Soul of a Dreamer

Devouring The Painted Drum

2010-07-19T14:52:00.004-04:00

"So the spiders wait. I am careful not to disturb their quiet weavings. I watch each spider closely, admire its curved and tapered legs. They are black with hot yellow death's heads on their bellies. They are patient with the gravity of their intent. Of their means of survival they've made these elegant webs, their beauty a by-product of their purpose. Which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider's, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?" ~Louise Erdrich

Close Reading

2010-06-13T17:13:00.004-04:00

Most of the time, I am in awe of the world. A hundred times a day I fall in love with the grass, with the birth and death of flowers, with the ever-changing and simultaneously constant sky. My heart is heavy with delight for the senses, for the sights and smells and tastes and sounds and feelings of existence. To be alive is a wonderful thing, even in times of darkness, even in days spent nowhere but my own bedroom, even in moments of uncertainty. It is amazing to be a living, breathing creature on this planet. It is amazing to feel joy and pain and hope and reverence. It is amazing to feel.

I have read five books in the past two weeks and I spent this morning working my way through number six. Some were silly and short and read within the course of an afternoon. Others required closer reading, time to reflect on passages already read before continuing on, moments to laugh and cry and sigh in admiration for a simple turn of phrase. What I enjoy most about reading such an eclectic mix, enjoy most about reading in general, is that in some way or another, I find reflections of myself in each story. Every character, whether real or fictional, felt something I have felt in my life. Every author, whether through the first or third person, touched on thoughts and emotions and ideas that I have had. I could relate, in some small manner, to at least one moment in each of the journeys, always understanding that as for those moments that I could not relate to, someone else could. This is the beauty of literature, of language, of humanity itself. This is the great universal story.

It is our innate imperfection that connects us to one another, and it is this innate need to connect that binds us together. No matter our time or place or histories, we are all certain to experience the grand spectrum of human emotion throughout our lifetime. We all know what happiness feels like, and sadness, love and loss and frustration and determination and expectation and disappointment and comfort. Daily we discover new depths of each in one another and in ourselves. Daily the world grows exponentially bigger and smaller all at once. Daily I am impressed with such truth.

To be understood is a beautiful, consuming desire we all feel. Why else would art exist? We express ourselves because we feel the need to - in music and paintings and sculptures and movies and writing and cooking and in the simple art of conversation. We feel the need to express ourselves because we hope on some level that someone, somewhere, will smile and nod and say "me too." And how lucky we are that such expression exists, that people are able to share their music and paintings and sculptures and movies and writing and food and words, because we are then able to look and listen and taste and smell and experience those same feelings within ourselves. We are able to smile and nod and say "me too" and feel less alone in this world. We are able to understand and to be understood. We are able to connect to one another in the most important ways.

I read stories about lives I am not living, and in each one see a possibility for myself. My life could go anywhere. I could be anything. I could be anyone. Often I find myself longing for a quieter, simpler way of life. Perhaps I would be happiest living far away, isolated in the country, with only my books to read and my journals to write in and the natural world surrounding me. Often I dream of such things.

But on days like today, when I finished an extraordinary book and was able to log on to facebook and write to the author and thank him for writing such a remarkable story, I felt so grateful to be connected to the world in this small, arguably superficial way. He wrote me back to thank me, and just like that, I fell in love for the hundredth time today. It is an amazing world we live in. I am grateful to be a part of it, thinking the things countless others have thought, feeling the things countless others have felt, experiencing the grand spectrum of human emotion countless others have experienced. I am grateful to be a witness to the products of expression that have been, and continue to be, shared with the world. I am grateful for every moment I have been able to smile and nod and say "me too" and feel connected to something much bigger than myself, bigger than all of us. I am grateful for so much understanding and for the ceaseless delight that can fill my heavy heart with a simple turn of phrase.

The Road Less Traveled

2010-06-06T21:23:00.004-04:00

I have taken this road more than once in my life. I like to think I'm better for it. After having placed all of those words on this blog on Friday, I woke up on Saturday feeling released from them, from all the the thoughts that become bottled up inside me where they were never intended to stay. I took a deep breath and then I moved on. What more can we do in this world?

From the bottom of my closet I removed a bag I bought on the street in India. It's held up nicely over the years. Inside I placed a book, my Ipod, a camera, my keys and a few dollars should I need them, and out the door I went, no plan, no purpose. I just needed to get up and go. And so I did. At the bottom of a familiar hill I decided impulsively to keep walking straight, instead of turning to the right as I do each morning in my car on the way to work. The bottom of the hill curves off to the left and I had no idea what laid beyond. It was the perfect place to start.

Because once I'd navigated the traffic on the street with no sidewalk and rounded the corner I found a river, which delighted me in ways I cannot begin to express. I followed along side it in the quiet of morning, reveling in the newness of it. I never cease to be amazed anew by the joy of discovery. When life begins to feel stagnant, as life inevitably does, it is always so comforting to find myself in these moments of uncovering surprises, quiet secrets kept from me because I'd never bothered to reveal them. It always feels like an awakening, of the mind, of the spirit, of the possibility brimming within each of us. Immediately I snapped out of whatever funk had previously had hold of me. I rounded the corner and it was gone.

I kept walking until I found a park where I decided to sit and read for a while. After a few chapters I got restless, and so I continued on, taking roads completely unfamiliar to me, not worrying about exactly how to get home, ignoring the "I should" feelings that weigh so heavily as I carry them everywhere. Every once and a while I'd find a perfect spot to sit and read a few more chapters, and then I would get up and keep going. It wasn't the same kind of restlessness I generally feel. It wasn't at all a long to-do list lingering in the back of my mind. I never once worried that I was wasting time. In fact, it was the best I'd used my time in quite a while. It was Mary Oliver's "Tell me, what else should I have done?" It was that kind of day.

Of course, after a few hours, when my legs began to grow tired and my skin began to turn pink, I had to return to some kind of reason. And naturally, the first rational thought I had was, "damn, I have no idea where I am." I had enjoyed all this time that I hadn't brought my cell phone with me. I liked that I was unreachable, that I had allowed myself to disappear from everything and everyone for a few hours, that I was free from playing any of the roles I have been cast in. But of course on the other side of not being able to be reached also meant that I was unable to simply pick up my phone and reach others. And so I kept walking, trying to get my bearings, looking for anything recognizable. Nothing. So I just kept going.

I stumbled upon this tiny cafe in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. I suddenly realized how thirsty I was. Not surprisingly, no one was inside but the girl behind the counter. She greeted me with an enthusiastic "hello!" and my heart fell for a moment at the idea that I had most likely stepped into another charming, failing cafe. It was completely my kind of place, with colorful mismatched chairs and shelves lined with books that were meant to be shared. I was instantly in love. I bought a bottle of water and sat at one of the empty tables, read a few more chapters in the book that was approaching its final pages. I got up to leave and considered asking her for directions, but then stopped myself. I didn't really want them, I realized. I much preferred the journey. And so I said my thanks and goodbye and walked on.

Only twenty minutes later I regretted it. My skin was burning and I literally had to will my legs to keep going. I was bordering on panic when I finally approached a busy intersection and realized I knew exactly where I was. I was on my way home. Thanks to years of traveling and the navigational keenness I've inherited from my mother, my sense of direction always seems to get me here somehow. I always seem to find my way home.

When I did finally arrive at my door, turned the key, and stepped inside, I smiled. I have taken the road less traveled more than once in my life, but I never seem to take any one particular road more than once. That's what makes them special. That's what makes me special. No one can ever live their life exactly as I have lived mine. It's a nice thought, isn't it? It's nice that only I had that exact experience yesterday. Only I walked that exact path and thought those exact thoughts and felt those exact feelings. Only I had that adventure. It is mine. And I'll carry it with me as I walk on alongside rivers and unexplored streets, in and out of charming cafes, on the only road that I will ever know, the one that curves and bends and dips and rises unexpectedly, the one that begins at birth and ends at death and marks the journey of my existence here.

Growth

2010-06-04T14:06:00.004-04:00

Family Fun Day was established when my brother and I had reached the inevitable ages when we began to pull away from our parents. One Sunday a month each of us would take turns choosing an activity for the whole family to do together. In those moments we all have of blaming our parents for creating us as we are, I like to look back upon this concept and remind myself that my mother and father tried. They really tried. While I have forgotten a majority of the activities over the years, one single moment remains with me, a single image captured and saved in the photo album of memory. It is the image of my mother on our white water rafting adventure, slipping out of the raft and floating away down the river, her lifejacket hiked up around her neck, smiling and laughing and waving at us as she drifted further and further away. It is one of my favorite images of my mother.

We were all out of our element that day in the arduous physical activity, the hot sun blaring down on us, sharing a raft with a group of strangers who undoubtedly rolled their eyes at the very sight of us stepping into the boat to join them. "We don't stand a chance" I imagined each of them thinking, and justifiably so. I can't remember which one of us had the idea to go, but I think it may have been me, always wanting to be a different kind of person living a different kind of life. I would love to be the kind of person who goes white water rafting, I most likely thought. I have these same kind of thoughts now. I would love to be the kind of person who reads a book a day, who goes on daily walks out in the world, who cooks each meal, who writes novels and poetry in her spare time, who creates something artistic and new in every moment. I would love to be the kind of person who can just pick up and travel the world, fearless and comfortable and not worrying about what should be. I would love to be the kind of person who makes things happen, who doesn't just dream of things that could be, who does all of this instead of just writes about wanting to do it. None of this is beyond reach. It is just a matter of reaching out for it, and somehow, I can never seem to extend my grasp in that direction.

I've been in a bit of a funk lately, and I'm not quite sure what it's about. The semester ended and I found myself a little lost, without the constant movement from one place to the next, the constant intellectual stimulation and email inbox full of questions and answers. I always seem to find myself in trouble when my life slows down. Too much time to think, I suppose. My list of things I would like to accomplish grows longer and the list of things I have accomplished grows shorter. I always think that I want time off from my life, but having even the slightest taste of a break from things makes me feel lazy and uncertain and terribly unproductive. I work best under deadlines. I work best when the moments of free time are rare. I work best when I understand how precious those moments are. Like most things in life, to have an abundance of it detracts from its value. I don't want to be the kind of person who wastes her time.

And it shouldn't be so difficult, to get the things I want out of life, to be the person I want to be, to live the life I long to be living. It is as simple as opening this page on my computer and typing in my thoughts. It is as easy a practice as this. Still, I have to constantly remind myself of this fact. I have to constantly reset my mind, and I wish it wasn't like that. I wish it could just be an instinctual act. I wish I spent less time hating myself for the things that I am not doing, and more time doing them. I wish that I could take the unspoken advice of my mother who, having slipped from the boat of certainty, floats on with the rushing rapids of the river of life, smiling and laughing and waving.

Home

2010-05-01T20:31:00.001-04:00

Two years ago today my best friend and I became homeowners. It is one of those monumental life-altering changes that simultaneously feels as though it was both a lifetime ago and only just yesterday. The anniversary encourages, as anniversaries do, some reflection on what the day marks, what the day means. Two years ago today we took a leap of faith together. We changed the course of our lives in a large and significant way. We wrote our names over and over again on the dotted lines and joked that we were signing our lives away. In some way, we were. Those dotted lines represented the border between who we were and who we were going to be. The past was gone. The future was a few signatures and a turn of a key away. And just like that, we were home.

I am a firm believer that in the course of a day we make hundreds of small unnoticed decisions that affect us, that change the direction of our path, but in the course of my life I have made a few substantial, recognized decisions that I consider to be the story of my journey. They are the choices I reflect back upon and think “what if…” They are the moments in my life where I paused to speculate the outcomes of my actions. They are the indicators of where things could have been different.

I cannot consider one without considering all those that preceded it. They are, after all, connected and sequential. One cannot exist without the one that came before it. That’s just how life is – moment after moment, event after event, choice after choice. Thinking about them today, for perhaps what is the first time, I can say without the slightest hint of doubt that I have no regrets about any of them. And it is because of this understanding that they are not isolated experiences, but rather, small incremental steps that have lead me to where I am now, here, in this space, writing these words in a room that is truly my own.

Of course there will always be “what ifs” because I am who I am and that’s how I look at the world. I will always wonder about that road not taken. I will dwell on the potential of what could have been – the positive as well as the negative. My junior year of high school we performed the musical ‘Working’ and one of the lines of the opening song was “if I could have been what I could have been, I could have been something.” It is a sentiment I carry with me in these recollections of the past. I still occasionally worry that I’ve wasted too much of my time, too much of myself, too much of the potential for who “I could have been” and now it is lost and gone forever. I fear those are things one can never get back.

But on days like today, days where I celebrate those leaps of faith, those hopes and the very sense that I have been and continue to be so hopeful, I find myself with a kind of comforting certainty that everything is just as it should be. The hot spring air wafts through my windows. The candle burns beside me. My roommate, my best friend, my sister is two doors down the hall undoubtedly reflecting on these same ideas. The world is quiet and still. My computer hums. My fingers tap on the keys. I write and write and write. And just like that, I am home.

Some Well Spoken Truth

2010-04-30T22:59:00.001-04:00

"I thank you very much for this award. I am joining a list of very distinguished writers, and I probably don’t deserve to be joining it; but as the theologically pessimistic used to remark, if we all got what we deserved, we’d be boiling in oil.

I hope however that this recognition is not the equivalent of the gold watch to the retiring manager. No, surely not! For writers can’t retire, nor can they be fired: As we hear constantly from those who think there should be no arts grants, writers don’t have real jobs. That’s true, in a way: They have no employers. Or rather their employers are their readers: which imposes on them a truly Kafkaesque burden of responsibility and even guilt, for how can you tell whether you’re coming up to the standards of people you don’t even know? Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.

Or else you find out in an unpleasant way: You’re arrested, you are condemned, you are tortured, you are shot, you disappear. Those doing the shooting and the torturing, whether they are from the left or the right, whether they represent theocracies or secular totalitarian dictatorships or extreme factions, all have one thing in common: They wish to silence the human voice, or all human voices that do not sing their songs. They wish to indulge their sense of power, which is best done by grinding underfoot those who cannot retaliate. Writers—artists in general—are easy prey for the silencers. They don’t have armies. They can be cut out from the herd—they‘ve already cut themselves out, by daring to speak—and few in their own countries will be foolhardy enough to defend them.

Voices can be silenced, but the human voice cannot. Our languages are what make us fully human—no other creature has anything like our rich and complex vocabularies and grammars. Each language is unique: To lose one is to lose a range of feeling and a way of looking at life that, like a living species that becomes extinct, can never be replaced. Human narrative skills are found in every language, and are very old: We all have them. We writers merely use them in what we fondly believe are more complex ways. But whether written down or not, stories move—from hand to paper to eye to mouth, from mouth to ear.

And stories move us. This is their power. Written stories are frozen voices that come to life when we read them. No other art form involves us in the same way—allows us to be with another human being—to feel joy when he laughs, to share her sorrow, to follow the twists and turns of his plotting and scheming, to realize her insufficiencies and failures and absurdities, to grasp the tools of her resistance—from within the mind itself. Such experience—such knowledge from within—makes us feel that we are not alone in our flawed humanity."

~Margaret Atwood

Under A Sky That Is Grey

2010-04-25T14:54:00.004-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me how green the world in spring can look juxtaposed against the ubiquitous grey of a rainy afternoon. It never ceases to amaze me the moment I find myself struck in a childlike state of awe and curiosity and delight at such small, natural wonders. It never ceases to amaze me how simple everything can become, if even for an instant, how quiet, how manageable, how effortless.

Recently I have been considering the way I have become most apt to notice beauty when it is juxtaposed against the grey. I wonder what that is about - whether it says something about beauty, whether it says something about me, perhaps even, whether it says something about all of us. I used to find goodness in everything. I used to see beauty everywhere. But lately, it feels as though I only stop to recognize it in moments when I need to. I only find it when I’m searching for it. I only see light when it is surrounded by darkness. I only notice the green when it’s encompassed in grey.

I can blame it on being busy and growing older and the increase of difficulties that arise from each new stage of life. But it is not those excuses in and of themselves. It is the part of me I am forgetting, the part of me I am unnoticeably giving up, the part of me I have left in pieces all over the world – in parks and playgrounds and bookstores and cafes. It is the part of me that carried my journal everywhere and took the time – no matter how inconvenient or inappropriate the timing or setting – to stop and observe the world, to record the goodness everywhere, in everything. It is the part of me that noticed the beauty of the grey as much as the beauty of the green.

These days I only stop to write out of sadness. I only take poetry off of the shelf when I’m feeling uninspired. I only reach out in kindness when I need it in return. And I wonder what that is about. I worry that the line between “that’s so unlike me” and “that is me” is growing increasingly blurry, increasingly grey.

And yet, there are these gentle reminders that not all of me has been lost. I am sure what I’ve just written sounds depressing and sad, but that was not my intention. That’s not what I am trying to say.

What I’m trying to say is that I am still capable of being amazed and dazzled and delighted, in these pure and simple ways. I still write in happiness, even if it fails to make it onto the page. I still carry poetry within me, even if I am already feeling inspired. I still desire, in all consuming ways, to give kindness, even if I don’t need any in return. The point is that in those moments when everything in this complicated, complex world suddenly feels simple, it’s because it is. It is simple.

It is as simple as remembering how to be struck in a childlike state of wonder and amazement. It is as simple as remembering back upon those pieces of myself I have left around the world. It is as simple as remembering that I left them there for a reason, to be looked back upon, collected in the catalog of memory, synthesized into the story of a life made up of beautiful moments.

Early this afternoon I added the greenness of the world in spring juxtaposed against the ubiquitous grey of this rainy afternoon to my collection. I remembered how to see without looking. And then I came home, opened my grey computer, and filled it’s blank page with some beauty and goodness.

A Bit Of Beauty

2010-04-22T18:55:00.003-04:00

"I imagine my life to be big, so big that I cannot see the end of it. Big enough for everyone to fit into it. You will be in it...people I have never met or known will be in it. I will be in it. I can see it. I have a picture of it in my head. It's a field in bloom so deep you can swim in it. I can see it now, and I cannot see its end." ~Aleksander Hemon

A Lesson In Value

2010-04-19T06:10:00.001-04:00

It was the sight of her home that stopped me from my hurried routine. I couldn’t imagine the structure surviving the monsoon season or providing any relief from the thick sweltering heat of an Indian summer. It had only three walls and a flimsy thatched roof, and it reminded me of the dioramas we used to have to make in elementary school, one side cut off of a shoebox to see the story inside. This story, however, seemed incomplete, as all that contained was a small elderly woman and a dirty grey blanket, filled with holes and frayed at the edges. I watched her pick it up and stroll to the corner, dipping the blanket into a murky puddle of water collecting beside the curb.

It was no more depressing than the faces of the women who handed me their babies in the street and silently pressed their hands to their mouths asking for food or the men who crawled alongside the dogs in the park having lost the use of their legs. I felt the same amount of injustice and guilt for everything I had as any other time I had encountered poverty, and yet there was something about this particular woman that touched me deeply, that made me pause, that changed everything.

My first thought was that I wanted to save this woman from her life. I wanted to hug her, to hold her in my arms and tell her everything would be alright, and mean it. I wanted to give her all of the money in my bank account, and the very shoes upon my feet, and be able to, somehow, allow her to share in every wonderful experience I had been privileged enough to know.

I crossed the street, removed the few hundred rupees I had from my pocket, and held them out before her. She looked up and met my gaze. We stared at one another for a moment before she shook her head from side to side, said “nay,” and returned to her work. “No,” I said, “take it.” Again, she held up her hand and declined, not in a sad or angry way, but like a dinner guest turning down a second helping of dessert. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” her expression suggested.

I stood there for a moment feeling helpless and confused, and it was only then that I noticed how delicately her fingers rubbed the blanket in the muck of the public water, how tenderly, how lovingly. What material thing had I ever loved with such fervor? What work had I ever done that had brought me such pure and simple joy? How would I possibly ever understand the value of anything, unless it was everything?

And while my first thought was that I wanted to save this woman from her life, my second thought was, who would save me from mine? Who would teach me to sit all day and observe the world, to listen to my breath move in and out as it declares my existence, to know that this was enough? Who would teach me to savor the sweetness of food upon my tongue, to appreciate the comfort of my shoes in each step, to revel in the singularly significant success of surviving? Who would teach me to recognize the accomplishment of closing my eyes at night having lived another day? What wisdom had my affluence cost me? What knowledge? What understanding?

Slowly I am learning to greet the morning sun as it rises each morning, as it brings light where once there was darkness, as it lays warmth upon my greedy skin. Slowly I am learning to accept the invitation of the rain as it washes the slate clean, softens the hard earth, clears the streets of people and fills them with it’s own unique symphony of sound. Slowly I am learning to treasure the silver of the moonlight reflecting on the quiet pond, the gold of the sunflowers turning their eager faces to the sky. Slowly I am learning that wealth is a state of mind, and that knowing this is a luxury. The value of anything, of everything, is subjective, and so to become rich in this world is as simple as perceiving the gift of existence as priceless. To become successful is as simple as cherishing this perception. To live a worthy life is as simple as loving.

She lifted her head to once again meet my gaze, and all I could think to offer her in that moment was a smile, which she returned graciously. And so I left her there to tend to her happiness, as I walked on into the world, in my comfortable shoes, determined to save the most precious of all possessions -- my one and only life.

Our Story

2010-04-18T07:00:00.000-04:00

I wasn't certain of how to begin this. It's been eleven days since it happened, and I've had time to think and discuss and numb myself to what needs to be felt. Most of what needed to be said has already been written in emails. I regret not writing here first, when it was raw, when I was open, when my emotional outrage would have sounded more heartfelt and less like whatever analytical composition I'll form here. Still, I feel the need to write about it. I feel like this story needs to be told.

The thing about stories is that once they are told, they no longer belong to just the narrator. They become part of someone else's story. They are released out into the world to be observed, to be understood, to be retold and retold until they become part of a larger story, the story of being human. I once posted something very personal about my mother and she immediately called me and requested I take it down, which of course I did. Certainly I didn't blame her for it. In fact, I agreed and felt foolish for having released her experiences out into the vulnerable lens of the public eye. Years later she told me she had made a mistake. Partially, I think, because she understood the point I am trying to make. Her story belonged to me too. Once told, even the events that took place before I was born became part of my history. They are stories I think about and feel things about. They are stories that have shaped my perspective and my sense of self. They are stories that are an important part of my story.

This story, the story of father and daughter, is just as important. I've been looking through old posts from years ago and what strikes me most about this story is the way in which it has remained unchanged. It is a story of the devastating cycle through heartbreak to forgiveness to heartbreak, time and time again. It is the story of a young woman asking, pleading, begging for love and all of the attributes that accompany love, encompass love - honesty, respect, affection. It is the story of a father who not only denies her such love, but denies that such love is even possible, not only between her and him, but between anyone. "Love unconditionally is a line for children to beat their parents with," he will tell her. And it will break her heart. Not only because he cannot love her, not only because he believes this to be true, but because believing such a thing means that her father is a sad, sad man who has never experienced the joy of loving something, someone, unconditionally.

And it is a joyful thing to love that way, to love as I do, so openly, so freely, so unconditionally. My very existence is based around the knowledge of, the feelings of, the faith in such joy. My whole life revolves around love - for the grass, for the trees, for the sky, for every other person I have encountered in my life. Yes, even for the father who is incapable of feeling the same way. I still love him as my father. Otherwise none of this would matter. Otherwise it wouldn't hurt that he cannot see that.

The details of what instigated the latest fight don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It was only a manifestation of things that have gone unsaid for the past seven or eight years. I have tried more than once to say them, but they have fallen on deaf ears. They continue to this time around, as is made evident in completely unfair and irrelevant remarks made towards me. I'm still uncertain of what exactly is happening, but it's somewhat comforting not to understand. It only convinces me that so little of it is actually about me.

Why can't you love me? You claim that what I speak of is movie screen, soap opera love, but it's not. It's real. I know because I feel it daily. I feel loved. I feel an infinitely vast capacity to love. I know, more than anything else in this uncertain world, that love exists. Why can't you love me?

You tell me to stop acting like a child, but you seem equally upset that I am not a child, that I don't need you like a child needs their father, that you can't control me like a father could their child. Also, I am not a child. I am the oldest twenty-five year old I know. I am independent and thoughtful and responsible and I have asked so very little from you over the years. And yet that little has been much more than you are willing to give. I express to you my very genuine emotions. I ask you to share yours. I attempt, over and over, to allow you to be a part of my life. I stand up for myself when your responses seem unjust. You tell me to stop acting like a child, but I don't know what acting like an adult is if not doing all of those things. "Love isn't whining" you tell me. Is telling you I'm hurting somehow whining? I am not some whiny child. I know that about myself.

You tell me I am disrespectful. You tell me appeasing you is not enough, but you seem equally upset when I offer any authentic emotion that isn't happiness or love. You feel disrespected by my "polite courtesies" but also by my honesty. What is it I'm supposed to say? You cannot demand affection from me. You have to earn it. You have to allow me to be who I am, say what I feel, feel what I feel. Or you have to accept the fake front I offer you, my attempts to please you, my attempts to be someone you deem worthy of your love. Those are the options. You have offered no choice or solution, simply anger and frustration at my inability, at the inability of all people, to be both genuine and fake all at once. I cannot be both. I know that about myself.

And I know too that a year ago I would have allowed this to destroy me. I would have allowed your inability to love me unconditionally make me feel as though I am someone unworthy of unconditional love. But I know better than that now. I am not a child. I am not a little girl feeling sorry for herself that her father won't love her. I am an adult feeling sorry for another adult because he cannot love his daughter. I used to think that I needed your love, your approval, your opinion of me to matter in order to define myself, but part of my definition in the story of my life is that I am who I am without you. You have helped to create me, in good ways and bad, as the person I am today, but your chapter is over and I can continue on without you.

One of my good friends told me that I needed to grieve for you, for this, for us. And she's right. This is a loss. So I will grieve, and slowly, I will begin to heal. There will always be a scar, of course, but it can be a symbol of my past rather than my future. It can be a reminder of who I was rather than who I have to be. It can be contained to part one of my story, trapped in my childhood, as part two opens upon a new stage of adulthood, a stage that doesn't contain stories of you.

Our stories are intertwined, of course. This is your story as much as it is mine. I would like to think the best of you and assume you too will be saddened that your final chapters will not contain me. I hope you too feel the loss. But mostly, despite everything that has happened, I hope that you find happiness. I hope that you discover what it means to be loved and feel love unconditionally, even if it cannot be with me. I hope that you get to experience such joy. From one adult to another, I hope for you. From one storyteller to another, I hope that your concluding lines are genuinely lovely and consisting of something real.

A Balancing Act

2010-04-17T15:02:00.003-04:00

Part of my struggle has always been balance, as I suspect is true of most people. Balancing my time, my responsibilities, my relationships. It all begins to feel so fragile as I delicately divide my attention in a way that I hope to be fair and equal, but ultimately is never enough. I have not yet learned in my twenty five years how to separate myself into each significant section of life without dissolving completely. I have not yet learned how to give up pieces of who I am without creating holes in my heart that can never again be filled. I have not yet learned how to let go without falling.

