The Conversations We Must Have

Is it okay that I am utterly heartbroken? It is okay that I cried and cried and cried last night? Today, I am trying to go on with life-as-normal and failing and failing but trying. Is that okay? That is what we are supposed to do, right? Get on with life-as-normal, especially when life-as-normal is still life-as-normal. I am so far away, yet I am so close. We all are, right? We all feel that Newtown, CT is, or could be, our home town?

I am from Connecticut. My mom grew up in the town next to Newtown; my dad grew up a few towns over. I have family in the area and my mom still drives through Newtown almost every single day. Is this how I justify how heartbroken I am? Because I know the town, because I am first-and-foremost-and-always-will-be from Connecticut? Because my classmate from high school is the one anchoring the news and reporting on this unbelievable and indescribable tragedy? She has to find the words, she has to comfort my grieving state, and I am having trouble just putting words to paper for a blog post. Is this why it feels so close to my heart? It's close to all of our hearts, right? You feel this too, right?

The pain the families must feel is incomprehensible to me. It's an ache and a shortness of breath when I think of them. My heart shatters when I think of the kids and the teachers in that building. A thousand tiny, irreparable pieces shattered. Is it because I have spent the majority of my life working with kids? Not as an advocate as I have the past few years, but as a lap with a sleeping, drooling five-year-old sprawled across it during a field trip. As a high-five to celebrate a 93 on a quiz, with a squealing and lit-up nine-year-old who comes bounding into the room after school. As a pair of arms that has held a child and just let her cry, "it's okay to be sad, sweetie, let it out, it's okay." As a person who has had some of her very best moments in life gifted to her by a child. We have all had this, right? And that is why all of our hearts are shattered? Yours is shattered too, right? 

How do we tell our children, they are all our children, that they are safe and cared for and do not need to worry? I do not know. But I do know that we have to try.

I am not a parent. But was once a child, I have spent years working with kids, and my friends have children. There is no source I trust more than Mister Rogers and Sesame Street. If you have a child or children in your life, perhaps those are places to start? Do you have any other suggestions? 

My parents talk of the assassination of President Kennedy as their where-were-you-when question to which everyone has an answer. It marked their childhood. I thought Columbine would always be the where-were-you-when question that marked my childhood. Perhaps it was. I can tell you where I was when I found out and how I watched my high school transform in the coming days. The doors that lead to lunch outside on the field were locked and hallway doors that lead to the science wing were closed with new locks installed. A security guard appeared within days. The only way into the building was through one set of front doors. The desks in the front office were rearranged to look outside the glass windows. These changes appear and we re-adjusted. We knew without talking about it why the school days would never be the same. We didn't talk about it. We we had counselors available if we wanted to talk, but I don't know anyone who chose to talk. I wanted to talk about it. I didn't understand why nobody else wanted to talk about it. I felt scared at school, for the first time in my life. I didn't know why other people didn't feel scared. Did locked doors and a new security guard mean that we were safe or in danger? Even as a sophomore in high school, I didn't fully grasp my level of safety or how upset I should be over the events. 

It turns out that I was not alone. About six weeks later, a rumor spiraled about a "hit list" and a gun and then more than one gun and then a bomb threat evacuated the whole building. All rumors started by the student body. And then it happened again. And again. We left the building for bomb threats on a regular basis and a student who was entirely and whole-heartedly innocent of the hate he was accused of was targeted and bullied as dangerous. We talked about it then. The school and the teachers and the students talked about Columbine then. Weeks and weeks after it happened, we finally talked about it. We had assemblies and a "healing wall" and discussions about how scared we all were. I found out I wasn't alone in those first few weeks as a scared student trying to cope silently as I continued on with my school work. It's a hard conversation, I know. But it's important to recognize that this shakes us all to our core.

Unfortunately, Columbine would not end up being my generation's where-were-you-when conversation. It would be September 11th, 2001, two years after Columbine. I was in college at that time. Everything shut down and we grieved as a campus. Cried in the dorm room lounges together and held-hands in a peace circle on the quad. Had memorial services all over campus. We let our hearts break in a safe space. When classes resumed, we didn't pretend we weren't all extremely sad and quite scared. In my "thinking and creating" class we went to the campus gym and silently created. We colored, danced, built, wrote, and sculpted. It was healing for all of us. It wasn't a verbal conversation, but it was our professor's way of telling us it was okay to feel what we felt. And it grew into all of us telling each other that it was okay to feel what we felt. 

