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.]

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.

The Urge, The Desire, The Intuition

The year everything crashed, I listened to a piano version of a Coldplay and Taylor Swift mash-up by a musician I had not heard of before or since. I pulled myself up off my bedroom floor, stumbled upon this mash-up immediately, and found the repeat button through tear stained vision. I didn't even like Taylor Swift. I still don't, really. But I listened on repeat and it helped me breath through the moments I thought I might never breath again. I listened without explanation or reason.

I painted my nails black that fall. I had not worn nail polish in years, if ever, but I walked over to the kitchen drawer and pushed around Nicole's collection of colors. Pushed aside the reds, oranges, and blues. My fingers found the bottle of black in the corner, untwisted the top and mimicked her long, full strokes. The black spread, filling and healing. Unexpected but welcome.

I bought my mom's camera with me when I went to visit Nicole one Friday afternoon. I had it sitting on my desk from a vacation months prior. Reserved for vacations and special events, not Friday afternoon visits. We took the baby and the stroller down to the beach at the end of the road and began to snap photos. And I haven't stopped.

I began a tumblr, not entirely sure how to tumble, who to follow, what to do with this domain space. "Don't over think this. Just do it." I had an idea by then, of how this feeling worked. An urge, a desire, an intuition. Follow it. Let it fill me up. Photos and poetry and coffee and travel. I filled the space. I filled myself.

I pulled on an old black top, smeared my eyeliner, and pulled the black brim down to my eyes. I smiled at my reflection, at this new look. It's going to be a good Saturday, I knew. Turned on my ipod, grabbed my camera, my keys, my life, took a deep breath, and headed out the door.

I trust myself now. Without explanation or reason. I follow the urge, the desire, the intuition. I let it lead the way. To a place that fills.

You're Not Really A Loner...

"You're not really a loner. Sometimes, I think you just play one on TV. You're actually very social."

He's right. He's good like that. He always calls it as he sees it. And after 8+ years, he's seen a lot from me.

We all worry about my personal life.

"In Vermont," he said, "you almost had to be alone." I was often alone when I lived in Vermont. On some December nights, I streamed Delilah on my laptop for company and the version of Silver Bells I knew as a child. I wrote for hours on Sunday evenings. I coasted down the side of mountains on dark roads with only my thoughts. But. The memories that arrive the fastest are the evening gatherings under the rising moon with blueberry pie and the nights grouped around the television placing bets on Survivor. I vividly remember nights falling asleep on her futon to the sounds of Finding Nemo. How many times did I try to stay awake for that movie and fail miserably? So many times. I spent weekdays in our one-room office with people who knew to pause after delivering a joke - it would take me a few seconds to burst out in laughter. I had a place down the hall in his office where I could go when the world stopped making sense. Where I could go at 6:30 am on a Tuesday morning, shaking with shock and still in my pajamas.

"And in Maine you always had someone around." It's true. Our 1L classroom hit capacity at about 20 people fewer than we had in our class. I had an attached-at-the-hip partner-in-crime for most of law school. She cultivated my love of coffee and we worked together through every code book that came our way. We hardly slept but when we did we could still give a quality pep talk mid REM cycle. We kept each other going. I had a best friend who would lay with me and giggle on the hard wood floor and who would show up at my doorstep without my asking on dark nights. A best friend from college who reminded me that I was still, first and foremost, a person rather than a law student. I had roommates that became friends and friends that became roommates. Friends that became family. But I also built walls high and thick in Maine. I learned fortress architecture along with case law. Things-I-Can't-I-Focus-On-Right-Now filled the moat and too much jumped ship before I could spot anything from the third floor of the law library. If I had know, I would have said to hold on. I am coming. These books, these bricks, they block everything.

