The Past Three and a Half Years According to My Photobooth

[Edit: Oops. I did the math wrong. (No surprise there.) It has been only the past two and a half years. But still.]

You guys.

This is probably the most absurd post I've put together in a while...

but I just flipped through my photobooth photos from the last three and a half years ((!!!)) and I just have to share the outtakes.

Please note:
   - the fact that my wardrobe is comprised of mostly hooded sweatshirts.
   - the number of times I appear to have NO IDEA that the camera is going off. um. what?
   - holy emo, batman. I could give a fifteen year old a run for her money in some of these...
   - yes. i once had short hair. and now we can all watch it grow...
   - photo locations include maine, connecticut, ireland, maryland, and dc. but not in that order.
   - Capo, Nicole's cat, loves to cuddle. Nicole will blame that on me, but... whatever. (ha.)
   - Blossom, my mom's pup, might be part cat with all that shoulder sitting.
   - those walls are no longer yellow (ick ick ew).

And without further adieu...

And that right there pretty much sums up my life for the past three and a half years.

Decembers

I got a new planner today. I filled in every date I could remember for this upcoming year. Crisp white pages and black lines. Pen and pencil and highlighter almost-but-not-quite smudged. I haven't used a planner in a few years. While I was thinking of it, I updated my google calendar and deleted old categories: classes, study group, exams, gym. I decided I didn't need them but then thought twice.

 

Yesterday's 5pm coffee; a rambling, panicked email; and finally the meltdown that had been brewing all day. A mini meltdown, but only because she knows how to defuse them - she has years of practice - years of Decembers and Mays. Almost a decade.

 

I have old-time comforts now. I fall into them without noticing. That playlist on repeat, vanilla lattes rather than seasonal specials, three squash soup and corn bread from Whole Foods, that old hooded sweatshirt. The hours of the day blend with the days of the week - I shower at almost midnight only to wash away anxiety and throw my wet hair into a bun. Disheveled.

 

One December, six years ago, I hung holiday decorations, planned thoughtful gifts, made Christmas cookies, wrapped presents, talked with Santa at our holiday party. I spent my evenings with carols and Delilah's everyday miracles. I sent cards that year. That felt like a miracle.

 

I haven't since. Done any of that. Felt any of that.

 

There is peace, though, that comes from my own December traditions and rituals. The coffee, the soup, the nights that consist of only a few hours, the days of marathon writing or studying. Accidental traditions and rituals but nonetheless orienting. A final push before calm and then change. 

 

It came again this year. Unplanned and unexpected. A December closer to anxiety-filled Decembers of the past but also closer to the familiar, the known, the soothing comforts than I have been in months. A soft reminder that these years, these Decembers, strung together built a life. I built a life. This December, that feels like a miracle.

 

I'll over caffienate and undersleep. The cashier at Whole Foods will worry about my blood-shot eyes and incoherent greetings. It has really only been a few days. It will only be a few more. But I've already settled into it, welcomed it back like an old friend stopping by for just a cup of coffee while passing through town. I have to ask, though, will you return again, soon? This time, maybe for good?

 

My planner and I would like to know.

Sunday Morning Dreams :: This Time Around

I do my best dreaming in hooded sweatshirts with coffee in my hand. I do my best dreaming on Sunday mornings looking for places to live in cities far away. (Or not so far away, as it has turned out. Because it has turned out. Deep breaths and a reminder, it has turned out. It will turn out again.)

Soft melodies and bold beats as always, and this time around words, words, words. This time around more certainty that no matter what. This time around less of a dream, less disbelief, less uncertainty. And there is you and you and you. And you, who has always been there. Even before and ever after. We are. Dreaming and doing. And encouraging. You and you and you. Thank you.

I do my best dreaming in hooded sweatshirts with coffee in my hand. I do my best dreaming with you sitting next to me, far or near.

This time around there is you.

Hoods and Pumpkin Spice

I stepped off the bus into a gust of cold air and rain. Ducked my head down in the absence of an umbrella and made my way to the Metro - slower than the rain fell. Closed my eyes the whole ride home and almost made it to the front porch before the skies opened entirely. Cold and drenched, I fumbled for my keys under the porch light. Crawled into bed and fell asleep to the cold rain, the covers tucked under my chin. 

The morning light fell blue grey and the puddles held ringlets. Dressed myself in clothes too warm for last week and grabbed my rain jacket from the closet. Mismatched attire but I wanted the hood, the casual comfort. The feel of wrapped up, held together, just held. 

I ran all summer. On adrenaline. On coffee. On musts and shoulds. Trying to stay ahead of the change. To beat change. To make it to higher ground before it washed ashore and stole the sand, wiped clean my footprints. Our footprints. I ran and didn't look back. 

I'm here now. 

