed hours ago, immediately following the chocolate banana milkshake. I mostly listen, incapable of forming a coherent thought, and try to picture my friend from high school now at home with her three week old daughter.
***
Twenty-something: a time period of change and transition. If I had to pick a specific cluster of days to represent my twentysomething life, it would be these April days.
Powerpoprock in a hip, bright, warm venue. Ginger ale in hand, surrounded by twentysomethings on the crowded dance floor. "Have you met..." and "Who are you here with?" Sans ring on the left hand, increasingly friendly, small talk over loud music, "Are you from here?" until he abruptly walks away. Apparently, an hour drive from one small city to another overwhelms any possible interest. Merely amused, I laugh out loud, a chuckle carried away on guitar strings and belting lyrics. Friends on stage and another in the audience, I'm not here to meet my mr. right. Or my mr. right now.
*****
Crisp, cool, night air with a promise of spring, and the sound of the crashing waves up against the city walls, even if only in my head, prompt an involuntary smile. I return a phone call as I walk through the well-lit parking garage, and the smile disappears. Break-up despair, I can hear it in his voice immediately. I can only respond with that sinking feeling of knowing any words I utter can never make it better. I listen. I can only listen.
******
A wall of white dresses, dressing rooms built for two, and seating to accommodate an entourage of familial females bound by bloodlines and heart-lines. A bride with a flush and a smile, expectantly overwhelmed, she twirls and scowls. Perhaps finding her perfect dress will not come as easily as finding her perfect man.
******
Mincing garlic without the warning that my fingers would radiate the smell of garlic for days to come, despite numerous washings. I can offer no authority on the progress of the cooking chicken, but I can stir the two cans of diced tomatoes and chop the basil. We are feeding four a balanced meal, a delicious meal, a meal from scratch. A meal without the fear of salmonella.
********
With perfectly pressed seams, this suit makes its first re-appearance since last summer. Tailored to fit my petite portions, it adds years to my youthful appearance. The click-clack of my heels echoes louder than I remember, and a momentary inspection reveals metal poking through the heels. I wore through my heels last summer. This jeans, sweatshirt, sneaker lover wore through her high heels last summer, most likely walking through the halls of Rayburn. Now, walking through the halls of the district court house, clickclack, early for a meeting, clickclack, I run into a classmate. Court administrative week, we are both surprised to see each other. I am swept in and out of a chaotic meeting-type, waiting in the hall for the next time slot, hoping for less chaos, when a friend clickclacks down the hall towards me. Surprised and relieved to see her, she offers a stress alleviating hug, chats for a bit, calls me a champ, and resumes her meeting. Hours later, with unintentional creases now apparent in my suit pants, as I clickclack out of the courthouse, I run into another classmate I have not seen since last semester. Court administrative week - what are we all doing at the court house? Dressed in suits, on official business, I see as many classmates in the courthouse as I do in the round hallways of our school building. A transition out, certainly.
******
Still overwhelmed with assignments, due dates, rainbow highlighters and a pile of books. Early evening turns into late night, early morning comes too soon. A swat at an alarm clock, a sleepy 5:30am phone call to the broken-hearted, and a fast shower pries my exhausted body from sleep into the land of the awake. Or semi-awake. An 8:45am Conflicts of Law class means semi-awake at best. Another day of clickclacking through the courthouse in a suit, means an honest attempt at fully-awake. Fully awake and exhausted.
*****
"This must be for you." He hands me my banana-chocolate milkshake with a smile. I nearly melt with gratitude. Clickclacking out of the colorfully decorated whimsical haven, I know how out of place I look in my conservative navy suit, but I could care less. I am too busy inhaling my perfect chocolate banana milkshake.
****
A 1:30am phone call from the new mother, because she is breast feeding and thought I might be up. I don't have the heart to tell her that I collapsed into bed hours ago, immediately following the chocolate banana milkshake. I mostly listen, incapable of forming a coherent thought, and try to picture my friend from high school now at home with her three week old daughter.
***
Twenty-something: a time period of change and transition. If I had to pick a specific cluster of days to represent my twentysomething life, it would be these April days.
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