Early morning, bleary-eyed, I find my shoes in the bathtub. That line between quirky and crazy blurs. Until I see the umbrella laying there too and remember the rain soaked soles that squished and puddled with every step. Remember the full rainbow arched against the black sky.
I have never seen that movie - Two Weddings & A Funeral? I can't imagine it can be a comedy. Two funerals and a wedding this past week. While I sat miles away with my feet tucked under my desk. Distraught, even my feet. Miles away. And torn between celebration, sadness, and the everyday.
I found some comfort in thinking of my heart as shattered. This piece enveloped in sadness; this piece grieves; this piece celebrates; this piece sings out their love song. Each simultaneously and whole-heartedly. I'll send you this piece and deliver you this piece and keep this piece - the best way I know how to defy time and place. This shattered heart works best. We are strong where we are broken.
Too young - that thought loops as an involuntary reaction. Both selfless and selfish. She's too young to die; she's too young to lose her mother; I'm too young to get married. I can't imagine. These thoughts float. They hold no weight.
I'm not ready - this one holds steady. It has weight.
When have I ever felt ready for the best or for the worse? They come anyway. Thankgoodness they come anyway. Ready requires thought and process and preparation. We can't prepare for the best or the worst. We can't know the pain or the elation until arrives, each time always for the first time. I'm not ready. The best and the worst arrive anyway.
I did a celebratory dance in my desk chair when I found a footnote citing an elusive source. She caught me mid-jig and we laughed until we cried. We laughed until we cried.
May 30, 2011
May 27, 2011
May 25, 2011
Wanderlust Wednesday: Capetown, South Africa
Where would you like to be this Wednesday?
Photo Credit: The Big Picture
Wanderlust driven by people & culture, too.
May 22, 2011
May Catharsis
I didn't say a lot last May.* I dove in, head first, and came up for air only when I thought my lungs heart would explode. It did. It lit up the sky. Fireworks and seven lives later, I found myself in June. Renditions of love harmonized, last May still drives my every vital sign.
I packed my things in boxes earlier than necessary and fell asleep among cardboard stacks that felt like wide open spaces. Ready. So very ready. He came before the funeral celebration of life and I jumped on the bed of the truck and jumped down. I know well not to pack a box heavier than I can carry, but two sets of arms makes the process faster and the heart lighter. I held her hand as the casket descended but that evening I poured myself a glass of red wine as soon as I flung off the black dress. I joined my roommate and his friend on the couch but never finished my glass. Fell asleep to the sound of the game and woke to lights too bright for 2am. He was asleep on the red chair next to me. The windows wide open.
Mid-afternoon in early May, I drained my cell phone battery holding back a too-soon conclusion - yes, she is it - and waiting for a promised phone call that never arrived. We talked around it and through it and, a year later, our analysis didn't stop what we gained and what we lost. Who he gained and who I lost. Who we lost. All that expands and contracts.
I graduated. In abstentia, technically, although I don't know a pair of eyes that saw the program. I didn't cross the stage but I did pick myself up off the ground when something so insignificant plus the weight of the year (the last four years?) landed me in sobs on my bedroom floor days before finals ended. I didn't need to walk across the stage, I just needed to stand up. Deep breaths and a congratulations.
They have carried me for years, almost a decade. I floated the weekend we spent together. Too many years had passed since we were all together. That weekend everything fell quiet except the sound of our laughter. Lives woven together and spread out. I am. I am. I am. Effortless joy. Unconditional. Involuntary.
That weekend, I fell into belief again. The room spun but he caught me. And set me down to stand on my own.
I celebrated love the next day. I watched the girl I knew at 14 say "I do" again to her husband of two years and then bend down to pick up her beautiful daughter.
We drove nine hours across state lines to pick up our her spring Blossom. Twice a rescue, I still offer the reminder, "We had to leave that very day; everyone wanted you. Remember the lady at the orphanage? She said the phone was ringing off the hook for you... 'If I hear Blossom's name one more time...'" And she gives me puppy kisses that never age.