And that is what Sesame Street and Mister Rogers say so much more eloquently that I can: tell your children it is okay to feel scared. It is okay to feel sad. And that is what I want to say today also. I am so, so, so sad. I think it's okay. And if you are terribly upset by this event, it is okay to feel sad. 

That this event could occur is incomprehensible to me. Yet, dismissing it as incomprehensible leads us nowhere. These incomprehensible events are occurring again and again and again in the country. In order to stop them, we must understand them. We must understand what causes a twenty-year-old man to walk into a school and kill classrooms full of young children in order to stop it in the future.

I do not mean that we need to determine the motive of the man in this shooting. I mean that we need to have a difficult and thorny conversation as a country about both guns and mental health. There are many, many people who believe that talking about policy during tragedy is wrong. I understand. I so heavy-heartedly understand. I respect that opinion, but in my opinion, it is time to start talking.

More specifically, it is time to start talking with both our heads and our hearts. Gun control in this country is a complicated conversation. It is at the crux of maintaing the security of citizens with the liberty of citizens. This balance has racked our nation since before it was a country. It involves the rights of the federal government and the rights of the states. It involves the very basic, fundamental aspects of what make the United States uniquely the United States. Moreover, it involves a plethora of recent legislation and recent Supreme Court decisions that impact a right that appeared settled for a very long time. It involves special interests that impact legislation and perception of risk versus actual risk. Policy creation on any issue is complex, muddy, and difficult. Policy creation on an issue that represents almost every foundational belief of our entire country is extremely complex, extremely muddy, and extremely difficult. The conversation needs to acknowledge and accept these difficult aspects or we are not going to get anywhere.

I do not believe that we can have a conversation about guns and the United States without a conversation on mental health care. More specifically, the lack of mental health care and the stigma associated with mental health in this country. The connection between mental health and guns is, in my opinion, the place to begin the conversation. I think it is a place where the conversation can begin to make sense of these "incomprehensible" events and find the middle ground between liberty and security. I think it is the place where the people can form a voice louder than the voice of wealthy special interests. We have to do something. We have to start to pull apart these complicated issues and take some type of action to stop these tragic events from occurring. Labeling these events as incomprehensible and dismissing them does not solve the problem.

If we think these conversations are too difficult to have, if we think the stances on these issues are too extreme and too far away from one another to talk with one another, if we think these conversations have no place in the aftermath of horrific events, then we will continue to have conversations with our children about why it is okay to feel sad and try to find the words to assure them that adults are doing everything we can to keep them safe.

My final question is: are we?

It's Nothing Like This Anymore

I'm approaching the finish line on this (what ended-up being a crazy) semester and hoping to be back here soon-ish. Until then, it's papers and presentations and one exam. Nothing like law school. Which means I'm relatively sane, just busy. I won't say I miss law school finals (I don't, not at all), but this time of year does make me miss the people that meant the absolute most to me during those utterly insane (the-psych-ward-or-the-hospital-isn't-far-off insane) weeks of early December. In the memory and honor of those days, I thought I would re-post this, originally written sometime in 2010 when I had finally recovered...
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Saturday night dates held hands under chandeliers.  The white lights bounced off the restaurant windows, competing with the holiday lights hung by the city.  We had missed the tree lighting ceremony in the haze of all the days after Thanksgiving.  Long days that passed too quickly but merged into one another, never ending.  We spent countless afternoons that turned into nights under the buzz of the florescent lights in the school's basement lounge.  We each had our place on the ratty couches next to the water fountain that reminded us of its existence with a loud roar every thirty-five minutes.  Or whenever somebody stepped over us to use it.  We tried not to glare, but the nights got long and we got punchy - our filters disintegrated.  We laughed when I ran upstairs to get us play-dough, but we pulled the colored mounds apart piece by piece when the statutes tangled themselves together and refused comprehension.  We ran on anxiety, adrenaline, and caffeine.