Yes, sometimes the fall is beautiful and elegant and necessary. Often it brings with it new wisdom and understanding and lessons that could not otherwise be learned. But mostly it still hurts when I inevitably hit the ground. The cold, hard smack of the pavement of reality continues to leave bruises, which only deepen and widen with each new fall. Mostly it becomes more and more difficult to find the strength to get up again. It becomes more and more difficult to allow myself to let go.

And so I concentrate on what I can control, on school and work and the small daily choices that are of no real consequence. I choose to smile and laugh and play the role I have created for myself. I choose to portray the person that I think the world wants me to be, and while this is often beneficial, it is not without cost. I have not yet learned how to balance who I am with who I want to be seen as, and I worry that the imbalance has meant sacrificing aspects of myself that I should have been more unwilling to part with.

Namely, writing as truthfully as I want to, as I am capable of. I find myself becoming so increasingly wrapped up in the "supposed to" of writing that I've lost what it is I love about it. I used to be so honest here. More than that, I used to discover honesty here, as though the truths I was unwilling to admit to myself would manifest on the screen without my assistance. I was writing the words, but I was reading the content. I was, and continue to be, an outsider looking into the depths of my own existence.

And I liked that other people could see that too. I liked that people could open to this page and see me, hear me, understand me. But then, more difficult truths emerged and suddenly the availability of this blog to the rest of the world became a terrifying thing. It became more real than I was prepared to accept. It became a balancing act between what I would say and what I really wanted to say, what I claimed to feel and what I actually felt. It became a balancing act between not hurting other people and hurting myself. And so I chose not to risk offending anyone and consequently gave up the one thing in my life that allowed me to be as authentic as I needed to be.

So I didn't write here when I really wanted to, needed to. I stopped myself from revealing those dark, unpleasant emotions to the world because it stopped me from having to see, to read, to believe they were legitimate. But they were. They are. And the truth is, this latest fall has shown me, for the first time in my life, that I can't really worry about what people find here. How you react to my words on this page is a reflection of you more than it is of me. I cannot spend my life apologizing for who I am. It's not fair to any of us.

I was recently accused of hiding my genuine feelings behind the mask of melodramatic prose, and in that moment, hurtful as it was, I understood that it is fairly easy to misinterpret my writing. My feelings are never more genuine than when they are on the page. I am not hiding behind prose. I am prose. I am a living, breathing poem, as each of us are. I write directly from my heart, not from my head. After all, it is my head that tells me I have to balance. It is my head that stops me from writing the words that are aching to be released inside my heart. It is my head that keeps me from this blog.

But my heart is here. My heart is in every word I have ever written. I end every journal with the same line. "This is it. This is me." Nothing has ever been as true.

I will write what I have not yet had the courage to write. If you read it and feel offended or angry or sad or guilty or a combination of those dark, unpleasant emotions we would all rather not see, or read, or believe, than perhaps you too will understand, finally, what it means to be honest. It is letting go. It is being an outsider looking into the depths of your own existence. It is finding the fortitude to get up again, to fall, to greet the cold, hard pavement of reality as it hits you, to reflect on the bruises, to share them with the world, to write about it, and if you're strong enough, to begin to heal. This is where it begins. This is it. This is me.

Blind Spot

2010-02-13T18:40:00.004-05:00

"But you don't want to fall back into "oh I should be writing" only to stop again," she said. The intention behind her words wasn't cruelty and I didn't take as such. I knew what she meant, that this blog had served it's purpose, but now it was time to move on. Yes, forcing myself to write out of some self concocted obligation is pointless. It produces meager results and creates unnecessary guilt and stress because I allow it to. Each time I return to this, or a journal left half finished on my shelf, I feel the need to excuse my lack of writing. I apologize to this poor blog, to those poor journals, to myself. It's so useless.

Driving from school to work yesterday, I came within inches of being side-swiped by another car who was changing lanes. I must have been in his blind spot. I honked and swerved and let out a single curse, and then, just as quickly, was back in my own lane, breathing again. In that single moment I felt angry and relieved and unnerved and sympathetic. I looked at the man in the car next to me who was most likely feeling all of those same emotions simultaneously with me, and some part of me wished I could tell him that it was okay, that we all make mistakes, that we're okay, here, breathing.

I drove past the stadiums that I've stood inside so often, enjoying concerts and sporting events and the company of various different friends. I drove past the airport that I've flown out of and back into on all of the beautiful journeys I've embarked upon in my life. I watched from a distance as a plane moved through a snow covered field, only to suddenly lift from the ground and make its way toward the sky, smoothly, effortlessly, as though at any moment the buildings behind it might follow. I drove past the shipyards and the Delaware river, glistening in the first sunlight that had appeared in days. And yes, it's silly, but for a few moments in time I was deeply moved by where I was, in the world, in my life. I make this drive three times a week, but I have always been focused on the drive, on the road, on the cars. I forget that I'm driving through the city, through my city, through my history and my present.

And just as easily as I had become aware of my surroundings, I noticed too, that I was writing in my head. Perhaps I am always writing, and just not noticing. Perhaps it is like the way I live my day to day life and forget where I am, in the big picture, in the important ways. My life has become so full and I have trained myself to tune my mind to "now I am at school" becomes "now I am at work" becomes "now I am at home," and everything else goes unrecognized. Everything else is in my blind spot, which seems to grow larger as the responsibilities of the day to day increase.

And then one day, quite unexpectedly, something swerves toward me and wakes me up. It is that feeling of opening your eyes to only then realize that you've been asleep. It is not noticing the room is dim until someone turns on an extra light. "Oh," you think to yourself, "why was I sitting in the dark?"

I think about the night I was the saddest I had ever been and took out my journal to write through it. I think of the way when the power went out, my friends lit a candle for me to write by. And when my pen ran out of ink, they found me a pencil. And when the point of the pencil broke, they found a knife to sharpen it. And so I continued to write with my jagged pencil in the dimness of the room, surrounded by some of the most caring people I have ever known. And I felt better by the time the candle blew out. I felt comforted by the selfless acts of my friends, but even more so by their understanding of how much I needed to write. They could see in me what I saw in myself. I needed to write to be okay, here, breathing.

"But you don't want to fall back into "oh I should be writing" only to stop again," she said. I think of her words all this time later, and while I understood what she meant, even then some part of me didn't agree. It's most likely while I still remember that line after all this time, having forgotten the rest of the conversation. This blog has served a purpose in my life, but it isn't finished. It continues to sit and wait, often very patiently, for me to return. Like all writing, which is as much a part of me as anything, it is here when I need it. It is sitting in my blind spot, waiting for me to see.

Wednesday

2009-07-08T19:58:00.001-04:00

Praise Song For The Day
By Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Green Is Ten Times Worse.

2009-06-27T09:42:00.005-04:00

Whether they were coming or going I couldn't tell. I was too far back to overhear their conversation. They plopped their heavy oversized backpacks on the floor and stood at the front looking tired but excited, the well worn expressions of traveling strewn across their faces. It is a look I know well, a look I could be comfortable wearing for the entirety of my life.

I found myself staring. Her wild unkempt red hair fell so naturally around her freckled face. For a moment I thought that I knew her and searched the catalog of my memory trying to place her within some context, but she wasn't there. Instead there were a series of girls who looked like her, radiating that same sense of unbridled passion for life, girls who lived their lives outside of the conventional rules, girls who wrote poetry and traveled the world and wore their hearts on their sleeves. In a way I did know this stranger who had stepped onto the train. She was the ideal of who I have always longed to be. Or at least, she looked like her.

I was five when I first saw Anne of Green Gables and consequently fell in love with the poetry of life. I couldn't imagine wanting to be anyone but Anne, so fiery and creative and unwittingly beautiful. I adored the way she spoke and fought and spent all day dreaming of things she read in books. I adored her sadness and likewise her hope. I adored her imagination. I adored her ability to be so deeply moved by the world around her. Even at the age of five I felt we were kindred spirits, to borrow her own expression. I too wanted to grow up to be brave and smart and delighted by small beauties. I too longed to be impetuously adventurous. I even spell my middle name Anne with an "e."

That summer my parents took us to Prince Edward Island and we visited the infamous Green Gables. They bought me a little straw hat with two red braids attached and I wore it around for weeks, pretending to be Anne. For a little while, I felt as beautiful and lovable as the girl I admired most. Sometimes I would quote her, not ever really understanding what any of it meant, just knowing that it sounded pretty. These are the things I look back on now and understand more than ever that it is in me to love language.

It was a few years later before I discovered Pippi Longstocking, and while I never admired her with quite the same grandeur as I did Anne, she quickly became another hero of mine. She was fun and inspiring. She brought joy to those around her. She was red-haired and freckled, quirky and assertive. She could do anything, and did do anything, and I loved her for that. I loved that she was strong, both physically and emotionally, and I loved that she created magic everywhere she went. Even after all of these years, I still believe in the possibility of such magic.

All of my childhood heros were unconventional characters, people who dared to be different, people who weren't afraid to be themselves, people who stood out among the ordinary. Not much has changed. These are the same traits I look for in the people I choose to surround myself with now. The people I love most in this world are the ones who inspire me to feel impassioned about life. They are the creators of dreams. They are the believers of magic. I look for such passion everywhere.

And so I grew up associating red hair and freckles with the fervor of the human spirit. I longed to look that way because I longed to be that way, so ablaze, so alive. And when I saw that girl step through the doors of the train, her red hair glowing in the soft afternoon light, I found myself green with envy, full of the familiar jealousy I feel whenever I come across such an archetype of my fictional heroines. It is not just their beauty. It is their ability to transmit their zest for life without having to speak a single sentence. It is that they represent poetry and hope and individuality and joy. It is that they innately express that which has taken me tens of thousands of words to even begin to explain.

How It Came To Be

2009-06-22T17:36:00.008-04:00

It seems as though I am always leaving the door open. I ask you over and over again to come in. In winter I have saved you a seat by the fire and made you a cup of tea. In summer I have turned the AC on and saved you a rainbow popsicle. In rain I have offered to share my shelter with you. In sunshine I have offered you a place in my garden among the roses.

But instead you stand on the front porch of my heart and over and over again decline. You are forever just outside the door as if to reassure yourself that if someone were to ask, you could tell them that you were there for me. But it is not enough to just be there, hovering outside the boundaries of comfort and love. It is not enough to stand beside me without knowing what's happening inside, my head, my heart, my soul. It is not enough to simply be invited in. You have to step through the threshold for it to count.

Instead you stand outside my door and tell me how good the winter air is for your heart, how good the hot summer sun is for your head, how soothing the torrential rainfall is for the soul. You tell me I am the foolish one for not knowing that. You tell me I am not smart enough to understand. You tell me I am not worthy of your company inside.

Perhaps you are right. After all I am the foolish, stupid girl who keeps asking you in. I am the one who keeps making an extra cup of tea and saving an extra popsicle. I am the one sitting beside an empty chair. I am the one who keeps expecting things to change even though they never have, even though you have made it clear they never will. I am the one silly enough - or hopeful enough - to think I could someday be worthy.

Meanwhile your popsicle is melting. Your tea is getting cold. My hope for us is fading. You stand outside my window and scream that brilliance is a burden I am lucky not to have to bear. You think that you are explaining why it is difficult for you to come in, but all that I hear is that I am not invited out. Out into this world where you live, among the brilliant and articulate and successful and accomplished. And so I hide further and further away, inquiring over and over again if you could just come in and sit with me a while, tell me about your life, listen to me about mine.

From the other room I hear your voice on the answering machine without even having to get up. "You don't know a thing about poetry. You're writing would be better if you simplified it. Get to the point" you say. So I stand up. I walk to the door. I listen as it clicks behind me. I lock you out.

And for the first time in my life you are impressed by my succinct actions. For the first time you see I can be as cold hearted and hot headed and poetically direct as you. But of course by this point, the door has already closed and you realize that it is already too late to tell me of your brilliant discovery.

On The Last Day Of School

2009-06-19T14:33:00.007-04:00

Summer In A Small Town
By Tony Hoagland

Yes, the young mothers are beautiful,
with all the self-acceptance of exhaustion,
still dazed from their great outpouring,
pushing their strollers along the public river walk.

And the day is also beautiful - the replica 19th-century paddle-wheeler
perpetually moored at the city wharf
with its glassed-in bar and grill
for the lunch-and-cocktail-seekers
who come for the Mark Twain Happy Hour
which lasts as long as the Mississippi.

This is the kind of town where the rush hour traffic halts
to let three wild turkeys cross the road,
and when the high school music teacher retires
after thirty years

the movie marquee says, "Thanks Mr. Biddleman!"
and the whole town comes to hear
the tuba solos of old students.

Summer, when the living is easy
and we store up pleasure in our bodies
like fat, like Eskimos,
for the coming season of privation.

All August the Ferris wheel will turn
in the little amusement park,
and screaming teenage girls will jump into the river
with their clothes on,
right next to the No Swimming sign.

Trying to cool the heat inside the small towns

of their bodies,

for which they have no words;

obedient to the voice inside which tells them,

"Now. Steal Pleasure."

In The He Said, She Said, Sometimes There's Some Poetry

2009-06-18T18:57:00.006-04:00

I forgot my Ipod yesterday. Lately I've been using my lunch break to go for walks around the neighborhood. It's been nice to get out during the day, to relieve some of the day's stress, to reflect on the hour, the day, the life I'm living in general. I've made different musical mixes each day in an effort to soak in new music, walking in rhythm to the beat of the songs. It's nice to have a soundtrack sometimes.

Sometimes not, as I discovered yesterday, walking in the middle of unfrequented streets. It was so blissfully quiet that I couldn't help but hear each step on the pavement, that I couldn't help but listen to my thoughts. What I realized, more than anything, is that I am always writing. And while most of what I promised myself I'd remember later I quickly forgot, the knowledge that I spent that divine hour writing in my head the most beautiful words I have ever written is enough to be grateful for.

I realized how much more I noticed without the distraction of music, how the trees bowed toward me as I walked by, the smell of the air thick with the soft finality of a storm, the depth of color in the purple flowers (I don't know what they were), so elegant and lush that it became impossible not to feel flawed in comparison. These were all things I had missed the day before, walking down the exact same street at the exact same time of day, concentrating on some poetic artist's lyrics instead of the poetic natural life wafting all around me. It was a welcomed change.

I remember coming home and being asked about the culture shock. "Having a car makes you feel isolated?" My mother questioned. I understood her confusion at such a statement. In truth I know that the ability to drive realistically broadens my life. I can hop in my car and go wherever I chose. I can drive great distances I would never otherwise reach. On any given day I drive from the neighborhood of my house to the neighborhood of my work to the neighborhood of my school and back again. I am all over the city and it is the freedom of having a vehicle to get me there as I choose.

But in the day to day, my favorite places in the world have been the ones where I didn't need a car. They have been places with easy and accessible public transportation or places so small when everything one could ever need was in walking distance. And if you have ever spent time in a place so confined and self sufficient, you understand the importance of having lived that sort of life. Somehow it emphasizes what is important, what is essential, and whatever does not fall into that category becomes not only unessential, but superfluous and silly. If I can walk to food and a place to buy writing supplies and return to shelter, perfectly fulfilled and content, then why do I ever really need anything else?

It is something else too, something that I meant more at the time. It is the lack of communication between people. People don't generally smile and say hello when they pass one another in cars. Some people don't when they're walking either, but I do. And I do even more so in other countries where people have spent their lives walking by each other and saying hello. It's such a simple joyous act and I spend a lot of the time wondering why it is not more often done. I wonder where that fear of reaching out comes from. I revel in the happiness that comes from connecting with a stranger, if even for a moment, the way the woman who sits outside my local grocery store always comments on the weather. "Yes, it IS surprisingly cold" I say and we both feel better that someone has taken the time to hear us.

I think it is in all of us to want to be heard, and that's really no great secret. So why are we not screaming from the hilltops? Why are we not writing our stories, filling the streets with our art, impregnating the air with our music? Why are we not listening? To each other, to ourselves. Why is every house not a different shade of color and every person not a walking expression of themselves? Why is it so easy to become so much like everybody else, to be quieted with fear and self doubt, to fade away into a life already set?

I am not any better. I conform just like everyone and I'm not going to pretend to be above it, but listening to the weight of each footstep on the pavement made me feel somehow unique and important and big and small in the grandest meanings of the words. Walking makes me feel part of the world because I am who I am, without the ever present thoughts of material things and judgement and the heavy supposed-tos of obligation. It is enough just to exist in a world forever living. It is enough just to notice the poetry of your thoughts.

Some Gladness

2009-06-15T19:06:00.002-04:00

He lowers his umbrella so that it's upside down. Behind him she tilts her umbrella forward. He giggles as the rain falls from her umbrella onto his unsuspecting head. The sun is still casting her light behind the clouds as though she refuses to give up the fight. A crack of thunder. Lightening. The world is brighter than it's been all day. I sit on the front porch, safe and dry, watching the every changing flowers revel in the light and rain that feeds them. And then everything is quiet and still for a moment except for the trickling of rain. It is perfect. It is spring.

Friday night we sat here and talked about everything. We hadn't planned to spend the night together, but it happened anyway. Sometimes those unplanned conversations are better than any of great importance. We talked about work, about family, about mutual friends, about the purpose of life, about where we've come from and where we need to go, about where we are now, about the gratitude that comes from that realization. Four hours later we both wondered where the time had gone.

It's been over a year since we bought this house together and still I am amazed by the rightness of that bold move. It is easy to worry about a choice like that. Will money be a problem? Will we continue to get along? Will my consistent wanderlust lead to regret? But thirteen months later, I find myself more certain than ever that this is home. I love every inch of it. I love my roommate who has become my sister, who I have yet to ever fight or bicker with. I love sitting on this porch watching the neighbors speak to one another from their porches, listening to the greedy earth soak up the soft rain. I sigh in contentment for the life I am living.

Earlier today I went into a toy store to buy some bracelets one of my students brought in today and I simply had to have. It was a quaint store, the kind where every item on the shelf has been carefully and lovingly selected. Immediately I was surrounded by pieces from my own childhood that I had neglected to remember. Silly little crafts I had begged my parents for, old puzzles, decorated pencils and pens that made me wish I was a better artist. I took my items to the register and the woman laughed. "Yes, sadly, these are for me" I said. She smiled. "Oh, you don't have to explain it to me, I own a toy store!" She exclaimed. Could anything in life be happier?

Perhaps only that the sun has won her fight in the few minutes it's taken me to write this. The rain has already gone. The neighbors have emerged back out into the street. The birds sing in triumph and the raindrops tap lightly from my roof in rhythm with a child's basketball being dribbled a few doors down. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. The beating of the universe pulses on.

Ecrivez Votre Vie. Vivez Votre Ecriture.

2009-06-13T06:57:00.005-04:00

I chose French because I consider it to be one of the more elegant languages. Perhaps because I learned what little I know of it from such an elegant teacher. I think it looks pretty, poised upon the page, hanging in the air after it has slipped from soft worldly lips. There is something so remarkable about languages, about the availability of something that feels so secretive, that infinitely extends an understanding of the universe. If I were a better student, I would take the time to learn more. If I had known sooner what I know now, I would have done a better job of paying attention. I suppose it's never too late.

But I also chose French because it is cryptic to those who don't know it. I wanted to have those words that mean so much to me without having to explain it over and over again. The words themselves, in any language, are cryptic to those who don't live it. So when I decided two years ago to get "Write your life. Live your writing." tattooed on my foot, it was about something more than the alluring factor of coolness attributed to permanently decorating oneself in ink. I needed in some way to remind myself that I am a writer. I needed in some way to remind myself that my purpose in life is simple. I needed in some way to be able to see that one clear thought when the rest of the world seemed foggy. "Oh right," I can think "it is just that easy to find my way back."

And when people ask me what it means, the reaction is almost always the same. I hear a lot of "oh, cool" or "well, that's different," the way people may respond when you get a bad haircut or have made some other seemingly inappropriate decision. Their response is code for "it's okay, you can always cover it up." The thing that strikes me about myself in those moments is how little this response bothers me. In fact, I may prefer it to having to dive into some pseudo-intellectual conversation about writing with people who haven't written a word outside of their obligated assignments. Which is fine, if they haven't, but they're not going to understand the words unless they have. They're not going to understand what writing means to someone like me.

What those words mean to someone like me, is everything. My ever supportive friend J. once tried to decode them. "So, you write what you want to do and then you write what you end up doing?" She asked. Well, sort of. Even now, after all this time, I have difficulty explaining it, which only means I have a long way to go before I'll ever be anything close to a good writer. The closest I can come to articulating the meaning is to express that writing and living are one in the same for me. I never feel more alive than when I write. I am never more myself than when I write. And that is not a fact, but simply a feeling that has dwelled inside of me since the day I picked up my first book of poetry and understood what it meant to love words.

I do write what has happened to me, what is happening even as I write, but I also write about what could happen if things were different or if things continued to stay the same. I write about who I was, and who I am, and who I could be. I write about my own life but also about the concept of life, the eternal life that came before and will continue on long after I am gone. I write about my own experiences but also experiences I have yet to have, or will never have, and how those too, play a role in each life.

I have had more than one friend watch me write in my journal and ask me about what I am writing, curious and anxious perhaps that there are some dark and secret thoughts lingering on the pages. And I do write about the people in my life, the good and the bad, the awe I have for them and sometimes the venting about them that needs to be expressed. But mostly I think they would find my journals to be quite dull. Generally they are about the way the sound of a chirping bird delights me, or the way the soft warmth of the sun has effected my sentence structure. They are what you are reading here. My writing is not a collection of my daily happenings, but of my daily thoughts. Sometimes they are one in the same. Sometimes not. The point is to keep a record of who I am in any given moment, and so I put myself on the page.

And that's what it means to write your life and to live your writing, for me anyway. It means that while it often feels frustrating to be passionate and deep and wise in my writing and not in my "real life," I am still essentially all of those things. They are not separate lives. They are one. They are all pieces of me. Even those moments of inarticulate ramblings that make me cringe in retrospect only act as fuel to be written about later, to be that much closer to understanding who I am. Writing is cathartic, but it is also ineffably magical and beautiful and essential, like life itself. And if you have ever sat with nothing more than a journal and a pen while the world blazes and hums around you, you know what I mean. You too, understand that sweet secret.

After A Long Day At Work

2009-06-10T19:54:00.002-04:00

"No!" I screamed from across the playground. He froze in shock. Immediately I regretted the harshness in my tone. I called him over and he approached me slowly, clinging to the branch in his hands. "The reason I tell you not to pull the branches is not to be mean, but because that tree is alive, just like you and me, and it's not okay to hurt it. It would be like someone coming over and taking off your finger and that wouldn't be fun now would it?" I smiled and he laughed, offering up the leaf covered sprig as though it were an olive branch. "But I got it for you," he said, understanding the irresistibility of such innocent sweetness. I hugged him and he went about his way chasing a butterfly.

And I understood then, perhaps more clearly than ever, why I love to teach preschool. It is not just that the children are cute and sweet and funny and insatiably curious, although they are of course all of those things, but it is because they remind me of that part of myself that might otherwise go unnoticed. They remind me that it is our purpose to be insatiably curious. They remind me to be in awe of nature and airplanes and stories and music. They remind me to look and listen and see the world around me as though that is all there is. They remind me that I still believe in magic. I really do feel that way about trees.

Each day I am reminded of why I love what I do. Most of all, it's that I love it. It's that I know deep in my heart that if money was unnecessary, I would still continue to do it. And really, how many people can say that about their jobs? The thing is, it's not just my job, although I refer to it as "work," which it ultimately is. But it is equally a large part of my definition and an even larger part of my happiness. It is the work of my life, like learning, like exploring, like loving. It is what I would dream of doing if I had chosen to fulfill a different dream. Surely there is nothing more rewarding than having a child repeat something that you've taught them. I did that. Just as my teachers and parents are the reason I am who I am now. And the cycle continues. And it's lovely.

Which is not to say there are not bad days. It can be the most frustrating thing in the world to calm 20 screaming four year olds, to get them to sit and listen and do what you've asked of them. Some days I lose my patience. Some days they lose theirs. But we get through it together. We work as a team. I understand that they are also my friends and therefore deserve every ounce of my compassion and empathy and devotion and love.

I used to consider this one of my weaknesses as a teacher, blurring those lines between friendship and authority. I laugh at things I shouldn't. I let things slide that should perhaps be addressed. I too, would rather play sometimes than work. But the more I teach, the more comfortable I become with the balance I've struck. I watch the more professional teachers and wonder where the love is, where the joy can possibly come from without the laughter, without the silliness. I wonder why anyone would want to do such difficult, often unappreciated, work unless they were having fun.

And I felt this way today, a day filled with highs and lows, a day that reminded me that in the end, I am where I want to be. I am grateful to spend my days feeling needed and happy and loved. I am grateful to be having so much fun. And so I joined in on the chase for the butterfly and together we waved goodbye and wished him well as he fluttered off into some unknown of which we can only imagine.

Discovered In The Void

2009-06-09T20:10:00.003-04:00

To say "it's been so long" seems obvious and unnecessary, and so I won't. It's not what I want to write about anyway. My journal is filled with this blog's missing months and eventually I will fill in the gaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the void is exactly as it should be.

What I have discovered so far is that dwelling on the empty spaces is pointless. What I mean is, life continues on. The empty space ahead inevitably becomes filled and the empty space behind has already come and gone. The surrounding emptiness is an illusion created by the internal emptiness which it turns out, is an illusion created by self doubt. We are never as shallow or hollow as we may feel. Those empty spaces inside our hearts are simply opportunities for love.

I'll admit that I've forgotten this more than once in my life. It's easy to concentrate on what's missing instead of what's already there. I spend so much time trying to better my existence that I often forget to accept it as it is. I spend so much time dreaming that I forget to wake up. I spend so much time trying to feel alive that I forget I'm already living. This is it. Right now. Every breath that I take is another second of my life, ebbing and flowing into the next. And that's all life needs to be sometimes, just the coming and going of breathing. Sometimes that's enough to be grateful for. Why shouldn't it be?

It is a part of me to always notice the little things, but slowly I am remembering how to really see them, how to feel them, how to fill the mirage of my heart's empty space with them until there is not an ounce of room left barren. Even now I am collecting as I sit on my porch inhaling the sweet scent of the impending storm, listening to the neighborhood dogs announce it's arrival, feeling the soft winds rise and fall with my chest as I breathe. My lungs fill with the miracle that is air, that is life. My heart fills with these seconds, with this gladness.

What I have discovered so far is that every one of us are both ordinary and extraordinary all at once. Life can be whatever we want it to be, but life is also already magnificent just as it is. Life is already happening. We are already participating whether we realize it or not. What I mean is, realize it. Cherish each breath. Smell. Taste. Listen. Hear. Touch. See. There are no empty spaces. Beauty is everywhere.