I returned. To the place I had just left. To a perfect May afternoon and the waves crashing against the coast. And the deep and steady knowledge that this is it. We all cried when he looked up at her coming down the aisle and brushed a tear away. Gorgeous, tender, and strong.
Twenty four hours later, I stepped on a plane exhausted and exhilarated, having fallen somewhere between the hands of time. I spent two weeks in that betwixt and between, furloughed from the past and the future. Liminality without the ritual. Partway through the two weeks, the train rounded a bend and I gasped at the snow-capped peaks standing before us. Majestic mountains will stand for eternity. It hit me quickly: I cannot harm this life. (Not in the ways I was worried about.) And set me free.
I arrived home in June to the ticking of the clock, but I kept with me the beating of my heart and the expansion of my lungs. The expansion of my world. Last May came as the present, and I'm still unwrapping it a year later.
[*Often, my headheart arrive here so much later (days, months, years...) than I, than we, expect.]
May 20, 2011
May 18, 2011
Wanderlust Wednesday: Mijas, Andalusia, Spain
Where would you like to be this Wednesday?
Photo by nino_ary
Wanderlust Wednesdays inspired by The World We Live In
Wanderlust Wednesdays inspired by The World We Live In
May 15, 2011
You're Not Really A Loner...
"You're not really a loner. Sometimes, I think you just play one on TV. You're actually very social."
He's right. He's good like that. He always calls it as he sees it. And after 8+ years, he's seen a lot from me.
We all worry about my personal life.
"In Vermont," he said, "you almost had to be alone." I was often alone when I lived in Vermont. On some December nights, I streamed Delilah on my laptop for company and the version of Silver Bells I knew as a child. I wrote for hours on Sunday evenings. I coasted down the side of mountains on dark roads with only my thoughts. But. The memories that arrive the fastest are the evening gatherings under the rising moon with blueberry pie and the nights grouped around the television placing bets on Survivor. I vividly remember nights falling asleep on her futon to the sounds of Finding Nemo. How many times did I try to stay awake for that movie and fail miserably? So many times. I spent weekdays in our one-room office with people who knew to pause after delivering a joke - it would take me a few seconds to burst out in laughter. I had a place down the hall in his office where I could go when the world stopped making sense. Where I could go at 6:30 am on a Tuesday morning, shaking with shock and still in my pajamas.
"And in Maine you always had someone around." It's true. Our 1L classroom hit capacity at about 20 people fewer than we had in our class. I had an attached-at-the-hip partner-in-crime for most of law school. She cultivated my love of coffee and we worked together through every code book that came our way. We hardly slept but when we did we could still give a quality pep talk mid REM cycle. We kept each other going. I had a best friend who would lay with me and giggle on the hard wood floor and who would show up at my doorstep without my asking on dark nights. A best friend from college who reminded me that I was still, first and foremost, a person rather than a law student. I had roommates that became friends and friends that became roommates. Friends that became family. But I also built walls high and thick in Maine. I learned fortress architecture along with case law. Things-I-Can't-I-Focus-On-Right-Now filled the moat and too much jumped ship before I could spot anything from the third floor of the law library. If I had know, I would have said to hold on. I am coming. These books, these bricks, they block everything.
"I worry that you are isolating yourself in DC. I know there are people in DC you are hesitating to reach out to." Am I? Or am I just playing isolated on TV? Would it be different if I had a ring on my finger? Would time alone mean isolation then? Independent and single doesn't answer anything, though. At certain times of day, I worry too. At least when he phrases it like that. But I do have a personal life. I have spent five of the past seven weekends with people I love. My weekends spill over into the weeks and my phone battery drains. I have trips planned and emails still waiting for a response. My co-workers and I can exchange a glance and burst into laughter and about each other - we know enough, we know so much. I have loose plans with people here I look forward to seeing. I'm hesitant, yes. But I feel silly telling him that I scramble to find time alone, time to take a breath.