When we stopped counting the days after Thanksgiving and started counting the days before exams, we moved into her tiny apartment and brewed pots of coffee to calm our nerves.  Hours measured by days of class notes and pages in our outline.  Taking turns explaining what the others didn’t understand; shifting places - from the couch to the chair to the floor and back to the couch; cursing at google docs for reformatting, pinwheeling, rejecting edits.  We would negotiate end times, but two against one usually meant one a.m.  Sleep, shower, and a Mister Bagel pick-up before a 7:30 a.m. arrival.  Some nights, when the class included only two of us, we worked until 2:30 a.m.  I slept on her couch and woke to the alarm at 6:30 a.m.  A coaxing boyfriend helped pry us out of deep sleep.  On nights when I returned home, I would crash into bed without seeing the pillow.  The nights I didn’t, I watched the walls close in on me.

Winter came early that year, and the weather guaranteed us a snowy day.  So we hauled our text books and our code books and our laptops and our sweatpants to her tiny apartment intent on feeling cozy and enjoying the snowfall.  Days into reading “week” and days from its end, we could fill the day with comforts and ignore some of the anxiety.  We laughed that day.  Drunk on late nights and early mornings, coffee light and sweet, hours of tax statutes, days of sweatpants, and the sight of falling snowflakes, we belted out in hysterics.  When the sun set and she made coffee for the hour, we crowded into her kitchen, opened her backdoor, and took turns grabbing fists full of the snow piled on her porch railing.  When it became hard to reach, she held me by the waist, and I reached out farther than gravity allowed to grab handfuls for the three of us.  She would pull me in and we would collapse in hysterics.  I remember holding my sides on her kitchen floor.

I don’t remember the number of places we called hoping to print our outlines in color.  Open note exams meant extreme organization, labeling, and detailed notes.  Colored copies of our fifty some odd pages became an urgent requirement.  Dinner became a secondary priority as we tried to find places still open.  We settled on a place downtown and piled into the car of the only one willing to drive in the light snow.  It never occurred to us to change out of our sweatpants or brush our hair.  I’m not sure if we had even showered that day. 

We had a hard time finding parking.  The holiday lights strung above the streets reminded us of the festivities that we were missing again this year.  The snow smeared on the windshield made it hard to see.  We climbed out of the car with heavy feet.  December wind ripped through our sweatpants.  We trudged by a restaurant window filled with cheery faces and couples holding hands under pretty white-light chandeliers.  I realized it was Saturday night and begrudged them their free time and dinners and love.  My reflection in the window fell over their cheer.  My eyes vacant, my mouth taught, messy hair, sweatpants too big tucked into heavy snow boots.  I put my head down and kept walking.  I didn’t need to see any of that.

When we got to the store, it was closed.  Lights off, door locked.  Of course!  It was Saturday night!  We had lost our days weeks ago, forgotten that the world still ordered itself around times for work and times for rest.  We stood there and looked at one another in silence.  She checked her phone for the time - we could get to the next place if we hurried.  “Run!” someone shouted, it could have been any of us.  We ran.

A jog at first, but the we picked up the pace together until we reached a sprint.  I don’t know who let out the first screech, but I felt its release.  We turned our faces up to the snow and squealed and screeched and clamoured down the sidewalk.  Belly laughs erupted and the peaks and valleys of our squeals turned into sustained screaming with bursts of laughter.  We ran by the restaurant window and the diners turned to watch.  This time I saw our reflections in a flash: my smile and our eyes lit up in the street lights and the falling snowflakes.   Sheer joy.  For this moment, I knew the better deal was on our side of the window.

Slip knot. Slip not.

Which thread unravels the knot?

In an instant, we came undone. Word over word, breath over breath, hastily, as if the sand would run out of the hourglass all together.

Perhaps it did. The shock of electricity, melted glass. I shook afterwards, held my face up towards the rain. Waited to put one foot in front of the other. Watched the sun break over the horizon, golden yellow under the dark clouds, all the days to come lit up at once. Golden yellow and sky blue. Sky blue and then golden yellow. 

And so it was. An undoing. 