It is easy to feel trapped by relationships, by money, by work, by responsibility. It is easy to feel stuck in life, but I think we trap ourselves more than life traps us. There are always choices to be made - perhaps not easy ones, or even right and wrong ones, but choices nonetheless. We aren't ever really stuck as much as we are unwilling to move. There's a difference. There are ways to improve - grand gestures that forever change the course of things, but also small, seemingly insignificant decisions that cultivate our very existence. Stop and stare at the moon. Hug someone before they need to ask for it. Refuse an umbrella and get soaked in a storm, as I did this morning, as I am better for having done.

The point is, I have written over and over that I'm making the choice to live, that I'm participating in my life, that I want to be alive. But that choice has already been made for me. I continue to breathe whether I am out changing the world or hiding away from it. Life continues on. What I have discovered so far is that no matter what I want the future to hold, no matter how I wish to change the past, my life is just as it should be. I am just as I should be in it. And it is beautiful.

I Couldn't Have Said It Better

2009-04-13T19:26:00.000-04:00

Simply because it is a lovely night without time enough to write something of my own, I wanted to end my day with this thought, this beautiful thought, this beautiful poem.

Your Laughter
By Pablo Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Of The Empire

2009-04-11T21:05:00.000-04:00

"We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness." ~Mary Oliver

I thought for a long time about this quote. Mostly because each time I am in a classroom, I find myself questioning the validity of what I am learning. College, thus far, has been all about learning to question everything, as it should be. They show us all of the ways in which we've been deceived, by our culture, by our government, by our education. It is easy to sit there and be appalled by our history. It is easy to wonder how anyone could have debated what we now know as so concretely right or wrong. It is difficult to imagine a time when there was such ubiquitously apparent injustice.

But of course there is also the present, where it continues, where it intensifies, where it has somehow become easier to look away and pretend it doesn't effect us. In high school I took a class on the sixties and I remember how we all thought it so unfair that we didn't live in an era of rebellion. We didn't have things to stand up for, to protest, to feel passionate about. It wasn't until my life after high school that I realized the foolishness, for so many reasons, of that thought. It wasn't, of course, that our generation had no battles. It was that our lifestyle, our small world within our simple teenage years, was peaceful. There were worldly current events and then there were our own daily routines and the two were separate for us. We wouldn't have necessarily admitted it, but they were. I was aware of poverty and corruption and war of course, but mostly I was concerned with what to do on Saturday night and how much homework I needed to get done. Mostly we were concerned with ourselves, and that kind of egocentrism protected us from the meanness of the world.

The older I get the more blatant it becomes. The more I learn the more cynical I become. There are so many battles to be fought. There are so many obstacles to overcome. There are so many ways that I personally feel helpless and there are so many problems that feel hopeless, and it is discouraging to say the least. Each time we discuss something in one of my classrooms I feel like shouting "then what is the answer!?!" But of course there isn't one, not an easy one, not a right one.

What will they say when they are sitting in classrooms studying us? That we had only problems with no real solutions? That we were too busy watching TV and connecting on facebook and downloading music to care? That we knew how to sit around and talk and blog about injustice but not how to act on its behalf? That we participated in the perpetual destruction of the world?

And of course, there have been advancements in things that are to be celebrated, but often it feels as though we are constantly taking one step forward and two steps back, that nothing good can happen without a slew of new oppositions, new problems. It's not difficult to understand why we all close ourselves off, while we choose instead to concentrate on our own personal daily goals that seem more hopeful, more attainable. Trying to lose ten pounds is easier than trying to understand why there is enough food to feed twice as many people as there are in the world and why there are still so many starving. Trying to teach your child good values is easier than trying to understand why every seven seconds a child under the age of ten dies. Trying to take care of your home is easier than trying to understand why there are so many without one. It just is.

And I'm not above this, or by any means claiming to be. If we thought about the condition of the world before ourselves all the time we would go crazy, we wouldn't continue on. Sometimes I still need to be selfish to protect myself. I think we all do.

But I also think there's a balance missing. I think it's easy to get so wrapped up in one's own life that we forget to consider the rest. I think that when I'm sitting here on my laptop with my starbucks at my side, it's easy to forget the faces of the dying children on TV, or the women I bought rice for in India, or the men on the street I pass by after school. It's easier to concentrate on the pile of homework by my side or the laundry in the basket waiting to be cleaned. It's easier to make a to-do list than a should-do list. It's easier to live my life than most others. I know that.

What I don't know is the solution. I don't know what the right amount of guilt is. I don't know what the right course of action is. I feel like I am constantly screaming in my head "then what is the answer!?!" But I have none.

I think about the Mary Oliver quote and I wonder how we will come to be known. I fear for THAT answer. I fear that we have become the people who forgot that they were people, and I fear that it is the forgetting that defines us.

The Day You Wore A Sweater Vest

2009-04-10T18:35:00.002-04:00

The day you wore a sweater vest was the day all of my feelings for you changed. It wasn't the sweater vest itself, although it was an odd fashion choice for you and I noticed the difference right away. But it was more than that. It was the way, somehow, everything was different. Everything that I thought had existed between us was gone. Everything that I was so certain I felt dissipated. And by the time I left, I hated you.

I hated you for the way you made me feel. I hated you for not being who I thought you were. I hated you for not being who I wanted you to be. And it's unfair and irrational as emotions often are, but I couldn't help wondering what it was in me that made me so angry. Why did I need you to be that person? Why was I so hurt that you didn't live up to my unrealistic expectations?

When that bubble bursts, it's painful. Perhaps more painful than I am capable of expressing. It just makes me doubt everything I am, everything I believe, which are essentially the same thing after all. How could I have gotten it so wrong?

In general I suppose I see what I want to see, believe what I want to believe, and I suppose that everyone does in some way or another. It makes it easier to survive. It makes it possible to survive. Convincing yourself that you're happy feels far superior to admitting that you're not. And that's just the way it is. It's easier to live in the truths you've created for yourself.

So when you put me on the spot and told me I was wrong, I felt stupid. Consumingly stupid. Inherently stupid. And although I have admitted to myself all of the many ways in which I am not good enough, I haven't ever really considered myself stupid. I haven't felt that before. Foolish, yes. Naive, yes. Unaware sometimes even, but not stupid. Nor have I ever really applied the term stupid to anyone else. The word itself bothers me. And I know that overall I am not, but compared to you, sitting across from you, I felt so certain that I was. And I felt it the next time I saw you. And I've been feeling it ever since, with or without you there.

Now I've become withdrawn, quiet, fearful of my own voice. I've become accustomed to constructing my every thought before releasing it, to regretting things immediately after they've left my lips. I've become aware of how stupid I can manage to be. Pop goes the bubble. My soul deflates without the comfort of it's protection. My confidence withers. My mind goes blank.

I wanted to love you. I wanted to be content with who we were together. I wanted to be proud of who I was with you, but the day you wore the sweater vest, you took something from me that I can't seem to reclaim. The day you wore the sweater vest, a great absence began to grow between us. The day you wore the sweater vest was the day that I realized something crucial was missing, and it was more than just your sleeves.

Studying Paradoxes

2009-04-05T14:02:00.005-04:00

I just needed to get that out. What I wrote yesterday was just a detoxification of the negativity that's been hanging over me for the past week. I just needed to put it somewhere, and what better place than within the cathartic beauty of language. It is why I write. It is why I'll always write. It is why I am lost without writing.

I've been working on this paper on American paradoxes for school and it has suddenly made me very aware of the constructs I try to avoid noticing in the hopes of perpetuating my naive contentment. It has suddenly made me very aware of the weight of my decisions. It has suddenly made me very aware of my insignificance.

This is why I both love and hate school all at once. I think too much. Each time my eyes are widened a bit to the world I begin to question it, and my place in it, and the point of it all. There is so much pain and destruction and corruption in the world that comparatively my life seems small and boring and trivial. Why do I bother getting stressed out and worried? Why do I allow myself to become so consumed by little missteps? Why is it so difficult to focus on the positive in a life so blessed? Why do I take it all for granted?

Because the truth is, I know better. I know how lucky I am. I have entire journals devoted to such gratitude. And yet, when a few things go wrong, I forget all of the goodness. I forget who I am and where I am and why both are reasons to celebrate. When I am the center of own life, all of my successes and all of my failures feel enormous, significant, weighted. They feel like everything. But when I am reminded that I am just one of many in this vast universe, all of my successes and all of my failures feel tiny, petty, inconsequential. They feel like nothing.

I have spent the entirety of my post-high school life wrestling with this dichotomy. My life consistently feels both too big and too small all at once and I have yet to find a balance. I'm not even sure what it would look like. Is it possible to continue living your everyday life like it matters when you know in the grand scheme of things that it doesn't? Is it possible to focus on your own life without selfishly shutting out the rest of the world? I honestly don't know.

What I do know is that I love being back in school, restating these big ideas, reclaiming my role as a student of life, remembering the joy of learning. I know that I've missed being inspired. I know that I've missed writing papers and reading books that deepen my understanding of the world. I know that I am better for trying this again, for facing the fear of returning, for being back in the classroom.

I also know that it's been difficult to incorporate so much into life. I know that I've shifted from prioritizing work to prioritizing the somewhat selfish desire to do well in school. I know that I've neglected my friends, that I've forgotten what it means to have carefree fun. I know that I've created a life for myself centered around responsibility and obligation, and I know that I've sacrificed more than I'd like to in doing so. I miss knowing how to let go.

I miss the time before I knew the way life can paradoxically seem both big and small, but in the meantime, in this sunshine, I find myself, this student of life, enjoying the ambiguity.

The Wholeness of Remembrance

2009-04-04T09:15:00.005-04:00

It wasn't that I had forgotten. If anything, it was the unexpected wholeness of the remembrance. It was placing my present into the context of my past. It was the way nothing had changed, except myself, suddenly unrecognizable in juxtaposition with this old familiar setting. I was overcome. I felt my eyes fill and my throat clench. Under the pressing awareness of time, I felt my heart literally throb, aching like the sore muscle it is, tender from the inconsistency of it's use. Driving down the roads that once held my entire history between their intersecting limits, I suddenly found myself sad and incomplete and defeated in a way I had never allowed myself to feel. I felt tired of treading so furiously simply to stay afloat.

I hadn't realized how cynical I have become until that moment. I hadn't realized how deeply bruised I am, how I have allowed each pain to add to the one before it without permitting myself the time and attention I need to heal, how the anguish has spread, how it consumes me. I hadn't realized how hurt I have become. I have been broken in so many ways.

Something about being back there sparked that recognition within me. It wasn't a longing for the good old days, but rather, a longing for the good old me - that genuinely happy person I once was. I miss her. I miss her innocence and I miss her certainty. I miss the way she looked at the world and saw possibility and faith and love. I miss her ability to draw distinct lines between right and wrong, and I miss the unwavering belief in goodness that attribute brought her. I miss the way her optimism protected her. I miss the safety she felt. I miss, more than anything, her hope for her life.

And it is not that I am now hopeless. It is just that there never seems to be enough time or money or freedom to maintain such inherent joy. I used to think that my happiness was indestructible, that I was one of those lucky few who got to spend their life intoxicated with contentment, but lately I've found myself despairingly vulnerable to reality. It's been difficult to accept. It's been difficult to feel that lighthearted girl slipping away. It's been difficult to remember that she used to be me, that I used to be her. Driving through the setting of her history that night only reminded me of who I once was, and who I am now, and who I could have and should have become instead. And even if just for a moment, I was the saddest I have ever been.

I have spent the entire week feeling the heaviness of that sadness. I've been stressed out and unable to sleep and wanting desperately to crawl beneath the surface of the earth and hide away until it becomes safe to emerge. But I know from personal experience that hiding doesn't solve anything. Running away doesn't work either. Nor does denial or bargaining or any other means of evading life. All I can do is keep fighting - fighting for happiness and for hopefulness and for the chance to wake up tomorrow and do it all again. Maybe I won't ever regain all that I've lost. Maybe I won't ever move forward. Maybe I'll spend my life fighting just to stay afloat, but it's impossible to accomplish anything if I don't try. I am trying. Truly, I am.

I sat down today to blog simply because I haven't written for myself in so long, not even so much as a journal entry, and I've missed it terribly, as I always do. Apparently I've needed it more than I realized. In this old familiar setting, I am writing to recognize myself. I am writing to remember her. I am writing to rekindle her hope. I am writing to keep us afloat.

Just Say The Word

2009-02-09T21:30:00.003-05:00

Tonight the moon was so round and smooth and perfect that I wanted to swallow it whole.

Metaphorically, I did.

Metaphorically, I glow.

This Morning I Woke Up

2009-02-08T09:18:00.007-05:00

There is a reason bears hibernate. It is so easy to crawl inside yourself in winter. It is not the cold winds chasing me in or the slickness of the earth's surface beneath the dustings of snow. It is not even the impersonation of death the world takes on, the trees naked and thin, the sky dark and ominous. It is the desperate longing of the spirit, pleading in the absence of sound where once there was the chirping of birds and the laughing of children playing and the music of life being lived. In the quiet one can finally hear the soul's need for rest.

In terms of life, I have not been still at all. Every moment of my life has been planned out in little notes and schedules I scribble in my planner. My life has become one long to-do list. Between school and work and the meager social life I now have, there has seemed little time for the extras, for getting lost in a book of my own choosing, for blogging, for fueling those creative embers that never seem to fully die out. I am glad that no matter how smothered they become beneath the responsibilities of the practical, they always remain warm, ready to be ignited, ready to burn.

Because it is not, in fact, the chaotic bustle of my life that has kept me from writing. I have had time to fit it in. There is always time for the things that we love, it is simply a matter of knowing how to look for it. Instead, it has been that need to rest, to hold a lid over my creativity and let it simmer, regenerate, reemerge as something new, something more. This morning I woke up feeling as though it had.

Perhaps, yes, it is the weather. Perhaps it is that at this very moment spring is wafting in through my open windows in a way that makes one feel as though they can actually smell sunshine itself. Perhaps it is nothing more and nothing less than the beautiful invitation of this day. Outside a basketball bounces in perfect rhythm against the sidewalk. A car starts. A bird sings. A child squeals in delight. A familiar melody forms, inspiring a brand new song, the sweetness of the air it's soothing base.

Creatively I step out of the cave. I take off the lid. I boil over.

I sit by my window, reveling in the way eyes that have been closed in slumber for too long burn in the light, just before adjusting perfectly to the blaze.

Love Letters

2009-01-10T08:43:00.005-05:00

It occurred to me one day that I've never seen your handwriting. We've been friends for years, but I have no idea how you curve your C's, how you dot your i's, whether your L's slant ever so slightly to the left or right. Most people's handwriting I can recognize in an instant. I can catch a glimpse of a word on an envelope buried beneath bills and magazines and know who I've received a card from before checking the return address. It is hardly what one would call a super power, but it is a skill I take some odd satisfaction in having. It is a matter of experience and a matter of paying attention to detail, something I've grown fondly accustomed to. Knowing how you arch your O's makes me feel closer to you.

Even as a little girl I had some strange fascination with the mail. I used to force my family to play a game of it with me. I made them each a mailbox to place outside their rooms in the hopes that we would all leave each other little notes and gifts and things to make us smile. I don't remember anything about what I placed in or removed from those boxes (I'm quite sure my parents appeased my need for surprises for about a day before hoping I would lose interest), but I remember the feeling of excitement I felt each time I checked it, each time I heard my mother's footsteps outside my door and the rustling of something happening. It was the same feeling I got hearing the bulk of letters drop from the slot in the center of our door onto our hardwood floors, knowing almost certainly there was nothing for me, but still hoping. Always hoping.

My mother had taken me to see the movie Little Women in the theatre. It wasn't our usual movie theatre. It was one of those old converted buildings, the kind of place that showed one or two indie movies at a time and had an audience of about eight people per showing. It was the kind of theatre that made the movie going experience worthwhile, a kind of old romance feel to it with it's high ceilings and assigned seating and red curtain to open and close the film. There was even an intermission and everything. And it was the perfect setting to watch Jo open her house-shaped mailbox and discover one perfect pear left for her by Laurie.

It is not often that I can point to a moment and say there, but there, before that enormous screen, my nine year old eyes wide in the dark, was the moment I fell in love with the idea of mail. Silly, I know, but also kind of wonderful. It was also kind of the beginning of my life as a writer, and as a correspondent, and as a friend.

In fact, the first poem I ever wrote was about the mail. I was in the fifth grade and reading my way through the books of the first poet I ever loved, Shel Silverstein. Inspired by the folly and the delight it brought eleven year old me, I wrote a short rhyming poem about hoping to get a cow in the mail. I read it aloud as an audition piece for our school play of The Golden Goose, and later received the part of The Golden Goose, so I knew, even then, it was the best poem EVER. I knew, even then, as foolish as that poem seems now, that language would be an important part of my life. I was a writer.

From there I fell in love with Emily Dickinson (who I consequently read as audition pieces for our seventh and eighth grade plays), then Walt Whitman, then Shakespeare, Emily Bronte and Jane Austen. And although I was never a very good student, always neglecting the work required of me, in my free time I secretly soaked them. I read and reread their words. I romanticized the life of writers, picturing them sitting in gardens and fields of sunflowers, writing letters to their loved ones, capturing emotions and experiences on the page. Immortalizing their love, their worlds, themselves in this elegant and meaningful manner.

I had various pen pals over the years - my British cousin, some friends from my first sleep-away camp experience - all of whom I eventually lost touch with over the years, but whose letters I still have saved. But my first real novel-length heartfelt letter was written my senior year of high school, when everything seems sentimental and bittersweet, when you are certain you will both be friends with those people forever and never see them again. The second I dropped it into the mailbox, I doubted it, regretted it. I called my friend and warned him.

A few days later I heard the familiar plop of paper on the hardwood floor and sauntered over to survey the collection. I saw the return address first. And even now, whenever I remove that letter, still in it's original envelope, from it's place among my treasured possessions, my heart skips as wildly and lovingly as it did in that first moment.

And like watching that scene in Little Women, it is not often that I can point to a moment and say there, but there, standing before the mail slot on my front door, I knew that all I wanted was to make people feel as I felt right then. I wanted my loved ones to know that they were just that, loved, worthy of the time it took to sit down and express word after word, page after page, exactly how deep my love for them was.

So I started writing letters, sending birthday cards, Christmas cards, little notes just to check in. And although it's faded a bit over the years, with email and facebook and the knowledge that people are not so easily lost, I still try my best to reach out. I try my best to embrace opportunities for expression, because in the long run, there are those few that I've fallen out of touch with. I think about them sometimes and feel that little ache of loss within me until I remember that they have somewhere, folded up and probably stowed away, word after word, page after page, my promises to love and remember them always. I take comfort in knowing that I am fulfilling such a promise, and I hope they do as well. Always hoping.

Hoping even now, that although I do not know your handwriting, you are comforted by the sight of mine, laying on your coffee table beneath bills and magazines, reminding you that you are loved.

Steps

2009-01-04T14:53:00.004-05:00

And so it begins.

Another year. Another chance at a new life. Another opportunity to be the kind of person I really want to be, living the kind of life I really want to be living. Another chapter. Another first sentence. Another rising of the curtains. Another first breath.

I have been awaiting its arrival. Possibly more so than any other year. I have been building up lists of goals and promises and things I want for myself, both the tangible, and more importantly, intangible. Things that are visible and easy to track the progression of, and more importantly, things that are invisible to the eye, things that can only be felt - the building of character, the expansion of mind, the deepening of the soul.

If I were to assign a title to this upcoming year, I would call it "foundations." It will be a year devoted to hard work, to practice, to trial, to missteps, to repeated attempts, to planning. It will be a year devoted to exploring just how much I am capable of. And I have high hopes about my discoveries. I know things will be difficult, but I invite the madness in. I have goals to reach and I don't want to waste any more of my time considering quixotic possibilities. It's taken me so long to understand what I want in this life. Now all I want is to focus, to work, to do a little less dreaming about what could be and to do a little more acting upon what will be. I don't have high aspirations. I'm not asking for much. I just see a simple future in which I am simply happy and I recognize the steps I need to take to get me there. I'm ready now for THAT part of my life.

There is so much to be said for living each day as though it is your last. It is a beautiful, fiery, passionate philosophy that sparks something within the very core of me. But it is also the excuse I use for running from the things I fear, from things when they get tough, from things I may not succeed at. It is the excuse I use to avoid facing my life. Because the truth is, even though I have done some truly impulsive and wonderful things, things I wouldn't ever want to take back, things that have made days so perfect that I would have considered them worthy enough to be my last, mostly, my days are not brilliant. Most of my days are not lived up to their potential. Most of my days are wasted sitting around waiting for life to happen. It is not a matter of choosing one lifestyle over another. It is a matter of hiding.

I'm so tired of hiding, of waiting for things to change on their own. The best adventures of my life have been journeys that I've leapt into. The best adventures of my life have been filled with risk and sacrifice. And so I leap into 2009 head on, knowing full well that I will spend most of it sacrificing time and sleep and probably most of my sanity, but risking the frustration and stress and potential for failure for the opportunity to be who I want in this life. So that if this day turns out not to be my last, or the next day, or the day after that, I'll be able to look back on this year and know that it was all worth it, in the end.

And so, it begins.

December, Thus Far

2008-12-07T17:06:00.003-05:00

December, thus far, has been perfect. Just perfect.

Work has been going wonderfully. I've forced myself to attend potentially awkward gatherings and have come out the other side of them with new friends and a renewed sense of confidence. I have spent the weekend having truly amazing one on one conversations with some of the greatest people I know. I have cleaned out the clutter that's been filling my house and the metaphorical clutter that's been clouding my happiness. I have started preparing for the future. I have started reconnecting with the past. I have started enjoying the present.

I spent Friday night in our basement drinking wine with my best friend, watching truly terrible television, and discussing everything about our days, weeks, lives. We spoke of happiness and sadness and anger and silliness. We talked about our plans for the future. We reminisced over stories from our pasts. We enjoyed the present company of each other. Sometimes you just need someone by your side, someone to nod and say "I get it." Sometimes that's all it takes to feel love.

On Saturday night, one of my dear friends who I've known for 13 years now, came over for dinner. We made sushi together, an idea she suggested, an idea that immediately made me think "this is why we're friends." She noticed that it had been almost an entire year to the day since I last saw her in Prague. It's funny, how so much has happened since then, and yet, how it felt like only yesterday I saw her. I suppose that's the magical thing about friendship.

We assembled our sushi, ate, sipped wine, talked and talked about everything. It was so nice to reconnect that way. It was so nice to reach a point in the night where we had gotten past the details of what had occurred over the past year, and instead moved onto who we are now, at this point, in this moment.

She referred to one of my blog entries and told me she had written the exact same thing in her journal. It was strange to imagine that this woman whom I admire so greatly, who seems so perfect and together, could ever have the same uncertainties and doubts about her life as I do. But we all do. And it is so nice to be reminded of that. It is so nice to feel a little less crazy, a little less alone. It is so nice to sit and discuss things that are deep, and serious, and real. Sometimes that's all it takes to feel love.

Inspired by her ability to reach out to me, I did the same with another friend. We met for brunch this morning. I can't even recall the last time we talked, really talked, but it was just as fabulous as I remembered it to be. No, that's not true. It was better. It was warming a piece of my heart that I hadn't even noticed had grown cold. It was pure joy. He told me about his life. I told him about mine. He took me on a tour of his house. I made him promise to come see mine. We agreed not to wait too long again. We hugged. Sometimes that's all it takes to feel love.

That's December, thus far. The weeks ahead are sure to be just as full and restless as this past week has been, but I feel nothing but gratitude for it. Lately I find myself full of a kind of energy I haven't felt for some time. I just want to see everyone and know everything. I just want to burst open with love and light and gladness. I just want to run from the fields of uncertainty into the open door of possibility, where my future stands waiting, calling me in from the cold.

Monday. December. OK Go.

2008-12-01T07:05:00.001-05:00

Happy December!

What better way to begin than with a few of my favorite things.

A Little Love:

A Little Dancing:

A Little Nonesense:

A Little Nature:

A Little Holiday Spirit:

And A Little Boogie Wonderland:

A Belated Giving of Thanks

2008-11-30T10:36:00.004-05:00

My roommate and I have spent the weekend getting into the Christmas spirit. We put up and decorated our tree, placed Christmas paraphernalia all around the house, watched Elf, The Polar Express, and some awful-but-wonderful Hallmark Channel original movie, listened to nothing but Christmas music. It's been perfect. Just perfect.

At Thanksgiving dinner, we did not go around the table and say what we are thankful for, and I was probably thankful for that most of all. I always feel very put on the spot with things like that. It seems impossible not to be generic, and to list what I'm really grateful for feels too personal and, well, fairly uninteresting. Don't we all just want to eat by that point anyway?

But naturally this time of year demands reflection, and as I sit here in my living room, tree glowing, candles burning, my roommate and I typing on our laptops while sipping tea, I can't help but feel ubiquitous gratitude. I am grateful for everything that has happened this year, the good as well as the bad. I am grateful for this house, for my roommate, for my new job, for the friends I've made there, for the friends I've kept from my old job, for the friends I've kept period, for my family, for poetry and coffee and art, for food and nature, for kindness and love, for knowing where I want to go, for knowing that I don't need to be there yet, for the direction my life is beginning to go, for my life. I am grateful for it all.

On Tuesday night, I went to see Mary Oliver at the library with my mother. It was lovely. I followed along with every poem I knew, and soaked in every poem I didn't. I loved hearing her read my favorites exactly as I had to myself, all of the pauses and emphasis in just the right places. I loved the soft "hmmms" of understanding and light giggles of delight from the audience members who were clearly discovering her magic for the first time. I loved being an audience member who already knew of such magic, who could instead spend the hour finding new complexities to her simple words and truths. And I did just that.

In those situations, I am constantly wishing that it was appropriate to take out my journal and begin writing, but sadly, most of what I promise not to forget somehow gets lost in the folds of memory. What I remember best of all about the night was not the poems she picked, or the sound of her voice, but in fact, my surprise at how tiny she is. I of course knew that she is 73. I knew she would be an older woman. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I suppose I had always imagined her tall, commanding like her words.

But she walked in, stepped up onto her podium in front of the heavy red drapes of the stage and looked so punitive, so plain. If I had passed her on the street, I wouldn't have thought twice about her. She just looked so ordinary.

And then she spoke, and became extraordinary.

She became what I knew she was - author, poet, artist, woman of wisdom and truth and beauty. She was powerful and compelling and divinely exquisite. She was exactly who she is.

And for that, I am grateful. I was grateful to witness that instant transformation from ordinary to extraordinary. I was grateful for the reminder that such an ability to transform exists within each of us. We are all more than we seem. We are all talented in ways that demand attention. We are all exactly who we are. And it is perfect. Just perfect.

So it is here on the last day of November, 2008, that I realize the perfection of my own existence, and my gratitude for it, and my excitement for all of the transformations that are to come.

In Honor Of Seeing Mary Oliver Tonight

2008-11-25T21:41:00.002-05:00

In honor of seeing Mary Oliver tonight, but being too exhausted to write about it now, I'll mark the occasion with one of the poems she read. What a wonderful way to spend an evening.

The Sun by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Justification

2008-11-24T21:25:00.005-05:00

I am a firm believer in not regretting things I've written. That being said, in my last post I certainly didn't mean to imply that my twenty-something comrades are stupid, or that I am smart, or that I am superior, or even that I am inferior. When I sit down to write this blog, I just write, and often times it leads to unintentional points. It was not about my friends. I cannot stress that enough. It was not about you.