Five years from now, when the wedding dresses hang in the back of closets and the diaper genie sells for best offer at the neighborhood tag sale and crayon drawings hang on the refrigerator... it's those days I worry about. Do the moments I love now, hot morning coffee in cafe corners and silent nights writing, the moments I spend alone but not lonely, do they mean I am building thicker walls? Can I blame it first and foremost on this career - and how often I do - when so many from that "ivory" tower have walked the aisle and I'm still standing alone? Did they teach us that a career is a dichotomy of a personal life? Did I learn that lesson wrong or too late? How is it that just now I have to face it, name it, adjust to it? When in the mountains and in the library, I had both and neither but never this worry.
And now. Not enough time for life and love and career, always out of order and all three just out of reach.
He's right. He's good like that. He always calls it as he sees it. And after 8+ years, he's seen a lot from me.
We all worry about my personal life.
"In Vermont," he said, "you almost had to be alone." I was often alone when I lived in Vermont. On some December nights, I streamed Delilah on my laptop for company and the version of Silver Bells I knew as a child. I wrote for hours on Sunday evenings. I coasted down the side of mountains on dark roads with only my thoughts. But. The memories that arrive the fastest are the evening gatherings under the rising moon with blueberry pie and the nights grouped around the television placing bets on Survivor. I vividly remember nights falling asleep on her futon to the sounds of Finding Nemo. How many times did I try to stay awake for that movie and fail miserably? So many times. I spent weekdays in our one-room office with people who knew to pause after delivering a joke - it would take me a few seconds to burst out in laughter. I had a place down the hall in his office where I could go when the world stopped making sense. Where I could go at 6:30 am on a Tuesday morning, shaking with shock and still in my pajamas.
"And in Maine you always had someone around." It's true. Our 1L classroom hit capacity at about 20 people fewer than we had in our class. I had an attached-at-the-hip partner-in-crime for most of law school. She cultivated my love of coffee and we worked together through every code book that came our way. We hardly slept but when we did we could still give a quality pep talk mid REM cycle. We kept each other going. I had a best friend who would lay with me and giggle on the hard wood floor and who would show up at my doorstep without my asking on dark nights. A best friend from college who reminded me that I was still, first and foremost, a person rather than a law student. I had roommates that became friends and friends that became roommates. Friends that became family. But I also built walls high and thick in Maine. I learned fortress architecture along with case law. Things-I-Can't-I-Focus-On-Right-Now filled the moat and too much jumped ship before I could spot anything from the third floor of the law library. If I had know, I would have said to hold on. I am coming. These books, these bricks, they block everything.
"I worry that you are isolating yourself in DC. I know there are people in DC you are hesitating to reach out to." Am I? Or am I just playing isolated on TV? Would it be different if I had a ring on my finger? Would time alone mean isolation then? Independent and single doesn't answer anything, though. At certain times of day, I worry too. At least when he phrases it like that. But I do have a personal life. I have spent five of the past seven weekends with people I love. My weekends spill over into the weeks and my phone battery drains. I have trips planned and emails still waiting for a response. My co-workers and I can exchange a glance and burst into laughter and about each other - we know enough, we know so much. I have loose plans with people here I look forward to seeing. I'm hesitant, yes. But I feel silly telling him that I scramble to find time alone, time to take a breath.
Five years from now, when the wedding dresses hang in the back of closets and the diaper genie sells for best offer at the neighborhood tag sale and crayon drawings hang on the refrigerator... it's those days I worry about. Do the moments I love now, hot morning coffee in cafe corners and silent nights writing, the moments I spend alone but not lonely, do they mean I am building thicker walls? Can I blame it first and foremost on this career - and how often I do - when so many from that "ivory" tower have walked the aisle and I'm still standing alone? Did they teach us that a career is a dichotomy of a personal life? Did I learn that lesson wrong or too late? How is it that just now I have to face it, name it, adjust to it? When in the mountains and in the library, I had both and neither but never this worry.
And now. Not enough time for life and love and career, always out of order and all three just out of reach.
May 11, 2011
Dismantled Suit, Iron-Worn Pants & Buttons Loose, I Am Here
The summer interns arrive in droves. They wear crisp suits, fresh faces, and bright eyes. Razor burn along the jaw line and a forgotten dab of shaving cream behind the ear. Toe nails painted with summer colors and tucked under flipflop straps. We tuck our winter toes under the seats; has the season changed already? Our weathered faces point down or out, practiced at processing the sights their bright eyes soak up.