Car lights illuminate the street before I've figured out what to have for dinner and I pull on a hooded sweatshirt to ward off chills even though the air conditioner doesn't hum. I take a sip of pumpkin spice and remind myself: I believe in the change of seasons 

and the seasons of change. 

#2 & A Medium Coffee

The cement steps lead up to a screen door, glass during the three seasons that aren't summer. It had been over a year since I last swung open that door, stepped inside, walked up to that counter.

Community announcements plaster the front of the counter. Sunrise yoga classes, seeking jam-band participants Wednesday nights at 9 in back of the used book store, a constellation show at the planetarium - BYOB.

It's reggae, some Saturday mornings, that ushers everyone in, as if it doesn't trust the wafting scent of freshly brewed coffee or the sizzle of the grill to greet as proper hosts. Other Saturday mornings, it's an album of Pearl Jam, that lines us up and takes our order.

I always have a number two with soy sausage substitute and a coffee. Sometimes a vitamin water. XXX if I can reach. I went often before I left. (Leaving with connotations different than moving. Always phrased as leaving. Never certain why.) He knew my name then.

It had been over a year since I last swung open that door, stepped inside, walked up to that counter. Ordered a number two with soy sausage substitute and a coffee.

"Emily, right?" He didn't wait for me to answer before he wrote my name next to the order.

I wrote "Become a regular at a coffee shop" on a wish-list a few months after I left Maine. A few days ago, the day before I traveled back to Maine, a D.C. Starbucks guy gave me my iced-latte for free. "Don't worry about it; you're a regular." He waived my bank card away. He handed me the latte and the wish-list item to cross off. I took the latte but kept the list uncrossed. I wasn't sure of his motives. I was standing in the center of an international corporation. "It doesn't count," and I walked out.

Two days later, I stood at that counter of that neighborhood coffee shop with the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever had that serves the best coffee I have ever had. He wrote my name down next to my usual order and I finally realized: I had been a regular all along.

How To Get A Date

Move to a city. Lament Monday through Friday that you are never dressed appropriately. Worry that you will never fit in. Forget all this on Saturdays. Get dressed in only the clothes easiest to locate in your closet. Wash your face but not your hair. Or wash your hair but don't brush it. Skip the make-up. Hat optional. Slip into your sneakers without untying them. Make it to the metro just in time to sit for fifteen minutes. Curse single-tracking. Turn up the ipod to drown out the kids. Fall in love with a song. Hit the repeat button all day. Let it move your feet, move your lips, swing your hips. Forget to worry that someone might see. Get lost in the crowd. Find a corner of a coffee shop. Sip slowly. Write with fervor. Tell stories of the past - they're still here with you. Capture the present. Create the future. Keep writing. Move from the corner and out the door. Say goodbye to the barista. Explore. Use the lens. Look for the details. Focus on the moments. Lose yourself in the process. Find yourself in late afternoon.

Decide to take an early evening nap. Head for the metro. Keep that song on repeat. Look up when he says "excuse me." Say yes or say no to a dinner invitation. Make sure to say thank you. Put your earphones back on.

Or decide to have that second cup of coffee. Head for a coffee shop. Sit at the window. Sip slowly. Try to write. Get distracted by the people walking the streets. Say yes through the window to buying a newspaper supporting and written by the homeless. Thank the vendor for coming inside. Put the newspaper in your bag to read later. Return to your words. Be gentle on yourself when they don't arrive at all. Smile when he sits beside you. Answer when he asks about the newspaper. Squirm when he asks about your writing. Tell him he's right when he says, "I don't know you, but you have a lot in your head. I can tell." Ask questions that make you feel intelligent when you're interested in what he is saying. Ask questions that make you feel dumb when you don't understand what he is saying. Don't think about what you'll say if he asks you to dinner. Even when he asks what you are doing later that night. Tell him you might be going grocery shopping. Mean it. Ask him to tell you about living in Paris. Let him give you his number. Make sure to say thank you. Even if you're not going to use it. Put your earphones back on.

Head home.

In Which The Nights Have Their Own Ideas

It begins with an extra toss, an extra turn, and too many sighs.  The clock minutes change too many times before they disappear.  It begins with a dream that feels uncomfortable and ends suddenly against a dawn sky.  Light blue and gray skies mix as I roll over.  I move my hands from over my head and place them under my chin, where they belong.  Drift off again, without tagging those hours as a nightmare.  Forget the minutes, the nightmare, the hands by morning.  Recall the distant memory during the third sip of afternoon coffee and then again that night when those minutes begin to grow. 

It grows into tangled blankets, warm legs, and too many sighs that turn guttural with frustration.  The clock hours change too many times before they disappear.  Denial and acceptance roll into each other as I refuse to press play on a lullaby and begin to panic about tomorrow's productivity and dark circles.  When sleep finally comes, it arrives with jagged nightmares that end with my arms over my head and fists clenched in the dark night.  It takes too long to pull them down, to tuck them under.  It doesn't take long enough to fall back to sleep and back into those hours that I've already tagged as nightmares.  They'll haunt me during that third sip of afternoon coffee.

