oftentimes, it is a perfect stranger that helps me find my way back to myself. tonight it was the well-dressed, silver-haired gentleman weaving his way between the white acura next to me blocking the crosswalk, and my car, politely drawn up to the line but not beyond it. he walked around the back end of the other car then headed toward me as i quietly looked out at him through my slightly open window. we made eye contact and i looked back knowingly at him. it was a look and small smile that acknowledged my own experience with drivers inconveniencing pedestrians and i hoped to encourage him in his maneuverings.
but he read something else in at that moment, some secret my spirit told that i had no intention of sharing. it might have been my freshly sweated skin and flushed cheeks still warm from an arduous hot yoga practice, or more likely it was my right hand that gave me away, clutching at my heart, trying to still its aching throb that had, moments before the gentleman caught my eye, needed the pressure of my palm to calm and contain it.
but whatever lines he read between, he read them instantly and he read them well. just as he turned to round the front of my car and return to the crosswalk, he said so simply yet so tenderly:
you're beautiful.
7.27.2012
7.25.2012
because inertia is just "transition" jumbled with an e added for good measure
zoe keating is on repeat tonight, switching back and forth between optimist and sun will set. i find this combination to be an appropriate mix of encouragement and fatalism as i try and overhaul my life, making a list of habits i want to form* and goals i want to reach this year. what's left of the year that is.
and as i look at the tidy handwriting stretched taut and tidy over large pieces of clean craft paper, i find, tonight, that i am ready to be reckless, ready to take my arm across all the carefully placed pieces of my life and slide them right off the end of the table. what a satisfying sound they would make shattering on the wood of my floor...then i'd be free to pack up shop and cooly move to a new city. hell, a new country even {europe, you will still have me and my dutch citizenship, won't you?} because somedays it seems no matter how hard i try, no matter how hard i push the understood boundaries of myself, stretch into uncomfortable new places and learn from my mistakes, i still get nowhere.
because really, where am i?
where am i?
where am i?
where am i?
and what am i doing?
do you know? cause i sure don't.
and really, today, right now, what kills me most, and truthfully is the source of my deep-set frustration, is that i can't tell the difference between inertia and transition. and for the record they both suck anyway with their uncanny ability to kick my teeth to the curb when all i really want is a warm hand to hold.
i don't often pray. not in the way i was taught as a child, but tonight i will bow my head and ask for a sign. something small. something sweet. something clear. just tell me which direction to go, even if it's not what i want to hear. just make sure to tell me with symbols i can read clearly and words i can understand.
and please tell me with a hug to soften any blows.
and really, what i truly want is my happy-laugh to come back. the joyful, easy laugh that flies cleanly and frequently from my body when i am relaxed, when i am well rested, and when i am firmly connected to my sense of wellbeing. it surprised me after a long absence in the first weeks of the film festival and made a cameo appearance on my friend's wedding day and long into that night, but i want it back. for keeps. i want it to be the default laugh, not this convincing shade of a laugh that secretly isn't attached to my spirit.
*one habit being sleep i am still neglecting as my fingers move across the keyboard to vent this post into existence well beyond my bedtime.
and as i look at the tidy handwriting stretched taut and tidy over large pieces of clean craft paper, i find, tonight, that i am ready to be reckless, ready to take my arm across all the carefully placed pieces of my life and slide them right off the end of the table. what a satisfying sound they would make shattering on the wood of my floor...then i'd be free to pack up shop and cooly move to a new city. hell, a new country even {europe, you will still have me and my dutch citizenship, won't you?} because somedays it seems no matter how hard i try, no matter how hard i push the understood boundaries of myself, stretch into uncomfortable new places and learn from my mistakes, i still get nowhere.
because really, where am i?
where am i?
where am i?
where am i?
and what am i doing?
do you know? cause i sure don't.
and really, today, right now, what kills me most, and truthfully is the source of my deep-set frustration, is that i can't tell the difference between inertia and transition. and for the record they both suck anyway with their uncanny ability to kick my teeth to the curb when all i really want is a warm hand to hold.
i don't often pray. not in the way i was taught as a child, but tonight i will bow my head and ask for a sign. something small. something sweet. something clear. just tell me which direction to go, even if it's not what i want to hear. just make sure to tell me with symbols i can read clearly and words i can understand.
and please tell me with a hug to soften any blows.
and really, what i truly want is my happy-laugh to come back. the joyful, easy laugh that flies cleanly and frequently from my body when i am relaxed, when i am well rested, and when i am firmly connected to my sense of wellbeing. it surprised me after a long absence in the first weeks of the film festival and made a cameo appearance on my friend's wedding day and long into that night, but i want it back. for keeps. i want it to be the default laugh, not this convincing shade of a laugh that secretly isn't attached to my spirit.