It was about me. The point I was trying to get to was that I am average. Painfully average.

I consider those people whom we may have considered nerds in high school, the ones who got straight A's and dominated all of the class discussions and spent their weekends reading just for the fun of it. I consider the characters from the movie Smart People, the ostracized intellectual protagonists in all of my favorite books, my father, all of those remarkably scholarly geniuses who can't quite find ways to connect to the general public. And I think, at least they can justify their lives. At least they can say, I don't go out drinking and clubbing every night, but I know more and understand more and enjoy more than those kinds of people do.

I consider the people I know who go out every night, who meet new and interesting people, who spend their time making incredible anecdotes for the rest of us to listen to and be jealous of. I consider the characters from movies and books who follow their hearts, who have no grand plan, who I admire for being strong enough to do exactly what they want to be doing, exactly what makes them happy. Those people who are going out drinking and clubbing every night, well, at least they can justify their lives. At least they can say, I don't bury myself in books and current affairs, but I'm living every moment to the fullest. I'm having fun.

But me? I'm just somewhere in the middle. I'm not smart enough to be considered a brooding intellectual and I'm not fun enough to be considered a socialite. I'm just a boring average girl with a boring average life, and I don't mean that to sound like self pity or even sadness. It's just sort of the way it goes.

I was driving behind a car sporting a bumper sticker of the infamous Laurel Ulrich quote "well behaved women seldom make history" and I remembered being younger and loving the idea of this. I loved the idea of wild women, of surrounding myself with wild spirits, of becoming one myself. I loved the idea of fighting for things, of changing things, of making an impact somehow, no matter how small. I loved the grandeur of believing in things so deeply.

But reading it now, I am just struck by the realization of how well behaved I am. I follow the rules. I care greatly about what it is expected of me and how well I fulfill those expectations. I make an average salary at an average job to pay an average mortgage for an average house in the average suburbs. I am not having great adventures or making great impacts. My goals are simple and realistic. I have become less and less of an idealist over the past couple of years.

When you're young, you swear that will never happen, but as we grow older, we make compromises. We fall into patterns, directions, roles and expectations. We become people we promised never to be. I'm only twenty three years old, and to feel like that so early on scares me a bit. It makes me want to change everything. Now. It makes me want to reconsider who I feel myself becoming.

And that's all I was really trying to say. I was trying to say that in wanting to be a bit of everything, it often feels like I became nothing - no label, no type, no place to really fit in, no way to justify my decisions. The past few years have not made me smarter or more fun. I've been stuck in what is comfortable and easy. I've been trying to define myself instead of trying to better myself. I haven't really been working towards anything, until I arrived here at this point, and considered that perhaps average simply isn't enough for me.

At least I can say I know that much.

Perspective

2008-11-23T12:50:00.006-05:00

I have spent most of my life listening, sitting back quietly, paying attention. I have spent most of my life looking on from the sidelines, getting involved enough to please people, but not so involved that I have any real responsibility. I have spent more time watching than acting, more time observing than participating, more time reflecting than moving forward. And in many ways, I've enjoyed that role. I attribute most of my thoughtfulness and wisdom to it. It's taught me how to take the time to learn how to read people. It's taught me how to notice the little things while still keeping the big picture in mind. It's taught me how to really see things. I have spent most of my life exploring perspectives, and I have spent most of my life enjoying it.

But there are times I see people converse and fraternize with such ease, that I cannot help but feel completely social stunted, jealous and pitifully self loathing. Why can't I do that?

It's gotten so much worse over the past couple of years. I have lead my life by the rule that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all, but equally important it seemed was that if you don't have something interesting to say, don't say anything at all. Part of that observation role meant that I understood those awkward pauses and glances after someone spoke. I understood the dangers of speaking and revealing stupidity and dullness. I understood the difficulty of disproving that impression once it had been made. And so I stopped saying much unless it seemed relevant and insightful. And even then I continue to be cautious.

Generally I practice things a few times over in my head. Sometimes I leave events and have long monologues on the car ride home of things I would have said and probably should have said, if only I were a bit quicker and braver. And I think, if only I were smarter, all of this would be so much easier.

But there is the other side of me too. The smarter side. The wiser side. There is the side of me that knows better. There is the side of me that feels completely out of place in a room full of people my own age, in a room full of people who find it so easy to converse and fraternize because well, they're just talking. I could just talk if I wanted to, about the weather and TV and what I did over the weekend and what I ate for lunch and how drunk I was at that party and what the boy I liked was wearing and how I can't believe that so and so would ever do such a thing to so and so number two. I could just talk, but I prefer to speak. I prefer to have conversations that go somewhere, that mean something. I could be more like a twenty-something if I tried.

I could be more like that if I wasn't so wrapped up in my own head. I could be more like that if I didn't think so much. But I wouldn't want to give up that part of me. And I know it sounds conceded, if not just downright awful, but sometimes I think, if only I were a little dumber, all of this would be so much easier.

Grown ups are constantly telling me that they wish they would have known what I have already come to understand when they were my age. But perhaps you're supposed to learn certain lessons later in life for a reason. It's not really fun feeling ten years older than you really are. It's not really fun feeling too smart or too stupid in almost every situation. It's not really fun not knowing where I fit in.

I'm sure there's some happy medium out there that I have yet to discover within myself. Certainly most of my friends, younger and older, are some of the smartest people I know, who inspire and challenge me to find that place between the timid girl who's afraid of looking foolish and the grown woman who's wise beyond her years. It's just a matter of trying to stop labeling myself, questioning myself, observing myself, and instead learning to live as myself, silly stupid smart me. It's just a matter of stepping off of the sidelines and exploring the perspective from the center of my existence. I have spent most of my life trying to get there.

Smiles For Saturday

2008-11-22T20:52:00.001-05:00

Completely and utterly irresistible.

Absence

2008-11-19T17:00:00.005-05:00

Loving you less would make my life easier. It would mean that I wouldn't notice the way our relationship has gradually faded, the way it has slowed, the way we have gone in different directions only to find ourselves miles apart. It would mean that I wouldn't think about the hows and whys of reaching this point, that I wouldn't regret all of the things that were done, and worse, not done to lead us here, that I wouldn't feel saddened at the mere thought of you. It would mean that I wouldn't miss you so much.

You used to praise me for my optimism, but I think that you always had it a bit confused. I am hopeful, yes, but I don't know if I would consider myself optimistic. Optimism seems to me like something other than hope. Optimism stems from a kind of happiness, a kind of blind faith that everything will work out, that everything will remain as happy as it has been and continues to be. Optimism is the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.

But hope? Hope is the consequence of absence. The absence of someone or something. Hope is what gets us out of bed each morning despite the ache of knowing there is something missing. Hope is not the belief in happy endings, but is the longing to believe in them, the longing to believe that it is possible to fill that empty space inside oneself. Optimism is a state of being, but hope is a feeling. Optimism is an option, but hope is a necessity. It's an insatiable desire. It's why we continue on.

Because what is life if not a search? If we were to make a list of all that we are grateful for having and of all that we wanted for ourselves in the future, what would that list be if not a reflection of our hope? We wished for these things, and even if we weren't optimistic about getting them, we hoped they would be in our lives. We hoped for the best. Sometimes that hope pays of, sometimes not, but the gamble is what inspires us to keep going. That list of things to be grateful for is proof of the worthiness of hope. It is enough to pursue the search.

You never really got that right about me. I do not believe that life is inherently happy, that people are intrinsically good, that everyone gets their happily-ever-after. I do not believe that there are factors bigger than ourselves determining the course of things. I do not believe in the existence of magic, or the power of love, or the truth of fairy tales. I do not believe in anything, but I have hope in everything. I have the desire to believe. I have the longing to find answers to the questions I've left blank. I have the terrible, painful, beautiful ache of absence inside me.

I have the terrible, painful, beautiful ache of missing you. And while I may not be optimistic that we will ever have the kind of relationship we once did, that I will ever be able to fill that particular void, I am hopeful that I will. With all of my heart I hope. For me. For you. For us.

All Those Small Things

2008-11-13T19:12:00.007-05:00

"One would say she was a simple woman, made happy by simple things. I think this was true. And more than once, in my long life, I have wished to be her."
~Mary Oliver

I make the soft right and there it is. It gets me every time. The leaves have changed and the entire street hums with golden yellows and gentle oranges. If there's a morning breeze, small tornados of color line the sidewalk and spin past my car. Each morning my breath is stolen away by its beauty. Each morning I am shocked by its unassuming grace. Each morning I marvel at the deep impact those tiny details make in life.

The three of us used to play this game we called "high, low." At any point we could turn to one another and say those words and the other person would have to name the lowest and highest points of their day so far, in that order. It just made sense to save the best for last. What we discovered of course, was that the highs, no matter how seemingly insignificant at the time, always seemed to outweigh the lows, and that the lows, no matter how seemingly devastating at the time, were never really all that bad. Generally both answers received much needed laughter.

This week has been all about those little things that happen from day to day.

The flock of small black birds that took flight at the same instant over the empty parking lot, the sound of their wings rushing above me.

The three purple balloons caught in the highest point of a tall naked oak tree.

The old man with the white beard, dressed in red flannel from head to toe with a large brown cane beside him, sitting outside the market around the corner, sipping his coffee. The way I knew if I was a child I would have thought this homeless man to be Santa Clause. The way I knew as an adult that I still had hope that maybe he was.

The large deer that stopped right in the center of my favorite street, and how he stayed there long enough to meet my gaze head on, and how he vanished quickly enough that no one else witnessed his quiet perfection besides me.

My life is all about these moments.

Already I have created inside jokes with my new coworker. We look at each other and know what the other is thinking. We laugh at things we shouldn't. We have more fun than we probably should. It's nice to feel that again. It's important. It's those little looks and jokes and giggles that get me through the day.

I have spent every lunch break this week writing epically in my journal. I've written more in the past four days than in the past four weeks, perhaps even months. It's felt so good to reconnect with writing, reconnect with myself. More and more, I am starting to feel like me again. More and more those simple pleasures find me and I remember why it is I am so grateful to be living this little life of mine.

I arrived home today to find my re-acceptance letter to school. In January I'll start again part time to (FINALLY) get my degree. It's taken me almost three years to get the urge to finish college, but I guess what's important is that it's here now. I'm excited to begin. I'm excited to feel ready, to feel like I have a goal in mind and that I'm working toward it. I'm excited by the prospect of getting what I want out of life, of creating the opportunity to be the best version of myself I can be, the best version I have yet to be. I'm excited for this new adventure.

Of course, like all things worth doing, there will be moments of doubt and misery and exhaustion, I'm sure. Working full time and going to school will be a lot, but the truth is, I'm ready. I'm determined. I don't want to waste another moment waiting for something to happen. It's my turn to take the lead. It's my story to write.

And so I take a tiny step forward and, becoming breathless at its beauty, shocked by its grace, I marvel at the deep impact that one tiny step has made.

A Happy Thought For Sunday

2008-11-09T09:19:00.002-05:00

Perfection.

Recap of the Past Two Months

2008-11-08T07:41:00.004-05:00

I slept through most of September. It's not something that I would care to admit to anyone who chooses to read this, not something that I would care to admit to myself, not something that I would care to remember at all in fact, but it's the truth, and it needs to be documented somehow.

The job I was planning to take in my last post didn't work out. I knew instantly that it wasn't for me. Truthfully, I probably knew even during the interview, but my want and need of a job outweighed my better judgement. So I took the job and after two days, left it. I hated being that person. I hated that feeling of quitting, of abandoning the people who had taken a chance on me, of letting people down. It is the worst kind of guilt. But really, in seeming selfish, I was trying to be selfless. It seemed a waste to grow close to children and parents that I knew I was leaving anyway. It seemed wrong to let them get to know me and trust me only to leave them in a few weeks when something better came along. It didn't seem worth it to hang on.

And so, I let go.

And therefore spent the better half of September taking the occasional interview, but mostly, wallowing in the fact that things hadn't just magically worked out for me the way they had always done in the past. In fact, after two long term jobs that had hired me on the spot, this was my first set of real interviews. When wearing my rose tinted glasses, I was grateful for the practice and for finally understanding the merit behind job hunting complaints. When the glasses came off however, I was depressed and wanted a job.

I'm really not good at "free time." It was an important lesson to learn about myself.

But at last, the end of September came and with it, a job teaching four year olds at a new and lovely center. I adore my new coworker, which is generally half the battle in a daycare setting, and my new little students are just wonderful. I'm sure there will be countless stories relayed here in the future, but for now, I just wanted to say that each day the job gets better. Each day I fall a little more in love with my new children. Each day I grow more confidant in my choices and in the theory that everything happens for a reason. Things do, generally, magically work out. It's simply a matter of recognizing the magic.

The past two weeks have been magical. On Halloween, our new neighborhood buzzed with life. Neither of us have ever lived on a block that really celebrated the day. We were lucky if we got a handful of trick-or-treaters. But last Friday night they came in droves, of all ages, in some pretty wonderful costumes. We met some neighbors we had yet to meet. We sat out on the porch and felt the hum of excitement wafting through the orange lit street. The neighborhood united. It felt like we were connected to something bigger than ourselves. It was the best kind of feeling.

A few days before that, our city buzzed with life. Our beloved Phillies won the world series for the first time in twenty eight years and nobody slept for days. The celebration went on and on with drinking and fireworks and hugs and tears and pots and pans banging in homes from the heart of the city to the outskirts of the suburbs. Everyone had a smile on their face. Everyone wore red. The city united. It felt like we were connected to something bigger than ourselves. It was the best kind of feeling.

A week later we sat up waiting for the results of the Presidential election. From the other side of the wall of our twin, our neighbors screamed so loudly that I'm sure they are still trying to regain their voices. Obama WON. And it feels, well, amazing, doesn't it? It feels like change. It feels like hope. It feels like, for the first time in a long time, America has something to be proud of. And as a country, that unites us. And it feels like we're connected to something bigger than ourselves. And it is the best kind of feeling.

I have had two months of extreme lows and extreme highs. But it's getting better all the time. And while I have a thousand more things to say, stories to tell, emotions to consider, I sat down this morning to play catch up with this blog simply to express this one thought: I am happy.

And it feels like waking up.

Treasure

2008-08-31T08:54:00.005-04:00

I pulled into the driveway and he darted across the yard, his sleek and narrow body bounding through patches of missing grass as though they were stepping stones. How he managed to hold onto it with only his tiny squirrel mouth I'll never know, but there it was, this one perfect tomato just at the peak of its ripeness. It was the color of fiery sunsets drawn by children, bright reds and oranges and yellows bursting with the idea that the sun won't go down without a fight. And the squirrel clung to it as though it were the sun itself, as though it were the something to thank for all of existence, as though it were precious and powerful and at the very center of everything. He ran toward me like a dog playing fetch, that look of discovery and pride on his tiny face, but at the last moment turned and scurried up the tree. I was glad of this. It was his treasure, not mine.

As I sit on the porch this morning, the air has already changed. Fall wafts in with it's familiar comforting scent. Leaves have already started to change color and float softly down upon the inviting earth. Yes, I think, a new beginning.

I wonder how many are allotted in life. How many times can we wipe our slates clean? How many chances do we get to be forgiven for our mistakes? How many opportunities are there to start fresh, to start over, to take those first steps? How many days can I dub as the first of the rest of my life before such a declaration becomes meaningless?

I thought about this last night as I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come. What I'd like to believe is that new beginnings are limitless. Every day can be the first day because every day is different, something new, something precious. Even in the most monotonous stages of a life there are details waiting to be discovered and admired and cherished. There are ways of seeing the world as an invitation for happiness if one knows how to look at it right. There are ways of learning this skill that are as simple as opening your eyes, as slowing down, as listening to a single bird greet you into your day, as I did this morning. Open your senses and the soul will follow. It knows how to blossom in gladness. It knows how to begin again.

Tuesday is the first day of my new job and I'm excited for something new, for another round of beginnings, for new people and ideas and realizations. I'm ready for change. In fact, I've been craving it. Something I've learned about myself is that as much as I think that I want free time, I'm not very good at it. I need to be busy. I need to be out in the bustling world exploring and watching and discovering. I need to be having adventures, even if they're as small as watching a child learn something new, or finding a new perfect place to sit and write in my journal, or coming across a garden so filled with color and life that for a brief moment I am left literally breathless. What I need, more than anything, is to be inspired.

And so I think of the squirrel and of his treasure. I think of the delicate, simple loveliness of that scene. I think about how being inspired is sometimes as easy as letting go, as letting it happen, as letting the beauty of the universe consume you. I think about how even now, in the quiet stillness of this Sunday morning, the beginning of a new week, I am filled with joy and gratitude simply to be a witness to the grace of this world.

And I think about how I must seem in this moment, bounding through patches of doubt and uncertainty as though they were stepping stones, clinging to the fiery treasure of knowing how to love my life.

What I Have Learned So Far

2008-08-22T22:01:00.000-04:00

"Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world? Because, properly attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion. Can one be too passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a story, all kindness begins with the sown seed. Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone."

~Mary Oliver

Trying

2008-08-14T14:53:00.005-04:00

Perhaps I simply needed to write it down. Or, more likely, perhaps I just needed to write. The act of typing seems to soothe me more than the actual words being set upon the page. It's strange to think of how quickly I seem to forget what comfort feels like. It's strange to think of how quickly I seem to forget that I am capable of saving myself, of pulling myself back from some dark and dreary place, of rediscovering the way light gently radiates from all of existence. It's strange to think of how quickly I can become blind to the things that once consumed my attention, those small and delicate details that make waking each day purposeful and perfect. It's strange to think that it's possible for me to ever feel joyless in a life that offers up so much joy.

Nothing happened necessarily. There were no epiphanies or revelations. There were no answers found. There were simply moments when sunlight poured through my bedroom window with such elegant poignancy that even the most cynical of souls would be forced to believe in beauty. Moments when the gentle grace of the universe hummed the sing song melody of life itself. Moments when I felt humbled by my existence, filled with gratitude for the continuation of my story. There were simply moments when whatever it was I've been searching for - a path, a destination, a direction - seemed insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

And of course, it isn't insignificant. It's something I need to figure out, for me, for the sake of my happiness, for my own peace of mind. It means something to me to have places I want to go, things I want to accomplish. It means something to me to have dreams to work toward, whether they're realistic or not. It means something to me to keep moving forward, into a future where I can become a better me, where I can become the best version of myself, where I can become the kind of person I can maybe learn to love.

I understand that it's a process. I understand that I won't wake up one morning to a perfect life, all of my ducks miraculously in a row. I understand that it takes work, that it involves facing fears and admitting things I'd rather not admit and discovering, somehow, a way to have the kind of faith in myself that I have in those I love. I understand that I am not the only one learning these lessons. I understand that feeling lost and afraid and doubtful are just as much a part of life as feeling euphorically happy and content. I understand it is a balancing act. I understand it is a journey. I understand. I do.

It's just difficult to ignore the places that feel empty inside. It's difficult to see the places already filled, the fundamental fullness of a life being lived, when there is also this insatiable ache for the unknown. It's easy to let the negative thoughts outweigh the positive. It's easier to fall down than to climb back up. That's just the way of things. And I understand that too.

And so I try my best to be inspired by books and people and moments. I try my best to know that most of what I decide is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, even if it feels like everything at the time. I try my best to have faith that this too shall pass. I try my best to concentrate on those small and delicate details. I try my best to feel forever joyful in a world that offers up so much joy. I try my best to feel full in the most desolate of places, those times in my life made up of nothingness, those empty spaces inside my heart that never cease to ache. I try my best to believe there is more for me to do, and see, and love, and be. I try my best to see the beauty in such hope.

I try my best to type my way out of sadness, and sometimes, like now, it works.

Questions

2008-08-11T11:42:00.006-04:00

I quit my job six weeks ago and have had nothing but wonderful, terrible, endless amounts of time. As expected, the first few weeks were fabulous; sleeping in past five, checking items of my to-do lists, reading entire days away. But equally expected came that turning point, that moment creeping up ever so slightly, quiet and undetected, until it was right beside me, nagging me urgently with the demanding awareness and unrelenting cruelty of time.

I wonder where it comes from, this need to be doing, this fear of wasting moments, this feeling of uselessness. I wonder why so much of my identity is dependent on what I do, and not, essentially who I am. I wonder if I can even define who I am, put a name to it, without the convenient blanketed idea of an occupation. It's more difficult than one would think.

While in Prague last December, I visited a preschool where a friend of mine was working, and the director very kindly took the time to show me around and talk with me about education. She was a lovely woman, interesting, well-traveled, passionate about her career and life in general. I love these spirited characters. I love that they give me something to look forward to, to aim for. I could be like that, someday, if I tried hard enough. I could be fiery and strong and in love with my life. I could be more than a weak, timid girl standing on the edge of her life, fearing the unknown before her, fearing - more than anything else - that what lies ahead is not the unknown, but rather just the continuation of a predictable, indifferent life. I am so tired of feeling half asleep in a world so awake with wonder.

This woman asked me to tell her about myself, and so I told her about teaching. She smiled politely. "No" she said, "tell me about YOU." Eight months later, I still have no idea how to answer this question. I looked at her anxiously trying to think of something to say, something that would express who I am, something that would define me. She sensed my unease. "R. tells me you've been spending your days sitting in cafes and writing." I laughed a little and nodded. Maybe that summed it up entirely.

I think about this moment quite a bit, especially at stages in my life like this, when I have nothing but time. My inability to answer that question both frightens and saddens me. I used to have such a lust for life. I used to have things that truly interested me, that I was passionate about, that defined me. I used to have goals and dreams and an idea of who I was and who I was working to become. And now, I'm just not sure. I've been unwilling to write simply out of the fear of having to admit my uncertainty. I've been avoiding the question. I've been avoiding my life.

When I discuss these types of issues with adults, they remind me that they were much older than I am before they figured out what they wanted, who they were, how to love and accept themselves. I know that they mean it to be comforting. I know that what they are trying to offer me is this idea of time, that I have more of it than I think, that it will help me to heal, that it is in fact a gift, and not cruelty at all. But what I hear is that I'll have to wait ten years before I'm happy. What I hear is that I'm too young to understand any of this. What I hear is 'wait it out. Float through. Be lost so that you can be found." What I hear is that there is no way out other than time. And I hate that. And I wish that I could simply jump ahead.

I wish that I knew how to tell you who I am. I wish that I knew myself.

To Sam (Forgive The Public Gushing)

2008-08-06T12:31:00.006-04:00

I considered sending you a thank you card, but it wouldn’t encompass my gratitude. I considered an email, but every time I sat down to write, it started to sound like all of the others I’ve sent you over the years, generic, inadequate. I considered a letter, but that too, fell short. There aren’t enough words to express what I feel for you.

When I think of you, I do not think about the boy I became friends with ten years ago. I do not think of the way I didn’t know then how strongly I would come to adore you. I do not think of you connecting christmas lights in my tinkerbell costume, or the sly, knowing looks we’d exchange when I would turn around to look at you at the piano, or the nights in Adrian’s basement, or driving around aimlessly in the passenger seat of your car, or standing beside you at concerts, or the nightly IM conversations that lasted for hours. I do not think about sitting beside you on your front stoop that morning, or on my porch that afternoon, or a week ago in Starbucks.

I do not think of the way you create music where once there was nothing. I do not think of your brilliance or your kindness or your innate goodness. I do not think of our inside jokes, our shared laughter, our kindredness. I do not think of our talks individually, but rather, as one long conversation, the kind that begins with a ‘hello’ and lasts an entire lifetime. When I think of you, I think about the longevity of friendship. When I think of you, I am certain of the truth of that old familiar adage that sometimes family is what we create for ourselves. When I think of you, I am home.

As a housewarming gift, he made me this book. This wonderful, generous, amazing book of my blog. He went through and picked out his favorite entries. He arranged them beside his beautiful photographs. He compiled it all together (humbly, he claims) and made the most priceless and precious gift I have ever received. From anyone. EVER.

And you can see why ‘thank you’ simply doesn’t cut it. Because it is more than just a book. It is feeling supported and cherished by someone who means the world to me, someone I spend each day feeling undeserving of, someone who has made my life exponentially better simply by being a part of it. It is this tangible thing I can look at on my dresser, I can hold between my hands, and be reminded a hundred times a day of the feeling of knowing you. It is this material manifestation of the power of love and friendship. It is this physical entity I can point to and think Sam. It is the perfect housewarming gift because it makes me feel home.

And even though ‘thank you’ is far too small, I thank you, Simon Lane Rogers, from the bottom of my heart for all that you are and have been and will be. I thank you for everything you’ve done for me, given me, shared with me. I thank you for your intellect and wisdom and warmheartedness. I thank you for your creativity and wit and compassion. I thank you for seeing in me things that I cannot see for myself, for believing in me, for loving me. I thank you for letting me love you. And I thank you for being in my life. I am so much better for knowing you.

I considered sending you a thank you card, but it wouldn’t encompass my gratitude. I considered saying ‘I love you’ -- arguably the most powerful words in all of existence -- but it's simply not enough.

Once Upon A Time

2008-07-22T13:12:00.001-04:00

It has been brought to my attention that I am long overdue for some updating here. I'm so very sorry. It is so easy to slip out of this habit, to get caught up in books and shows and to-do lists to complete. It is so easy to push my life to the back burner, to suppress thoughts and feelings, to become a spectator to my life rather than the heroine of my story. It is so easy to lose myself. More than I would care to admit.

I spent the day yesterday with my mother, sorting through our history together, taking those last remaining items that represent my childhood from her storage. We uncovered box upon box of toys, art projects, baby clothes. It was lovely and moving and sometimes bittersweet. It was returning to the past as a means of moving into the future. It was a reminder that even at times I feel I have lost myself, I am still essentially me. I always have been. I always will be.

I had an amazing kindergarden teacher who had us make book after book of dictated stories and drawings. I have them all now, these little pieces of magic, these little inner workings of my mind at age five. In one of our projects we had to imagine what things would be like if we ruled the world. I said that there would be no money and people could only get things by telling a story. I like knowing that I have always been a writer, a dreamer in this way. I like knowing that in the eighteen years since then I have managed to hold onto these pieces that are so quintessentially me.

My favorite story was one I dictated to my mother. It reads, "Once upon a time there was a mommy named Alison and a girl named Francesca and they lay on the grass together and looked for patterns in the trees. Soon they fell asleep and they dreamed the same dream. They woke up so happy to be together."

I thought about this laying in the grass this morning, half reading my book, allowing my mind to drift off the page, into my own world, back into my own life. I thought about that kind of happiness, of how deeply I knew it, understood it, felt it. I thought about the black-eyed susans growing ever taller beside me, glowing with the euphoria of unlaughed laughter. I thought about my own light and the ways in which I've dimmed it, and the ways in which it still burns within me. I thought about bringing it back to the surface.

And it was just that easy. As though a five year old could have written such a story. As though feeling magic was as easy as believing in it. Because it is. Each time I am newly delighted with this discovery, as I have been for the past twenty-three years. There are some things that don't change. I am grateful this is one of them.

