Sunday Mornings

On Sunday mornings, we walked three miles downtown. Past our high school lockers and the playground where I spent weekday afternoons monitoring the swings. Sometimes we jumped on, let our feet kiss the sky, and then soared mid-air for just a moment before our feet hit the gravel below. We laughed at our clumsy landings, proud of the moments snatched from years ago, not so long ago, really. Cut through the field and out onto the curved back road. We dissected high school crushes and the Friday night game. Who stood where, in the stands, leaning against the fence, waiting in line for the hot chocolate. We watched the Friday night game - we won the state championship that year, I learned plays and players and statistics - but also kept watch for those quiet smiles and a chance, away from the florescent hallway lights, the muted beige walls.

On Sunday mornings, we walked to the center of town and stood in line for Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla coffee and free maple donuts. She worked the weekend morning shift and handed them over the counter with a smile. She hated and loved that job. We walked to the Friday night field on sunny Sunday mornings, and in the rain, in the mid-November snow. Three games of youth football, my brother, their brother, and the junior league. Back to back to back with just enough time to pay homage to the ocean. At the top of bleachers, the ocean appeared above the surf club roof. We answered its call with our hoods pulled over our ears. We made plans for our twenties along the shore. Urban lofts, paint easels, world travels, and mostly love. For three years, the pavement, the bleachers, the shore courted our wishes, our hopes, our maybe somedays...

***

We tried to make it to brunch by noon most Sunday mornings. Before the last call crowd rolled in wearing pajamas and slippers, we slipped in at noon and congratulated ourselves on dressing and eating early, earlier than most. Heaps of fake eggs, bite size pancakes, endless bacon, and orange-grapefruit juice blends. We ate almost every meal together for four years. Before text messaging, digital cameras, and facebook, we completed Saturday night reviews before we swiped our card and we ate Sunday mornings mostly in silence. A quiet comfort of a family and a home, away from, amid a sea of bed-head and sea-sick stomachs. A library afternoon loomed, promises to ourselves to get it done and get ahead, but the morning minutes ticked slowly and we sipped our orange juice without concern for time.

***

"Hey, hey, it's okay, this will end soon, I promise, you are okay, I promise, it will be okay." It was almost a Sunday morning mantra. Repeated frequency dependent on how many hours we spent outlining on Saturday night. Even during the weeks, months, of finals preparation, when one hour rolls into another without much divide between life and law, when it's all just law, Sunday mornings announced themselves. I stood in line for Mr. Bagel's everything bagel with vegtable cream cheese and a medium Green Mountain coffee with too much, just enough, sugar. The first two years, I climbed the steps to the library balancing books, computer, bagel, coffee, and my sanity and settled into the the table in the corner or the carrel on the third floor. Put in my headphones and took the first bite.. The third year, I returned home, to our warm apartment, with dark wood molding and bay windows. Opened the blinds to the morning sun and slipped into my bedroom desk, turned on the Pandora jazz station, took the first sip of coffee... Sun, saxaphone, and sugared coffee set my daydreams free. On Sunday mornings, I watched my daydreams dance to the scattered beats in the sunbeams. And I promised myself, it will be okay. And it is. Okay.

***

Sunday mornings have marked and moved my life. Ebb and flow and moments to just stand still. These Sunday mornings I am here and there and never quite sure where I'll take that first sip of coffee, brewed or purchased. I worried this morning, as I waited for the shop to toast my bagel, that here and there and never quite sure won't mark or move my life. I worried about these days slipping through the cracks and disappearing. 

Hold on tighter, I told myself, as the shop door opened and she walked through. The friend who shares a bedroom wall with me. I lit up and she lit up and we had so much to catch up on from the past seven hours we spent sleeping. It could have been our kitchen on a Sunday morning, but the coffee shop played music with a latin beat. And while her bagel toasted, we danced right there in the middle of the coffee shop floor and laughed and began our Sunday. As it turns out, here and there and not quite sure marks and moves too. I am learning, not to hold on tighter, but to let go.