I had bright-eyes, too. Three summers ago, before and before and before... when I could walk to work each morning under the gaze of the Capitol building and watch summer thunderclouds wrap themselves around her dome in the evening. I wore those crisp suits until they melted my skin and wilted in the summer heat. I learned to stand in the entryway of Senate Office Buildings long enough for the sweat to evaporate and the goosebumps to form before replacing the suit jacket. Three summers ago, when I spent mornings standing in line outside the committee room, afternoons with a press-pass in hand, and evenings on conference calls dissecting proposed amendments.
I've rolled my eyes at politicians. You know this, you've seen me. But I've also stood in a church pew holding back an "amen" at grassroots campaigning and in the back of the state legislative library in our almost his-and-her suits, flipping through volumes of this and that and this... searching for nothing and coming up so close. I've sat on the couch in that office across the hall of flags. And with my legs crossed in the third row of the of the committee room.
Three summers ago, I threw my arms around her in the marble-walled bathroom four doors down from the mark-up. We celebrated the passage and our late-night work sessions outside the third stall until those-who-did-this-for-a-
Three summers ago, before and before and before...
Before I learned that which means nothing to me can rise to mean everything and then settle into nothing again.
I am here again. Miles from the Capitol building, but I am here again. Dismantled suit, iron-worn pants and buttons loose, I am here again. Tired eyes, but I am here again.
All that's glamorous has fallen away.* The marble-faced buildings and the echo of my heels down their never-ending halls, the dark, wood panels of the committee room and spiral staircases, the balcony rocking chairs. The playful smiles and my eye rolls. The I know, I know, I know...
I work through tangled, misguided legislation passed in capitol buildings I've never entered by politicians who's faces I've never known. Slip my feet in and out of flats under my desk and leave them hovering over the green carpet. We adjust the air-conditioning and belly laugh until tears fall from our tired eyes.
I am here again and I am here for the first time and I am here for everything that's not glamorous. I am here for everything that's important.
*With exception, of course. Patience, Emily. Patience.
Wanderlust Wednesday: Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Where would you like to be this Wednesday?
Photo by designldg
Wanderlust Wednesdays inspired by The World We Live In
Wanderlust Wednesdays inspired by The World We Live In
May 10, 2011
Of Course I Said Yes
And by "yes" I mean "Wowowowowow. YES. Wow. YES. Yesyesyesyesyes. THANK YOU. Wow."
She's one of my favorite people ever and her blog is one of my favorite blogs ever. And now a piece of my writing is up on her blog. I am so happy. Check it out here, and if you're arriving from Alivia's blog,
Hello! Welcome!
Hello! Welcome!
I'd love to get to know you all, so leave a comment and we can make that happen.
Thanks for visiting!
May 9, 2011
May 8, 2011
In Which I Remember
[What a difference a year makes:]
Monday, May 3, 2010
In Which Adam Lambert Echos My Thoughts
I showered hours earlier and never bothered to comb or dry my hair, so I look like I am channeling Medusa as I pull up into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot and turn off my headlights. Three elderly women sit in the window watching as the windshield wipers settle in, and I can follow their gaze to my out-of-state license plate. I stifle a sigh, grab my bag, step out of my car, and wonder what labels they'll assign me in addition to "from away". They all turn as I walk through the door, but I've had practice in ignoring faces I don't want to see.
I know I'm a spectacle with my chipped black nail polish and mismatched outfit, but I spent the day on the couch reading Alvarez and planning a trip to Switzerland because I'm done with work, homework is dwindling, and finals (for the last time) haven't arrived yet. I have time to hope and dream, lay around with wet hair, and reheat my morning coffee all afternoon. Listen to the rain.
The girl behind the counter is busy in the back room. I don't mind waiting. I wonder what these ladies talked about before I arrived. "Connecticut," a reference to my license plate, rolls off their tongues like a foreign noun. I sigh and then worry that they saw my shoulders heave. I promise myself that I will walk out if I hear them use the term "flatlander". And then I promise myself I will stay regardless; I don't want to upset the girl behind the counter.