*one habit being sleep i am still neglecting as my fingers move across the keyboard to vent this post into existence well beyond my bedtime.
7.16.2012
the quartet
we were the talkers. we were the dancers. we were the laughers. we were the after party adventurers, the late night bar-hoppers, the cattle riding, car-window-crawling bridge seekers congealing somehow, suddenly, during the course of the wedding night. we read poems. we mocked the texans. we poked at ourselves. disagreed a bit, loved a lot, held ourselves up and out for each other, tried each of our friendships on for size and found not a one wanting.
with only a few connections in place beforehand, we added a perfect stranger to the mix and found something surprising and wholly new – the result of some sort of spontaneous combustion requiring an unrepeatable mix of alcohol, personalities, and photo booth spontaneity. and this thing we found ourselves inside, this many limbed entity of friendship, stood and breathed at the intersection of six dyads, three triads, and our single, splendid quartet. in a brilliant night watching two brilliant people gather their individual lives inside their arms and tie them together, this was our extension of their happiness – so fitting, so sweet, so playful in a way one could spend the rest of their life looking for it and never predict when or if it will show up next.
the night was lush, the night was long, and eventually we found ourselves under a king-sized blanket, on an overly air-conditioned couch, resting in the quiet corners of the stories we were telling one another. exhaustion lapped at our feet stealing away the words we were speaking as we tried to stretch the hours in each other’s company until they were so thin we could see the morning sun through them. even after our neglected sleep chased us reluctantly to our beds, we woke, still firmly attached as others mingled in our midst.
our goodbyes lingered as we hugged, clutching each other as much as the photos and phone numbers we had exchanged – all of them tenuous and unsatisfying objects functioning their best as evidence we existed together in a new way.
and as space and time wedge themselves firmly between us, perhaps the most substantial thing left in our hands is the certainty that somewhere in that mysterious negative space between our quickly moving bodies and even quicker moving spirits, something glorious lived, however fleeting, and for that we are grateful.
with only a few connections in place beforehand, we added a perfect stranger to the mix and found something surprising and wholly new – the result of some sort of spontaneous combustion requiring an unrepeatable mix of alcohol, personalities, and photo booth spontaneity. and this thing we found ourselves inside, this many limbed entity of friendship, stood and breathed at the intersection of six dyads, three triads, and our single, splendid quartet. in a brilliant night watching two brilliant people gather their individual lives inside their arms and tie them together, this was our extension of their happiness – so fitting, so sweet, so playful in a way one could spend the rest of their life looking for it and never predict when or if it will show up next.
the night was lush, the night was long, and eventually we found ourselves under a king-sized blanket, on an overly air-conditioned couch, resting in the quiet corners of the stories we were telling one another. exhaustion lapped at our feet stealing away the words we were speaking as we tried to stretch the hours in each other’s company until they were so thin we could see the morning sun through them. even after our neglected sleep chased us reluctantly to our beds, we woke, still firmly attached as others mingled in our midst.
our goodbyes lingered as we hugged, clutching each other as much as the photos and phone numbers we had exchanged – all of them tenuous and unsatisfying objects functioning their best as evidence we existed together in a new way.
and as space and time wedge themselves firmly between us, perhaps the most substantial thing left in our hands is the certainty that somewhere in that mysterious negative space between our quickly moving bodies and even quicker moving spirits, something glorious lived, however fleeting, and for that we are grateful.
7.11.2012
moving on
stepping away for the wedding and then some work travel (in portland) for the next week of being away. away from life. away from thinking too much. away from routine and the grind.
so once again my nomad shoes are on and my heart is free to the horizon.
