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.

Suits & Bracelets

She wore a bright-colored, glass bracelet, peeking out from under her black suit jacket. Matching suit pants. Wavy, long hair cascading over her shoulders. On some days, pulled into a simple pony tail.

She pulled out leather chairs in the Hill conference room and sat down with authority. But also sank into quietly into coalition meeting chairs without disturbing the loud rounds of hellos and announcements of personal ego. Her emails distributed out-of-office notifications with phrases like "six weeks" and "Guantananamo Bay"- but she spoke mostly of rafting trips and sun on California beaches. She smiled more often than not.

I cut my hair the summer before in favor of a shorter, older, more professional look. I wore naked wrists and naked earlobes.

More often than not, I still do, but two falls ago, I let my hair grow longer.

I want pant suits with perfect pressed lines hanging in my closet. I want the confidence to slip into one at a moment's notice and stand up quiet, loud, proud, with ease for what I believe. I have the belief, I have the knowledge, listen.

Most of the time, I want to wear jeans. I want to carry my camera everywhere and actually snap the shot. Stop. Move to the left. Bend down, stand on my toes, weave through the crowd, feel the eyes of the crowd, but take the photo anyway.  I want to take the photo and not notice the eyes. Everyday.

Write. Everyday. Write with a pen in a moleskin, notebook, journal. With the tumblr, twitter, gmail distractions closed and tucked away. Write with honesty at the core. Live with honesty at the core. Everyday.

Travel. As a lifestyle. Not a vacation. Not work. Buy tickets, pack the bag, and leave. Walk new streets, eat the food, say hello to new faces. In these moments, I am an extrovert. Sleep in tents, on trains, hostel bunk beds, airport lounges. Bring a pen. Bring the camera. Go, go, go.

Listen to music. Live. Stay up too late on a weeknight, lose my voice on a Saturday night, sing along, dance. Be inspired. To feel it. To express it. To share it. All of it. Listen to those songs on repeat, download the latest album, remember the old favorites. Fill the days, the hours, the minutes with melodies, harmonies, lyrics.

Drink more water, eat more protein, think about yoga on Saturday afternoons, pop a few vitamins, use more hand lotion, let the rest of it go.

Let most of it go.

I'll find my own bright-colored bracelet and slip it on under the cuff of my black pressed suit. 

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.

The Battle Cry - The Reclaim

Florence + The Machine beats through my every step these past few weeks.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

It's a battle cry. I am ready. The time is now. To stand, to fight, for this life. This life this voice this time. All mine.

It's a rush of power. This declaration. As though I have an army marching on both sides, over the crest of the hill and across the fields. We're approaching. An army of drums, voices, a sea of bright colors and black, a celebration and a reclaiming of power. A reclaiming of the land.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

Black nails and black hat - rituals of claiming this life - a defiance and a determination. I painted them last weekend and pulled the brim lower.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

This army. The ones who pick me up each time I trip. Comrades for years, for weeks, for days. They have waited until I am ready. I am. I have an army of self. We are marching over the terrain. The mundane, the monotony, the day to day underfoot. We light fires with each step. Balls of yellow flames bursting against the night sky. Torches held high at mid-day. I am here to reclaim. My voice. My agency. My life.

Louder than sirens, louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

I am here to reclaim my life.

Revolutions are born in the underground, in the dark of night, a rumble unheard below the surface.

[I wrote this last weekend on the bus ride back to DC but this past week was exhausting. I suppose it will be like this for a while. Energy and exhaustion, while I change the future but leave the present as is. Or something to that extent. On which, I will be mostly silent. For now.]

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. 

Dismantled Suit, Iron-Worn Pants & Buttons Loose, I Am Here

 virtual tour

The summer interns arrive in droves. They wear crisp suits, fresh faces, and bright eyes. Razor burn along the jaw line and a forgotten dab of shaving cream behind the ear. Toe nails painted with summer colors and tucked under flipflop straps. We tuck our winter toes under the seats; has the season changed already? Our weathered faces point down or out, practiced at processing the sights their bright eyes soak up.

I had bright-eyes, too. Three summers ago, before and before and before... when I could walk to work each morning under the gaze of the Capitol building and watch summer thunderclouds wrap themselves around her dome in the evening. I wore those crisp suits until they melted my skin and wilted in the summer heat. I learned to stand in the entryway of Senate Office Buildings long enough for the sweat to evaporate and the goosebumps to form before replacing the suit jacket. Three summers ago, when I spent mornings standing in line outside the committee room, afternoons with a press-pass in hand, and evenings on conference calls dissecting proposed amendments.