Glass of Water

Stale and stagnant. The glass of water sitting on the nightstand, half full, half empty, watching the blinds while the sun rises behind. It had been a long night of tossing and turning. Dreams on the brink of nightmares. I can't sleep enough. I sleep too much.

I cried on the sidewalk twice last week. Both under the cover of night, one in the grip of sheer joy and one in the throws of sheer frustration. Frozen, chapped fingers against my phone up to my ear. I paced. I sat down on the bus stop bench. And then I went on with my evening.

This is everything I want(ed). This is nothing I want(ed). Past Present Future. Tense.

Yet. The glass still sits stale and stagnant. Watching only the blinds.

I'm standing on the edge. I'm standing in the middle of a field. I open my eyes without ever knowing which to expect.

Fill the glass, top it off, drink it down. Or pick it up and dump the water on the hardwood floor next to the nightstand. Either way, open the damn blinds and watch the sunrise.

That 2011 Wrap Up

I wasn't going to do a wrap up post for 2011. 

I didn't feel like it and decided to just move forward with 2012.

But then I changed my mind. 

(Maybe it's a good idea to reflect on the past before moving into the future?)

So here are a few of the photos and posts that best reflect 2011. 

I think.

In January, I made a quick move down to DC. I spent two days looking for an apartment (pictured above  in the hotel room I was afraid I would have to stay in short-term until I found a place) and then moved a week later. 

January's post: From the Department of I Can Do This

I settled into DC in February, more or less. I spent my weekends with my camera at my favorite DC spots and figured out the 9-5. I tried my hardest to fall in love with the city again, the way I had in 2008. 

February Post: I Don't Mind the Cold

In March, the blossoms began to arrive and I began to get excited for spring visitors. I started spending more time on this blog, posting awkward and awesome posts, photography, follow fridays, and a few more casual, daily posts. All things I might start up again in the near future. Maybe. 

March Post: How To Get A Date

I think April might have been my favorite month this past year. I had a stream of people I love come visit and Spring finally arrived. I found some quiet headspace and took on a 365 project I loved (even though I never completed). I spent more time focusing on what means the most to me.

April Post: If There Is A Frantic Race To Thirty With A Ring, I'll Be By The Tortoise's Side*

In May, I hardly wrote. A loneliness began to creep into my everyday. The apartment was too empty, too quiet. Somewhere between spring and summer, day and night, I just kind of floated. 

May Post: You're Not Really A Loner

In June, I figured some things out. 

June Post: Song of Myself

I worked crazy hours a work and dealt with crazy in my apartment and made a gutsy move. I was exhausted for most of July. And looking back, every moment of exhaustion was well worth it.

July Post: Five Friendly Faces

August was fabulous. I spent a lot of time in New England with people I love. It felt more like going back home than I could have imagined. 

August Post: This Is Joy

Oh, and also: Tiny Glass Jars

September wasn't as cool as New England in early fall. It was busy and slow at the same time. I was on and off. Up and down. Trying to sort through the present and the future.

September Post: Hoods and Pumpkin Spice

I have no idea how this photo ended up in the "2011 Recap" folder, but it did and I like it, so I'm going to keep it here. Technically, it is from August 2011. So, I guess it's not completely absurd. This is my friend, Nicole. 

In October, I went to Seattle for almost two weeks. That is all I remember of October. And that is all I want to remember of October.

October Post: On Seattle 

In November, I finally had an iPhone and I finally made a decision I had been pondering since February. Both of which are potentially life altering. Or not. We'll see...

November Post: Things Forgotten

I spent a much needed two weeks at home in Connecticut (and New York, Vermont, and Boston), relaxing, rejuvenating, and cuddling with the pup. (Yes, that is her tongue.) 

I hardly posted in December, so it makes sense that December's Post should be: I'm Still Here! (Promise!)

And now, back to the regularly scheduled programing...

Happy 2012!

*My favorite post of 2011

The Key + Sparrow

Love this shop almost as much as I love these ladies.