7.10.2012
simple wisdom
if i am not for myself, who is?
if i am for myself alone, what am i?
and if not now, when?
-------------
a quote from episode 13 of the tobolowsky files. it has been clinging to me since i heard it today. if i am not for myself...
if i am for myself alone, what am i?
and if not now, when?
-------------
a quote from episode 13 of the tobolowsky files. it has been clinging to me since i heard it today. if i am not for myself...
7.09.2012
dallas bound
in a few days i fly to dallas to see one of my favorite people in the world get married. i will be joined by two of my other favorite people in the world and together we will hold hands and dance and cry and laugh and drink and eat and speak and think and feel. definitely feel. already i almost feel too much.
i remember the first time i met e's fiancee. i even remember the very start of the crush, when all she could do was hope from afar. i remember the clear drive i felt to get to know him and the lengths i would go to to hang out with them long before they ever became a couple. sometimes these lengths included hijacking his meal from the microwave, bringing it outside to e's car {they were housemates at the time} and getting him to join us in the concert of music her speakers were blasting into the cavern of her SUV named henry. sometimes it was collaborating with e on a gift for his birthday when she was too shy to give on her own. sometimes it was front row seats at concerts we could all go to together. for the record, i was a very good wingman.
and the years have passed since then, since they've gotten together and begun to shape what their lives look like connected. and while their histories i hold so gently in my hards are not really mine to tell, what i can share, what is all my own to savor and name, is the gratitude, the overwhelming gratitude that i got to have a front row seat from the moment they entered each other's lives. the very moment.
and i try not to think about how someone else will sit in my front row seat to the stories that unfold after we no longer share the same region of the country. and someone else will be there for the long years of their children's lives and beyond. but i will be there in spirit and i will console myself that i was there in the beginning. and to be exact, it started before the beginning when this relationship was just something for e to dream about, when i was encouraging her with the words from bjork's song i miss you {but i haven't met you yet...so special but it hasn't happened yet}.
and the ghosts of all the hope i poured into her so many years ago are wraithing up to me, slipping invisibly through my skin to curl tightly around my heart, appearing suddenly out of thin air, surprising me late into in the night. their presence is exhausting and endless and i'm not quite sure what to do with them, but in the meantime, i get a few days to slow down and take pause, to honor and bless their new journey and to put on a pretty dress, have my hair and nails and have an incredible time celebrating with quite a few of the best people i know.
to be continued...
i remember the first time i met e's fiancee. i even remember the very start of the crush, when all she could do was hope from afar. i remember the clear drive i felt to get to know him and the lengths i would go to to hang out with them long before they ever became a couple. sometimes these lengths included hijacking his meal from the microwave, bringing it outside to e's car {they were housemates at the time} and getting him to join us in the concert of music her speakers were blasting into the cavern of her SUV named henry. sometimes it was collaborating with e on a gift for his birthday when she was too shy to give on her own. sometimes it was front row seats at concerts we could all go to together. for the record, i was a very good wingman.
and the years have passed since then, since they've gotten together and begun to shape what their lives look like connected. and while their histories i hold so gently in my hards are not really mine to tell, what i can share, what is all my own to savor and name, is the gratitude, the overwhelming gratitude that i got to have a front row seat from the moment they entered each other's lives. the very moment.
and i try not to think about how someone else will sit in my front row seat to the stories that unfold after we no longer share the same region of the country. and someone else will be there for the long years of their children's lives and beyond. but i will be there in spirit and i will console myself that i was there in the beginning. and to be exact, it started before the beginning when this relationship was just something for e to dream about, when i was encouraging her with the words from bjork's song i miss you {but i haven't met you yet...so special but it hasn't happened yet}.
and the ghosts of all the hope i poured into her so many years ago are wraithing up to me, slipping invisibly through my skin to curl tightly around my heart, appearing suddenly out of thin air, surprising me late into in the night. their presence is exhausting and endless and i'm not quite sure what to do with them, but in the meantime, i get a few days to slow down and take pause, to honor and bless their new journey and to put on a pretty dress, have my hair and nails and have an incredible time celebrating with quite a few of the best people i know.
to be continued...
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