"I worry that you are isolating yourself in DC. I know there are people in DC you are hesitating to reach out to." Am I? Or am I just playing isolated on TV? Would it be different if I had a ring on my finger? Would time alone mean isolation then? Independent and single doesn't answer anything, though. At certain times of day, I worry too. At least when he phrases it like that. But I do have a personal life. I have spent five of the past seven weekends with people I love. My weekends spill over into the weeks and my phone battery drains. I have trips planned and emails still waiting for a response. My co-workers and I can exchange a glance and burst into laughter and about each other - we know enough, we know so much. I have loose plans with people here I look forward to seeing. I'm hesitant, yes. But I feel silly telling him that I scramble to find time alone, time to take a breath.

Five years from now, when the wedding dresses hang in the back of closets and the diaper genie sells for best offer at the neighborhood tag sale and crayon drawings hang on the refrigerator... it's those days I worry about. Do the moments I love now, hot morning coffee in cafe corners and silent nights writing, the moments I spend alone but not lonely, do they mean I am building thicker walls? Can I blame it first and foremost on this career - and how often I do - when so many from that "ivory" tower have walked the aisle and I'm still standing alone? Did they teach us that a career is a dichotomy of a personal life? Did I learn that lesson wrong or too late? How is it that just now I have to face it, name it, adjust to it? When in the mountains and in the library, I had both and neither but never this worry.

And now. Not enough time for life and love and career, always out of order and all three just out of reach.

Mud Season Months Early

Stuck. Somewhere between day and night and in the center of those three notes colliding. The crash of rhythm and melody. I'm between hope and fear with belief clashing and thrashing and screeching for attention, for definition, for my hand. I'm standing in the middle of honesty, cleansed by its current but stripped down, to the center of everything and nothing, which always seem to be the same. Always the same. Loud and quiet, completely still. Anything but peaceful. Rolling over to emptiness, but sometimes I fill the space, the time, the moments, alone. A crescendo, waves rushing forward. Perfect circles. These seams can't contain that which I push against, wishing for the strength to shove and pound my fists, but honesty crumbles me and moves me. Back to where I began.

[if i knew how to install music to a single blog post, i'd post this song at the top.]

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?

Constructed Lives

We pass over the East River on a bridge different than MetroNorth's.  Roll through Brooklyn in the fog.  The buildings peak but the gray swallows the skyline.  The same gray as my suit.  I convince myself that I have not disappeared and wonder why this internal conversation sounds familiar.  When else did I have to convince myself that I have not yet disappeared?  What was I doing then?

As we pull into Penn Station I'm stringing words together but sitting on my hands.  Afraid I will write myself out of my life.  A constructed life, I remind myself.  It waxes and wanes, but you're okay, I coax myself.  My hands still pressed against the fake leather seat.  Willing myself not to get off the train and run into the warm New York rain.  Feel it rush down my face.  Scrunch my nose at the smell of wet sidewalks and the stench of misplaced garbage. I turn up my ipod, take a deep breath, and text a friend - my fingers need something to do.  Dismiss the thought that this must be what a quit smoker feels like after kicking the addiction.  Dismiss the thought that NYC has become an unhealthy addiction.  Call it back because maybe that will keep me in my seat.

A woman with fast blackberry fingers sits down next to me.  I grab my coffee as we lurch out of Penn Station.  Try to figure out if I started holding my breath before or after we left the station.  Scramble for my pen and paper.  Declare myself in bold ink A WRITER to the pages of my moleskin. "Once In A Lifetime" crawls into my headphones, and I can't help but wonder what this moment means for my life.  We cross what I assume to be the mouth of the Hudson, and suddenly this train ride can't be long enough.

"You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here? [...]

You may ask yourself
Am I right?... Am I wrong?  [...]

You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?" 

[Once In A Lifetime, Talking Heads]

Humid Days

The humidity has returned today.  Everything feels moist, and heavy, and still.  I have fallen into line.  Even the minutes seem to take a longer time counting to sixty.  Dragging their heels, stopping to rest, breathing heavily.  When the minutes drag, the afternoons stretch, and I can only think that tomorrow has broken its promise to arrive on time.  I'm afraid tomorrow will leave me here, stuck in humid afternoon air.  Hazy without even a glimpse of the horizon. 