One foot in front of the other, we're clumsy, both of us, I know this too soon. One foot in front of the other. His step, my step. Forward, forward, backward, side, forward, backward, side, side, turnabout, backward, forward, turnabout, side, side. Connected and tangled. Knotted. The words splayed out around us, wedged between us, pieces of a puzzle. The sand next to the hourglass. I can't find the beginning or the end. I am quiet, with so much more to say. Not until the knots unravel. Not until we're standing face to face. Connected, without the tangle.

A gentle tug, these knots will fall away. Slip knot. Slip not. 

Which thread unravels?

Always, words. All this, words. 

Which undo, unravel.

The Shoulds

There are a hundred things I should be doing, always a hundred things, a hundred shoulds, a thousand clashing cymbals, the constant beating of the bass drum, these shoulds. I am a people-pleaser, I dance on marionette strings, clap my monkey hands. Or so it feels, sometimes.

I have moments, days now even, of decision upon decision of this-works-for-me, without looking to my right, glancing to my left, just one foot in front of anther, I carry myself.

I found a new place to live. Of course, I found a new place to live, you might say. If you knew the details, the roommates, the "superintendent", the landlord mixed in with the flooding, the sewage, the utter devastation of my neighborhood, you would laugh that I feel the need to assert this.

Uninhabitable, it has been. Unresponsive, they have been. Uninhabitable still, unresponsive still, although I still cower at the thought of their disapproval - "you're leaving?" And I should answer, "I left and I went back and I realized it will never be habitable, you will never be responsive." Sometimes I place one foot in front of another, sometimes I dance on my strings to the clashing, the banging.

And sometimes the shoulds are quiet peace.

I went to Sunset Park a week before the hurricane. I discovered my now-favorite coffee shop in the city thus far and I spent hours soaking in the feelings of home. I trekked up the hill to highest point in Brooklyn and watched the sunset. I instagramed the sun's slow descent down; the caption read: "My heart is bursting with joy."

I am moving to Sunset Park tomorrow morning. After two weeks of the craziness that is trying to locate an inexpensive room in a safe part of the city, after spending hours on buses because the subway remained underwater, after looking at rooms that promised a window and some sort of closet space without delivering, after traveling to (almost) all parts of Brooklyn, I found a home in Sunset Park.

I found a home in a neighborhood large enough that I feel safe announcing it on the internet. It feels like I live in a city now. A city with a view of the Manhattan skyline and an already-favorite coffee shop a handful of blocks away. I found a room with dark wooden floors and a built-in bookshelf. I want so badly to feel this place is home, to have this place be home, to love this place as home for as long as I need it to be home. Which is to say, for quite a while.

Sometimes shoulds are quiet peace.

Travel there. Slip into the coffee shop. Find the park. Breathe deep. Watch the colors nature paints on the city. Send it out the world. Joy. Calm. Peace. Let it come back to you a thousand times more. Home. That joy is home, now.

(Not So) Recently...

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

I Left & I Went Back

The air turned cold overnight. Biting wind, raw cheeks, sore fingers, a reminder that my winter jacket hangs in my vacant apartment. Perhaps. Google maps leads me down the avenue and around the block - a farther walk than I would make day to day - the subway still flooded, rails damaged, not strong enough to carry our heavy sorrows. We carry them on our own, we carry each other’s.

I can say that now. I can say that now because I went back. After looking at the craigslist bedroom that turned out not to be a bedroom, I went back. I went west to travel east, stood in the crowded bus aisle, sat on the empty train, walked blocks and blocks and blocks, thanked my regular bus driver, and took deep breaths as I walked down my road, I went back.

Cars scattered along the side of the avenue, facing the wrong direction, clustered on the grassy embankment, sitting in the middle of the lane, they could have been matchbox cars strewn about by a toddler. A group of toddlers, perhaps. Trashbags, couches, end tables, kitchen chairs, clothing and memories, bags and bags of memories, lined every inch of the sidewalked, piled to my shoulders, sometimes higher. The hum of the generators. Too loud, too quiet, too many, not enough, used only to pump water out of basements, out of first floors. It’s too dangerous to have electricity flowing through these homes. My home.

