Hometown Pride

Just stopping by to say...

Y'all. Remember the time I stood in line for eight hours to hear the last ten minutes a of Supreme Court oral argument? Well, the decision came down from the Supreme Court today, and although it didn't go quite as far as it could have, it was great.

It makes me hopeful for the future. 

Simple

I have, now, these days. By the pool, in the hot sun, the cool water, the chilled breeze. We flip pages, close our eyes, dangle our feet over the edge. The blue water, the blue sky, the concrete so reflective it's white, the puffy, white cumulus clouds. She opens the sun roof as we drive back; I have the wind in my hair, the Washington Monument to my right. White white against the blue blue sky. "I am one of the lucky ones," I breathe it in, breathe it out.

These days wash away - a dunk under water, face up to the new light - these days wash away the days past.

The sound of my car tires rolling down the driveway, driving away without me, for the first time, for the last time, for the only time. I watch from mid-driveway, back my way up to the garage stairs, sit for a moment with my face in my hands. Stacks of boxes teeter behind the house door, but everything in front of me is vacant. Empty and silent and oh so loud. Everything I didn't expect. Not this time.

The sandstone colored diamonds make up the recovery room floor. One-sixteenth a light white, a Caribbean beach color, and the rest a red-brown sandstone. I count them with my head between my knees, apologizing for my weakness, trying desperately not to become another patient. The caretaker, the patient, roles I'm not used to; I'm clumsy, afraid I'll break them. I almost do. Vasovagal syncope with a medical procedure trigger, the nurse tells us her daughter is the same way. I catch it in time, old hat by now, but I'm worried. If this is the first of many recovery rooms, if this is the first of many... I can't, I don't want to go further with that thought. Regardless, when the time comes - "when" because I'm facing the hourglass now, the draining sand, the time will come. When the time comes, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? Without going unconscious.

I leave the room to sit with the nurse in the hall and she's all "HIPAA, HIPAA, HIPAA" and I'm like "oh believe me, I know" because I've worked in four hospitals now and I start to laugh because of the irony of it all. The girl who can't remain conscious when faced with medical "stuff" has more hospitals on her resume than anything else. And the nurse and I laugh and I'm okay and it's all okay, it's all okay, and I guess this is how I will do this, when the time comes. I'll do it with help. I'll do it with kind souls. They'll let me be me and that part, that part will be okay.

I saw my afternoon snack and dinner, mid-digestion, Friday evening. After a day-long meeting and a pounding headache, and an hour nap I had no choice but to take, and the canceling of plans, and the first few bites of pizza, and her handing me a cold glass of water, it all came out. The packed boxes, the day at the hospital, the long ride back, the hot dc heat, the unanswered apartment search inquiries, the too-long work day, the suit with pockets full of dreams pulled from the back of my closet. It was all too much.

I spent the meeting drawing comparisons, measuring myself up. Tools for measuring: years, goals, vocabulary, wedding rings, linear regression models, articles published. All mine, only present in a lack there-of. Without, without, without. Sitting among idols, absorbing every. single. word. Sitting among idols, reaching, reaching, reaching. Always reaching. I toppled over, Friday evening. To my knees, quick and urgent. Before tucking myself into bed.

Saturday morning, wearing bed head and pajamas, we decide to go to the pool. I worry and then I stop. Sometimes, it's that simple. Pack a bag, with a book, sunscreen, towel, sunglasses. Climb into the back seat, the air conditioner and open window air roll over each other and through my hair. The pool water is blue and clear, the sky the same, the sun hot, the clouds white and puffy.

I have these days, now, that wash the rest of it away. Sometimes, it's that simple.

[sandra cisneros, the house on mango street.]

Blame It on the Heat: The Broken Things Edition

It has been hot here. I bet if you're in the northeast, it has been hot where you are too. And I bet if you're in northern New England, you've been hanging out at home without air-conditioning, right? I don't know that I've ever lived in a place with air-conditioning (and I mean more than a window insert in one bedroom) in New England. It's just usually not necessary. I have central air conditioning. So, I really have no right to complain. And I'm not really complaining. I live in DC. I expect it to be hot. I spend 99% of my time in air conditioning, so it's not as though I'm really dealing with the heat.

Until things break.

I'm pretty sure everything has broken the past two days because of the heat. Here's a non-exhaustive list of things that have broken the past two days:


1. Metro Red Line -- My twenty-ish minute commute to work became an hour+ commute yesterday morning because the Red Line tracks broke. Or something like that. I just know I would hate to be a sardine.

2.  Elevators -- All four elevators at work broke. All at once. Thank goodness I don't work on the twelfth floor.

3. Water Cooler -- Okay, so it didn't exactly break, but we did run out of water yesterday morning and didn't get an "emergency water delivery" until this afternoon. Which means we spent the majority of the two hottest days so far this year having to buy water at CVS. The tragedy!

