my unconventional valentine {part 2}

it was almost a year ago to the day when i first stepped across the threshold and spotted the ugly yellow fridge of the apartment i now call home. nearly a year ago i thought with relief i'm so glad it's not perfect because then i won't possibly fall in love with it and have to make a hard choice. because, as you might recall, i had already committed a signature and $645 to another.

but it was also a year ago that i dared to look closer, dared to notice the length of glass and wood cabinets staring back at that fridge, dared to risk my word signed across a check and application i had handed someone else for another apartment. dare. risk.

risk.

dare.

and i did dare and i did risk. and a year later, they have proved worthy, as most lessons are that start with a toe on the line of fear traced in front of you. it's why i have made it a habit in my life to find places i feel fear and step boldly toward them. because i have known that one day the moment will come when Everything will be on the line and a second's hesitation could cost me that Everything.

i wasn't always this way. i actually know the span of my life that taught me the benefits of living on the very edge of myself. it was the 9 months of the meisner-based acting class i took in 2008/9. this was the class that took my life by the ankles and shook it upside down until all these the parts of myself i didn't want to look had spilled out on the floor for everyone to see. that was the year i discovered the best classes were the ones i was most afraid of – those days i could barely get myself to walk up the flight of stairs and down that long hall into class. those were the days i made the most progress – learned the most about myself. those were the days the teacher had no criticism, just a stoic glance in my direction and a single, rare nod of approval.

so i slowly and begrudgingly became comfortable within the discomfort. it hurt no less, still hurts no less, but now i don't fight it so much and that makes it easier. and though class ended years ago, i find a million little ways to keep this practice present in my daily life. i have my weekly singing lessons because it was literally the last thing i could possibly do. i bought a bowling groupon because i've only been twice in my life and bowling scares the crap out of me and embarrasses me all at the same time {double whammy}. and i have learned how to speak truth into hard relationships when i'd rather ostrich myself in a corner with my head in the sand and pretend everything's okay.

all this so at the right moment i could risk $645 for a crazy apartment with the ugly fridge and shaggy carpet in the bedroom that, despite its imperfections, sang to me in a way i could not ignore, even when i tried my hardest not to hear.

because: the heart knows. it knows how to make sense when everything on paper doesn't add up and the head shouts loudly to go in the opposite direction. it knows when reason and friends and family point elsewhere. and you know what, mine has always been pretty spot. especially this year.

and, in turn, my heart has been rewarded in her choice. i have lived so much and so well in this apartment and it has loved me hard and held me softly in return. we have thrown warm parties, spreading out across its wooden floors, shared quiet evenings with myself and a friend unfolding gently to each other. and i have spent {too many} restless nights awake till dawn beneath its watchful ceiling. rested an aching body and spirit nursed by its solitude and silence.

this space, this collection of wood and white and walls has held my tears, has held my fears when there was no one else. it has elevated my joy, echoed my song, framed my colors for all the world to see and enthusiastically welcomed others to partake in it's life.

so this is for you, my apartment, my valentine, my truest of the trues, dearest of the dears. you have been worth every risk. worth every fear. and you have proved my heart true.

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.

#8

i sent the first email in the wake of seeing thom last spring. put into words something surprising and tender. something i was so grateful to the universe for giving me when i hadn't even thought to ask. but the silence that was returned was puzzling. i had been so certain we had been reading from the same page, so where did our stories split?

i agitated {gently} as i always do. worried and second guessed, and was finally given the wise words: if he's important, he isn't far.

almost a year later now, each simultaneously nudging a mutual friend to do something we both knew we should just ask for ourselves, friends and facebook have come through for us and here we are: in connection. just as we ought to be.

finally, radiohead friend #8 has joined the family stepping into a comfortable spot that i didn't even realize i was still keeping warm for him.


1. mike
2. jason
3. chris
4. jim
5. steve
6. lauren
7. matt
8. shervin
9. kevin


currently listening to: the light - the album leaf

francis ford coppola

i don't know what to say, really. i mean, there was the moment i met him when he repeated my name back to me musingly.
"nathania...i haven't heard that one before." yes, and i'm happy to hear that.
"i understand it's a city in israel, but my parents were thinking more russian."
we got into the big escorting suv.
a block down the road.
"nathania...i just met a girl named nathania. and suddenly i see, just how beautiful a name can be." {to the tune of maria from west side story}

magic.

pure magic.

after i jokingly say no one will believe me if i tell them he sang to me, he continues with a synopsis of war and peace {since natasha is of the similar vein} then continues with a compare and contrast to anna karenina when i mention that is the one book of tolstoy i have yet to read. he meandered through the topic charmingly and i listened with a surprised smile on my face and as many interjections as i could comfortably and politely manage.

later, while i missed my one chance to really talk to him {rats} i did have a small moment when we were waiting for his wife to show up at the hotel. i happened to glance over at him and he was looking at me. i mean, really looking at me. i made eye contact. and held it. past that moment we westerns consider long enough to be comfortable and polite. and when we crossed that subtle threshold together there was that slight shift and quiet acknowledgment of two human beings meeting each other on another level. i see you seeing me, and it's nice to meet you. again.

and that was it.

and yet, not.

but it's enough for now.