The Key + Sparrow

Created by Nicole & Elizabeth

Letters I'll Never Send: #1

I would like to join the Peace Corps in my sixties or fifties or whenever it is that the days begin to feel routine and comfortable. Too comfortable. I don't know if I mentioned this already. Or if you mentioned it and I closed my mouth - wondering how it would sound if I said "me too." Desperate; decided all at once. So I didn't say a word.

Again and again. I didn't say a word. I, too, had already built myself a future life in that borough, before it tumbled out of your mouth. Yours conditional on achieving cool status and mine already unconditional. Built-in self-conscious, uneasy days walking to the subway and hot summer nights undressed in front of the fridge, door ajar, my air conditioning. I am not, do not have, enough. But it was already unconditional. And yet, I didn't say a word.

The questions I swallowed. I asked a thousand but kept the ones I ached to release.  What song are you listening to on repeat? How do you define yourself? Could you love me even if I am leaving? Will you leave with me?

Months later, I remembered I want to travel to India. South Africa. Siberia. Israel. I am not Jewish. I once wanted to live on a Kibbutz. I still might. "You paint, right?" It took me a minute to translate that question. Watercolor chalk on canvas, I had mentioned as a maybe-hobby. "Yes, kind of..." I stammered. I write. That is what I should have said. The first time and the second time and every time. I write. Even though I wasn't writing at that time. Months later, I started to write again. It doesn't matter. I write.

I am ridiculous and silly and accidentally funny. You can't possibly know this. I held my posture and I thought before I spoke. I weighed every word. I wanted nothing more than for the sky to open up and for snow to fall and to challenge you to a snowball fight. Fort walls, flying powder, and flakes melting down my back. Ice and heat.

Anything other than this formality.

Someday I will learn to snowboard.

I have somedays that I think you would like. Perhaps. I won't pretend to know. But I do know that I don't need, I don't want, five o'clock dinners and Saturday evening dates. I'll eat ice cream with you at 7am after a long night and open Christmas presents two days later on a sunny afternoon. I'll climb into bed with you for a nap mid-afternoon. We'll make brownies at midnight. I like life better this way. I know this because I have built a life, too. At the end of the day, you'll find me curled up with a book, or stacks of research, my own notes scribbled, typed, recorded, in the corner of our library. Writing. Lens caps left in the back pockets of my jeans. I spew updates of friends and legislation and real estate in a single breath, my feet tucked into my own wicked good slippers. Awake but not waiting.

I let go. I let go like I have before and I will again. I have forgotten names and stood an arm's length away without reaching out. "Yes, that is fine," I replied, and I let go. I had lost too much of myself to hold on to you; I could see that more clearly than I could see you. I didn't hate law school as much as, as many times as, I repeated that phrase over and over again. It turns out it doesn't matter. In the best possible way. It turns out I didn't lose any of myself. I was all there the whole time, I had just failed to give the majority of myself a voice. Yet it all held on even when I didn't. As does the pull I feel towards you. Do you feel it too?

I thought, for so long, too long, that I most regretted sitting down across from you in broken pieces. I see now that I sat there whole, even when I saw my reflection as shatter. Even when I couldn't see anything more of myself than that reflection. I know now, from now on, that I most regret everything I didn't say. The times I closed my mouth. The questions I swallowed.

So now I ask. Will you

Meet me on the walk to the subway. Meet me in front of the fridge, the door ajar.

These Days Only

I finally moved in today. A year later, shy a few days, only a few. Nailed the world above my bed and brewed afternoon coffee. Wrapped my hands around it and took a deep breath. Start here, start today. Fill it with goodness, fill it with heart.

Last year will go without recap. At least for now. This urge to move forward, I'll throw myself across the threshold but then dig in my heals. For the next six months, I am going to stand here on this ground and plant only intentions for this day. I've sown Big Life Plans; harvest time will arrive, but these days will be for these days only. I'll call it a resolution and then a life. These todays are my life. I feel it now. Not a moment too soon. This moment, fill it with goodness, fill it with heart.