Up in the corner, familiar faces flash on the television screen as the debate for governor drones behind the old lady chatter. I almost sigh again but catch myself this time. I'm a stranger and an insider at the same time.
An older man walks through the door and up to the counter. When he sees that he will have to wait, he starts to grumble incoherently and loudly. The girl walks over to the counter flustered, upset, silently apologetic. I try to give her a reassuring smile and a kind order to make up for his loud grumbling and current pacing. Back and forth.
I don't bother to put my hood up and walk out the door into the rain. The ladies watch as I climb into my car. "I'm leaving, I'm leaving," I want to tell them. The radio starts with the car engine now that I've stopped listening to that CD on repeat, and Adam Lambert screeches "What do you want from me?!"
Monday, May 3, 2010
In Which Adam Lambert Echos My Thoughts
I showered hours earlier and never bothered to comb or dry my hair, so I look like I am channeling Medusa as I pull up into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot and turn off my headlights. Three elderly women sit in the window watching as the windshield wipers settle in, and I can follow their gaze to my out-of-state license plate. I stifle a sigh, grab my bag, step out of my car, and wonder what labels they'll assign me in addition to "from away". They all turn as I walk through the door, but I've had practice in ignoring faces I don't want to see.
I know I'm a spectacle with my chipped black nail polish and mismatched outfit, but I spent the day on the couch reading Alvarez and planning a trip to Switzerland because I'm done with work, homework is dwindling, and finals (for the last time) haven't arrived yet. I have time to hope and dream, lay around with wet hair, and reheat my morning coffee all afternoon. Listen to the rain.
The girl behind the counter is busy in the back room. I don't mind waiting. I wonder what these ladies talked about before I arrived. "Connecticut," a reference to my license plate, rolls off their tongues like a foreign noun. I sigh and then worry that they saw my shoulders heave. I promise myself that I will walk out if I hear them use the term "flatlander". And then I promise myself I will stay regardless; I don't want to upset the girl behind the counter.
Up in the corner, familiar faces flash on the television screen as the debate for governor drones behind the old lady chatter. I almost sigh again but catch myself this time. I'm a stranger and an insider at the same time.
An older man walks through the door and up to the counter. When he sees that he will have to wait, he starts to grumble incoherently and loudly. The girl walks over to the counter flustered, upset, silently apologetic. I try to give her a reassuring smile and a kind order to make up for his loud grumbling and current pacing. Back and forth.
I don't bother to put my hood up and walk out the door into the rain. The ladies watch as I climb into my car. "I'm leaving, I'm leaving," I want to tell them. The radio starts with the car engine now that I've stopped listening to that CD on repeat, and Adam Lambert screeches "What do you want from me?!"
May 6, 2011
May 4, 2011
Wanderlust Wednesday: Wyoming, USA
Where would you like to be this Wednesday?
Photo by Trey Ratcliff
Wanderlust Wednesdays inspired by The World We Live In
Wanderlust Wednesdays inspired by The World We Live In
May 2, 2011
May 1, 2011
In Which I Write My Future, Part II
The July sun wakes me earlier than other Saturday mornings. Its light slips in from behind the shade and casts a yellow glow down the far brick wall and across the wide-planked floor. Warm and inviting against the cool, air-conditioned room. I cozy back down into the comforter and decide for kindness against plunging my cold toes under his warm calves. My eyelashes meet the tops of my cheeks, but the sun gently wakes them again. It calls softly, a morning lullaby, "Wake now, my love..."
The old warehouse floor creaks under my iced toes and the bedroom door squeaks behind me as I pull it closed. The sunlight waterfalls through the floor-to-ceiling loft windows and dust particles dance in the beams. I remind myself to dust again as I make my way to the coffee pot. "Someday," I promise myself, "I'll remember to program this thing for Saturday mornings." But the truth is, I don't mind standing and waiting for the first morning drops. My toes and nose un-thawing in golden light.