For almost three months it was my home. My neighborhood. My neighbors. Three months is not enough time, I know that. I don’t recognize faces, don’t know any names. I’m too young and too old, a generational neighborhood full of grandparents and parents and grandchildren. Thick Brooklyn accents and neighborhood block parties. I didn’t fit in, I’d never fit in, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love it. I felt safe there. They gave me the gift of safety. It’s a gift I’ll never know how to return.

They weren’t safe that night. The night the tidal surge rose five to eight feet. The night they swam to safety, rescued out of second story windows by boats, fled into a make-shift shelter in the church a mile down the road. A mile down the road, where the water finally stopped. They were not under a mandatory evacuation, so they didn’t leave until it became apparent they were no longer safe.

There are stories of heroes from that night. Stories of sheer tragedy. Stories of devastation. I can’t tell those stories, because I wasn’t there. I left. I left early. I left and didn’t return for days. The subways were down, the power was out, standing water in my apartment mixed with sewage, I was told it wasn’t safe, reports of looters, house fires, micro-bacteria... a heavy heart. A heart too heavy to carry all that way. Guilt for leaving, for having belongings only on the second floor and out of harm's way. Saturated and drained with sorrow for those who lost everything, for my neighbors who lost everything.

For my neighbors who greeted me with smiles when I rounded the corner to my house. Who offered to move the cars if I needed to throw furniture on the sidewalk for garbage collection. Who kindly said to let them know if I needed anything when I responded that I was just getting my things for a few days. Neighbors who smiled without judgment. The best of the best live in that neighborhood. I know because I went back.

The church down the street has lines of cars donating and streams of people volunteering. The neighborhood is buzzing with people helping one another out, sharing generators, navigating pumping systems, throwing out furniture. The kids still run circles around the tiny blocks and race each other on scooters. There are smiles there. Despite all, in spite of all, there are smiles there. The best of the best live in that neighborhood.

I probably will not live in that neighborhood any longer. My apartment holds the stench of sea water and sewage so badly that it takes effort to take a single breath. The furniture has been put back in its place, but it needs to be thrown out. The heating system, the electrical system, the structure of the home all need to be inspected. It has started to drop below freezing at night and concern for frozen pipes begins to grow. I held my breath and grabbed my winter coat, the books I need for school this week, handfuls of socks and underwear, and the stuffed dog I’ve had forever.

I left again. This time, I left with a lighter heart. My neighborhood is devastated. My neighbors are sleeping in shelters. They have lost everything. But they still have their spirit, kindness, and generosity. Those things cannot be swept away in flood waters.

I’ll be sleeping on the couch at my brother’s place in Midtown for what will be far too many nights in the near future. But my heart will be with my old neighbors, in my old neighborhood. Even if I never call it home again, it will always have my heart.

Coffee and Music

I go through phases when coffee and music are part of my day, and I go through phases when coffee and music are my day. The past six weeks life has been cup after cup and this playlist on repeat. So I thought I would share it with you. 

Enjoy!

[as a side note, i want to say thank for all the sweet comments on the past few posts. one of the things i like about blogging is being able to somewhat interact with you all by responding to your comments. i went to respond (weeks late, i know) to your comments and i realized how very, very far behind i am. so rather than post responses a month later, i just wanted to take the time now to say thank you, thank you, thank you for the kind and encouraging words over the past couple of months. i love reading your comments - they make my day - and i'll be better about replying from now on. promise!]

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

[More to come if I ever am able to catch up here...]

the knowing

You undo me. Do you know that? You must, unless I've convinced you that you don't. After all these years, you still know my heart, no? Of course, you do.

I'm afraid to put this here, afraid your eyes might pass by this space once and again. Afraid every wall I've built between us will come crumbling down, if you should read this.

But tonight, I'm undone. Black eyeliner smeared below my lashes, wiped onto my fingers. Three hours to respond because I hate the answer as much as you. Hate that I have to say no. Hate that I am always the one to say no. The walls I built on my natural boundaries are heavy, heavy stone. Every muscle aches as I hold them up, wishing I didn't have to haul every boulder and pile them high. Keep them high. To keep us apart.

I wish we were good for each other. We were and we were and were until we weren't. I wish I could have built this stone wall there. Set the we were and the we weren't apart instead of setting us apart. And yet, maybe we never were. Can you answer that better than I?