I've rolled my eyes at politicians. You know this, you've seen me. But I've also stood in a church pew holding back an "amen" at grassroots campaigning and in the back of the state legislative library in our almost his-and-her suits, flipping through volumes of this and that and this... searching for nothing and coming up so close. I've sat on the couch in that office across the hall of flags. And with my legs crossed in the third row of the of the committee room.

Three summers ago, I threw my arms around her in the marble-walled bathroom four doors down from the mark-up. We celebrated the passage and our late-night work sessions outside the third stall until those-who-did-this-for-a-living walked in with tiredhappy faces. I took mine, with its wet eyes, for a celebratory milkshake that afternoon.

Three summers ago, before and before and before...

Before I learned that which means nothing to me can rise to mean everything and then settle into nothing again.

I am here again. Miles from the Capitol building, but I am here again. Dismantled suit, iron-worn pants and buttons loose, I am here again. Tired eyes, but I am here again.

All that's glamorous has fallen away.* The marble-faced buildings and the echo of my heels down their never-ending halls, the dark, wood panels of the committee room and spiral staircases, the balcony rocking chairs. The playful smiles and my eye rolls. The I know, I know, I know...

I work through tangled, misguided legislation passed in capitol buildings I've never entered by politicians who's faces I've never known. Slip my feet in and out of flats under my desk and leave them hovering over the green carpet. We adjust the air-conditioning and belly laugh until tears fall from our tired eyes.

I am here again and I am here for the first time and I am here for everything that's not glamorous. I am here for everything that's important.



*With exception, of course. Patience, Emily. Patience.

My Friend Are Talented: Part III

I don't know if there is a greater joy than seeing the people I love pursuing interests that they love.  I am a huge advocate of the I Love This & I Am Going To Put My Energy And Exuberance Into This Purely Because I Love It mentality.   I love to share what they are doing because they are ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS at what they love.  Amazing how that works out, right?  =) 

My friend, Elizabeth, is no exception.  This gal rocks at so much and she always looks fabulous doing it.  I'm serious; she looks great even in work-out clothing on the treadmill.  And in a suit stepping out of a courtroom.  I don't think I realized how hard it is to look stylish in a suit until I had to wear one on a regular basis.  It's hard.  She makes it look easy. 

And she's helping us make it look easy also.  (Or at least making it easier to try, in my case.  Hooded sweatshirts and jeans still come easiest to me... Baby steps, right?)  She is handing out fantastic, fabulous, oh-I-get-it-now tips at The Sequined Blazer. I'm really excited about this site, because she and the lovely Anna are offering great, down-to-earth advice on how to manage the workweek wardrobe without losing any of your personal style.  A-ma-zing.

Check 'em out over at The Sequined Blazer!

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.

Suits

In my closet, I have a row of suits. Black, navy, gray. Dark and light. Tailored to show tiny curves, with sleeves that hit below the thumb joint, and pant legs to just above the high heel. Heel height no more than 2 inches, with a slight point for elongation, but not enough to make a fashion statement. Comfortable and confident in a suit, I automatically feel capable and successful.

In my closet, I have a shelf of hooded sweatshirts and beside them a pile of jeans. Pullover, zipper, plain, and letter imprints. Some sizes too large with room enough for another person and sleeves well over the finger tips. Jeans of different washes, many worn in the knees, pockets ready to fray, but always the clothing item of choice. Below them sneakers I never bother to untie or consider replacing with heeled trends. Comfortable and confident in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, I automatically feel lovable and safe.

I have spent weeks in suits. I have spent weeks in jeans and hooded sweatshirts. I have come to love my bipolar wardrobe. This year, the suits emerge once every few weeks, usually for a trip to the Capitol's judicial center. Jeans and hooded sweatshirts emerge on weekends and the occasional weekday, usually for meeting-less days spent researching, or before class due dates. The other days I spend blankly staring into my closet, looking for a business casual wardrobe I do not own yet, wishing I could grab a suit from my right side or hooded sweatshirt from the left. Missing that comfortable confidence.

Slightly Sick

irritated sore throat, scratchy voice, warm to the touch, orange juice, chicken noodle slurp slurp, waves of chills, spearmint cough drops, warm to the touch, weak cough, weak body, cherry flavored nyquil waiting for me if i can just make it through this slightly sick day...