Too many days later, and too many hours passed, I'll find out that last year's lullabies still soothe.  The same ones I found during those nights I memorized the intersections of the four walls and ceiling.  They fill the darkness and rock me to sleep.  Quiet my mind with their notes.  Quiet my heart to a steady beat.  Notes tumble over my bed, but I'm drifting, falling sound asleep.  They'll dance around me all night and scatter at the sound of my alarm.  If I had turned to them sooner, morning would not come as such an unwelcome surprise, but my afternoon coffee will taste like cream and sugar rather than stale nightmares.

Sleep feels heavy and consuming tonight.  I'll slip in quietly and let it wash over me.  A surrender that brings peace, if not a peaceful surrender.  My body finally disconnected from my mind, and a heart without, without, without.  Quiet, still sleep. The kind that needs a hand placed on the back, on the chest, in front of the nose, just to make sure... disconnected but still here.  So still.  Quiet.  Dangerously safe.

Love/Hate CrazyBusy

See that tag over there?  The one that says "love/hate crazybusy"?  I have a secret to tell you.  (Or maybe you already know?)  I miss using that tag.  My life has not been crazybusy for a few months.  In fact,  I don't think I could label it crazy or busy, so crazybusy is out of the question.  I miss it.  The last time I wasn't crazybusy was almost five years ago.  I lived in Vermont and worked about 45 hours a week.  My job was still a job (months later it would be a passion) and I spent most days waiting for the future (law school acceptance letter in my hand).  At night, I wrote in a blog without reservation, because only a handful of people knew it existed.  I think I had two readers the entire year. 

12th January, 2006. 12:14 am.
I went to the post office today for fun. Drove down the windy road a little too fast until I saw the icebergs in the river. 

She told me about the spring icebergs. Only it isn’t spring, and yet there they are. Jagged flats of ice, 8 inches thick that must float down the river until they catch on a rock. And others also accumulate there, shifting the weight until they’re all standing on end. 

So I slowed down to look at the spring icebergs on the river on my way to the post office for fun. But if it were spring all my questions would have answers. And there would be new questions. Or at least new variations of old questions. But my questions remain the same redundant questions that I’ve given up on. Perhaps that is why I am bored, because I have stopped asking questions. And instead I go to the post office for fun.

My backyard in Vermont

Check out the time stamp - I have always been a night writer.  Even when I was not crazybusy, my words came easiest at night.  Perhaps out of habit.  Perhaps out of nature's that-just-how-I-work mentality (night owl!).  I think that time stamp, despite not being crazybusy, was the start of changing a lifestyle that didn't fit quite right.  Weeks later, I was nostalgic for spring semester of my senior year of college when I hardly slept and drank my weight in coffee. 

19th February, 2006. 9:23 pm.
Hot cappuccino in the paper cup, green and thin, the warmth burns my hands before I remember to grab the cardboard sleeve. An extra boost added to my steady adrenaline flow, caramel colored but vanilla sweetness; even with caution I burn my tongue. If I could just learn to wait, I know that by the time I arrive the iced air will cool its contents enough to drink.

This year I don’t need cappuccino from a machine; I could sleep twelve hours a night if I wished. But I don’t. I’m too busy waiting for life to need a hot cappuccino in a paper cup.

The great thing about reading these old posts is that I know what happens.  That post was in the middle of February break for the school, and when I returned on Monday, my entire would would start to flip upside down.  I'll tell you the story sometime, but my days got long (I clocked a 90 hour week during March!), and my work consumed my heart, and I started drinking coffee every morning.

Part of that transition happened over night (due to an event that I wish didn't exist - be careful what you wish for!), and part of that transition happened because I decided to live a life I wanted, even if it didn't make sense.   I am happier when I am crazybusy.  So I decided to be crazybusy.  It worked - almost too well.  But it worked.  Do you see where I am going with this?  Do you think I am crazy?  I've decided to be crazybusy again - starting tomorrow.  I'm good with making to-do lists and starting projects, so tomorrow, I become crazybusy.  (Yes, I know, it is too perfect that the word crazy is in that term.  I've got to try this though, stick with me!)

I've been thinking about faith a lot lately.  Not in terms of religion, but more of what I believe out of the all of the things that one could believe.  Does everything happen for a reason?  Does hard work pay off?  Does it all come out in the wash?  If I had any worthwhile thoughts to share, I would write a post about it, but I don't think I do at this point, so I'll leave it at that.  BUT I have come up with somethings that I do know I have faith in - Crazybusy.  Coffee.  Writing (especially late at night).  Taking photos... 