I'm ready for an end to these summer afternoons.  I'm ready for tomorrow.

Lost

I spent four years in a city large town city without ever knowing if I was taking the shortest route from point A to point B.  I knew where I was coming from and where I was going and even which road I was on, but I just didn't know if there was a better way, or if I was destined to take another turn that would dump me even farther from where I wanted to be.  (Let's blame this on one-way roads and, uh, well, not getting out enough.  But mostly one-way roads, ok?)  I would get there eventually, hopefully on time.   I spent a lot of those rides on the phone with a friend nearly hysterical with laughter because after YEARS of living in this tiny city I could still end up lost.

I would cringe at the thought of being lost.  My friend, one of those that has known me almost too well for years, usually would ease my fears and remind me that I wasn't really lost.  I knew where I came from, where I was going, where I was at that moment in time, and even how to get where I wanted to be.  I was just anxious because I wasn't sure I was taking the "right" route.  I wasn't sure precisely how long it would take to get there.  (It's a small town city.  The difference would be a matter of a few minutes.)  I was only panicked upset because I felt inadequate in my navigation.  Not because I was actually lost.  I was uncomfortable because I'm used to being spot-on with my inner compass.  (We're talking rural dirt roads and international metropolitan subway spot-on internal compass success.  Or, you know, something close to it.)  Uncertainty in my, uh, talent, and the possibility of being wrong/different/slow spun into the feelings of being lost.

I've been lost a handful of times.  Usually when I'm not sure where my destination is located.  Or when I think I am going one place and then find out that I am actually supposed to be somewhere else.  At least once I have gotten lost when I have had to take an unexpected detour.  (Those orange detour signs are not as helpful as one might think.)   Actually being lost is unsettling, scary, lonely, helpless, and sad.

The metaphor here is that I remind myself everyday that I am not figuratively lost.  My life right now is not the ideal, but I'm not really lost.  I've been lost in life, and it feels the same way it does when I am lost in a car - sad.  I'm not sad right now.  I'm uncertain and anxious and slightly upset but not sad.  I know where I came from and where I am headed.  I know that I'm a path to get to where I want to be. (I know where I want to be, doesn't that count for something?  Doesn't that count for a lot?)  I can look around and see exactly where I am on my journey.  I'm just not sure that I took the fastest route or the "right" route. I'm worried that I'm going to get there too late.  (Honestly, I don't even know what "too late" is, but I'm constantly worried about it.)  I'm questioning the route I chose to take, and I'm uncomfortable with the new uncertainty at my decisions, accustomed to having complete faith in my "inner compass".  I'm feeling in adequate in my navigation because I'm not there yet.  I've come so far, and I know where I am going, but I just want to be there.  Now.

So, for now I'm reminding myself that I'm not lost.  And that I will get there.  I will get there.

Untitled

I can't breath. The reflection in the mirror, the eyes staring back at me that usually keep me steady, steady, steady... are held open in panic. I recognize the face, but vacancies stand where softness once called home.

She's in the doorway, evaluating my red-rimmed eyes. She could have moved away, carrying her own stage of grief. But she asked me if I was okay. I had to say yes. I had to breath to speak and breathing equated with okay. So I was okay. Breathing. In and out. Even when it felt like I couldn't. Despite my vacant, red-rimmed eyes. She told me it was okay to cry. I felt the tears slide down, fast and with momentum. Built up sorrow. She told me she would be upstairs if I needed her.

I didn't dry my hair before I crawled onto her bed. Examined the re-arranged furniture and her personal stages of spite and sorrow and healing. I felt safe. With her. My vacant stare now fixed on the television with the softness returning and my rib cage rising and falling.

What Happens To A Dream Deferred?

"What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?"
-Langston Hughes, A Dream Deferred