I am grateful to be sitting here on my porch writing again. It's as if I never left. It's as if I couldn't be doing anything else, be living any other life, be anyone but myself. It's as if this is my story and it deserves to be told.

So Much To Say

2008-06-08T08:05:00.002-04:00

There is so much to say about this place. Every day I discover something new to love, some small detail I had yet to notice; the way the roses are beginning to bloom in our garden, the way the suctioning sound of our screen door as it closes reminds me of every beach house I've ever been to, the way the quiet of my room inexplicably reminds me of childhood, the way it feels to sit on our front porch with a cup of tea and watch the world go by, the way it feels like home.

I have tried to take pictures, but between my lack of a good camera and my lack of photography skills, somehow I can't seem to translate the feel of the place into an image. That's never been a skill of mine. I have spent years of my life trying to capture places and moments through images and words to no avail. So many times I've stood before those winding European streets, those intricate curves of architectural splendor, trying to transport their wonder with me without success. So many times I've walked among crowds of faces with stories desperate to be told, and fields of flowers whose beauty longs to be expressed, and buildings with histories aching to be uncovered. It is difficult to do any of it justice, through any means. It is difficult to find a way of keeping it all with me. Still, I promise to post photos soon.

I have been having a lot of trouble at work, which is partially to blame for my lack of blogging. It seems wrong somehow, to write about this here, not because it is public necessarily, but more because this type of subject matter tends to come across as more of a whining session and less of an expression of my need to create, my need to write. Yet, it feels equally wrong to write about anything else, to ignore the focal point of my current thoughts, to deny myself the opportunity to explore what I'm feeling. It feels wrong to pretend that everything is wonderful.

There is so much to say about this place, about this current realm of emotions. I have spent the past few weeks very unhappy at my job, which is completely uncharacteristic and unexpected. My slightest unhappiness is generally pretty apparent given it's rarity. Everyone knows, and in some ways that only makes it worse. It only makes it more difficult to take a deep breath and put all of my grievances behind me. I can't just revert back to the way I was without dealing with anything, without some sort of change. I am not like my two year old students who take each feeling as it comes. I carry these things with me. They only grow heavier with time.

And so in an effort to be better about asking for help, asking for what I want and need, I sat down with my boss and discussed some options. She was great, and while we didn't land on anything official just yet, simply talking about it helped in some small way. But that was a week ago and I have spent almost every day since growing more agitated, wondering if one of these small changes will be enough of a difference, wondering if it's time for something more drastic. A large part of me feels as though all of my favorite decisions have been the big and impulsive ones. But another part of me knows that most of those decisions have been about running away from things when they got tough. Yes, life is short, but I also know that I can't spend my life leaving situations just because they've stopped being fun. And there lies my constant dilemma about this place.

I still love every second with those children. None of this is about them, or about my need to be doing something other than teaching. This is what I want to do. This is what I love to do. It is about the adult nonsense that gets in the way. It is about the politics of administration and the attitudes of coworkers and the consistent questioning of why people who miss the sublime perfection of children choose to do this. It can't be about the money. Trust me.

I have woken up every morning trying to be positive and have come home every afternoon in tears. I have, for the first time in my life, tried to ease my nerves at night with a glass or two of wine. I am not proud to admit that, not that it's the worst thing I could be doing, but it's the first time I've ever felt a need for alcohol and it scares and saddens me. I want, so badly, to believe that this is a phase, that when I can potentially switch classrooms next week, I'll be happier. But I suppose a larger part of me, a more logical part, doesn't fully believe that.

I think the truth is, I'm burnt out. I haven't slept past five am in almost two years. Between sickness and vacation days, I've taken maybe a total of 15 days away from that place in almost two years. That's been my whole life for almost two years. I'm in need of a break. And generally this kind of mental and emotional breakdown is the best way to spot such a need. I guess I just feel stuck between a place I have felt so much love in, and generally so much love for, and my need to have a break from it. I guess all of those pro and con lists I've made have only left me more torn. I guess I just need to make some sort of decision, one way or another.

And while this is just whining, as I suspected it would be, I needed to write it down. There is so much to say about this place, this time in transit between the old and new, this waiting for a new chapter to begin. I have been here before and I will be here again, and each time I will try to capture the way it feels to no avail. Each time I will fail to do it justice. Each time will feel more significant than anything that has come before, the way that each new rose that blooms seems to be more gorgeous than the last, the way every winding road in Europe still leaves me breathless, the way every place I've ever put my heart has felt like home. The way there is so much to say about that.

Remembering

2008-05-31T14:58:00.005-04:00

I have spent the entire day thus far in silence. I've needed it. Since the moment I woke up, I have done nothing but lounge around, reading The Namesake, listening to the soft rain outside my bedroom window, the occasional humming rush of a car passing by. It's been lovely, calming, quiet in a way I haven't experienced in far too long. Quiet enough that it is my own voice that rises to the surface, familiar and yet novel, emerging from an eclectic nagging assembly of advice and opinions, settling itself comfortably in the limelight. Quiet enough that I can think of no better way to use this opportunity of time, this moment, this life I've been given than to sit down and write. Quiet enough that I recognize the grandeur of this gift as it arrives.

It was surprising to discover that such an ordinary line could reduce me to tears. I was so struck by my own fragility. Which is not to say I couldn't have seen it coming. I've been on the verge of such a breakdown. I've needed it. The way I've needed silence. The way I've needed to distinguish my voice from all the others. But I wouldn't have guessed I'd find my release in a line about banana bread.

I remember distinctly the smell of it baking. I remember the way you would always make two versions, one with raisins, one with chocolate chips, one for school, one for home. I remember the way I sliced into the one you had left behind for us and saw the melted chocolate come oozing out onto the sharp blade. I remember the way, even as a child, especially as a child, I knew that leaving us the better, chocolate version meant that you liked us best. I knew how to spot these small gestures of love.

I remember too, the rotting bananas before they were used to cook. I remember the way they'd sit for days in that big blue bowl mom had found at some yard sale, the inside painted with colorful fruits, as though it could only have one singular function, one possible purpose. I remember how brown and mushy you would let them get, despite my protests and aversion to foods past their prime, my verbal acknowledgements of the arrival of fruit flies in our kitchen. I remember how you promised that their spoiled appearance would only make the end result that much sweeter. I remember how you kept your promise, time and time again.

I've been thinking of you a lot lately, as I've been moving into this seemingly more grown up chapter of my life. I've thought about calling more than once, about inviting you over, inviting you back in. I stop myself each time with a series of "what ifs" and "buts" and a haunting fear of regenerating a cycle of feeling hurt and let down. But recently I've noticed that voice quieting. And I've noticed another voice growing, a voice unfamiliar and yet reminiscent, a voice that sounds an awful lot like a girl who needs her daddy.

Today my roommate is at a memorial for her grandfather who died a year ago. Her dad wasn't around much and her grandfather took on that role. The loss was devastating. At the same time, her uncle is on his deathbed and her cousins are facing the loss of their own father. No matter how strained their relationships with him might have been, none of this could possibly be easy. None of this is pain that I could possibly understand. Not really. Not fully.

I think about what it would feel like to lose you. I will say this because I believe in the power and healing of honesty. I used to almost wish for it. Not because I was angry and felt you deserved to have your life ended. It was because I was hurt and didn't know how to move on. It was because at least death would have provided me with some form of closure. It was because it would have been easier to lose you to death than to lose you to anger or fear or the feeling of being unloved. It was because I thought I could handle the idea that you were gone better than I could ever handle the idea that you didn't like the person I had become, the person I am. It was because losing you would be different than feeling like I had been the one who lost you. Your death wouldn't be my fault.

But now, when I think about losing you, I think about all of the things that would go unsaid. I think about the way my own stubborn will and agonizingly over analytical mind have kept us from moving on, moving together, moving toward something better. I think about the way I have denied us the opportunity to even begin the healing process. And it makes me sorry. And it makes me sad. And it makes me miss you, even if it's just the idea of you. I know that I only get one of you. I know that is the kind of promise you can keep.

And, as lame as the analogy is, maybe you and I could be like the banana bread, Dad. Maybe I just needed to let our somewhat spoiled relationship sit and rot until it circled back round to sweetness. Maybe we can take those fragile mushy pieces of ourselves and mix them into something wonderful. Maybe we could even throw in a couple of our best chocolate chips.

Maybe you could spot this small gesture of love, and forgive me for the length of time it's taken me to get here, and understand why I've been silent for so long. I've needed it.

Created Out Of Love

2008-05-19T15:51:00.004-04:00

After a series of visitors yesterday, a slew of good conversations over good bottles of wine, we found ourselves alone in our basement, a little wired, a little tipsy, confessing our deepest secrets and hopes. I made us dinner. We watched The Office marathon on TV. We told each other everything. It's been so nice to connect in a way that assures me we will be friends forever, that moving in together was undoubtedly the right thing to do, that I have found another kindred spirit to add to the family that I have created for myself. It is a tribe created out of love.

It was in this state that we finally caved into the idea of a housewarming party. It's not that we hadn't wanted people over or disliked the idea of a party in our fresh new home, but rather, that the connotation of the term "housewarming" somehow implied us wanting gifts from people. And we don't. People even told us to register (an act I had always thought was strictly reserved for weddings) and neither one of us could bring ourselves to do it. Which is not to say that we are not grateful for the things we have received and the offers that have been made. We appreciate everything, more than words can say. It's just, the whole purpose of hosting a party has always been to show gratitude, to bring people together, to make them feel happy and cared for and adored. It is a gathering created out of love.

So while we sat together, trying to figure out some form of a guest list, it forced us both to consider the people that we really love. We excluded the majority of our work friends, waiting until our Fourth of July party to have them all over. That narrowed it down. Then we decided to hold off on family members (apart from a few siblings and cousins who top the list). That narrowed it down some more. In the end, we decided it would be mostly our friends. Melissa got her list down to eight. I got mine down to sixty.

And even though most of them probably won't come, knowing that my list had to include all sixty made me stop and realize how truly lucky I am. Not just to know them, but to love them, to be able to call them my friends. That my close inner-circle could never be confined to eight, that Melissa's couldn't go beyond eight, it just filled me with such awe for all that I have and sadness for all she had missed out on. I assured her that my friends would be her friends. She simply hadn't met the amazing souls I have been so fortunate to come across.

So how lovely to walk into the house today to find the magnificent gift pictured above waiting for me from dear, sweet Pen, who was ironically just writing about friendship yesterday. How amazing to know that this phenomenal woman who I haven't even met out in the "real world" took the time to reach out, to delight me with this token of eternal friendship. I accept the offer whole-heartedly. Thank you, beautiful friend. Thank you. How truly remarkable to live in a world where these kinds of friendships exist, where I can make my own family, where I can create my own kind of love.

A love different from the love that exists between parent and child, between siblings or cousins or nieces and nephews. A love that is not based on a shared bloodline or ancestry or obligation or default. It is a love built out of laughter and common interests and mutual respect. It is a love that we choose for ourselves, to give, to feel, to open ourselves up to. It is a love that I cherish above all else. It is the love I feel for you.

It is the love I felt for her while we poured our hearts out last night. It was that familiar comfortable love that I have been fortunate enough to have grown accustomed to. For that, I thank you. For knowing that you will adore her as I do, I thank you. For knowing you will welcome her into this tribe created out of love, I thank you. For being that tribe, that family I have created for myself, I thank you for that most of all.

Because We Never Finished That Conversation Last Sunday Morning

2008-05-17T18:48:00.002-04:00

It's funny, I assumed I would have all of this time. I assumed once we were a little more settled in, all of these extra hours would reveal themselves to me over the course of each day. But that is not what happened. In fact, we're still moving. Sometimes it feels as though we will be moving forever. Every waking hour has been devoted to shopping and assembling and decorating and sitting in our basement, gossiping and bonding and creating that feeling of home. I am so glad and grateful each and every day to have found this sister I never knew. It's funny, the way things work out.

It's funny because the things I regret about my life are not the same as the regrets you have for me. All of those big decisions have been right for me. All of those big decisions have lead me here, to this point, to this house, to this joy. And it is those very decisions that have been the most difficult for you. You carry the weight of the paths not followed, the lives not lived, with more remorse and guilt than I will ever understand. Sometimes you feel like you have failed me.

I get that. I get that it is your job to protect me. I get that I can be impulsive and I get that that scares you. I get that it is out of love. I get that you want for me all of the opportunities you never had, and I get that at times it seems I have turned my back on them. I get that I have broken your heart more than once. I get that you don't want me to repeat your mistakes. I get that I am not on a "normal" path and I get that in a lot of ways, that's disappointing for you. I get that it is not easy being my mother.

But I have come to understand that it is not easy being a mother, period. Just as it is not easy to be a daughter, a woman, a human being. Life is tough. We concentrate so hard on trying to be better, on trying not to repeat mistakes, on trying to protect one another and ourselves from painful truths, that we forget to look around and acknowledge all that we have, all that we are, all that we have accomplished. It is impossible to protect me from everything and even if it were possible, I wouldn't want that. Not from you, not from anyone. I want the mistakes as much as I want the triumphs. I want to fall so I know how to pick myself back up. I want to learn more about who I am and what I'm capable of. I want to test the boundaries of my strength.

Because I want to be like you - strong and smart and independent. I know that you have always hoped that I would be more, have more, do more than you. I know that you have always hoped that my life would be better than yours. I know that is why it makes it difficult to support these decisions that seem so final, so settled. But the truth is, most of what I do is because of you, because I inherited a powerful mind and spirit from you, because all I ever wanted was to be my mother's daughter. My failures may feel like your failures, but my triumphs are also yours. My laugh is yours. My wisdom is yours. My sound mind is yours. My love of language is yours. My love of people is yours. My insatiable heart is yours. I am yours.

And I know that you will come here tomorrow and see this house and see me in it and understand everything in a single moment, the way you always do. I know that you will get it. I know this because I am my mother's daughter. It's funny, the way that means absolutely everything.

Wonderful World

2008-05-12T16:20:00.004-04:00

So I'm back. And despite the fact that I still need a router to have the kind of wireless freedom I've grown accustomed to, at least I have some form of internet connection, some means of reaching out.

I have so much to update, so many stories to tell, so many highs and lows to record. It feels as though each room of this new home deserves it's own entry, as does each adventure I've been on with my new roommate, as does each day I've woken up with a new sense of pride and purpose in my life.

Which is not to say that it has not been stressful. Most days I find myself at work wishing my mind wasn't a million miles away, decorating rooms and making lists of things to buy, things to do. Most days I have planned down to the minute. Most days there hasn't even been time to write.

But slowly, slowly, things are coming together. Slowly this place is beginning to feel like me, like us, like home. Slowly I lower my roots deeper and deeper into the ground. It is here that I intend to grow.

Never have I lived in a place so alive. The streets are never empty. In every yard grow beautiful, bright, bold, colorful flowers. Our neighbors have all gone out of their way to introduce themselves, offer assistance, welcome us home. I know more of my neighbors here than I have known in every other place I've lived, combined. They are always out gardening, or sitting on front porches, or walking around simply for the sake of enjoying our neighborhood. I have taken to joining in this practice.

So for the past two Saturdays and Sundays, I've woken early and just walked. No destination or real purpose in mind, just an exploration and chance to reflect on things, to breathe, to forget my long to-do lists. It's nice to have this time to myself. It's nice to have my mind so full of thought and yet so clear. It's nice to wander through these quaint little streets in our darling little borough and know that this is home. It's nice to feel home.

A golden retriever looks up from her front porch and follows me with her eyes as I walk by. Her gaze meets mine and we stand there staring at one another in perfect silence and stillness. She raises her long dark lips to either side into a smirk that I understand well. For a moment, we share this knowing smile. Yes, I nod in agreement, it is so achingly wonderful - this life, this world, this knowing. Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world. I feel my eyes swell with tears.

As I make my way to the top of the hill, I see him standing there. I don't notice at first. The dog has to bark before I look down to discover two steel poles where his legs should be. He doesn't even try to hide them under pants, but rather, allows the early morning sun to reflect its glorious rays upon them. They are almost blinding. They are almost beautiful, the way they glimmer and shine.

I think that what I should be feeling is pity, or sadness, or guilt that I should get to have these two legs to walk the earth while he has none. I think that's the appropriate reaction, but it is not what I feel. Instead I am consumed with an overwhelming sense of astonishment and gratitude for this world. That we live in a place, in a time, when a man without legs can climb to the top of a hill with his pet dog is an amazing thing indeed. That we live in a place, in a time, where anything and everything seems possible is truly remarkable. That we live in a place, in a time, when a young woman of only twenty-three can find herself owning a house she loves, working a job she adores, finding family in every person she meets is the very definition of perfection. Call it what you will - prayer, hope, optimism, foolishness - I love this place, this time. I love this life I am blessed enough to live. I love this world we are all blessed enough to be a part of. I exhale a sigh of awe every time I breathe.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Update....

2008-05-05T05:40:00.002-04:00

I am alive.

Sorry to have been so MIA!

I was hoping that I would be able to pick up a free wireless signal at my new house, but alas, no such luck, so for now I'm illegally using the computer at work at 5:30 in the morning.

I just wanted to let you all know that on April 30th, I officially became a homeowner and I am now busy moving into my new house, and future, and life. I'm sorry if I'm not around much for the next few weeks. I'll try to get my internet taken care of soon. I have so very much to tell you!

And I miss you all very much and can't wait to catch up on all that you have been creating while I've been gone.

I will be back soon.
I promise.

xoxoxo

Earth Day

2008-04-22T15:58:00.006-04:00

"Is THIS part of the earth?" She asked me, cupping a fuzzy dandelion in her tiny hands as though it was the most precious thing she had ever held. I nodded yes. "And this?" Another asked, picking up a handful of wood chips in his dirty palms. I nodded again. "Are WE a part of the earth?" Asked a third, with all of the shock and awe of someone who already knew that my answer would be yes. I laughed.

I laughed so loudly that the earth itself had no choice but to smile. I loved so deeply that every blade of grass stood up and took notice. I felt so happy that every tree in the world reached down into the depths of its ancient roots to search for the same kind of joy. I praised each child for their findings.

I like teaching little ones because the lessons they are newly discovering are ones I am grateful to be reminded of. Things as basic and necessary as sharing, and kindness, and forgiveness and acceptance. Things as natural as being open and honest and trusting. Things as beautiful as being affectionate and loving and recognizing in everyone the potential for friendship. Why do these simple acts become so complicated later in life?

Today is earth day, and so I spent the morning explaining why we don't litter, why we recycle, why we take care of plants. Most of it went over their little two year old heads, but I didn't mind. For today, I got to preach my love for this world, and even if none of them understood, I know the world heard me. I know the tulips lining the walkway to my apartment stood up a little taller. I know the birds chirping outside my window began singing a little louder. I know the waves upon the shore crashed down a little harder. I know this because I too, am part of this earth. I know this because I too, felt a little brighter.

When I went to go vote this afternoon, it occurred to me that I've never lived in a conservative neighborhood. Every place I've ever voted has only had democratic signs outside and everyone there has always assumed I was voting democrat. Rightfully so, but still it is an odd feeling to be handed a democratic voting card without even being asked. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've never actually been asked by anyone, anywhere, if I was liberal or conservative. I am approached by political campaigners often and never once has it been for a Republican. How do people know? I'm sure a great deal of it is how I dress, but I'm not ALWAYS sporting my liberal attire. Sometimes I can look normal in a right-wing sort of way. So really, how do people know?

How do we learn to spot kindred spirits? I can do it. I can pick the people I'd probably connect with most out of a crowd. I wonder how this happens, how we grow to define ourselves in certain ways and then search out relationships based on those definitions. It seems so silly to limit ourselves the way that we do. Was there not a time when we knew how to get along with everyone? When we did it? Was there not a time when it was so easy to love?

Because it is so easy. My little students remind me of this each and every day. They prove to me the power and existence of unconditional love. They show me that we ARE all a part of this earth, and how that means something, and how that means everything. They cup the ground in their hands and hold up their discovery, that we are in fact, no better and no worse than the earth itself. That we are, in fact, one. I am grateful to learn, over and over and over, their priceless lesson.

Reminders

2008-04-19T18:19:00.006-04:00

This morning the vibrantly vivacious tulips remind me that life is meant to blaze with beauty. The magnolia trees remind me to pause and consider their sweet intoxicating petals as they fall softly and solemnly upon the inviting grass from which they bloom. The daffodils tilt their thirsty faces towards the sun to remind me to soak in the light upon my own insatiably yearning spirit. "Feel it," they offer. "Let it devour you." I listen carefully to their advice, these wild and wise ornaments of the earth.

This morning I spent two hours at the DMV renewing my license. I was reminded of the first time I had stood in that very spot waiting to take my learner's permit test, an anxious girl of sixteen embarking on her first big milestone in the long journey towards adulthood. How different I was then. How different everything was then. Seven years later I stood upon that same square of sidewalk and reminded myself of how far I've come. Sometimes looking back is the only way to prove to oneself that things have moved forward.

Two geese flew over head, mirror images of one another, reminding me that no one should have to go through this life alone. I was the only one to look up, to follow them across the sky until they drifted completely out of sight into the unknown. No one else noticed this priceless flight, this precious moment of beauty and understanding and love. No one else even considered the depths of meaning rising and falling with their four wings flapping in perfect unison. I was reminded of how differently we all approach this world, of how minds made of the same matter can somehow work so disparately, of how flowers blooming from the same soil can hold such unique scents and secrets within the core of their blossoms.

It is my mother's 55th birthday today and so I went over to spend some quality time discussing life over coffee, a pastime I have inherited love for from my mother. We talked about my new house and my upcoming five year high school reunion. We talked about our old house and memories from my days in school. We talked about a history I can only know through my mother and about a present that we are learning to know together. We gleamed over thoughts for the future and giggled over anecdotes from the past. I was reminded of my mother's wisdom and her strength and the way her friendship means more to me than anything else ever could. I was reminded that I am my mother's daughter and of how proud that makes me. I was reminded of how easy it is to find heros in the people we love.

The scent of barbeque wafts through my open windows. I rub my naked toes against each other. It may just be spring, but summer is already beginning to tease us as only summer can. "Soon," she whispers on the soft wind. I smile at her flirtatious taunting.

I dream of things to come. In eleven days we go to settlement and the house will be officially ours, keys in hand, delight in hearts. I've already begun packing and thinking of places to set things. But more than that, more than the physical placement of inanimate objects, I have been thinking towards this new beginning, this new life for myself. A life filled with gardening and cooking and parties. A life with neighbors and a roommate and a home to fill as I please. A life brimming with opportunity and possibility and exquisite joy. I am reminded of how blessed I am in this life. I am reminded of how truly magnificent it is simply to be alive.

The flowers look towards the sky and remind me to grow. Two geese fly by and remind me to love. My mother holds me and reminds me to be grateful. I immerse myself in my dreams and remind myself to blaze with the beauty of life.

I stand under the sun, waiting and willing. I let it devour me.

The Next Day...

2008-04-16T15:08:00.003-04:00

We got the house!! All that worrying for nothing. That's the nice thing about wishing and hoping and dreaming -- sometimes you get exactly what you want. Some people are just that lucky. I am grateful to be one of them.

Here it is, although these pictures really don't do it justice. I promise to post some of my own when it's officially ours.

I have less than no time, but I wanted to share this for those who have been inquiring along the journey. Thanks for caring about this little life of mine. For that too, I am so grateful.

I will post more later. For now, I just want to write, to sing, to shout HIP HIP HOORAY!!!

Stress

2008-04-15T15:53:00.006-04:00

It's week of the young child. It's not a concept I completely understand, but it involves a lot of giving thanks and free food, which are two concepts I ALWAYS understand. Yesterday we took a special field trip to the library. Today we had a delightful breakfast for the parents and each got a fifteen minute break to get a free massage.

We talked about our common love of Indian culture, and then how and why she learned to do this, and then how and why it is so easy to become stressed. Stress. It's not a word I generally consider. It's not a word that I've ever necessarily associated with my life. I'm too laid back to be stressed. I'm too optimistic. I'm, quite frankly, too ambivalent to a lot of things to allow myself to become stressed. I'm the girl who always chose sleep over pulling an all-nighter. I'm the girl who would rather get things over and done with than have them sitting in the back of her mind, festering. What's done is done. What will happen will happen. Que sera sera, and all the rest. Stress has never really been a problem for me.

But as the words fell from her tattooed lips, I thought, "yes, that's exactly what I am." That's exactly what I've been feeling, and I haven't really been able to define these recent ups and downs because it's not a concept I'm familiar with. It's not a sensation I'd necessarily notice. It's not a state of mind I've ever been in before, not prolonged like this, not coming and going so frequently.

Yesterday afternoon we fell in love with a house. In LOVE. It is the perfect size in the perfect location with perfect rooms painted perfect colors. There is a backyard and a front porch and a crowd of daffodils growing in the garden. Even the windows were beautiful. Even the pavement of the sidewalks was lovely, as silly as that sounds. Even the selling price we could AFFORD, which seemed too good to be true.

And it was, of course, too good to be true. The taxes are too high and we spent all of last night in our realtor's office trying to crunch numbers. We spent all night mending the rises and falls of our hopes, our hearts. And while we still have hope, still have several people working on it, the logical part of me knows that it probably isn't going to work out.

And an even more logical part of me knows that it will be okay if it doesn't, that there are other perfect houses, that there are perhaps even more perfectly perfect houses. Que sera sera. Still, I'd be lying if I said we weren't both upset at the moment. I'd be lying if I said I truly believed it when we told people today "there's still hope!" I'd be lying if I said this whole thing wasn't terribly stressing me out. We're just so ready to have a place to call our own.

And after a very long day of trying to release that stress, of trying to be more patient with children I thought I had lost all patience for, of trying to be more patient with adults I thought I had lost all patience for, of soaking in the beautiful weather, and pushing myself that much further at the gym, and stopping to take pictures of flowers on my walk home, I am so exhausted and drained I can hardly write, let alone write eloquently. So this is what you get.

I just needed to release this somewhere, and this seemed like the perfectly perfect place to do such a thing.

Just One Of Those Things

2008-04-13T06:13:00.005-04:00

Thank you for all of your sweet and encouraging well wishes. I am slowly but surely recovering from the overwhelming whirlwind of illness. Today has been the first day I've woken up and felt like me, clear headed and enthusiastic about the arriving day. It is nice to feel somewhat human again.

I missed an entire week of work which I've only done once before to go on vacation. It feels strange to have been gone for so long. It feels strange to be so close and yet so far. It feels strange to be so far removed from my own life, but perhaps I needed such a pause. Perhaps my little meltdown last Thursday was my body's gentle reminder to slow down, and perhaps ignoring it forced it to take more drastic measures. Sometimes we need to refuel.

Having spent the week in bed, I naturally spent most of yesterday feeling both sad and guilty. Seven days of my life, gone, wasted. Seven days without writing, or reading (well, as much as I would like), or exercising, or hearing a child's laugh, or really human contact of any kind with the exception of a visit from my mother. Seven whole days of being and feeling very useless in the grand scheme of things. Seven whole days I will never get back.