Crazybusy is a part of who I am.  I'm happiest when I am busy.  (This is probably because I am also invested in what I am doing and thus busy.)  Busy has saved me from rough patches many times in the past.  Busy saved me the last time I found myself daydreaming about needing a late-night caffeine boost.  So I'm going to try it again.  Am I advocating this method as a healthy way to move through a rut in life?  Noooo... definitely not.  BUT I think the things I am going to keep myself busy with are healthy and productive (see that little list up there) AND I need to start leaning on the things I know I have faith in.  I'll let you know how it goes....

 The view from the hill mountain behind my apartment in Vermont

From The Department of Starbucks Realizations

Starbucks at 7pm doesn't match my Sunday nights anymore, but I stop in anyway convinced that my evening cannot go on without a pumpkin spice latte, and when I walk in, there is a twentysomething girl sitting in the corner, hunched over a text book and spiral notebook.  I order, but then I'm waiting for my latte, noting that my life really no longer warrants an evening (or late night!) caffeine intake, and I suddenly miss being that "girl" sitting in the corner just trying to get the work done. 

I reason that it's my first year not going back to school (sans one temporary year) in twenty one years (or more?), if you don't count anything before first grade.  Of course I am going to feel misplaced.  But then I hear my old con law professor saying that the word "obviously" written in any opinion is a red flag that something is not "obvious" and the author just doesn't have a better explanation and wants to dismiss the need for an explanatory foundation.  (If I could cite to a case here, I would, but that's just because tonight I'm okay saying, "yes, that was my life" and leaving it (almost!) at that.)  I hardly ever use the term "obviously".  But I do frequent "of course".  And I almost groaned out loud because I had just said "of course" silently, which means now I need to find that better explanation.  So then I'm standing in Starbucks trying to decipher my feelings on September fresh starts that I haven't gotten yet, remembering alllll those exhausted Sunday nights under the florescent library lights terrified of fifty five minutes of con law Monday morning and how I used to wonder if "everyone else" in the world bakes pies on Sundays. 

So sure, that's it.  I don't need this pumpkin spice latte in my hand; I didn't get my standard September reset button; I'm running "old tapes" that don't apply anymore but still make my stomach flip with anxiety; and I still don't know if "everyone else" bakes pumpkin pies on Sunday afternoons in the fall.  I don't actually want to be that girl, drinking coffee, hunched over a book, with that worried look on her face. (And I tried the pie baking.  It only goes so far.)  But I'm getting so little of what I do want that I'm nostalgic for misery.  (I wonder if this is a worthwhile realization.)  I keep thinking "I'm too old for this" and then feel guilty, because I'm not, but I didn't know that before, and even though I know that now, I still can't stop thinking it.  I'm in a seemingly never-ending transition, and a good friend told me the other day that it is okay to be discouraged, and I really, really needed to hear that, but right now all I would really like to know is: when does this chapter end?

Holiday Lights and Statute Books

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.

Maybe This Is It?

The last time I was here, the cardboard cut-outs of Hillary Clinton were 50% off.  Tourists stopped to take photographs with a two dimensional Obama or McCain.  Memory re-orders the shops.  I deem them misplaced but almost rejoice that they are all still here.  I know the best place to buy lunch, which line moves the fastest, how to find tiny altoids (downstairs at the convenience store tucked around the corner from the escalator).  The Starbucks line still falls out the door and accidentally mingles with the Hertz rental car line.  I remember how empty this space feels at 10pm.  It always  seemed like we were the only ones in the city who needed a late-night coffee to make it the 3 blocks home.  We probably were. 

I had forgotten the friendly nature of people here.  How much more they smile.  How much more I smile.  I recognize faces, although mine goes unnoticed.  My heart breaks a little when that face is homeless.  Still sitting and staring and chanting.  I almost walk two blocks in search of my favorite - he was a kind head nod and small smile every day that summer.  I don't want to walk by the old office and old "apartment", so I tell myself he is fine and almost believe it.  I still see faces of people who aren't here.  Who were never here with me.  People I have not thought of in months.  I'm surprised that this hasn't faded with time, and I wonder if it ever will.  Will this city always remind me of you?  I had forgotten how often someone asks me for directions: "I don't know *shrug* I'm sorry!"  I apologize that an ipod on doesn't mean resident, and they apologize for breaking my stride.  We meet in the middle of the sloppy apologetic puddle and move forward.  Kindness. 

This time around my thoughts form stories, laying words like bricks, but I'm not sure there is a foundation. This time I decide not to walk through the Senate office buildings and head straight for the Museum of the American Indian.  I stop and breath in the Capitol building.  Inhale and exhale peacefulness.  My eye searches for photographs and captures viewfinder shots differently than two years ago, when I played tourist with my camera and resident with my heart.  I sit in the shadow of the museum and watch the waterfalls cascade.  I'm gentle on myself for not remembering the symbolism of the architecture and landscaping.  Note the importance I assign this knowledge.  I pick up a brochure on my way out and promise to take the tour next time.  Next time.  Feel daunted and assured. 