4. Electricity -- Yeah, our office building (all twelve floors) lost power yesterday afternoon and it didn't come back until 10pm. We got out of work early, but today was a marathon trying to cram days of work into twelve hours.

5. Dupont Circle Fountain -- Um, I think the drains were clogged? I don't know for sure, but water was streaming down the side, covering the sidewalks, and making mini-lakes. Not so bad on a hot day, I guess...

6. Twitter -- I can't actually confirm that twitter did in fact break or that it was due to the heat, but I heard a rumor it broke today and I'm gonna go ahead and blame it on the heat.

7. Good Spirits -- Holy guacamole, am I tired and grumpy. If anyone sees my sense of humor, please direct it back to me. And maybe my smile too. I really need to get a grip or it's going to be a looonnnggg summer.

And that abruptly concludes my random, uncorroborated list. Sponsored by high humidity and scorching temps.

The End

Bye-Bye Miss American Pie

Moving to New York means I won't be driving my car for a while. And by "a while" I mean probably ever again. So, I made the rational, adult decision to give my car to my dad for safe-keeping for who-knows-how-long. It had been sitting in my mom's garage for the past year (moving from the suburbs into the city meant it no longer made sense for me to keep it with me in DC) and was a bit under the weather. And by "under the weather" I mean it had a dead battery and two flat tires. Nothing a little battery charger and a couple of cans of fix-a-flats can't fix. Oh fix-a-flat, I could tell stories about you... but we'll save it for another day...

I'm pretty notorious in my family and among my friends for being not-so-great at letting go of things (and people...) and for being pretty liberal with my tears. Staying true to my reputation, I cried twice as I turned over the car to my Dad. "It's just going down the road. You can drive it anytime you want." His rational, adult logic did little to console me. What can I say? At least I haven't changed much over the years. 

It's just that... It's my car. It's not my first car, not even my second car, but it's the first car I could ever rely on. It's the first car I haven't had to wait seven minutes for the headlights to come on, or worry that it wouldn't start when it rained, or have three (three!) used transmissions put in. (All totally true stories. Also, the combined purchase price of both of those cars was $150. I spent most Saturday mornings with my Dad with my head under the hood of both those cars. But I digress...) It's the car that has been there for me through the craziness that ensued my first year out of college, through law school, and my move down to DC. It was reliable and dependable and steady. It took care of me and allowed me to be independent. Without it, I was nothing (if not a bit dramatic, haha). 

Anyway, I took my things out of the car and had a bit of a walk down memory lane. A lot of my stuff was from college, which I think is funny, because I didn't actually have this car in college. When I looked at the items I had been carrying around with me everywhere I went, I realized that it's a pretty accurate glimpse of who I am...

My co-pilot since 2004 & a gift from Brooke.

His name is Wilbur, after the pig in Charlotte's Web. Of course.

A promise and reminder to myself since 2005.
Hung out around my stick shift.

Old CD collection I still play. (Some more than others...)
Dispatch ejected earlier this weekend. (Played a lot. A lot a lot.)

School Pride
(Never made onto my windshield, though...)

Directions to my 2010 temp job.
Well-wishes to myself were necessary.

Oh hey! Look what I found in the drawer under
the passenger's seat! Circa 2008?

Meetings, meetings, meetings.
So many meetings in 2009-2010.

Holding it together.
Barely.

Not holding it together.
At all.

So that is my photo-essay of my dissent into tears over my car this weekend. Stay tuned for more craziness, because as you know, my love for my car always gets a bit awkward.

[Yes, this post's title... I know.]

Things That Might Be True

"What's new with you?"
"Oh, not much."

I replied whole-heartedly, hardly thinking. He put his coffee mug down on the table and turned to look directly at me.

"Emmy. You have more going on than anyone I know."

I gave a quick and forced exhale. It could have been mistaken for a laugh.

From the Archives: Mary Oliver

This post is keeping me company tonight. 

So, I thought I'd share (again). 

[I hyper-linked it this time around. Just because.]

_________________________________

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Mary Oliver

She recited lines of poetry to me that night, although I’m sure she wouldn’t remember. As we moved through the house, I bore witness to life shattering. I searched for the poem in the days before the funeral, when the first few weeks of July would no longer ever be just the first few weeks in July. When I began to realize that I held something I may not ever be able to share, in words, in tears, in tangible form, because I was an accidental tangle of too-far-removed and too-close. I held her hand. And that was all and that was everything.

***

I collected Mary Oliver’s words unintentionally this past year. Leaves fell last October as easily as my tears. The sky darkened early in November, but my nights grew longer still, bare and aimless. A last leaf in November, hanging on to nothing more than a spider’s abandoned silk. Perhaps I picked up a few of her words among brown leaves blowing over the sandy shores. The ocean’s wind bites in November.