I hate how much I hurt you, how much I still hurt you, how much you must hate me. And you can say "No, no, no, that's not true. I am fine, never better." And this time I won't believe you. I still know your heart as well as you know mine. It isn't until neither of us hate the no that I can say yes.

Until then, every bone in my body shatters when you ask. Every last breath of mine is drawn when I say no. How to hurt you least is what I measure. You put it in my hands. I am in pieces, but it is in tact.

We think we are forever. Your forever, a hand on the small of my back, the weight of my body laying next to you. My forever, a phone call with a rambling assortment of the day's thoughts, laughter that never ends. Our forevers diverge and never cross. I never need a reminder, you always forget.

You must think how terrible I am now to always say no. I think how terrible I was to never say no. I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know until I did. I know now.

There is no undoing the knowing. It undoes me.

Rough Edges & Gentle Beginnings

I eat an embarrassing amount of 99 cent pizza slices on the sidewalk. Covered in cheap garlic powder. A subway rail broke the other day. We waited underground for over a half hour only to turn around and head back in the direction from which we had departed. I got off at the next stop and transfered and transfered and transfered, five times I transfered, and arrived at school almost three hours after I left my house. Which is only an hour longer than my regular commute. My days are long. The fridge and freezer aren't working and my living situation is "eh". It didn't really stand a chance as I come from the best of the best when it comes to roommates, but it says something when I am the first one to notice the fridge isn't working. I am tired, and always almost-overwhelmed, and remembering what my face looks like with dark circles under my eyes.

There are a hundred promises I made to myself about this year that I have already broken.

But I have kept the most important one - be gentle on yourself.

It has made all the difference.

There are still goofy grins during mid-slice bites and a rush of grateful tears on the third platform of the five transfers. I live in this city. How lucky am I? I somehow managed to get here, rough edges and all. Tired, tired eyes with a lit-up heart. I stumbled my way into this life, a life that finally feels like mine, and if it means shoulders sore from a heavy backpack or half and half sour from a broken fridge, then pass the sour half and half, please.

It's hard to write these days. It's all a gush; it's all a complaint; it's all never quite right. Too much time I don't have passes and I give up looking for that middle ground. For something more than middle ground, something elevated higher than middle ground. Be gentle on yourself. So I am. So I will be. Life is hard. Life is wonderful. Right now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

February Night Air

My voicemail had gone unanswered. Two emails without responses. It was a quick question: "Will you be there on Tuesday? I have a couple questions about the process. And it would be nice to see a friendly face." Friendly used as an understatement. The answer was yes or no; it wasn't an invitation or obligation. He would be there or he wouldn't. I just wanted to know. Not a big deal. I sent him a sarcastic email mid-weekend intended to make him roll his eyes at my logic. It, too, went unanswered.

There were dinner plans he missed and a late entrance and an engaged conversation in the hallway that left me no space to ask and no hello and finished with a quick exit. An oh-shit lightbulb-moment must have gone off when he walked out of the building - he replied to my mid-weekend sarcastic email as soon as he got out of the car. Friendly and funny, of course. But it was too late and the wrong email, buddy. This time I didn't reply.

I went on Tuesday. Found my way, shook some hands, sat down among the chairs. I hoped he wasn't there. I was fuming and didn't want to hide it and didn't want to let it out. Ten minutes in, he appeared in the doorway, surveying the room. Spotted. He sat down beside me and draped his arm over the back of my chair. He leaned over to whisper hello, and I felt the eyes of the entire room on us.

I put on my best behavior. Smiled when he introduced me, laughed at his jokes, drank the glass of water he put in my hand. No one knew but him. The straightness of my back, the way I wouldn't let my eyes meet his, how I left when everyone else did.

The next evening, I passed him without saying anything on the way to the bathroom. It wasn't the time or the place, and I could not figure out how rationally or irrationally angry I was. When I walked out of the bathroom, he was standing there waiting for me. "How are you doing?" he wanted to know. "Fine," I replied, trying to sound fine. He waited for my eyes to meet his. They did. "Why are you angry with me?" It was the most direct thing he had ever said to me about us. I didn't know how to respond.

"It's just been a long day."
"Good long or bad long?" He wasn't sure where I was going with that and neither was I.
"Just long."