At the end of the day I'm in Union Station, sitting in a gray suit with a pen in one hand and a Starbucks in the other.  If I am trying to reconcile parts of me - professional and personal - then maybe this is it?

If Plans Were Tangible

I have plans.  (Don't I always?)  I keep them hiding under my bed.  I stuff them away in that dark corner where I can't see them, even when I'm lying flat on my stomach.  There are lots of them.  They fill a box, weaken the seams, shuffle themselves about like disorganized photographs.  Some are photographs. 

I can't reach them unless I wedge myself between the floor planks and the bed frame, prop up my face on the box spring, and wave my hand around in the dark.  But I do this at least once a day.  I pull of the box, add a plan, re-order a section, place one plan before another, color in the night sky of another.   Sometimes I add lipstick to my face, that blue coat that is already discontinued, and hair that stays perfectly in place despite the wind.  Sometimes I make a loan payment, order a kitchen counter for my studio apartment, and take a long sip of hot coffee.  The mug is always hot enough to warm my hands but cool enough not to burn. 

But I inevitably stumble upon some plan from years ago, faded, ripped, unattained.  Or attained but with an attached addendum so heavy that it sinks into unattained.  "Inevitably" only because I don't file away the attained plans in this box.  Those I digest with evening meals; they sustain my everyday like my carbohydrates count - so unnoticed I couldn't even offer a range.  So, of course, my hand grazes the sharp edges of those unattained, still filed away, waiting, incubating, or rotting. 

I recoil.  Shut the box.  Shove it back into the corner.  I notice how easily it glides.  How heavy it has become.

In Which I Forget My Name During The LONG Trip Home

So we leave Munich at 4pm Munich Time via a taxi cab with a driver that smells so badly I have to keep my window open despite the fact that we are going AT LEAST 100 mph on the autobahn (aka German highway that doesn't have a speed limit, according to my high school chemistry professor from Germany and my brother).  I hold my breath and have a twenty minute debate as to whether or not I should close my eyes: to see Germany with the fear of death instilled in me or to let it pass by without dying of fear? - that is the question.  We arrive at the airport in 20 minutes despite the fact that it was 45 MILES (or meters? why don't i know this?) from the hotel.  (Yes, we were staying in a budget hotel - it was LUXURY to have our own bathroom in our room, but I already miss the hostels.) Brother tries to argue with the cab driver over the fare despite the fact that the cab drive doesn't speak a WORD of English.  So Brother and I squabble over the point of arguing the fare and the cab driver walks away happy.  Munich airport process takes 15 minutes tops.  Quiet time 'til we fly.

 Flight to Dublin ensues easily, quickly, smoothly, lovely.  We land in Dublin at 10pm Ireland time (11pm Munich time) and enjoy a whole 10 hours with our own bathroom again.  Yes, luxury.

Check out of Dublin hotel at 8am and take their free shuttle to the airport where I already have a tug on my heart because I am leaving a country that I have become fond of (to say "love" is too soon, "infatuation" implies butterflies, and this adoration is more of a long hug and a hand to hold) not once but now TWICE this trip.

Dublin airport adheres to US requests for homeland security, and I want to take a video of the ridiculous procedures it took to get back into the U.S.  (Is there really a preventative element to all this, does it work?  We show our passport for baggage check and boarding pass printing.  We show our passport before we enter security.  We show our passport at security.  We have our backpack carry-on searched (only in Newark was it mandatory that we take off our shoes.).  We are given a customs form to fill out.  We have our passport checked and customs form stamped.  We then go through customs before even leaving Ireland, so again, passport checked and customs form stamped.  On the walkway up to the door of the plane they are doing random bag searches.  We avoid this one, thankfully, because I have now gotten over the shock of the cab driver in Munich and my patience is running out.  Also, I still haven't had my morning coffee because we have only 1.20 euros left, which isn't enough for airport coffee, and the fees to use a credit card would make the coffee $5.00 US dollars.  Not worth it for a tiny cup of not great coffee.  So yes, those guys were lucky they didn't search our bag again.  Ha.

Two movies (Dear John and What Happens in Rome - neither good movies), two episodes of Sex and the City, four sudoku puzzles, and three chapters of Memoirs of a Geisha, and four cups of coffee later we touch down in JFK at 1pm EST (or 6pm Dublin Time, or 7pm Munich time).

Sweet mercy, we do not have to go through customs because we did it in Dublin.  We go to collect our bags.  We listen to the overhead announcement every four minutes that there is a technical glitch in transporting our luggage and it will be there momentarily.  We listen to this announcement ten times and collect our luggage forty minutes later.  I am too tired to even care.  We have to show our passport again and hand in our customs form.  We are FINALLY approved for entrance into the US.  Phew?  I'm not sure, I already want to go back...

