Lifelines

The 7 trains runs above ground. The boxes in the basement hold my goodbyes, mostly. Let go. I repeat it accidentally or automatically.

"Do you want to stop at Starbucks for the ride in?"
"Sure, I haven't had a coffee yet today."
"I'll turn up here instead of at the light, we hardly take this road."
"I know, it's been a while."

I can cry, tears pooling and spilling, without my voice wavering. Trained, practiced. From the years when.

It had been a long time since I last cried. I can count the occasions in the past year and a half: a tear-shed move to dc and a late night whimper about a boy. After tear-stained years, I marvel at dry eyes. Who knew I could achieve this? If this is an acheivement.

Early morning, sweat-drenched trek, bus ride north, flu/cold/alergy change of plans, subway letters and numbers and transfers, neighborhoods without. An unexpected search for Whole Foods, reference to undergrad admissions, orientation, student ID, I've regressed, time folds in on itself. I'm twenty-eight, I'm twenty-five, I'm eighteen. The moon through the bedroom window. Her drawing of our portrait, once on my wall. The framed pact we made in fourth grade, "I promise to be best friends..." I'm sixteen, I'm fourteen, I'm nine. There's a storage unit waiting for my memories, waiting for my winter clothing. She's leaving too, the last of us. The house walls promise to keep better watch over the next family. I find Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Freshman year summer reading.

"Ms. Independent." He hurls it at me, a quarterback in another life with a strong arm. It weighs on me now. That word. I've had to be. I am. I'd have to come undone, unravel myself, to pull it out, to set it aside. I would have to fall apart. But without it, I wouldn't know how to put myself back together. The pep talks I once had memorized have vanished; I grasp at the malnourished and slippery mantra, "I can do this." Empty and vacant but still there.

The return train pulls into Grand Central; I wait for the car to empty before I reach up for my backpack on the overhead shelf. "Let me help." He reaches up, grabs my bag, and places it next to me on the seat before he finishes the sentence. I look up to say thank you. He's waiting for my eyes to meet his, my smile to meet his. It does, they do, I do, and he's gone before I can form the words. My backpack waiting for me and suddenly a bit lighter.

The blankets aren't packed. My car battery is dead. I have two flat tires. Soon, it will no longer be mine. Any of it. Soon, I'll claim a seat on the subway, a view the skyline, the corner of a bedroom, and I'll begin again.

Romantic notions, really: beginnings, dreams, independence, home. They're tangled and heavy, too.

But there is always someone who sees me. Who knows not to trust my voice, to look for the tears. Someone who knows to reach for my bag before I can protest, before I know what is happening. Someone who lets me come undone, who lets me put myself back together. Someone who believes in romantic notions too: beginnings, dreams, independence, home. They're tangled and heavy lifelines. We hold on to them together.

{tennessee, the state. knoxville, the city. part iii.}

We rolled into town as the sun was setting. Found ourselves a hotel for the first night with little trouble, despite the two weddings in town for the weekend. Actually, we found the hotel with more ease than we found the river...



{part i & part ii}

{tennessee, the state. knoxville, the city. part ii.}

We left DC not entirely sure we would end up in Knoxville. We set off on a road trip, towards Knoxville but decided not to book a hotel room prior to our arrival because, well, who knows where we might actually end up. A good road trip allows for a bit of spontaneity, right? And this was a good road trip...

{I-81 South, the route..}

{part i}

Those Ugly Green Couches

How we met. A decade ago, more. I counted myself lucky, even then. The towers fell. We start our stories there. One, three of us braided together, beginning. One beginning on a Tuesday morning, green couches, the television before it was stolen. The smoke could have been billowing out of the antenna, we sat so still those first hours. I perched on top of the cabinet in early December, you both called me Buddha before I took Buddhism. We wiped the finger paint off our hands, walked among snowflakes down roads we didn't know, aced tests we didn't know how to take. We snuck into the bar that night, through the back door, across the stage, and danced until we sweat, walked out the front door, said goodbye to the bouncer. I pulled on the green sweatshirt in the spring night chill, while we waited counting the drunken lacrosse players for you to arrive back. Protest season, it was earthquake weather. It all runs together. We do. One. Two. Three.

You. Two. You wore the green sweatshirt that fall, while we made cotton candy, chased cats out of that room. Six windows, the heat didn't work. That fight we had at one am on Friday night, pushing the beds across the wooden floor, not now, not tonight. She left to sit on the old Victorian couch and you and I. Cried in the middle of the room. The florescent lights glaring, we both hated. And went to bed with clenched teeth. We walked that hill to retrieve you, "he's an ass" and hated him for making you cry and loved him for setting you free. You and you and I. You two. We three. We pulled him off the roof, through the window, he carried you home over wet snowy ground, she sat outside the bathroom door, wouldn't let you close it, and I put you in my bed. The room spun. Over and around and over again. I knew it was time, you believed me, believed in me.

You ended it. I fell hard and fast. Didn't trust him, you and you and sometimes I. But he held my hand. Leukemia, he had you said. I crawled into bed with you and cried. More than once but never enough. Never enough, it was it is sharp regret. Confused, we were, with endings and beginnings. His guitar transferred out of state. On occasion, we forgot how to sing. That lake, so deep. How much we each wanted to throw ourselves into the cold water. Wash away our mistakes, start again. We walked down the snowy sidewalk together, to dinner, every night. Hysterically laughing. Silent company. Each night. Every night. Us. We were.

We ate at home the year after that. Across the kitchen table, across campus. Across the country, across the world. Too often, rare is too often, always too often, silent absence.

The years after only play on fast-forward. Cowboy hats, the nights we stayed at your apartment when you weren't there. Four large pizzas, Sideshow drinks, trips away, the lyrics belting from our lungs, one-match campfires, you asked me but I never told you he kissed me you know, I know you know, months and then the phone rings, soccer goals, that hot sticky morning and we promised. Twice I drove away and had no idea. One and one, one and one, I knew. One and one and one, I didn't.

We see photos now. Uploaded, tagged. A wedding dress. A park bench with a memorial inscription. 28 likes. I wish again, years later, years too late. For beds across the room. Harsh florescent lights. The lake so deep, it can wash it all away.

Those ugly green couches. The boys upstairs stole them, but who threw them out?

{new york, the city. manhattan, the borough. part vi.}

Cousins, the friendship.



{nicole. alivia. the end}

{new york, the city. manhattan, the borough. part v.}

Brooklyn, the bridge.

The Days When

The days when the math is off and the deadline is blown and the work clothes are still on at 10 pm and the email response is less-than supportive and the mojitos are two blocks too far away and lil Miss Sunshine is just a little too bright... The days when it feels like not only is there a race but I'm losing the race, we're losing the race...

Those are the days when we find each other on the front porch. When we're there to greet each other after the long day, swat lazy mosquitos, and tell each other, "you're doing fine." And we are.

We're doing fine.

{new york, the city. manhattan, the borough. part iv.}

East Village, the neighborhood. Street art, the medium of expression.
(and one of my favorite things to photograph)
 

{new york, the city. manhattan, the borough. part iii.}

East Village, the neighborhood.

{new york, the city. manhattan, the borough. part ii.}

We went to see each other, not so much to see the city. Our plan entailed not much more than spending the night at my brother's, heading to East Village, and spending a couple days with each other. Drinking coffee, tea, sangria (our staples and of courses) and meandering through thrift shops, vintage shops, coffee shops, perhaps tattoo shops. All of which we did. But my favorite part? Spending time with them.