A friend of mine sent me an email recently asking me if I thought that my emotional stress was a result of over-analyzing myself. I'm sure that he's right, a large part of it is. I'm sure that if I stopped thinking so much I'd be able to let go more easily and more often, but the truth is, I wouldn't be me. The truth is, I don't think I'd necessarily be happier letting the heavy moments pass me by. The truth is, I don't think that I'd behold the beauty of my life with such reverence if I didn't also embrace the darkness. It's just one of those things. It's just feeling purely and deeply. It's just allowing myself to be exactly who I am, darkness as well as light, simply and utterly human.

As I stopped in the street and opened my journal to record the way the slants of light against the buildings ignited my heart, she asked me if I wrote the same way I thought, or thought the same way I wrote, I can't remember which. I considered it for a moment and realized that I'm so very unaware of my thoughts unless I am writing them down. My mind moves too quickly. It's difficult to keep track of much of anything. But when I'm writing, I slow down. I pause. I hold onto those slants of light in my memory as though they were everything, because they are. When I am writing, I am conscious of my life. When I am writing, I am alive.

And so a big part of that is over-analyzing my every emotion. A big part of that is agonizing over who I am, why I feel the way I do in any given moment, where I fit into it all. The day I wrote 'Break,' my mom called and told me to go back and read what I'd written over the past three months. I've been through a lot. I'm going through a lot. I've been wrestling with some pretty big ideas. I've been "trying to fit years of therapy and healing into three months of blogging," as she put it. Which is exactly right. This is how I deal with things. This is how I work my way towards healing. This is how I grieve for those seven days, gone.

Maybe he was right. Maybe that's ridiculous and we all just have those bad days without any rhyme or reason to it, but I guess I take comfort in knowing that months from now, I can look back upon this entry and see the sadness of my loss reflected in these words. I guess I like and need to be reminded of these cycles, of the way highs become lows and then highs again, of the proof that happiness is never as far away as it seems. I guess I need to write it in order to feel it, and to feel it in order to know I'm alive. I guess it's just one of those things.

I Have...

2008-04-08T20:36:00.002-04:00

......strep throat.
......swollen glands and lymph nodes.
......a burning sensation in both of my ears and my throat every time I swallow.
......been in bed for four days straight (with the exception of an attempt to go to work and a trip to the doctors)
......spent those four days vacillating between sleeping and weeping.
......been paranoid, scared, exhausted and pretty much a nightmare.
......not been responding to calls, emails or texts for this very reason.
......promised myself to do so the moment I feel better.
......six different kinds of medicine by my side.
......consumed nothing but medicine, soup, tea, Gatorade and water since Friday.
......a renewed faith that my mother loves me even at my worst.
......a renewed faith that I need her.
......a renewed faith that I probably always will.
......the Werther's she brought me to ease my throat and brighten my mood.
......the memory of the day I stayed home sick from school and he brought me Werther's and a teddy bear I named Caramel.
......the memory of feeling so loved by you then, Dad.
......that bear somewhere in mom's basement, because I couldn't ever seem to let it go.
......not opened my computer once since Friday.
......not been in this much pain for as long as I can remember, if ever.
......missed you all terribly.
......just felt like saying so.

I'll hopefully be back soon.
xoxoxo

Break

2008-04-03T09:03:00.005-04:00

She sat on my lap and pinched my nose ring deep into my nose. My eyes watered and immediately I felt my right nostril fill with blood. Quickly I placed her on the floor and ran for the nearest box of tissues. "It's going to be one of those days," my friend told me.

I had gotten maybe a total of six hours of sleep over the previous three days. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Every part of me ached with exhaustion, my mind, my body, my patience. I lay in bed at night praying for sleep, or at the very least, some answer as to why I was not sleeping, some problem I could solve. I needed to be able to define my insomnia. I needed to be able to put a stop to it.

I was not the only one to shed blood yesterday. Over the course of the next two hours I tended to two deep bites, three scratches and a scraped knee. It was not the blood that bothered me so much as the fighting, as the maliciousness behind those two year old actions. It was watching the people I love tear each other to shreds. It was the feeling that perhaps we are, by nature, these angry animals. It was the feeling of my faith in goodness wavering.

I was relieved to discover that we were out of paper towels as it gave me an excuse to leave the room. I went into the bathroom, clutched the sides of the sink, and allowed myself, for a moment, to cry. For a moment, I let my frustration and anger and sadness wash over me. For a moment, I allowed myself to break. And when the moment was over, I splashed water on my face, composed myself, grabbed some paper towels and walked back into the classroom.

I cannot begin to articulate what it felt like to open the door and find one coworker gone and the other with her back turned to the children. I cannot begin to give a name to the emotional battle that has been my work life these past few weeks. I cannot begin to explain how the yells and cries and chaos of that jungle of a room yesterday broke my spirit in two, but I can say that even I didn't recognize the sound of my own bellowing shout. My voice was deeper and louder than I knew it was capable of becoming. My children stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes wide and alarmed, deer in the headlights right before their lives are cut short. They have heard me yell before, but had never heard such anger and sadness in my words. I'm not sure I have either. I told them to sit and immediately they submitted out of the fearful shock of unfamiliarity. I have never felt so awful.

At lunch I went into the office and asked for the day off. My boss said she thought she could cover for me. "Thanks" I said, "I just really need a break." My eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. I swallowed hard, hoping to subdue the rising lump in my throat. She started to say "I'm always here if you need to talk" but I was already halfway down the hall, wiping tears off my cheeks, beginning the descent into a complete and utter breakdown.

Two hours later, I left work and went to the gym to try and outrun myself, my tears, my day. An hour later, I gave up and came home. I couldn't seem to switch my mind off, to allow my anger to slip from me, to transform my breakdown into a break through of some kind. I couldn't seem to find my way back to happiness, a characteristic as unfamiliar to me as my own enraged voice. I couldn't seem to let go.

I slept for a solid seven hours last night. I awoke this morning and went for a two hour walk towards the rising sun. If my life were a movie, it would end here, a kind of hope for the future lingering on my face as the camera panned away. But my life is not a movie, and so despite my best efforts and momentary sensations of happiness and hope, I returned home to discover all of my feelings about yesterday still waiting for me.

And I'm not sure what it is they want from me, what it is I'm supposed to do, how I am meant to transform them into a break through of some kind. I'm not sure of how to let them go, or if I'm even supposed to. Perhaps they are the beginning of something important. Perhaps they exist to be written here, immortalized upon the page, a piece of my story. Perhaps I am to take from them an awareness of my own fragility. Perhaps I need to break completely in order to become fixed.

And as I write that, one of the people I love most in this world, the one who has helped to fix me so many times before, the one who renews my faith in goodness daily, texts to say he hopes that I'm well, and I break completely. And I allow myself to cry for more than a moment, for in fact, as long as I need to. For in fact, exactly as long as it takes to let go.

Turning

2008-03-31T15:41:00.006-04:00

I awoke this morning determined to turn things around. No matter how foolish my optimism can seem at times, I am still a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. I still believe that sometimes happiness is something we have to create for ourselves, that allowing ourselves to be conscious of what we want, of the choices we make in the pursuit of our goal, of our worthiness of that goal and the pursuit itself, makes all the difference. I still have faith that we are capable of creating the lives we want to be living.

And even though the day seemed no different than any that had passed recently, I resolved to make it special, to make it the first day of the something new I've been in search of. Instead of my usual lying around, gossiping, petty magazine reading during nap time, I took out my book and began to read. I annotated passages that I loved. I circled words and phrases that I loved. I allowed myself to feel inspired.

After work I went to the gym, which I shamefully haven't done in well over a month. I am shocked each time I return after being away by how good it feels. I am shocked each time by how easily I forget such a feeling. I am shocked each time to think that my body has not been crying out in agony for movement during this lapse in attendance, and I am even more greatly shocked to discover that it has been, that I've simply been choosing not to listen. How could I so easily neglect this body I use to journey through my existence?

It was raining lightly as I left the gym. People hurried down the sidewalk under their umbrellas and oversized hoods. I thought about that line I'd written a few posts back, about how I sometimes feel best about my life when other people are at their worst. I thought about my hate of umbrellas and my love of rain. I thought about how refreshing and cool and wonderful those spritzes of water felt upon my hot sweaty skin. I tilted my head up to the grey sky, closed my eyes, and smiled. What a beautiful day, I thought to myself.

As I turned the corner towards my apartment, I came upon a row of blossoming trees. I hadn't noticed them this morning as I passed in the dark. For a moment, they felt like the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I felt the softness of each petal, the fragility of each droplet of rain, clinging so divinely delicate to the gentle branches. I felt the etherealness of these small wonders within the very depths of me, blooming within my spirit, rising within my heart. I floated home on their perfection.

And perhaps I am still there, floating, twisting and turning in possibility, dreaming of things that have yet to happen, but I suppose that is just me. I suppose I am just an overly optimistic believer, and probably always have been, and hopefully always will be. I suppose I am just a woman, a person, a human being, trying her best to live the life she wants to be living. I wish for all of you to know such happiness.

And just like that, I've turned it all around.

Something New

2008-03-29T12:58:00.003-04:00

I'm sorry that I haven't been around much lately.

I haven't been sleeping much either, or eating well, or really taking care of myself at all. I have felt -- I don't know -- uninspired, I suppose. This month seems to be dragging on infinitely, as does the cold, as does the mundane nature of my daily routine. I'm just ready for something new. I'm ready for spring to fully arrive. I'm ready for a fresh beginning, a rebirth, a rejuvenation of the spirit. I'm ready. I'm waiting.

I love transitions. I love life changing moments and experiences. I love jumping whole-heartedly into a decision and I love the way I never feel more alive than when I am taking that leap of faith. I love the idea of a leap of faith. I love the idea that it is never too late to begin again. I love knowing that nothing in life is concrete, that no matter how stuck we may feel at times, there is always a means of escape that we had yet to consider. I love that nothing in this world is stagnant, that we are all moving forward in every instant, that the future is arriving even now as I write this. I love the way it burns with potential.

"Can we plant sunflowers in the yard?" She asked me. It was really more of a statement than a question as of course the only possible answer was an enthusiastic yes. It was like asking if this world was something to be cherished. It was like asking if life was something to be adored. It was like asking if we were destined to be friends forever. Surely our common love of sunflowers is proof enough.

We have been searching for a house to buy, to own, to make our own. We have picked out color schemes, plotted out our garden, planned parties. We have been brimming over with ideas for a place that has yet to exist (although we have some prospects). Over the next month we hope to be homeowners. It is a big step. It is one of the most grown up decisions I have ever jumped into.

People keep telling me what a good investment I'm making, how they wish they had bought young, how they wish they would have been so wise and brave. Their words somehow make me doubt things. Perhaps I am too young to settle into a life. Perhaps I am giving up on those alternative lives I could be living, on the potential of spontaneity, on the possibility of going anywhere and doing anything. Perhaps this so called bravery is actually foolishness. Perhaps it is silly to buy a house at the age of twenty-three. Perhaps it is more like playing a grown up than actually being one.

I always thought of homeowners as being adults, with spouses and children and careers. That is not who I am. I don't even truly know who I am, not yet anyway, not the way most adults I know have learned to define themselves. I have yet to define myself. Which is okay. Really it is. Most days, labeling myself as happy is enough of a definition for me.

But every so often I go out for a walk in the soft light of early evening, through my little suburban neighborhood, and see through kitchen windows perfect families eating perfect dinners in their perfect homes. And of course, there is no such thing as perfect, and no way of knowing that any of these families are even close to such an idea, but in my mind they are. In my mind they are what I wished I had growing up, what I wish I will someday have, what I fear I may never become. In my heart I feel a great sorrow and longing for the happiness I may never know. Every so often I think that being a teacher and buying a home and trying my best to hold onto people are simply means of trying to fill that void, that fear of being alone. Sometimes I think that I will spend my life playing this game of pretend.

And other times not. Buying this home is not just about settling. It is not just about playing the role of homeowner. It is about my need to create. It is about needing to create a place that feels like home. It is about painting walls and life with color. It is about planting sunflowers in the soil of my soul. It is about furnishing the void with happiness and light. It is about a good investment financially, but it is also about a good investment personally, mentally, emotionally. It is about a fresh start, a rejuvenation of the spirit, rebirth, something new. It is about feeling inspired again. I'm ready. I'm waiting.

Things My Parents Gave Me

2008-03-25T16:51:00.011-04:00

The photo booth was broken, so my mother spent her teenage afternoon taking advantage of such a delightful opportunity. I like knowing that I get these creative impulses from her. I like knowing that if we had met in some alternate universe where she was not my mother and I was not her daughter, we would still be friends. I like knowing that I am in fact, her daughter. I am proud to walk through this life with such a title.

These are some of my favorite pictures of my mother. Not because she looks particularly beautiful (which she is), and not because she looks foolish (which she is not), but because I see in these photographs pieces of myself. I see in these photographs a silly, fun, creative, carefree, happy spirit. I see in these photographs a young woman who has only begun the exquisite journey of her life, who has nothing but possibility before her, who has the ability to do anything within her. I see in these photographs what pure joy looks like.

I do not look like my mother. In fact, I barely physically resemble anyone in my family. It used to bother me terribly. I'd spend hours searching through old photographs for someone with my cheeks or nose or eyes. I think I always felt that finding some familiar feature would somehow connect me, somehow make me belong. I am still searching for such a feeling.

I have blamed my parents for a lot of things. I blamed them (yes, BOTH of them) for letting our family grow apart. I blamed them for not making it strong enough in the first place. I blamed them for not creating better rules, and not sticking to the few that they created. I blamed them for all of the ways I felt they had failed me, all of the aspects of myself I disliked. I traced all of my self hatred back to their parenting.

Which is admittedly unfair, but also very human. It is natural to wish that things had gone differently, that our lives could have been different, that we could have been different. I wish that they would have taught me not to procrastinate. I wish that they would have taught me how to take care of myself, how to clean and cook and repair things. I wish that they would have taught me how to take care of my body, how to have a healthy relationship with food, how to learn to want exercise. I wish that they had been a little less laid back. I wish that they would have spent less time respecting our boundaries and more time guiding me and my brother towards happiness. I wish that they would have spent more time making sure we felt valued and deserving and loved. I wish that they could have spent more time feeling those things for themselves. I wish that they could have made love work for all of us.

But it is also from my parents (yes, BOTH of them) that I learned to love this world. They gave me eyes. They taught me to see. They took me across oceans and up hillsides. They showed me that we are all magnificently different, and how and why each of those differences are beautiful. They showed me how and why we are also all one, and the perfection in that, the perfection of humanity. They showed me what it means to be human. They proved to me the importance of reaching out, of staying open minded, of cherishing each and every soul for exactly what it is. They pressed the goodness of the world into my palms and said "carry this with you, always." They filled my heart with compassion and understanding, and even though they could not, despite their best efforts, provide me with an example of love, they at least instilled within me the insatiable hunger for it. I have spent every day of my twenty three years falling in love with this world. That was a gift from my parents.

They raised me in a house with walls made of books. They gave me a good education. They gave me good manners. They gave me the knowledge of how to be a good friend. They filled my head and heart with language. I am here, writing this, because of them. They brought me into this world and have spent every day since trying to make it a better place for me to live. They gave me breath and have spent every day since trying to make the air sweeter. I taste their gallant efforts on my tongue every time I breathe.

They have put me on planes and trains and buses and let me have all of the adventures I could want. They gave me freedom, and the awareness of my fortune in having such freedom. They gave me the desire and will to fight for those less fortunate. They gave me money and shelter when I needed it, but they also taught me that money and shelter pale in comparison to character and experience. They gave me character and experience. They told me what was real, without imposing their own beliefs, without influencing my own opinion. They allowed me to be whoever it is I am, or want to be, or have ever been. I have not always felt accepted by my father, but even he has supported me. Somewhere deep down, I know that.

Somewhere deep down I know that even if I don't have their cheeks or nose or eyes, I am still their daughter. I am still proud (of yes, BOTH of them) to walk through this life with such a title. They are still my mother and father, as they have always been, as they will always be. They are not perfect. They are only two humans, two people, trying to do the best that they can for their children.

And while part of me hopes that I will not repeat their mistakes, that I will do better for my children, that I will not have to be the kind of parent or person that they have had to be, another part of me hopes desperately that I will. Another part of me could only hope to do so well. I hope that I can give to someone all that they have shared with me. I hope that someday someone will look at a picture of who I am now, in this moment, my mother's daughter, and see their own pure joy staring back at them. I hope that my eyes will ignite in them that familiar sense of belonging.

Signs of Kindredness

2008-03-21T07:16:00.009-04:00

Yesterday I woke up at 2am. And I mean really, woke up. I opened my eyes to discover I was alive, more than I had ever been before, a kind of aching awareness of being present smoldering beneath my skin. I felt my heart beating. I felt my blood coursing within my veins. I felt my mind here, in this moment, calm and at peace and memorizing the way of things. It had officially been spring for two hours. I let my soul bloom softly in the nourishing soil of morning, opening it's thirsty petals to the sweet nectar of my one delicious life.

In my need to be early and his tendency to be late, I had an extra twenty minutes to spend doing whatever I pleased. I walked down to the edge of the pier and took from my purse my camera, which I have been taking everywhere lately, which has become as necessary as my journal and pen, which has become just another way I learn to stop and notice details. I captured a few images of the sky.

Walking back towards the restaurant, Ani DiFranco pulsing through my ears and head, I passed a group of women walking in the opposite direction. The one on the end closest to me, the one with the floppy yellow hat and purple sneakers, raised up her hand. I couldn't hear her through my headphones, but watched her mouth move as she said "high five." I gave her one and smiled to discover that as she walked away, her enthusiastic "wooo hooo" was loud enough to sound over Ani's guitar. Girl power. Surely there is no greater happiness than these gentle validations of the existence of kindred spirits.

I got to the restaurant, removed my headphones, listened instead to the bustling melody of the city as I waited. A man passed by on his skateboard, belting out Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" to himself, just because he felt inspired, just because it felt good. I smiled to think that all of us carry this capability to be so carelessly joyful. Another man passed in a black Armani suit sporting a very unsuited black eye. I smiled to think that none of us are as perfect as we'd like to appear. A woman across the street knelt down to help collect the fallen pieces of another woman's dropped purse. I smiled to think that kindness and love are everywhere. What an amazing place, this city, this world, this life.

Over dinner, my little brother and I discussed everything. It was the first conversation we have had, just the two of us, in a very long time. I learned all about his present life. I learned new things about our family history. I learned to see him in a new light, to love him in this powerful way that differed from anything I had ever felt for him before. I learned to forget my obligation to love him as family, and instead fell in love with him as a person, perfectly flawed, stunningly honest, remarkably strong. I listened to his testaments of truth, to how easily he offered them up to me, and was suddenly struck by how deeply grateful I am to him, for him, because of him. We share something between us that I will never have with anyone else, some secret understanding about who we are and where we come from. He is my brother, but also a kindred spirit, and also a hero of mine, and also a dear, dear friend. He is my brother, but he is also one of the universe's eternal reminders of talent and goodness and love. He is also the proof that my faith in the human spirit has not been in vain.

On the train ride home, I thought about the game she and I once played at a concert years ago. We'd take turns picking out a person and giving them a story, a history, a life that had brought them here to this point. It seemed sort of silly at the time, but last night I realized that a part of me is still playing that game, as I search this grand existence for signs of kindredness. Part of me still searches every soul for benevolence. Part of me still searches every stranger for friendship. Aren't we all just searching for ways to connect? Aren't we all just collecting words and images as a means of creating our history? Aren't we all just stories waiting to be told, and shared, and adored?

Aren't we all just learning day by day, morning by morning, how to wake up? And I mean really, wake up. I mean really, how to let our souls open their thirsty petals to the sweet nectar of our one delicious life.

Happy First Day of Spring!

2008-03-20T16:13:00.002-04:00

Don't you just love the bright possibilities it offers?

I Love My Job

2008-03-18T15:09:00.017-04:00

I've just finished work and am off to go babysit, but I wanted to post something happy in light of my last entry. So, here it goes.

Is There Really A Human Race?
By Jamie Lee Curtis & Laura Cornell

Is there really a human race?
Is it going on now all over the place?
When did it start?
Who said, “Ready, Set, Go”?
Did it start on my birthday?
I really must know.

Is the race like a loop or an obstacle course?
Am I a jockey, or am I a horse?
Is there pushing and shoving to get to the lead?
If the race is unfair, will I succeed?

Do some of us win? Do some of us lose?
Is winning or losing something I choose?
Why am I racing? What am I winning?
Does all of my running keep the world spinning?

If I get off track, when I take the wrong turn,
Do I make my way back from mistakes?
Do I learn?

Is it a sprint?
A dash to the end?
Am I aware of the time that I spend?
And why do I do it, this zillion-yard dash?
If we don’t help each other, we’re all going to… CRASH.

Sometimes it’s better not to go fast.
There are beautiful sights to be seen when you’re last.
Shouldn’t it be that you just try your best?
And that’s more important than beating the rest?

Shouldn’t it be looking back at the end
That you judge your own race by the help that you lend?
So, take what’s inside you and make big, bold choices.
And for those who can’t speak for themselves,
Use BOLD voices.

And make friends and love well,
Bring ART to this place.

And make the world better
for the whole human race.

Some Much Needed Honesty

2008-03-17T15:44:00.006-04:00

I used to lie a lot as a kid. Not about big things. In fact, I was more honest with my parents than most of my friends. My parents knew where I was and what I was doing. I told them about parties and nights I had gotten drunk and drugs I had tried. I told them about my experiences, and they sat back, calmly and patiently listening to my life discoveries, offering their advice without making set definitions of what was right and what was wrong. They let me define that for myself. They let me tell them things they didn't necessarily want to hear, because they valued my honesty, because they wanted our relationships to be built on trust.

So did I, and so I told them the big things. But when asked if I had started my homework, or remembered to fill up the car with gas, or finished off the ice cream in the freezer, I would lie. I would do it without thinking. I would deny things. I would get caught (I was never a very GOOD liar). I would hate myself for instinctually jumping to dishonesty when I had been offered nothing but compassionate understanding. I had no reason to lie. I wondered why I was so quick to do so.

In the middle of a fight, my little brother once screamed "why do you have to act like you're so superior to everyone?!?" I told him, quite indignantly, that I never acted that way. How could I? How could a person who spent the vast majority of their time hating themselves walk around with an air of superiority? How could a person with no self confidence act like they were better than someone, anyone? It made no sense.

I looked to my mother to defend me. She cocked her head to one side and smiled slightly in that compassionate, understanding way I had seen so many times before. "Of course you do, Frankie," she said. "You have such a need to appear perfect."

I was struck. Not by her agreement with my brother, but by how true it suddenly rang inside my head. I do that. I'm like that. It is why I never learned to ask for help, why I never shared pieces of myself I was ashamed of, why I was so quick to lie about those tiny insignificant details that would somehow translate into failures, into faults. Slowly I am learning how to embrace the shadows as well as the light, but for a long time, I didn't know how to even address the subject. For a long time I couldn't bear the thought of my imperfection.

I am writing this because during nap time today it occurred to me that most of what I write here is very one dimensional. It is not that I hide things, not even that I lie, but that I tend to write when I am in a good mood, or want a good mood. I tend to write more as the person that I want to be than as the person I more often am. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am bright and smiley and learning the depths of joyfulness all around me. Yes, I love this life and this world with more fervor than I will ever be able to articulate. But there are also things I hate. There are things I am less willing to offer up to the public eye. There are things I'd rather not say. I am writing this because I thought, perhaps, it is time to say some of it.

Sometimes I can be a real bitch. I gossip a lot. When I'm angry I vent and vent and vent to people instead of addressing the problem head on. This also makes me a two-faced coward. I scream at my students sometimes, out of anger and frustration with them, out of anger and frustration with things that have nothing to do with them. I've done it with friends as well. I direct things at the wrong people.

I have made bad decisions about alcohol and drugs and sex. I have gotten into cars I knew not to get into. I have gotten into situations I knew not to get into. I have taken things out on my body through food, through the deprivation of food, through unnecessary pain. I have taken things out on myself through guilt and worry and my need to over analyze. I have run away from people and from the possibility of love and from love itself. I have hated myself more often than I've loved me. I regret that daily.

I close myself off quickly to people I know I don't want to be friends with, people who remind me of others I got stuck with in the past from showing them too much kindness. I associate new people I meet with people I already know, place them into categories, forget the beauty and possibility of individuality. I pull away from people who I know are leaving. I hide from people who are already gone. I can be hypocritical. I can act completely superior. I can pretend to be much smarter than I am.

Sometimes I think people are stupid. REALLY stupid. Not just because I disagree with their politics or lifestyle or opinions, but because they can't even hold up their end of the conversation. Sometimes when I'm talking to them I'm only half listening while my brain sings "you're stupid!" over and over again. Sometimes it makes me feel really smart to be around such stupid people.

Sometimes I feel best about my life when other people are at their worst. Their anger and frustration makes me want to be happy, makes me want to prove that I am capable of what they cannot do at the moment, makes me want to shout with gladness that I have nothing to be angry or frustrated about. Sometimes I feel the worst about my life when other people are at their best. When she could repair a relationship I could not, I could only be half happy for her because the other half was so consumed with jealousy and want and the knowledge that she had succeeded where I had failed. She could make something of her life that I could not. Sometimes I want what I can't have.

I speak volumes about love, but I also hate. I have never hated any one person, but there are people and concepts and truths that I hate. I hate people who have children even though they don't want them or have time for them. I hate that there are people in this world who want children but can't have them, despite their every effort and good intention and boundless wells of love that they have to offer. I hate the idea of pro-life and I hate the term pro-life. I am not against life. I am for choice. You are not for life. You are against the freedom of choice. I hate that you can't see that distinction.

I hate that while we live in this country that promises freedom, there are still so many ways in which we are not free. I hate that we still have more freedom than almost any other country. I hate that I have this beautiful life because I was born into the right circumstances, because it means that there are people living miserable lives simply because they were born into the wrong ones. I hate that so much of our existence is based on money. I hate that I don't try harder, fight harder, to fix things. I hate that there are so many wasted voices. I hate that there are people in this world still ignorant enough to hate their fellow man based on insignificant details like race and religion and sexual orientation. I hate that in this day and age people can be stupid enough to draw such imaginary lines. I hate to think that we will always be at war. I hate that there is so much hate.

Perhaps all of this makes me awful. Perhaps these are pieces of myself best left unsaid, hidden away, lied about. I suppose I never told you this because I was afraid of my imperfection. But I think I feel as though it is more important to be honest than perfect, because my parents wanted me to have relationships built on trust, and because I want that to be our foundation too.

Oh, I Do

2008-03-16T06:45:00.005-04:00

I remember feeling the familiar rise of that lump in my throat as he approached us. He came right over, stuck out his hand and asked if we had any change to spare. In my bravest eleven year old voice I told him "no, sorry" and took a step closer towards my big sister's side. It was the first time I had been out in the city alone with her, without the watchful gaze of our father and my mother, without the tension of their history between them and her, without my ignorance about love between her and me. It was the first time I had seen her as an adult, as a human being, as someone with a voice and opinion worth listening to. It was the first time I had depended on her to protect me.