We take the airtram to the Jamaica, Queens subway station.  The E isn't running due to Sunday repair schedule.  We jam into a hot, overcrowded city bus and take a much unwanted tour of Queens, New York.  We make it to the stop that actually runs the E.  We get on.  45 minutes later we are in Manhattan on 53rd.  We transfer to the 6.  I love the 6 because it's the familiar and the known and I finally feel home even though this isn't home.  I start to get excited about the prospect of living here, and then sad because I'm so far from a place that feels like home before I even live there.

We finally get off at Grand Central Station.  I have now lugged my HEAVY suitcase up and down no less (but probably more) than 18 flights of stairs.  (This includes the 6 flights that it took to determine if we were going to take the E out of Queens or the Long Island Railroad.  If you are ever in this situation, take the Long Island Railroad.  Trust me.)  Brother says goodbye at 3:45pm EST, or 8:45pm Dublin time or 9:45pm Munich time.  My body is so confused that it just demands coffee.  I go to Starbucks.  

I take the 4:07 train back to New Haven.  It's Sunday and MetroNorth New Haven Line doesn't run trains as frequently as they should.  It is a crowded train, and I don't have a lot of options regarding where both my luggage (1 HEAVY suitcase, 1 HEAVY backpack, 1 camera case and 1 HEAVY purse) can all sit close to each other and not take up more than one seat.  (Thank you persistent overhead announcement. I get it.  You are in English, trust me, I understand.) I find a place for my luggage in the front and sit in the closest seat.  I cringe because the seat I am in makes up a four seat area with two seats facing my seat.  This means companions of the close and personal kind.  I put in my ipod and look out the window.  A group of fourth grade girls with chaperons gets on the train.  The chaperons see that I am tiny and I have three seats empty.  They decide that one chaperon and FOUR girls can fit in this space.  We all figure out that is not possible and divide it down to three girls and one adult.  The train finally leaves.  I planned on the traditional 1hr 40 minute ride.  But this train runs express to Stamford and then makes ALL LOCAL STOPS.  So my ride becomes two hours of hangman characters from the wax museum and well-behaved but screechy fourth grade girls.  I want to ask them if they know where Dublin is and how about Munich?  Because that was the starting point of my trip, not the wax museum.

The train pulls into New Haven at 6:15pm EST, or 11:15 Dublin time or 12:15 Munich time.  I am thankful for my passport because I don't know my own name anymore. 

In Which I Am Not Sixteen Anymore

I have to change the radio station to the adult contemporary station because I can't listen to hip hop at 10:30am.  The combination of bass and high-pitched-synthesized notes irrationally irritates; I hit the "tune" button harder than I intend.  And then the same with gas pedal at the end of my driveway until I realize the bush on the corner now obstructs all view of the gravel leading to the neighbor's house.  Too late to hit the break, I am actually relieved at the empty driveway.  If a lead foot and a loud bass made me feel better at sixteen (I'm not sure it did), then I'm going to have to find a different outlet at twenty six.  I'm not sure why this surprises me.  Or why I'm surprised at the lack of weeds springing up in our concrete driveway.  Or how much I still dislike the adult contemporary station - I spent too many hours listening to it in the orthodontist chair having my braces tightened.

What has changed, and what hasn't?  How long am I going to be here - do I have to figure this out?

I'm fighting sixteen year old irrationality with adult choices, like going to Big Y and purchasing my own coffee pot.  Because if I have to work my way out of this new maze, I'm going to need some coffee.  If I am going to transition HOME, I am going to need some coffee.  If I want to feel twenty six, and unemployed, and nearly addicted to 90210 re-runs, rather than sixteen and seeking summer employment and nearly addicted to 90210 re-runs, I am going to need some coffee.

"You are not sixteen anymore."  It's nearly an out-loud chant before I look around my car.  Black steering wheel, not gray.  Dark seats, not light.  It's not my '82 Toyota Corolla of ten years ago.  The coffee I was drinking on my way home last night still sits in the console.  Gross, sure, but also reassuring.  I find the CD I've had on repeat for the past few months.  It's still there.  Right where it was yesterday.  Right. where. it. was. yesterday.  I pop it in.  Take a deep breath.  And then I'm twenty six again, running to the store to fill a coffee addiction, listening to an arrangement of notes that didn't exist ten years ago.  And I remember: I am so many things I wasn't ten years ago.

In Which Adam Lambert Echos My Thoughts

I showered hours earlier and never bothered to comb or dry my hair, so I look like I am channeling Medusa as I pull up into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot and turn off my headlights.  Three elderly women sit in the window watching as the windshield wipers settle in, and I can follow their gaze to my out-of-state license plate.  I stifle a sigh, grab my bag, step out of my car, and wonder what labels they'll assign me in addition to "from away".  They all turn as I walk through the door, but I've had practice in ignoring faces I don't want to see.