One As Much As The Other

I watched the second hand tick towards early dismissal, in sync with the sound of the copier. She walked into the back room with a stack of charts and placed them in the file cart. "Don't touch these. Not 'til next year." She had an edge and a soft spot.The work got the edge; I got the soft spot. "You must be excited to leave," she eyed the clock. "Heading to upstate NY again this year, right?" I only nodded, refraining from delving into the geographic particulars of upstate, central, western, and the exact location of my heart. I wasn't sure I knew those coordinates any longer. "You two have yourself a little tradition." Is that what we had already? A tradition? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure of much.

I left on New Year's Eve, later than I had in the past. I drove through the dark with the only guarantee that I would arrive sometime between dinner and midnight. The curves in the road, the uphill climb, the steady descent, I knew the lines of their silhouette between the moon and dark sky. The same way I knew the curves of his face, the dip just above his chin. A face I last saw months ago. Months of silence. The road grew quiet the farther into the mountains I drove. The only headlights were my own. For miles. I kept the radio off this time and rode with only my uncertainty. As the hills peaked higher, even my uncertainty sat still and quiet. I didn't know. I didn't have to know.

The house lit up golden yellow against the backdrop of treetops and mountain peaks. I let myself in through the garage door. Country music seeping through the hinges, but I barely opened it all the way before he put my bag down and scooped me up in one fluid motion. As always. He made me a plate of food, despite the too many times I said I wasn't hungry. I ate everything, including the seconds, by the time the rest of the guests, three to be exact, arrived and we took our places around the deck of cards. As always. His fingers at the nape of my neck and I am a terrible liar. We watched the ball drop and they joked we would be asleep before them. We were, wrapped up in handmade, homemade afghans, under the flickering light of the Twilight Zone. As always. I knew. I always knew.

This year we got home later than we planned but right on time to open the bottle of wine and turn on the television. I flipped between my favorites and notsokindly asked her to stop snoring and to please wake up and she did. As always and I knew. We watched the ball drop and old faces and semi-new faces. Newer faces, at least. "Has it really been six years?" I asked. She answered yes, but she didn't have to. The crowd in Times Square looked cold, even though the night was warm, and I waited for the clips of New Years around the world before I turned the TV off and went to bed. I set my alarm for morning coffee and thought about New Years Eve nights and New Years mornings and all of the accidental traditions I stepped into and lost and made. Through some mix of never knowing and always knowing.

And perhaps that's a resolution for this year: to trust what I don't know and what I do know. One as much as the other.

What Might Have Been (Most Likely Was) The First Page

Even in the middle of this and that, today feels like a new beginning. The first page in a new chapter. And a good moment to thumb back to what might have been (most likely was) the first page of the book. (It's interesting - beginnings and endings and how they arrive, sometimes unexpectedly. The false starts and the ones that stick. Sometimes right in what appears to be the middle.) This might have been (most likely was) the first page:

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2010 

Twenty Ten Begins... 

High hopes for flying dreams and grounded stability, twenty ten begins with an early morning visit over snow covered roads for coffee and conversation. Quiet conversation of past memories and unstable relations that created false impressions of steady architecture. Structure that collapsed, leaving us amid destruction until we flew as phoenixes. 

Rarely do we land on branches above to reflect on the deserted ruins, but today we do, quietly. Peaceful sadness together. Rare moments standing still together, looking down, until we dry solitary tears and fly away. Leaving behind the years of the decade past and steering towards new years with the wind carrying us forward. Swooping towards both the sky and ground, reaching higher, relying on the steady horizon where ground and sky meet. 

Patterned notes of melody and beat, lyrics and strings, twenty ten begins with a single song, played again, again, again... steady and quiet. With undertones of uncertainty, fear, passion, and honesty - similar to the undertones of my twenty ten beginnings - intertwining to form the powerful, simple, quiet strength of melody and beat, perseverance and hope.

(originally posted here)