I thought that we would keep walking. That's what I had been taught to do. That's what I would have done with any other adult who would have been by my side at the time. But instead my sister stayed where she was. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. "Oh, I do!" She exclaimed, as though one of our friends had asked us for change, as though there was nothing to fear. My sister had protected me. She had made me feel safe. That moment changed my life.

Twelve years later I am still searching my voice for the same inflection of kindness I discovered in hers that night. Twelve years later I am still repeating those three words "oh, I do" to anyone who asks me if I have something to give. Twelve years later I am still listening to her lesson echoing in my head. "I think it's so funny that people are afraid of him," she said as he followed us down to Cosi, singing us a song in appreciation. Twelve years later I am still laughing at the foolishness of such fear.

On Friday night we sat outside a bar in olde city called The Plough and the Stars. I mentioned how strange it felt to sit there for so long watching crowds of people pass without knowing a single one. I think he thought that I meant I wanted to recognize a face, but what I was really saying was "look! Look at all of this burning possibility. Look at all of these strangers that I have yet to befriend. Look at all of these souls that I have yet to fall in love with." What I was really saying was "we are all so astonishingly perfect."

I consider all of you who read this who I do not know in "the real world." I wonder if I would notice you if I passed you on the street. I think probably not. I think we all must look fairly ordinary, perhaps even boring, perhaps like every other face in the crowd. Here on these pages we radiate with light and ideas and love, but out in the world we wake and work and sleep like anyone else. We breathe just the same. We laugh and cry and feel just the same. We live day upon day just the same, with the knowledge that there will be a final day, a day we will be gone and the rest of the world will continue on, just the same.

And that's what I see when I look at a stranger. I see that sameness, that humanness, that idea that if I could access their thoughts I would see that they were not so very different from my own. Sometimes I think that if everyone I know had a blog I could read, we would all be better people for it. Sometimes I think that understanding one another is as simple as understanding how to share ourselves. Sometimes I think that we forget that we are all made of stars, astonishingly perfect, burning with possibility. There is so much potential for love.

And when you ask me if I truly believe that, if I truly ache with an optimistic hope for the world, if I truly throb with an unwavering faith in the goodness of people, my answer is always the same. "Oh, I do."

I have to.

A Tired Thought For Tuesday

2008-03-11T21:10:00.004-04:00

She kept looking over and nodding at me as though I were saying something important, as though I wasn't just chiming in with the appropriate responses. Such human kindness warms me. It makes me feel as though I am contributing something, needed somehow. It makes me feel as though if I were to say something important, someone would be willing to listen. There are so many ways to prove goodness.

After our meeting, I went to meet up with a friend at a local coffee house to listen to what their open mic night had to offer. We decided it was time to be more proactive. We decided it was time to explore what the world has to offer us. We decided it was time to live the lives we envision for ourselves. It was lovely. For two hours we sat and drank coffee and watched adorable boys playing adorable songs on their adorable guitars. Is there a better way to spend a Tuesday night? If so, I have yet to discover it.

I sat in this room of strangers and thought, there is something truly wonderful being created here. Music, yes. Coffee, yes. Community, yes. But more than even that was the ubiquitous and undeniable evidence of graciousness. The truth is anyone could stand up there and do anything, and the room would applaud. We would cheer on our fellow man simply for standing before us with bravery and passion. We would support our fellow man simply because we understand the need for support. We would chime in with the appropriate responses simply because we are all entitled to such reverence, and we all see that, and we all feel that, and we all live that.

And we are all, really, just standing on stage under the scrupulous lens of the public eye, trying to summon the courage to sing our only song. It is comforting to discover that we are not alone. It is comforting to consider that our songs are not so different. It is comforting to discover that someone, somewhere is willing to listen, and smile, and perhaps even applaud. And despite my fatigue and inarticulate account, I had to share this thought with you; I am here. I am listening to and applauding for your life, and I thank you for doing the same for mine.

Such human kindness warms me.

A Thought On Language

2008-03-09T18:36:00.003-04:00

"There is so much communication and understanding beneath and apart from the substantiations of language spoken out or
written down that language is almost no more than a compression, or elaboration -- an exactitude, declared emphasis, emotion-in-syntax -- not at all essential to the message. And therefore, as an elegance, as something almost superfluous, it is likely (because it is free to be so used) to be carefully shaped, to take risks, to begin and even prolong adventures that may turn out poorly after all -- and all in the cause of the crisp flight and the buzzing bliss of the words, as well as their directive -- to make, of the body-bright commitment to life, and its passions, including (of course!) the passion of meditation, an exact celebration, or inquiry, employing grammar, mirth, and wit in a precise and intelligent way. Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song."

~Mary Oliver~

Wired For Light

2008-03-08T12:09:00.006-05:00

"Why are you so happy?" He asked me.

I was thrown by the intimacy of his question. He rang up my coffee and handed me my change. I shrugged. "It's a beautiful world," I said with a smile. He laughed. "It is with people like you," he told me. He gave me my coffee. We said our goodbyes.

As I started my walk home, I thought, how easy to choose happiness. How easy to choose love over hate, joy over sorrow, light over darkness. What a great struggle it is to be miserable, to carry around the heavy weight of sadness. Why would I ever allow myself to bear such a burden? Why have I been so quick to do so in the past? Why am I just now learning, at twenty-three, how to let go, how to set myself free?

I think about what lies within me, about my head so full of questions, about my heart so full of answers. I think about the way I am learning to listen to both. I think about my ears which I use to listen. I think about my feet which I use to step into adventures. I think about my eyes which I use to see all of the beauty around me. I think about my tongue which I use to taste the delicious sweetness of life. I think about my hands which I use to hold the magical treasures of the universe. I think about my fingers which I use to record it all. I think about the way I am wired for light - to be light, to feel light, to spread light. I think about this stranger's question, "why are you so happy?"

Because it is so easy. Because we live in this increasingly hopeful, possibility filled world. Because every day, in small and big ways, I am reminded of what it means to be alive, to be grateful for life, to be in awe of existence itself. Because those reminders fill me with happiness, with love, and with light. Because I let those feelings soak into the thirsty well of my spirit. Because I have made the choice to make of my life something spectacular.

I remember sitting against the pillar across from him, watching as his eyes moved intently around the pages of his newspaper. His legs were crossed, his back straight, like a statue of Buddha, like my students at circle time as they listen closely to my small offerings of truth. He laughed. The sound filled the grand abandoned train station, echoing against the lonely tracks, filling us both with light. I remember thinking, how easy to fall in love. How easy to let my heart break open and spill out it's irresistible delight. How easy to refill it with wonder.

Today I sit and watch the thunderstorm outside. My kitten sits on the windowsill and joins me, following with his little paws the raindrops as they slide down the glass. His eyes widen as it thunders. He mews at the quickening lightening. We learn together, what it means to pay attention. We learn together, our own means of prayer. We learn together, how to express our gratitude for this rain, for this world, for this life.

I learn how to echo these divine flashes of light.

Days Like THIS

2008-03-05T15:12:00.004-05:00

Today was the first day I began to feel the familiar pangs of a less than perfect existence. For a while, everything was wonderful. I awoke to a flash of lightening that for a moment, seemed to illuminate the entire world in an unnatural sort of way, a way that screams "there is so much more to this universe than anyone could even begin to comprehend." The rain let up just as I was leaving my apartment, as though it were timed, as though it were offering up its invitation to walk out into the world. Which is just what I did.

In my brightly colored patchwork chucks, I trudged through puddles, hopped over fallen branches, stepped in rhythm with the pulsating beat of the music on my Ipod, the pulsating beat of the earth before sunrise. I stopped for coffee, chatted about the beginning signs of spring with the man behind the counter, laughed as a passing bus splashed water all the way up to my knees. I wondered how long such joy could last.

And three hours later, as my friend and I sat waiting with too many children for our missing coworkers to show up, I thought, "ahh yes, there are days like THIS too." There are days when I am bombarded with questions and lectures from frustrated parents. There are days when people let me down. There are days when I am stressed and tired and taking it out on my students, and feeling guilty for taking it out on my students. There are days that feel less than perfect. There are days when I would like to go hide in the bathroom and scream curses and cry. There are days like this too.

By two o'clock I was so ready to get home, I had even regretted walking as it only made the trip from my classroom door to the comfort of my bed that much longer. I wanted to hop in my car and hide away. I wanted this dreadful day to be over.

But instead, something funny happened. I stayed to talk with a friend of mine, putting off the inevitable journey home. I vented. I showed her pictures. I laughed at her stories. I felt better. An hour passed by. We stepped outside and were pleasantly greeted by the sun who had finally decided to grace us with her presence. We said goodbye. I put Alexi Murdoch on. I walked to the Corner Bakery Cafe around the corner, bought myself a cappuccino and am currently sitting outside, writing, watching the world go by. I am currently doing exactly what I love to do, exactly what I would choose to do in every moment of my existence, if given such a choice. I am currently exactly who I am supposed to be.

The sun radiates down upon the screen of my computer and for an instant, as I write that last statement, I catch a glimpse of myself. For an instant, I see myself reflected on the page, on my own words. And I realize just how true they are. I am exactly who I am supposed to be.

And I think yes, there are days like THIS, but there are also ways of turning it all around. There are days that feel like patchworks of pain and joy, days that feel like the very shoes I walk through them with. There are days that look and feel like despair, but there are also little glints of beauty, of gratitude, of perfection hidden away in the most unlikely of places, just waiting to be discovered. There is also the insatiable hope of such discoveries. There is also this gentle reminder of such hope.

Arrival

2008-03-03T15:33:00.004-05:00

There's been a palpable change in me. Perhaps it is the weather, the arrival of spring. Perhaps it is the excitement of what's to come in the weather, in my life. Perhaps it is the resolutions I've kept; the reaching out to people, the taking care of myself, the choosing to be courageous rather than scared. Perhaps it is that I'm no longer hiding. Perhaps it is that I sat down and discovered I had 250 dollars worth of Borders gift cards and just spent the entirety of it in one trip. Perhaps it is the existence and availability of books and words as a whole. Perhaps it is that I've returned to this blog world. Perhaps it is the constant impulses to take out my journal and camera to record the beauty around me. Perhaps it is the conscious recognition of all of the beauty around me. Perhaps it is the casting aside of worry of what you will think of me as I stop in the middle of the street to remember this beauty. Perhaps it is the casting aside of worry of what you will think of me in general. Perhaps it is the decision I've made to be true to myself. Perhaps it is that I am learning to love my life.

Whatever the reason, as I strolled down the walkway to my apartment just now, arms filled with a new library of books, I thought, "I don't truly despise myself," which may seem like a small victory, but for me, speaks volumes about where I am right now. I cannot remember the last time I had such a thought. Certainly not since high school. I have loved my life, yes, but loving myself, loving who I am within my life, has been a far greater struggle. Reaching a level of self acceptance where I am not doubting my every move, feeling awkward in every situation, reveling in the should haves and could haves, is something new for me. Something deliciously, magically, amazingly new.

And I am so happy - that bursting, beaming, shouting, jumping, dancing, singing, glowing, smiling, laughing, hugging, kissing, loving, exalting kind of happy. Each day I assume it will end, as most good moods eventually (and I once believed, inevitably) do, and each day it only continues to grow. And there is no rhyme or reason to it other than those small delights I've listed above, those small steps I've taken towards joy. There is no derivation of such exuberance except for my own creation of it, a thought that in and of itself is reason enough to celebrate.

I have created my own kind of joy. I have created a life that I want for myself, a life that I have dived into head first, hoping to drown in its offerings of light. I have learned how to make myself happy. I have learned to listen to the whisperings of my wild spirit. I have let them become bellowing yawps of self expression. I have allowed myself to break down the nagging of my inner critic and nurture the blossoming garden of my poetic soul. I have been creative. I have been confident. I have been the person I always knew I could be - should be - if only I could let go. I have let go.

I have released the worry, the doubt, the insecurity. I have drowned out the voices telling me "no" and "can't" and "shouldn't." I have embraced the here, the present, the now. And in letting go, in not letting any opinions of who I am matter, I have discovered within myself the kind of person I could someday learn to love. I have discovered the kind of artistic, creative, outgoing, honest, loving, REAL woman I have always looked up to. I have discovered me.

I have felt more like myself these past few weeks than ever before. I have felt comfortable with my definition, with my place in the world. I have felt like I could be this person forever, and more importantly, that I could be happy with such an idea. I have felt this palpable change in me, and I have felt the boundless jubilance of its arrival.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

2008-03-02T17:10:00.002-05:00

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not."

"Be the change that you want to see."

The Week In Review

2008-03-01T17:46:00.002-05:00

Monday night my mother and I went out for dinner in the city. She has this remarkable way of always picking the perfect place to go, of knowing exactly what I will like. It was a charming little BYOB Mexican restaurant, with brick walls and a curtain for a door. It was small and quiet, but also intimate and warm. Over good wine and delicious food, we discussed everything, and by the end of the evening I had rekindled all of the love and admiration I have for my mother -- as my mother, as a woman, as my best friend.

Wednesday night I went out to dinner in the city again with my other favorite person on earth. It was lovely. We talked, we confided in one another, we laughed. We went to see Chris Rock perform at the Academy of Music. We laughed some more. It was a wonderful evening, and as I finally got into my bed at around 1am, exhausted and knowing I had to be up in four hours for work, I thought to myself, how lucky I am to know you. How lucky I am to be able to call you my friend. How lucky I am to get to rediscover my love for you over and over again.

Last night another one of my heros and I went to see our former teacher perform in a play and then went out for drinks. Today we went to see the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute because it was the nerdiest thing we could think of doing, and sometimes, that's exactly what needs to be done. I wore my "adopt a tree" sweatshirt, yellow converse sneakers, and earrings made of bright pink legos because if you're going to be a geek, you might as well go big. Sometimes I like being an all or nothing kind of girl.

After the museum, we went and got cheesesteaks from our favorite place, because that's what Philadelphians do. All around us people discussed their steaks, the weather, the Eagles. Something wonderful was being created. Something wonderful was already here. This is where I come from, I thought. This is my community. I love this city because this is my home.

Today as we drove around downtown I thought, how easy it is to forget the things that I love most in this world. How easy it is to take it all for granted. I live just outside this beautiful bustling city that offers me everything and anything I could possibly need in this life, and far too often, I neglect it. Far too often I refuse its kind gifts of possibility. Why can I never seem to remember how fortunate I am?

Sitting beside you on your stoop this morning, sunshine beating down upon us, the winter winds graciously calm, I remembered how fortunate I am to be here. I remembered how fortunate I am to be me, living in this city, traveling the world, loving my job, listening to beautiful music, drinking good wine, eating delicious foods, exploring restaurants and museums and performances, reveling in freedom, claiming my independence, writing my story, cherishing people, being cherished by people, having friends like you. I remembered how fortunate I am simply to be by your side. And that reminder, my loves, made this one of the best weeks of my life.

And I thank you for making it so.

Another Way To Write

2008-02-29T16:32:00.000-05:00

Magnetic Poetry

Dance young.
Let your heart wake.
Open your mind.
Rejoice inside your body.
Throb with life.

Surround those dark translucent layers of sky.
Demand of them their secrets.
Trust their timeless sacred question,
Why not me?

Explore this.

Light Of Some Kind

2008-02-28T15:38:00.005-05:00

I walked up the stairs and plopped down on the green wooden bench. Through the archway I watched the blustering winds blow the small, harsh snowflakes into a frenzy. They moved in every direction imaginable. They appeared irrepressible, lawless, wild. They flipped and spun and sang their freedom as though to do anything else would be a waste of time. They reminded me of such a truth. I sat and stared in silence as they danced within the chaotic whirlwinds like young lovers within the notes of jazz. It was beautiful. I smiled.

I took out my journal and reached for my pen. My fingers were stinging in the cold. The ink began to freeze underneath the cheap translucent plastic. I knew I had to hurry. I wrote, "It is snowing. I am so incredibly happy, for no real reason at all. It is just that I am here and alive and grateful." I closed the book and placed it back inside my oversized cherry bag. I sat there, quiet and peaceful in the eye of the storm, laughing softly to myself.

I am well aware that this next statement will sound lame, silly, and perhaps even a little bit dumb, but over the past few days I have suddenly found myself feeling very grown up. I have taken risks. I have dealt with situations with more courage and integrity than I ever knew I had within me. I have been taking care of myself. I have come to realize that taking care of myself doesn't mean that I am selfish, or that I should feel guilty, but only makes me more capable of taking care of others. The change has to begin with me. I have discovered that. I have been more calm and patient with my students, with myself, with those pieces of me that I am generally so quick to become frustrated with. I have sat down in silence and embraced those fragments of self loathing. I have not been afraid of imperfection. In fact, I have fallen in love with the idea.

In ways that are as simple as learning to take a hundred pictures and only get one that I like, to write a hundred pages and only be proud of a single word or phrase, to spend twenty three years on earth and only just now feel truly alive. I wake up in the morning, happy. I go to work and spend the first twenty minutes with my ipod on, dancing like a fool through the empty halls. I make plans for my evenings and stick to them. I go out to dinners and drink wine and have interesting, meaningful conversations. I reach out to old friends. I spend my free moments floating around the blog world. I support the arts. I sit on benches at train stations and write, and write, and write.

I have not turned on my television once all week. I have been eating when I'm hungry instead of just because. I have been listening to my body, what it needs, what it wants, what I can and should do for it. I have (as insignificant as it sounds) been wearing make-up to work, which is just another means of proving to myself that I deserve to feel pretty sometimes. I have felt pretty sometimes. I have answered every phone call, email and text. I have even initiated a few that were long overdue. I have not been hiding from people or events or my life. I have not allowed myself to feel awkward. I know who I am. I am one step closer to liking who I am. I am standing on the edge of acceptance.

My coworkers ask me what's going on. They tell me I am glowing. I smile and think, that is simply life brewing inside me. That is simply the radiating light of my pulsating heart as it rises and falls a million times a day. That is simply who I feel I was meant to be and who I feel myself becoming. I glow with life. I am alight with happiness. I am dancing within the chaotic whirlwinds like young lovers within the notes of jazz. And it is beautiful. And I smile.

Tears

2008-02-26T14:55:00.007-05:00

She asked, "when was the last time you cried?...."

One of my very close friends used to cry all the time. I would watch her eyes swell into small blue pools of sadness, and a dramatic single tear would roll perfectly down her cheek. Then another. Then another, as though synchronized to look a certain way. She cried delicately, the way women are supposed to cry. She cried from somewhere deep inside her, some soft and gentle emotional space that I kept locked within myself. Her voice never wavered. Her body never quivered. She never gasped for breaths. In fact, if it hadn't been for those tender tears dripping so easily from her eyes, you might never know she was crying. She cried in a way that made you want to hold her, protect her, love her forever. She cried in a way that made the universe stop, and listen, and understand. She cried in a way that could only be described as beautiful.

That is not how I cry. I am a loud-choppy-can't-speak-can-barely-breathe-pain-in-my-soul-that-needs-to-burst-free kind of crier. My face turns bright red. My expressions are not pretty. I am a mess. Which is why I almost never cry in public. In fact, I can think of three times I've cried in front of another person, and even then, I was fairly restrained.

When she asked when the last time I cried was, I realized just how long it's been. I don't mean tearing up. I tear up all the time. I tear up with joy, with an overwhelming sense of the beauty that surrounds me, with laughter, with hope. I tear up at books, and movies, and shows, and commercials, and blogs. I tear up whenever a child repeats something back to me that I have taught them, or says "I love you," or comes over to hug and kiss me for no reason at all. I tear up when I think of all the goodness and sadness of my past, my present and inevitably my future. I tear up when I think of all the goodness and sadness the world has to offer. I tear up thinking of the world, of each of us, of our journey here. I tear up at least a hundred times a day.

But crying is different. I have not cried, not shouted out aches, not felt the burning of tears upon my cheeks in at least two years. I have not allowed myself to embrace that kind of pain. I have not released the wounded animal of my being out into the wild to howl. I have kept it locked up. I have silenced it.

I think of how strange it was to leave your house on Saturday night and not cry. I think of how strange it was to feel so apathetic to something that seemed so crucial and defining. I think of how strange it was to not feel guilty about the only thing in my life I really have to feel guilty about. I worry about what that means. I worry about what kind of a person that makes me.

I should regret it. I should call it a mistake. I should spend my days hiding beneath my covers, crying into my pillow, repenting. But instead, I find no tears, and I wonder when they will come, if they will come. I wonder why they are so unwilling to rise to the surface of my being. I wonder if they are being trapped somewhere inside. I wonder what it will take to let them out, to set them free.

Because I know I need to cry. I know how good that feels. I know that I have stored up moment upon moment of swallowed sobs, and have no means of letting them go. I know that I need to let them go. I know that I need a release, a washing away of all of that unnecessary guilt, and pain, and self-inflicted suffering. I know that I need to drown out the deep rivers of my self doubt. I know that I need to flood the depleted oceans of my soul. I know that even though I do not pray, I am somehow, somewhere, praying for my tears to rain.

And I will take the storm lovingly upon my cheeks, embrace it, no matter where I am, no matter who I'm with, no matter that I will never be the kind of woman who can shed those perfect tears. For that, too, I will weep.

When A Busy Day Becomes A Busy Night

2008-02-25T17:07:00.002-05:00

And I only have one thought, this is it:

Thank you for making me feel wanted.

Creativity

2008-02-23T10:01:00.011-05:00

My mother was always trying to encourage our creativity. "Let's draw," she offered one rainy afternoon. The three of us sat around the kitchen table, quiet and thoughtful, pencils dashing madly about our pages with ideas. My brother was always the stronger artist. He takes after my mother that way. I remember looking over to see his beautiful portrait of the bowl of fruit in the center of the table, the lines curved just so, the shading immaculate. I looked over at my mother's portrait of our cat, Jasper. A few strokes of her hand, and there he was, alarmingly lifelike and perfect, created from nothing. I cannot remember what I drew, but I remember feeling that heavy pit in my stomach of disappointment and jealousy. Why couldn't I do that?

I took two music classes in high school and therefore had no room in my schedule for art. It saddened me not to be able to do it all, but knowing I lacked talent anyway, I didn't fret too much about it. I had enough on my plate at the time. Art slipped away from me. I have not attempted to draw since middle school, have not dragged a paint soaked brush against a canvas, have not immersed my hands into the softness of clay. I have not felt that drive to create.

In my early teens, I took to making scrapbooks of celebrities. I would strip the pages of magazines my mother bought and cut each one out to fill the large blank pages of my scrapbook. They would fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces, each edge lined to another in just the right way. I liked the way it felt to cover those pages in faces, to produce something unique, to create something from nothing, just as my mother had done. I liked the way it made me feel artistic, despite the absence of any intrinsic ability. Eventually those pages became the wallpaper in my room.

I awoke this morning feeling inspired. I decided to sort through some of my collections of things -- cards, ticket stubs, photos, notes, articles and ads I have saved. At the bottom of everything, I found a sketch pad I had bought years ago and forgotten about. I decided it was time to put it to use, and so I began to cut and arrange and glue things onto those blank pages. I began to fill it with things I love, with pieces of myself. I began to create something from nothing.

About an hour into it, I realized that I was creating art. I realized that art, like life itself, is not so much about the destination as it is about the journey. It was so cathartic, combing through these little fragments of beauty I have collected along my path, combining them together, seeing a reflection of myself grow upon the page. I realized that art is a means of healing. It is a means of expression. It is a means of learning to love what we are capable of creating. I realized that having no real talent doesn't mean that I can't still participate.

Three days ago, I discovered etsy. It's been around forever. Most of my blogger friends use it, write about it, share pieces of themselves on it. I am only just now finding my way there.

I am so grateful to have opened its doors. I love the way it offers up this space to create, to connect, to inspire each of us to release the artist within ourselves. I love the way people have responded to its challenge to dig fearlessly into the depths of our souls and bring to the surface these tangible pieces of what we unearth there. I love the results of these searches, the way so many have found bright colors, wise words, beautiful pictures somewhere inside, the way they have so courageously brought them into being. I love what is being created here.

Using some birthday money, I bought myself this and this and this from Madelyn. And because she is a generous, beautiful soul, she offered to send me this as well. I am so eternally grateful. I am so in love with these pictures.

It surprised me to feel so connected to these photographs, to this art, to something I know so little about. It surprised me to discover that even if nothing tangible is ever made, even if nothing is created, there is still an artistic soul stirring somewhere deep inside.

Grateful Friday - Birthday Edition

2008-02-22T14:22:00.007-05:00

That today I am 23 years old.

That I awoke to a blanket of snow.

That it was soft, inviting, and not the least bit icy.

That being a morning person means that I got to be the first one to make footprints in it.

Making footprints.

That school wasn't cancelled, because quite frankly, I wanted to be with my kids (even if there were only six of them).

That I think of them as MY kids.

Pajama parties.

Watching two year olds devour cupcakes.

Sugar highs.

Simon L. Rogers.

That his name appears exactly that way in my email inbox.

The beauty and kindness of those emails.

The beauty and kindness behind all of his words, his actions, his being.

That he fills the world with music.

That he fills my life with joy.

A beautiful bouquet of flowers and delicious cake from the parents of my students.

Feeling appreciated and loved.

Feeling like I have created my own kind of family.

My mom.

That voicemail.

The text I received from my little brother.

That he remembered.

That, despite everything, my father sent me a birthday card.

Endless cards - beautiful, funny, creative cards - that made me laugh and cry and burst with joy.

Bursts of joy.

Facebook comments.

Emails.

Phone calls.

Texts.

That we have so many ways to communicate love to one another, for one another.

Melissa McBride.

Our inside jokes.

The journey we are on together.

That even the two days I had to spend away from her this week were excruciating.

That it reminded me how much her presence, her friendship, means.

Friendship in general.

Love in general.

People in general.

Andrew Sharp, in particular.

Because of that message he left me.

Because he is my friend despite everything he knows about me.

Because he was the first person to ever make me feel deserving of something.

Because at least a hundred times a day I feel compelled to tell him how much he means to me.

And because he lets me.

Coffee.

Making new friends.

Reconnecting with old friends.

That I've returned to this space.

That I've written more posts this month than in all of 2007.

How good it feels to sit down here and write, and read, and connect, and feel inspired.

Inspiration.

Laughter.

Comfort.

Two year olds.

Their daily reminders of goodness and hope and love.

That their lives revolve around believing in magic.

That at twenty three, mine does too.

One Of Those Nights

2008-02-21T19:11:00.005-05:00

Today I wrote a hundred blog posts in my head.

Now I sit before my computer and draw a blank.

Sometimes I just have to let things go.

Movie Script Ending

2008-02-20T16:25:00.012-05:00

It is this constant joke between us. She calls me a baby. I call her an old lady. I know all about technology. She has good stories to tell. We laugh over the forty year gap between us, and how it makes us different, and how it essentially changes nothing about our friendship. We revel in the fact that we have so much to teach one another.