I waited for the snow of the year past to return last year. Quiet and strong reasons to hibernate and burrow and sleep for endless days, curled up in that warm corner. It never came. Sometime during the warm December, the wind kissed my cheeks and made me blush; it was unexpected and I was uncertain. I took off layers of myself and hung them in the back of the closet, instinctively knowing that this winter I would not need this coat, that sweater, these titles, those identities. Maybe I pulled a few of her words out of the back corner of that closet. From the spot I wanted to curl up in, but instead stripped down. To nothing and to everything.  Sometimes they are the same.

Spring came early. Spring came late. I’ll never remember. I left often, returned far less often. I’ll remember the waves without the wind or the grained shores. The moon’s perfect fit in my closet window. Keeping watch over me. I wrote down her name after reading a poem on the internet. I’ll never remember if I thought her syllables sounded familiar. How quaint to say that I bloomed that season. I won’t. I did and I didn’t, I’ll never remember. I left often. I let the moon watch over me.

Summer sun dried the rain of the summer before. I burned and the sand blazed. The nights wilted, but I could breath in the dark.  Deep breaths. The rivers still ran, and I found my footing in soft grass, cool morning dew. I found her name on a brand new spine, upright on the fourth shelf from the bottom. Mary Oliver. She came with me to the ocean side, and I read her in late evening as summer set on the horizon. Blazing red, promising promises with its departure. I drank in some of her words, but left most - I thrive on concrete sidewalks, under bright lights, in pedestrian walkways, when horns blare too loudly. I don’t connect to nature. Days later, the September butterflies danced.

***

This rainy afternoon in October, I clicked on a link and her poem was there. Those lines from that night, unexpectedly standing on the shoulders of Mary Oliver’s name. “Determined to do the only thing you could do - determined to save the only life you could save.” And that was all and that was everything.

Recently

I looked back to see when I last posted photos from instagram, and I can't find the last post. Has it really been that long? I know I shared some that were Knoxville specific, so I think I'll take it from there. My instagram uploads (oh, and my life) have looked something like this the past few weeks:




If you're on instagram, feel free to follow along! I'm EmilyKaatherine, big surprise. =)

Summer Begins...

It's a gorgeous day here in DC. Sunny and in the 90s - which is exactly how I like my DC summers. This is my third DC summer, how crazy is that? Twenty-three year old me would be ear-to-ear beaming, proud of me. I need to remember that more often. I'm jamming out (serious dance-party-for-one up in here) to Suzy's tag sale play list. (Uh, garage sale, I mean. "Tag sale" is the New Englander coming out in me.) I sprang for the venti iced coffee this morning and have big plans to abide by my plan-for-no-plans and do whatever I want for the next twelve or twenty four or thirty six hours. Which will probably include sun and more iced coffee and a lot of jumping around. DC summers have been a few of the best summers I've had since I was a kid. This summer it already feels like the trend will continue. I haven't put a lot of effort into that trend, and I am so grateful it looks like it will continue for another year. 

[Thank you for hanging in there with me as I ride the waves/winds/roller-coaster of change and put absurd colors on my face. I hope wherever you are, you are having a wonderful Saturday.]

Some Phases of Life Require Red Lip Stain

I decided on the way home tonight that I needed red lip stain. So I stopped at CVS and applied liberally when I got home. I usually consider it a good day if I remember to reach for my blistex.

I put up a post last night and then deleted it this morning. (It was bad writing.) I have four unfinished posts in my drafts folder. That sweet-spot eludes me. I can't find the right flow. I'm working on a writing project that I'm not sure will ever see the light of day. It's not quite...  enough. I made myself promise I will hit "publish" on this post. Regardless of...

Things are good, you know. All of them. I know.

I wanted to tread lightly. Walk slowly and lightly. "I turned my whole life upside down." I said it. I acknowledged it. I'm not sure I believed it. And now...

It's more than letting go. It's life contracting and expanding in the same moments. An old accordion moving together and apart, together and apart. It's starting over.

Last night I wrote about intuition and time. Self-loyalty and self-doubt. Or that's what I tried to write about. It ended up jumbled with stories from middle school math class and sophomore year prom invites. It ended up being about right and wrong, which missed the mark, mixed up the point. I hit publish well after 1 am. I should have been sleeping.

This transition to the next "chapter" of life is beginning well before I pack my things and go. It's beginning. I see that now. It's a bit jumbled and abrupt. Scattered and ridged. Disjointed. Too heavy. 

But at it's core, it is about intuition and time, self-loyalty and self-doubt. I'll take that any day over right and wrong. Red lip stain and all. It's what is getting me through.

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

The first morning, we unknowingly walked straight into the Knoxville Farmer's Market held in Market Square. It was the best way to start our weekend and I had the best cup of coffee I have had in years.
 

There were two vendors we loved in particular, and I wish I had made a few purchases. I'm glad they have online stores:

Sarah Brobst Jewelry
Jennifer Simpson Art 

The Farmer's Market might have been my favorite part of the weekend. Although, it has some close competition...

{part i, part ii, & part iii.}