I know I'm a spectacle with my chipped black nail polish and mismatched outfit, but I spent the day on the couch reading Alvarez and planning a trip to Switzerland because I'm done with work, homework is dwindling, and finals (for the last time) haven't arrived yet.    I have time to hope and dream, lay around with wet hair, and reheat my morning coffee all afternoon.  Listen to the rain.

The girl behind the counter is busy in the back room.  I don't mind waiting.  I wonder what these ladies talked about before I arrived.  "Connecticut," a reference to my license plate, rolls off their tongues like a foreign noun.  I sigh and then worry that they saw my shoulders heave.  I promise myself that I will walk out if I hear them use the term "flatlander".  And then I promise myself I will stay regardless; I don't want to upset the girl behind the counter.

Up in the corner, familiar faces flash on the television screen as the debate for governor drones behind the old lady chatter.  I almost sigh again but catch myself this time.  I'm a stranger and an insider at the same time.

An older man walks through the door and up to the counter.  When he sees that he will have to wait, he starts to grumble incoherently and loudly.  The girl walks over to the counter flustered, upset, silently apologetic.  I try to give her a reassuring smile and a kind order to make up for his loud grumbling and current pacing.  Back and forth.

I don't bother to put my hood up and walk out the door into the rain.  The ladies watch as I climb into my car.  "I'm leaving, I'm leaving," I want to tell them.  The radio starts with the car engine now that I've stopped listening to that CD on repeat, and Adam Lambert screeches "What do you want from me?!"

February

This always happens in February. September's hope rots into November frustration that I pick up off the floor in February and cradle with murmured lullabies. When the days grow noticeably longer, after I have "the best single valentine's day ever" (which always happens in the most difficult years), I start to love the cracks that let the light in.

I always surrender in February. By now, I have the placement of the brick walls I keep crashing into memorized. I stop trying to run through them. Instead I run my fingers across them, gently, slowly, noticing their small grooves, sharp pieces, smooth indentations. When I'm not throwing my weight against them, trying to push through them, climb over them, move them - so exhausting and defeating - I notice their intricacies and strength. I look around at how they have created my place, and I lay down in their protection. I collapse under their watch.

N's at the grocery store picking up children's cough medicine; her four year old charge sits on the couch, giggling, coughing, squirming, in front of Tom and Jerry. I respond to a work email from the kitchen counter in my pajamas sipping cold coffee and aimlessly wonder if we'll get snow. I'm not in class often enough to care about a snow day, my office consists solely of my laptop, I have to check the right hand corner of the screen to identify which day of the week it is. It's a futile curiosity and a futile identification - everything has been so different these past few months, I'm not certain where to lay my concerns. So I spatter them out and watch them evaporate.

I count the minutes that pass and take note of what fills them. Stuffed with vacancy or the core of what matters - when all is stripped away, I live the moments in extremes. Notice how little Tom and Jerry speak and remember how selfless and gratifying it is to love a four year old. But I hardly know this four year old. These days I can't carry the heavier things, so they effortlessly sustain me, while I watch vacant thoughts come and go. They're visitors in my home, walking through the front door, entertaining me for a moment and passing through the back door. Not noticing that I am on the ground with my hands admiring the wall. It is February after all.

Iced Coffee

i got an iced coffee at dunkin' donuts today. i got an iced coffee at dunkin' donuts today, because:
- it was in the mid 60s in december. (december average here is usually 25.)
- i can fiinnaallyy pay my bills and not think twice about buying a coffee.
- immediately following my purchase i had to convince my advisor (and whomever else) that i do have enough credits to graduate in may, once again pioneering my way through what I thought was a well established program. (wrong.)
- i am stressed out over inconsequential work "details" that are not part of my job description.
- i have to attend a prestigious, all day event tomorrow and put on a smile for too many high profile people that have come to know me as cool, calm and collected, when all i really want to do is sing "i've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" in falsetto while standing on my bed.
- it's almost finals time. i'm not sleeping much. i'm listening to modest mouse and the killers, pretending it is '03 and '04 when i liked finals, didn't worry about grades, loved my classes, and didn't have to concern myself with enduring anything else during finals.
- i'm trying to find a job that will launch a career in may. enough said.
- i'm worth the chance. i am worth the risk. i'm not apologetic that i do not come with a light-up billboard. it's not my style. i am worth investing in.
- i haven't gone grocery shopping since before thanksgiving. i have entirely given up on cooking. my meals are once again from whole foods' buffet supplemented by random items from my bare cupboards. i know i have to go soon - i am actually dreading it.
- i haven't cleaned my bathroom as recently as i would like. i share a bathroom with a boy. enough said.
- i know i am not the only twentysomething with these reasons.
- i know i am not the only one who got an iced coffee on this december summer day.
- sometimes the only thing left to do is get a coffee.