He held my eyes. We had about thirty second before our break was over and we had to be back. "I am angry with you." It flew out and landed between us. I didn't know what to do with it. He picked it up gently, keeping his eyes on mine. "Do you want to tell me why you're angry?" Not then I didn't. Not in that hallway under those lights in less than thirty seconds. I shook my head no. It was anything but graceful. "I trust you'll let me know when you're ready, right?" I nodded my head yes. He waited until I broke eye contact and walked towards the door before he moved at all.

When our night finally ended, he walked over to where I stood with my friends and asked if he could walk me to my car. I said I still had to collect my things and my friends said no he could not and he said he would come with me. I nodded.

We walked in silence as I gathered up my things. Quiet, comfortable silence. The kind of silence that didn't make me feel crazy or irrational. The kind of silence we usually had when we weren't talking about big dreams or bickering like middle school boys and girls. The lights were still florescent and harsh but I felt a bit softer.

"We're friends. And I know I have high expectations, but." I started awkwardly and ended awkwardly, but somewhere in the middle I told him that I was upset he had blown me off so much in the week prior. "We're a bit odd," I told him in almost those exact words, "and it gets tough sometimes." He listened intently, agreed whole-heartedly, and apologized sincerely. Although I expected nothing less, it gave me the security the past couple of weeks had stolen.

He walked me to my car in the cold February night air. The stars so clear above and I bounced down the sidewalk with the good news I could finally tell him. When we got to my car, he pulled me towards him and wrapped me up in a hug.  We stood there together just long enough, in the cold, February night air.

******

In the Februarys that have past since then, and since he disappeared quickly and slowly from my life, I often forget about that night. The confusion, hurt, anger, adrenaline. To buzz from something intangible. To react to something that doesn't have a name. It wasn't the unreturned phone call. It wasn't the email that went without reply. It was the yes and the no all rolled up into one. It was the hallway brush-off and the ability to make my eyes meet his. All rolled up into one. I didn't know how to unravel it, so I unraveled instead.

To know to expect more but to not get it. To never know how much you'll get. Friends or formality. Depending on, depending on. To know you couldn't feel this way alone. And yet, it appears you are.

It's him waiting for me outside the bathroom door that I remember now. The direct question, the insistence on walking me to my car, the apology, the validation. It's the cold, February night air and the bright stars that I remember now. It's the long hug on the street corner in the dark.

Those things were there, and tonight, they are what I remember.

These Past Few Days...

I write or I don't write. Save to draft, hit delete. It's worthy, it's not worthy, it just doesn't say... anything. I have too much to say.

The subway is crowded or empty. The backpack heavy on my shoulders or sprawled out across the seat next to me. I watch the skyline bold across the night sky and the flag flying high above the Brooklyn Bridge each night. I think about getting off at the next stop and walking the bridge back to Manhattan - to feel the cool night air and dance in the skyscraper lights and sing along to the traffic sirens. Or I cross the river with my head against the metal wall, eyes closed, too tired to count the stops before mine.

Conversations in a language I learned long ago and I'm rusty but the words still arrive. Professionalism and passion finally married; this could be the honeymoon, six years later. Or the words we've cultivate since childhood, a conversation that takes up where we left off and ends somewhere in the middle - waiting for us patiently until next time. So familiar, so new.

I think I might never leave. And when I do, even for a night or two, I'll miss this city more than I've missed any place. But the shoebox bedroom is hot without air-conditioning and isolating without internet. Without roommates who say hello and how was your day? Or much of anything. I wake up a few hours past midnight in a sweat to a silent fan - the power out and all I want to do is leave.

So I leave. Fifteen minutes after my eyes meet the sun rays and the fan still silent, I throw my things into a bag and head out the door, un-showered because it doesn't matter where I am going. Home. Quaint and quiet New England with cool nights and warm days, the leaves just beginning to turn. Puppy kisses and home cooked meals, morning walks with hot coffee and evenings in sweatpants. It's easy to leave and it's easy to return.

For the first time, it is easy to leave and it is easy to return.