I have thought about death for as long as I can remember. Long before the first funeral I ever attended. Long before I understood about loss, and sadness, and suffering. Long before I considered what death would mean to those who continued to live, I had thoughts of it. Death meant something else to me then. It was an ending, a final curtain, a magnificent way to wrap up the story of a life. It was dignified and peaceful. It was scripted and rehearsed. It was every movie I had ever watched where someone had died with triumphantly wise words, with repentance, with forgiveness. It was the panning away of the camera as the sunset slid languidly down the hillside.

I have lived my life with the knowledge that someday I will die. It is not a want or need for death, but rather a simple acknowledgement, a small aching awareness inside me that at some point, this will all be over. My story will have reached it's end. I will take my final bow. I will no longer exist here on earth.

And so I have spent my life listening to the words of the dead, of the dying, of the people who have gone deep down deviating paths of their lives that I have yet to set foot upon, that I have yet to know exist. I listen to their advice. I listen to the lessons they have learned, to the things that they regret most in hindsight. It doesn't matter if they are a family member, a friend, a stranger, even fictional. All that matters is that they have something important to teach me, something important to say.

I listen. I open my ears, my mind, my heart to their offerings. I collect them within me. I decided, very young, that I would not repeat their mistakes. I decided that I would take their wisdom and let it soak into my life, let it transform into my own. Sometimes the things I say are generic. Sometimes the experiences I have, the lessons I learn, are no different from any quote about life ever posted anywhere. But more often than not, I am cliché because I am discovering the truth of their timeless honesty. It is not that I'm unoriginal. It's that I'm learning what it means to be human.

It is true; life is short. Sometimes, in the thick of it, it feels long and unbearable. It feels as though I have all the time in the world to do everything that I want to do and such endless possibility, such endless room for lingering, frightens me. Sometimes I wish I could fast forward to a place where I was comfortable, settled, defined. Sometimes I wonder if such a place or time exists for me. More often than not, I think I'll always be a little restless, and more often than not, I like that about myself.

Still, I know from listening, and partially from experience over these past few years, that time moves more quickly than any of us would care to admit. I know that each year arrives faster than the last. I know that it feels like only yesterday that I was turning 22, and before that 21, and before that 16, and before that the first big double digit number. I know that we've got our whole lives to do something, and that's not very long. I feel myself increasingly trying to slow things down, to capture moments, to savor this quick, fleeting life of mine.

I listen to the stories those forty years she has on me have brought her. I read between the lines of her anecdotes. I pay close attention to what she is saying, but moreover, what she is trying to tell me. There are treasures hidden there, beautiful jewels of wisdom and experience that I will add to the growing collection inside me. I will take these gifts. I will use them to learn my own lessons, so that someday I may find a friend who I can share them with. So that someday I may be the teacher as well as the student.

And because life is short, that day will arrive more quickly than I can anticipate. Because they understand things I have yet to experience, their stories are invaluable. Because death is a part of this journey, I intend to live.

Because Sometimes I Just Need To Vent

2008-02-19T19:17:00.004-05:00

I took a deep breath. I bit my tongue. I went outside for some fresh air and perspective.

But when I came back inside and felt no better, I wondered how I could have let things get to this point. I wondered why I have spent the last few weeks denying my frustration, internalizing it, attributing it to one of my own many faults. I wondered why I have allowed this act to become such a habit. I wondered why I deny myself my emotions.

Not the happy ones, not joy or gratitude or awe. I know how to feel those. I know how to feel them more deeply and profoundly than most I have come across. I know what it means to be so filled with light and love that you feel as though at any moment you may burst with exuberant bliss. I know how to give myself permission to be happy.

It's annoyance, frustration, anger, sadness that are the problem. It's asking for help. It's admitting to myself that it's possible for bad things to happen that aren't my fault. It's reminding myself that I am human and that entitles me to feel the bad along with the good, the pain along with the joy, the imperfections along with the moments of divine transcendence. My humanness entitles me to my mistakes. It entitles me to tears and screams and pain. It entitles me to everything that life has to offer.

Why is that so hard to remember? Why is it that the moment I begin to feel frustrated or angry, I reflect it back upon myself? Why am I so quick to assume that it's something wrong with me?

I repeat this pattern over and over again. Then weeks have passed -- months, years. Then it seems too late to say anything. When I bottle it up, it grows, it evolves, it becomes this ocean of rage in which I drown. If I choose instead to share my frustrations, I then carry the heaviness of guilt that only gossiping can bring. Often the admitting of such ill feelings only makes me feel worse, feel more stuck, feel weak and helpless and unwilling to take the next step. Sometimes I don't know how I'll ever escape this cycle of guilt.

I am so tired of feeling guilty. I am tired of regrets. I am tired of allowing myself to feel like the bad guy in every scene, of stepping aside from people who are more self-assured, of being suffocated beneath my own self-doubt. I am so tired of being angry. I am so tired of wanting to be someone else, of wishing my life looked differently than it does, of trying to escape myself. I am so tired of denying myself things that I want and need and deserve. I am so tired of feeling undeserving. I am so tired of running away. I am so tired of hiding. I am so tired of carrying all the should haves, would haves, could haves. I am so tired of feeling the weight of things that went unspoken. I am so tired of feeling the constant nagging of the alternate version of me that I was supposed to be. I am so tired of feeling like a walking failed expectation.

I think of those moments bursting with joy. I reflect on those days so filled with light. I take a deep breath and fill my heart with their hopeful promises of brighter days, days when my soul doesn't feel quite so tired, days when I am awake, and alive, and lacking a single thing to vent about.

Signs of Spring

2008-02-18T17:44:00.006-05:00

It was raining this morning. I bundled myself up under layers of clothing, assuming the bitterness of the winter wind was as cold and unforgiving as it had been for the past few weeks. Instead I opened my front door and discovered the smell of spring. It is a distinct smell; the scent of cool rain mixing upon the warm concrete, the scent of grass, the scent of warm nights in my youth spent dancing beneath the stars. It greeted me this morning with an endless supply of cheer and hope. It welcomed me into the day. It sparked within me something which had long been dwindling in the frigid dampness of winter. It ignited. It burned with possibility.

Last night I had a dream that I was packing the perfect collection of gifts to send to you. I cannot remember what the gifts were, not even why I had decided to send them to you, but as I brushed my teeth, I remembered how much joy I felt filling that box. I remembered the excitement of knowing you would receive them, and smile, and know how much I love you. I remembered what it felt like to consider how much I love you.

We've grown apart. I didn't think such a thing was possible, not when it came to us, not when it came to our friendship. But we are young. We are learning how to live, how to define our lives. Sometimes that means that our paths will not overlap in quite the same way, that our journeys will lead us in different directions. Sometimes that means that we will not be in the same place, emotionally, mentally, physically, metaphorically. Sometimes the distance between us is excruciatingly palpable.

And sometimes not. There are days, weeks, sometimes even months, when I don't think of you. Not even once. Perhaps that is a terrible thing to admit, but it also, in some strange way, speaks volumes about who I've become. I do not feel like a reflection of you the way I once was. I do not feel dependent on you to define me, to validate me, to be my purpose for waking each morning. I want you around as much as I ever have, but I don't need you around to survive. I don't need you to set the tone for my life.

I am learning to do that on my own. I am learning how to take action, how to identify what I want out of this life, how to open my front door and invite spring inside. I am learning to find the assurance I sought from you within my own heart. I am learning what it means to listen to my spirit. I am learning what it means to be brave. I am learning what it means to be exactly who I am. I am learning to love my life, like you.

You will always inspire me. You will always be the one who DID inspire me, to take those risks, to dive into each day with all of the passion and love and good intentions a person can summon. You will always be my fellow seeker, of the world, of it's beautiful offerings, of souls, of this adventure we call life. You will always be my friend. You will always be with me.

Because this morning when I opened my front door and could taste spring upon the tip of my tongue, feel it soaking into every inch of my skin, sense it wrapping itself around my heart, I thought of you. I thought of the warm nights spent by your side. I thought of the conversations we had beneath vast darkened skies. I thought of your laugh, your voice, your delicate words of wisdom. I thought of how I curled into them the same way I curl into the comfort of signs of spring. I thought of how both set me ablaze with promises of hope, rebirth, an awakening of the spirit. I thought about how I filled a box within my soul with these gifts you once gave me, and the way they make me smile, and the way they remind me how much I love you.

I thought of how I opened the front door expecting to find winter, and my old life, and my old self, and instead found spring -- and you.

Another Note On Love

2008-02-17T13:17:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I got thrown up on.

I picked her up, asked her how she was, told her I adored her, gave her belly a loving tickle. She giggled and then, there it was, half digested macaroni and cheese and huge chunks of red grapes, sliding down my chest, imbedding itself in my freshly washed hair. I felt the slimy, smelly mixture move down my shirt, getting caught inside my bra, sitting there, wet and heavy and undeniably gross.

I tried to run her to a sink, but we didn't make it. Instead she continued to leave a trail all over the classroom rugs. When we had finally reached the sink, she had nothing left inside her, and so I stripped her down to her pull-up and washed her off. She was shaking. Her bottom lip trembled. I hugged her. I told her everything would be alright. I gently pulled half chewed grapes out of her baby fine blonde hair. I showed them to her. We laughed.

Half an hour later, after we had found her new clothes, after her mom had come to take her home, after I had scrubbed down the rugs and moved the rest of the children to another room, I started to clean myself off. I changed my shirt, I rinsed my hair out, I hosed myself down with extra baby wipes. The scent still clung to me.

A few hours later, I texted the friends I was going to meet when I was done and told them I would be a little late on account of being puked on. They were both completely tickled and disgusted. When I finally arrived, one of them opened the door and asked "Weren't you so mad? Did you just want to smack her?" I laughed accordingly.

Yet as I followed her down the long hallway to the apartment stairs, I thought about how truly NOT mad I was, not annoyed, not impatient, not even really all that disgusted. I thought about the look of repulse my friends give me when I admit to them that part of my job is potty-training, that I spend part of every day changing diapers, and also the look of confusion that follows when I tell them that it's really not so bad. I thought about the way the most gruesome of acts pales in comparison to the power of love.

Because the truth is, it's not that I have a strong stomach for these kinds of things, it's that I would do anything for the people I love. It's that taking care of them, for better or worse, is just a way of showing them that I love them. It's that it's so easy for me to love them.

I think then about standing in that small dilapidated room, spiders marching up the peeling grey paint on the wall, her dress and skin soaked in the spilled Iodine. I think of his trembling hands and the way his breath smelled of cigarettes and cheap Indian beer. I think of the look of hesitation in his eyes.

And I think of the way I had spent all afternoon driving with her from hospital to hospital, trying to find someone willing to see us. How I had run up and down the stairs of this hospital asking anyone and everyone for help. How it was the one and only time in my life I can remember not being afraid to ask such a thing. How so many people walked past without even acknowledging me because I was white, a woman, an outsider. How that was the first time I had felt such a thing. I think about how none of that stopped me because I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to help her.

I snatched the needle and thread from him. He didn't protest. In fact, he looked almost grateful and relieved. I put four stitches into her leg, gently tugging after each to make sure it was tight, feeling the resistance of her flesh as I placed the pointed needle into it. I tied it off. I placed a bandage over it. We paid our forty cent doctor's fee and left, and it was only hours later, sitting in the back of a rickshaw, dehydrated and exhausted, that I realized what I had just done, what I could do, what loving my friend made me capable of.

I had been fearless. I had been strong. I had been brave. I had been all of those things that I never experience myself as being. My love for her allowed me to be that person. Loving her allowed me to forget all of the pettiness of my self doubt, my fears of being judged, my worries of acting appropriately. Loving her saved us.

And I think of that day when I am changing dirty diapers, wiping snotty noses, washing throw up from my hair. I think of the way my love of people, for people, makes me stronger than anyone would guess.

Falling Is Like This

2008-02-15T16:33:00.004-05:00

I held the ladder as he climbed. He reached his arms high to fix the tile in the ceiling. I looked up to watch. His shirt was untucked, and for a moment, I caught a brief glimpse of his stomach. It was an ordinary stomach. It was what you'd expect a sixty year old man's stomach to look like. There was nothing strange about it, and yet, seeing it somehow changed everything.

I remember thinking, even then, how odd it was that he should be so ordinary. How peculiar to think that underneath those clothes he had a body just like anyone else. How curious to know that he was simply human.

Because before that moment, it hadn't occurred to me that he was, a thought I hadn't realized until I saw that small flash of skin, that small reminder that we were created the same way. This was before he confided in me about his love interest. This was before I made visiting his apartment a regular occurrence. This was before I understood his loneliness and struggles, before I understood my own loneliness and struggles. This was before I understood what it meant to live a life.

This was the first time he fell. As he stood there on the ladder, I felt the pedestal I had placed him on within my mind slip from beneath his feet. I felt the heaviness of his body hit the floor. I felt the earth move. And within me, something changed. I looked at my mentor. I looked up searching for answers in his face, as a child does, as a hungry animal looks at its owner to plead for food. I needed something from him. I needed for him to look back down at me and have the answers. I needed him to still be the person I had created out of faith.

But when he glanced down and smiled his knowing smile, it was different. He was different. I was different. And we stood there, two adults with too many questions and too few answers, looking at one another as if for the first time. Of course, he couldn't have known what I was thinking. He couldn't have known what I felt in that moment, that great crack in the universe, that great shattering of an ideal, but it certainly felt as though he did. It certainly felt as though he understood that his days as a superhero were over, that he would have to turn in his mask and cape, that he would have to settle now for a more simplistic human identity. It seemed to me that he was okay with such a thought, and I realized that I was too.

It is funny to be reminded that you are just a girl, that he is just a boy, that we are all just human. It's funny the way admiration creates this aura of invincibility, of nobleness, of heroism. It's funny the way we create small Gods in the people we love. I think of this as you list for me your faults, as you inch the pedestal of infallibility out from under your feet. You fall. You rise. And then we are just two people standing side by side, broken and vulnerable, honest and real, open and beautiful. Then we are just two people whose imperfections are perfect.

And it is only after you have slipped from grace that I realize the depths of my love for you, how I could be perfectly content to spend the rest of my life falling into such an abyss.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T17:22:00.002-05:00

AND

AND A LITTLE

AND EVEN A LITTLE

Just to remind us that we live in an endlessly beautiful, love filled world.
Happy Valentine's Day!
xoxoxo

Garbage

2008-02-13T16:16:00.003-05:00

I was awakened at one o'clock this morning to the sound of ice being crushed and shoveled outside my window. I was tired, confused, annoyed. All I wanted was to sleep, and even knowing that they were just doing their job, even feeling compassionate that they had such a job, that they were stuck outside shoveling snow at 1am, I was still angry. I still just wanted it all to stop.

As I left for work four hours later, I discovered my car was completely cocooned in ice, and of course my scraper was nowhere to be found. I spent twenty minutes standing out in the freezing rain, chipping away a thick layer of ice with the top of a water bottle. By the time I sat down behind the wheel, I was completely drenched from head to toe.

At WaWa, the woman standing next to me spilled her piping hot coffee all down my leg. Had I not been freezing, I might have minded more. She apologized profusely as I continued to tell her not to worry about it. These things happen, after all. Still, I pulled into the parking lot at work twenty minutes later than I would have liked, drowned in the extremes of temperature.

The parking lot was frozen. I skated carefully across it, holding my coffee at arms length to avoid further spillage, thinking to myself how it would only be funny to fall if someone were with me. Alone, it was simply sad and pathetic. Alone, I was just a klutz in a slippery parking lot.

I made it safely inside, feeling very proud of myself. At least most of my morning children would be late as well. At least I'd have some time to just sit and drink my coffee, read my book. Maybe all this bad weather was for the best. Maybe it would give me a bit of a break.

I unlocked the door, turned on the hallway lights, clocked in, opened the door to my room and felt the familiar splash of my boots against the floor. Flood. I put my stuff down and waddled through the pool to the light switch. It wasn't SO bad. We've certainly seen worse. Still, the hallway and a good portion of my classroom were underwater and I knew that I would not be getting any kind of a break.

I called my boss. She was great as always. I told her we'd be able to handle it, that I had faith in us. My best friend there showed up and together we attempted to soak up the water in any way we could think of. We stopped and looked at one another and asked "how is this our lives?" before breaking into hysterical laughter. We laughed for a good ten minutes before giving up on the water completely and returning to the endless barrage of phone calls from parents, wondering if we were open. With a heavy sigh we'd respond "yes, we're here."

Eventually things worked out and the day continued on. Still, beginning that way pulled all of the patience we had from me. Being stuck inside for the third day in a row with eighteen energized two year olds was driving us all a little crazy, and by the end of my shift, when Sadie climbed inside the trash bag filled with toys and looked over at me to tell me she felt like garbage, I couldn't help but laugh. I couldn't help but think, yes, me too dear friend. Me too.

Tangled Wings

2008-02-12T18:23:00.000-05:00

Dearest Michelle,

Thank you. Thank you for the wonderful words you wrote to me tonight. Thank you for responding to me at all. I had no idea what you would think of my email, if you would think of it, if it would mean anything to you. I suppose what I feared most was not my own truth, was not admitting how greatly I missed you, but facing the realistic possibility that you didn't feel the same way about me. I suppose I feared I would be too late. I suppose I feared I had grown unworthy of your friendship.

Discovering you out in this blog world changed the way I write. Reading your words changed the way I think about things, the way I pay attention to the life around me, the way I articulate the inner workings of my soul. Being able to open this space filled with your beautiful poetry and photography, your beautiful self expression, has meant everything to me. It has given me strength when I've felt weak, hope when I've felt lost, inspiration when I've felt as though I had nothing left to give. Your endless talent and vast depth inspires me to be a better thinker. Your courage and honesty inspires me to live a better life. Your blog inspires me to be a better writer, a better woman, and a better person. Discovering you out in the blog world changed the way I live. Knowing you has changed my life.

I like that you noted how I was asking for what I need. It's been the mantra of my life lately, the lesson I am slowly trying to learn, the goal I am working so very hard to reach. People seem to think that honesty is never a problem for me, but that is only because I stick to topics that are easy for me to be honest about. Asking for help, admitting I miss people, reaching out for a hand to hold, are the kinds of truths I still struggle facing each day. I do not know how to say I need you. I do not know how to tell you I am hurt. I do not know how to express I miss you beyond those words, and those words are meaningless when it comes to the way it feels to miss you.

Which is not just you, but a universal you, a past you that existed during a past version of my life. Slowly I am learning that letting go is not always the means of moving forward, that sometimes the future is about reconnecting with the past. Because the truth is, you think of me in Barnes and Noble, and I think of you every time I am inspired by a wonderful poem, or a line from a book, or a single word that leaps out at me from some idle page somewhere. I think of you when I think of old friends, of people I miss, of people I regret letting go. I cannot move forward when I am stuck in the present, missing you.

You are so right that guilt just adds a lot of unnecessary and unneeded heaviness to our lives. I am burdened with guilt, consumed with it, and that enveloping of my soul in such a useless emotion only leaves me feeling guilty about feeling guilty, about allowing myself to be endlessly plagued by something I know to be such a waste of time. Writing to you, being honest with you, was a way of lifting that heaviness. It was a way of apologizing, yes, but also a way of allowing a truth to surface, of setting myself free of the daily reminders that I lost you. It was a way to say all of the things I think about each time I sit down here to write. It was my way of saying I miss you, beyond those three little words.

And to receive your email tonight, to once again read your words beyond your blog, to know that, even for an instant, you thought of me and missed me too, means everything. It means everything to reconnect with you. It means hope. It means forgiveness. It means my life is undoubtedly about to change once more, for the better, because of you.

Because I have been blessed enough to find you out here in this blog world. Because I have been blessed enough to have phenomenal you here in my life. Because I am in awe of you in every way.

Because I am so grateful that you are exactly who you are.
All my love,
Always,
Frankie

I Need You

2008-02-11T16:47:00.000-05:00

I stole this idea from Michelle because I think it's beautiful, because I think it's just another way of defining oneself, because I think, sometimes, on a freezing Monday afternoon, that's all anyone can ask for.

"...I need you to see me...need you to find the beauty in me..."

...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I hate umbrellas...because I believe we were meant to get wet in the rain...because I have an irrational fear of getting my eyes poked out...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I have a closet full of shoes and would rather be barefoot...because the feeling of the earth beneath my toes is one of life's greatest pleasures...because I tattooed "write your life, live your writing" on my foot in french, just because I could...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I consider children to be the most exquisite thing in the universe...because I never tire of their tiny laughs or kisses or smiles...because everything they do touches me so profoundly I feel like bursting into tears a hundred times a day...I need for you to find beauty in my love of language...not what I read or write or say, but in the sense of comfort the acts of reading and writing and speaking provide me...I do not need you to love language, but I need you to love that I love it...that I need it...that I consider it an essential tool of survival, of happiness...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I like to be alone...not to feel alone, but to be alone...I like to have quiet time for self reflection and I need for you to understand why that's important, why that's beautiful...I need you to understand that my silence is not always a means of hiding...that sometimes it is about gathering things in my memory...that sometimes it is about restoring my memory, my mind, my soul...I need you to understand that when I am sitting quietly beside you, I am collecting you...I am tucking you away somewhere deep inside me...I am savoring our time together...I need you to think I'm beautiful because sometimes I need for you to compliment me...because I never learned to take a compliment well...because I could use the practice, the validation...because sometimes I depend on you to validate me...I need you to find beauty in my search for self acceptance...even if I am far away from such a goal...I need you to think my search is beautiful...that even to embark on such a journey is beautiful...that my longing for such self improvement is beautiful...I need you to think that there is beauty in the way I listen...in the way I take in other people's stories, hardships, joys...I need you to understand that I carry their emotions with me, often longer than they do, often more deeply...I need you to see that my whole existence is about feeling what other people feel...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I laugh loudly and at inappropriate times...that I can fill entire rooms with that sound...that I have often embarrassed myself with such a capability...I need for you to find beauty in my embarrassment...because it happens often...because I cannot find beauty in it myself...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I could spend hours, days, weeks sitting outside and be perfectly happy...because at any given moment the vastness of the sky can leave me feeling both insignificantly tiny and amazingly grand...because the grass and trees smell more heavenly to me than any other scent...because the smell of night tattoos itself onto my greedy skin...because my skin is greedy for such aromas. I need you to find me beautiful because I could get lost for days in a journal...because if I could do nothing else, I would write down every thought...because I am not conscious of my thinking unless I am writing...because it feels like I am wasting my time if I am not recording it...I need you to find beauty in my shelves of books...and I need you to find beauty in the fact that I have not read them all...that I can walk into a bookstore and buy twenty books at a time...that it will take me months to read them all...and that knowing that doesn't stop me from buying more in the meantime...I need you to find beauty in my need to be surrounded by books...in the way I associate them with being home...in the way they remind me of where I came from...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I was born and raised in Philadelphia and have yet to see a single Rocky movie...I need you to think I'm beautiful because all of my favorite love stories do not have happy endings...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I believe in happy endings...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I do not know what I believe in religiously...because my thoughts on God change daily...because your not believing only makes me want to believe it more...I need you to find beauty in my desire to be a good person...I need you to see how hard I am trying....I need you to think I'm beautiful because I am open, honest, loving, loved...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I cannot get enough of this world...because the more I see, the more I want to see...because the tiny details fill me with as much joy as the big pictures...because I notice more than what meets the eye...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I live with an open mind...because I try my best not to judge...because I think our differences are equally as important as our similarities...I need you to find beauty in my strives to help others...in my lending of money or a hand or an ear...in my wanting to help in any way I can...And mostly, I need you to think I'm beautiful because I don't...because that's never a word I would use to describe myself...because I can and do see beauty in everything except who I am...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I am still learning how.

Feels Like Home

2008-02-10T10:09:00.001-05:00

We've been discussing the colors we will paint our walls, some complimentary bright pastels to match our personalities, something soft and loud all at once. I think about the shade of lavender I picked for my new room all those years ago. I wonder what was happening then that I was unable to see, what conversations were being had behind closed doors, what was being screamed through the silence.

I remember how excited I was to move into a bigger room, to have an entire wall made of closets, to get this chance at a new beginning. I remember feeling grown up. I remember feeling, for the first time, like I had a room all my own. It went through so many changes over the years. I rearranged it more times than I can count. The walls transformed from tapestries of celebrities to pictures of my friends, ticket stubs, birthday cards. The room itself became a testament to the definition of me. I planted myself there. I called it home.

I don't think about the house of my childhood nearly as much as I had ever thought I would, but when I do think of it, I find that I know it as thoroughly, as intimately, as I have ever known anything. I can recall every inch of it. I can feel the imperfections of the walls beneath my hands. I can close my eyes and see our living and dining rooms, both before and after the walls that doubled as bookshelves were removed. I can feel the cold smoothness of our kitchen floor. I can anticipate each squeak of the floorboards. I can know, assuredly, that this once was home, and that I loved it as such.

I have moved four times since then, each time surrounding myself with the little pieces of me that I can't seem to let go, each time thrilled by the idea of a new beginning, each time telling myself that this is my new home. But more and more, I find that I leave my walls blank. More and more, I discover that fear of becoming too comfortable anywhere. More and more, I grow accustomed to this nomadic life.

I have no home. I have no childhood room to return to and explore, hide, rest easy in, waiting for me with open arms. I have only the memory of such a place. I cannot go back. I can only move forward.

And the truth of the matter is, if given the choice, I wouldn't go back. The significant changes in that house were not the removed bookcases or the transformed walls. It was happened within them. It was what happened to the people, the family, that lived there.

At our final yard sale, where three of the original four of us stood all day selling off the trinkets of our childhood, I began talking with a woman who had returned for the third time to buy our sleds. She had just gotten married. She was about to start a family of her own. "I hope you don't think I'm crazy," she said at the end of our driveway. "It just seems like you have the nicest family. You have what I want." I smiled. I restrained myself from telling her the truth. To this day, those words haunt me. Not because she had gotten it wrong, but because we were that once. We were what my parents wanted. We were what most parents want. We were the family - a mother, a father, a brother, a sister - who had played together in our big backyard with our beloved family dog and cat. We were that ideal, somehow.

And then, somehow, not. I cannot remember the shift in things. I honestly didn't know anything was changing until that night my parents gathered us together to tell us they were separating. I honestly didn't see it coming. Nor did I know what it would mean for my future. I couldn't have known then that I would spend the next four years trying to uncover clues in my past, trying to figure out where things went wrong, trying to understand love and its loss. I couldn't have known the secrets that would rise to the surface, or the deep, harrowing ways they would effect me. I couldn't have known that nothing would ever feel safe or simple in quite the same way. I couldn't have known that I was forever losing that comfort of feeling home.

Since then, I haven't allowed myself to get too comfortable anywhere -- in new homes, in jobs, in relationships. It would be easy to say that I lost faith in things, but that isn't the case. I still believe in comfort, in love, in happiness. I still believe that it's possible to have a happy life, and more than that, it's possible for ME to have a happy life. I still believe that one day I will be able to accept and forgive my past. I still believe that one day I will be able to move forward. I still believe that my walls will not be blank forever.

Even now, as we spend mornings discussing the possibilities, I have hope that I will one day find something that feels like home.