Thankful

I sat on the hard, wooden chair in an almost empty Starbucks, gulping down a pumpkin spice latte, eyeing the comfy chair in the corner, reviewing fiduciary duties, and trying to determine what I actually needed to know of Sarbanes-Oxley. The late hour would deter most people from caffeine, but the looming night-before-thanksgiving-drive brought a crowd to the drive-up window. As the evening wore on, I moved to the comfy chair in the corner, now vacated by the college students in sweatpants and uggs, telling stories of "wild" nights and name dropping types of alcohol. I had moved on to corporate take-over prevention strategies when the manager walked over and asked if I wanted the heat turned up. I politely said no, that I was fine, and he nicely ignored my polite response and turned the heat up. Two years ago, I was thankful for the kindness in the offer to turn up the heat.

Brooke and Andre hosted thanksgiving that year for those of us that were too far away and too swamped with work to travel home. Curry pumpkin soup, moist turkey, and all the trimmings covered the table. I devoured the home-cooked meal, curled up on the futon with a man who prefers men, and fell asleep before the blueberry pie. After dessert, dishes, and a second nap, Brooke sent me home with many hugs and left-overs. Two year ago, I was thankful for the love and care of close friends.

This year, I am thankful for thanksgivings at home with our families.

Red

Red fires blaze through dreams each night. Dancing flames spreading, contained. Smoldering embers glowing. I watch without fear as flames take center stage, enveloping my nights and perplexing dawns with meaning unknown.

Red walls of a teen's room, lined with records and charcoal artwork, flicker on-screen during our Tuesday mornings with the DVR play button. Red lining of our black coffee mugs match the on-screen walls, passion, blood, fireworks, love and lust. Centered Tuesday mornings in the arms of red.

Red background peeks out from behind my inbox until I lower the screen... corner to corner crimson appears with painted black streaks, notes, lyrics spattered in the crimson galaxy, random and aligned. Notes, lyrics, rhythms, beats umbrella the room from the deep red ipod reflecting my crimson desktop, and on certain evenings playing the same black painted notes across the crimson spread. Steadied, steadied, steadied by red, red, red.

State House

[originally written 2008]

2-12-08
Warm, yellow, light wraps its arms around me. Almost gently whispering, encouraging, a distant dream that I crawl towards on scraped hands and knees. Warm, yellow, light raises me to my feet, an arm around my shoulders, it provides support, absorbs my chills and uncertainty. It bounces off the marble floors, as if it pours straight down from the high rise dome. Softly encouraging a path not clearly marked, pointing out how far I have come already. In the warmth and embrace of its arms, I can set aside the doubt and appreciate the grace of this house, the pages bound in maroon, the decades of framed photographs, and picture the rocking chairs on the balcony. Surely wide-eyed, and infatuated with the architecture, the people, the issues, even the coffee in the Styrofoam cup he hands me. Reluctant to depart, but encouraged and uplifted. A loosely connected goal dancing in the distant future. For a moment, I could almost reach out to it, in the warmth of the yellow light.


4-9-08
I find the steps myself this time. The clank of my heels almost familiar, but the Appropriations sign hangs above my head, and I have to spiral up one more flight. A sea of faces, I scan for familiar ones, but I find none, so I take a seat in between. In between the House and the Senate.

This time I don't notice the light of the third floor, until we travel down a floor or two, stopping in the doorway of a darker hallway. A familiar face, and it takes me a little while to place why. A familiar con law issue, and it takes me a minute to remember why. A familiar admin term, and I know why. We pass through the doorway. Upstairs, I now have a friendly face to sit with, a reassurance that I understand more than I think I do, and a place in a conversation about a Bill I had never heard of. Sitting between two attorneys, I am not an attorney. Do I want to sit here as an attorney?

When they depart, I am left to watch my own thoughts run a treadmill race. Division into legislators and onlookers. I am somewhere in between. Lost in a sea of their pilot language, I try to translate with involuntarily squinted eyes. I know the importance of understanding the language, understanding the process, even if I never plan to stand in their place. I do not want to stand where they stand. Do I want to stand beside them - not on the floor, but in theory – helping to shape the conversation?

We leave for lunch, and I willingly sink into the familiar, concaved, red couch and look around. A coffee machine that that leaks water, books filled with rainbow highlights, and a hanger that probably once had a home in the car. Familiarity became an understatement as soon as we passed through the doorway. I wait for a comment about the lack of protein in my lunch, but he lets it pass. We let our conversation wander. To others it may seem like our own pilot language, but this one comes naturally for me, no need to translate. With two people it seems impossible to sit in between, but even when an additional friendly face arrives, I'm not worried about the in between.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure where I belong, but not I'm entirely lost either. At least I can find my way to the stairs.