The city's ten degrees warmer and seventy times brighter and it's home. I left home and I arrived home. The city skyline over the East River and the flag above the Brooklyn Bridge. I crawl into bed after midnight. Instinctively wrap my arm around the empty space next to me and wait for it to move up and down with rhythmic breathing. Empty doesn't move, of course. But I fall asleep in my tiny bed grateful that I am enough to fill it. Grateful that I am enough to fill my life.

It is this and it is that and it's all so much more.

On The Eleven Year Anniversary

I posted this last year, on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. It's about not having the words and it's about the healing powers of art, in some ways, the small ways. In the big ways, it's about the hearts of people. It's about strength and compassion. And those are the same few, sparse words I can offer today. But maybe they're the most important words. 

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On The Ten Year Anniversary

I have been thinking about what to say on this day since September 11, 2002. I woke up that morning in the dorm room shared with the same friend I made on September 11, 2001 and sat in front of my laptop. I wanted to put up an AIM away message and didn't know what to write. Didn't know how to commemorate the one year anniversary in words. There weren't enough words or there were too many. I settled for "Give someone an extra hug today." I thought about the ten year anniversary (very honestly, I did) and wondered if I would find the words by then.

I still don't have the words. 

(I wonder if any of us do. John Stewart comes the closest, I think.)

I remember where I was that morning. I remember the feel of the metal chair under me as I watched. I remember the fear. (It was the second week of my first year of college. It was fear on top of fear.) But what I remember the most, what I feel the most, is what transpired after that morning. 

The curve of her hat brim as she sat afternoon after afternoon in the dorm lounge watching CNN. When she returned home for October break, her skyline would look entirely different. So quiet, but she told me that. She sat on that ugly, uncomfortable green couch that the boys floor would eventually steal, while the red-head, who lived one door down, perched on the arm rest. Red hair pulled back in a single elastic, with a few pieces falling out, and comfy black stretch pants, she would debate the commentators and curse out national policy. So loud, but she dripped silent tears with us also. These two, they made up most of my heart and soul those next four years. Quiet and loud, curved hat brims and wispy red-hair. The beginning of unconditional love, that's what I remember. That's what I remember the most. 

I remember classes canceled and the few hundred of us who made our way down to the quad to hold hands in a circle. I remember the stifled sobs and the terrified faces, but I what I remember more is feeling safe and cared for among faces I had never seen before. When classes resumed, we returned uncertain and unsteady. My professor brought us up to the performing arts gym where she put on quiet music for us to move to, to color to, to sit silently to. We didn't utter a single word the entire hour but left class in awe of each other, inspired by strength and compassion. 

That's what I remember. And someday, when I find the words, those are the stories I'll tell. Until I do, I'll just leave you with this: 

{photos are mine from around 2002 in lower manhattan. the ceramic pieces were made by people from across the US}

Around the Next Corner

I keep thinking about the young woman I was in college.

It's the fall weather; the late-August orientation days; the words I sit with everyday now (and again) like theory, agency, question, and socioeconomic. It's living in New York state again. It's something even more.

It's the faith, the deep seated knowledge, that this will be home. That I will find my people. That there will be hours, days, weeks, of which I will love every, single minute. That this is right. This is exactly where I am supposed to be. (It comes again, it arrives again, years and years later, expected and unexpected, and welcomed with a full heart, a whoop of celebration.)

I missed the city while I was Connecticut this past weekend. I fell asleep my first night "home" happy to be in Connecticut and happy to miss New York. It has been years and years since I held the happy and the missing on a first night in Connecticut.

I keep thinking about the young woman I was in college. On the brink. Always ready to take the leap of faith. And how many times that young woman leapt and how many times she landed on both feet. Or even better, how many times she was caught.

She knew and she didn't know, in the same moment, in the same breath. The knowing and the not knowing mixed together to create some of the best. Always the best, even after all this time.

She's around here somewhere, that woman. With her knowing and her not knowing and her leaping right into the best. I keep thinking about her, because I'm fairly certain she is just around the next corner.




[Photo from September 2002 (hard to believe it has believe it has been ten years) with one of the best, who will remain faceless for now in the name of privacy. Please note the disposable camera in my hand, ha.]

A Day in the Life || Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Call This City Home Now

So much more to come...

On Advice and Thoughts Before I Begin (Again)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday Morning Coffee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recently

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

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