I lean against the industrial counter as I wait and survey the vast open space. Most of it still empty, I begin to purchase and move furniture around in my head. Swoop up the stacks of books from the dinner table, the chair in the corner, under the end table, and organize them on bookshelves so tall they need the attached ladder with wheels. Move last semester's grade book and this summer's research off of the coffee table and back into the office. I start thinking about the outline I still want to complete by Tuesday. "Stop." Thankfully, it's an almost instant, silent command. "If you're going to daydream, at least do it correctly." I reach for a coffee mug and the coffee pot hisses and steams.
Too hot to wrap my hands around and too full to promise not to spill, I take the first sip and walk the rest through the old door, down the building hallway, and up the narrow stairs to the roof. July mornings in Brooklyn hold the heat and humidity but can't compare to summer mornings in DC. A small breeze and the early hour makes the sun's rays bearable. And glorious. And blinding. I wish I had remembered to grab sunglasses on my way out the door, but I reason that I would be squinting towards the Manhattan skyline anyway. Not quite a million dollar view, but still priceless on sunny Saturday mornings and clear Thursday nights.
Knowing the roof is hardly ever used, I had trekked a couple of fold-up camping chairs up the stairs for mornings just like these. I even cut slits in the drink-holders so I could use them as coffee mug holders. The city below apparently rose hours before I, but still sounds like early morning - a car door slam, a delivery truck turning the corner, two dogs barking a few blocks down. Another morning lullaby. I sip my coffee, close my eyes, and lose time in the sun's heat.
I'm lost in my thoughts somewhere between backpacking Nepal and gondola floating in Venice, when I feel a shadow move over my face. He smiles down, coffee in one hand, slides into the chair next to me, and slips his other hand behind my head, for just a moment. "What are you thinking?" he asks. And I smile, because I have so much to share.
[ Part I ]
The old warehouse floor creaks under my iced toes and the bedroom door squeaks behind me as I pull it closed. The sunlight waterfalls through the floor-to-ceiling loft windows and dust particles dance in the beams. I remind myself to dust again as I make my way to the coffee pot. "Someday," I promise myself, "I'll remember to program this thing for Saturday mornings." But the truth is, I don't mind standing and waiting for the first morning drops. My toes and nose un-thawing in golden light.
I lean against the industrial counter as I wait and survey the vast open space. Most of it still empty, I begin to purchase and move furniture around in my head. Swoop up the stacks of books from the dinner table, the chair in the corner, under the end table, and organize them on bookshelves so tall they need the attached ladder with wheels. Move last semester's grade book and this summer's research off of the coffee table and back into the office. I start thinking about the outline I still want to complete by Tuesday. "Stop." Thankfully, it's an almost instant, silent command. "If you're going to daydream, at least do it correctly." I reach for a coffee mug and the coffee pot hisses and steams.
Too hot to wrap my hands around and too full to promise not to spill, I take the first sip and walk the rest through the old door, down the building hallway, and up the narrow stairs to the roof. July mornings in Brooklyn hold the heat and humidity but can't compare to summer mornings in DC. A small breeze and the early hour makes the sun's rays bearable. And glorious. And blinding. I wish I had remembered to grab sunglasses on my way out the door, but I reason that I would be squinting towards the Manhattan skyline anyway. Not quite a million dollar view, but still priceless on sunny Saturday mornings and clear Thursday nights.
Knowing the roof is hardly ever used, I had trekked a couple of fold-up camping chairs up the stairs for mornings just like these. I even cut slits in the drink-holders so I could use them as coffee mug holders. The city below apparently rose hours before I, but still sounds like early morning - a car door slam, a delivery truck turning the corner, two dogs barking a few blocks down. Another morning lullaby. I sip my coffee, close my eyes, and lose time in the sun's heat.
I'm lost in my thoughts somewhere between backpacking Nepal and gondola floating in Venice, when I feel a shadow move over my face. He smiles down, coffee in one hand, slides into the chair next to me, and slips his other hand behind my head, for just a moment. "What are you thinking?" he asks. And I smile, because I have so much to share.
[ Part I ]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)