Poached
Originally uploaded by sundaymornpics.
Wishing this was how I began my morning. Knowing that the only things left on my over-exhausted to-do list for the next few days include:
-reacquaint myself with Andrew's face
-convince Andrew to drive to Bluffton for delicios Mexican food and dark beer
-sleep (in previously mentioned marshmallow bed)
-take more photos (have I even mentioned here that I have a new camera?)
Breathing in and out until my last set of midterms from my undergraduate career is over. Taking time for New York, good coffee, and early morning photographs. Listening to Philip Glass. Daydreaming of sinking into my marshmallowesque bed.
"It is all well and good to put your feelings out there, to let people know what is happening to you, inside and out. However, if you continue to have a public blog, you have to know that people you don't know or, or maybe know and don't like, are going to see it.
How should you expect people to treat you? The same way you would
expect room full of strangers listening to you shout a poem while they
eat their panini and coffee. Probably less, considering a room full of
strangers can see you and how they might be hurting you."
- Jason (see comment section)
I am not a very good dancer. Although I can't find it right now, I'm sure I've elaborated here before on the fact that I desperately wanted to be a twenty something ballerina. I'm sure I mentioned the adult size black leotard and pink tights set off by the perfect pale salmon colored slippers that I donned on my first day of dance class. I remember writing about the fact that the other students remembered their positions (1, 2, 3, etc.), that they wore t-shirts and cut off black tights with sleek black dance shoes. I remember writing that they moved in time with the music, leapt with grace and ease, and in the end, could even touch their toes. I remember writing that I had none of these things happening for me that day, or any other day in that class really, that I continually missed steps, could not find the same rhythm and flow my classmates moved through, could not stop the panic I felt each time my feet could not remember third position.
This is the best metaphor I can think of for how I have been feeling these past few months. Life is a little off and I cannot accurately describe to anyone what has pushed it off track or how I plan to get back into my motion. I will say that I cannot find the rhythm by which to operate, to write, to connect, to speak and interact in a way that feels successful when I end my day. Instead, my days have been full of lamentable moments when words escape me and my silence and inability to say something ends up revealing more than if I had said anything at all, or loud and unnecessary comments and stories that I almost always regret the minute they leave my mouth. There is a sense of overcompensation happening inside of me that is trying to solve the subtleties of what is wrong with bold brush strokes that somehow always miss the spot.
In the past this page has served as an outlet of sorts, a place to come and settle down for a bit, to gather myself with words, to deconstruct myself into a state that becomes reasonable and manageable; this was a place that I could ramble my way into some semblance of understanding. In the past year something about this place has changed for me. As I have written before (see the post from which the epigram was taken), harsh and unnecessary criticism creeps into the comments on this page at the most inconvenient of times, tugging at an already fragile vase on a shelf I have set too high. During this round of tasteless commentary and it's afflictions, I toyed with the idea of discontinuing what I do here, the possibility of starting again, of protecting by a silly password these seemingly insignificant ponderings of my mind.
I recently remembered that this page is the result of starting over, that I have already put aside one chronicle of my life in lieu of a fresh start - a start that has not yet stopped. The question posed in the above epigraph, "How should you expect people to treat you?" has been fluttering in the front of my mind lately as I wrestle with my issues regarding the comments on this page. After much thought and introspection into the way I myself treat others, this is what I expect:
I expect that you treat this page as an extension, even in the smallest form, of who I am. Having authored these random posts, I expect that you acknowledge that a human is here behind the cold, technical code sorting through the life that she is working to make sense of daily. I expect that you put aside the small and petty tendencies we all share as humans to use pernicious tactics to compensate for our own insecurities. If you do not agree with my perspective on an issue that I have expressed on this page, I expect that you might form and intelligent offering of your own opinion, an opinion I will take time to understand and consider. I expect that you keep in mind that beyond the political reasoning for free speech and public forums there is realm of kindness and decency that would have you question whether or not you would sit with me over a cup of coffee and say the things you so cowardly and often anonymously post here to my face. I would hope that you might be as timid as I am when faced with the reality of someone, the reality of what makes a person who they are, to say the hurtful words we so easily dispense when we feel threatened by our own lacking nature. Disagreement with personal views is not that same as a personal attack. I expect that you think about the words you type before choose to save them in this or any other public outlet, taking into consideration the fact that you have have no idea who the person really is on the other end of that page; you have no idea who I am. I feel certain that this is the case, that we are strangers, because if you knew me, knew what I have already survived in the past two years of my life, you would not in any good conscience say the things you have. I feel certain that you would not be so bold to say these things to me because face to face you would be forced to see our similarities and take note of how flawed we all are.
In time I am sure that my rhythm will return and I will continue as I have before, figuring out one step at a time how to make this dance work for me. What I will not return to is my sometimes careless regard for the feelings of others. The fact that we have the right to express ourselves should not give us the right to be hurtful, neglectful creatures living in worlds completely unsympathetic to the ones which so frequently move in ways that intertwine with ours. It is hard enough to make it through without tearing at each other along the way.
"How do you do Nothing?" asks Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
"It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering," said Christopher Robin."
-from The House at Pooh Corner
It is time, who knows for how long, to take a wee break from this page and to do nothing, for a little while, with the thoughts forced onto this screen; it is time to not bother and enjoy.
I arrived home from work on Friday only to find myself completely overwhelmed with the amount of "stuff" that had taken over our apartment. Because last week was the closing on the house, the moving of the "stuff", and then of course, the celebration of the joyous event, very little unpacking/sorting/reorganizing actually happened. Monday brought classes and the school/work grind, and before we knew it we were being swallowed whole by boxes of tupperware, stationary, and more (could there be more? gasp!) books, all of which needed a home in an apartment with no more room to give.
By the end of Sunday we had somehow battled out way through and won. Most things live in their own homes and we are planning our next Atlanta/IKEA trip to house all these book stragglers that keep multiplying each week. Amidst all the weekend work and cleaning, we did manage a few fantastic meals including one spur of the moment (and late for me) restaurant trip that lasted 2 hours and gave our food and wine filled tummies a nice warmth on the walk home, and last night roasted cauliflower with a baby greens salad (including radishes, asparagus, pine nuts, and gouda) with homemade vinaigrette. Last night as we finished off the last few bites of our mini carrot top cake (thank you Cheryl), we were basking in the glow of a hard-weekend's work and the pleasures a small and happy home can bring. To that thought, I wanted to share the parts of this home that make me smile the most, make me feel as if when I walk through the doors the shield that envelopes me with our books, quilts, and architectural models is impenetrable to the more despairing aspects of the world. We get little to no natural light in our apartment, so I decided to go ahead and let these evening pictures be as they are not really any different during the day. For as much as I wine about wanting more sunlight in here, there is something to our cozy feel that I really do love.
my desk
mail table
dining table
easter egg radishes for dinner salad
french canister set and Andrew's great grandmother's dishes
we call this the coffee corner
I love the teal in the kitchen
our new malachite bedroom wall
dinner and dessert
Whew. That was more than I remember taking, but I just couldn't leave anything out. What are your favorite spaces in your home?
This little girl (this soft, fuzzy memory is just as she remains) has been with me today, reminding me of the lighter sides I'm feeling, the parts of life in which you take off your shoes, get right into the sand and play without fear of getting dirty. It's a strange feeling, but I think I could get used to it.
Take more pictures.
"Be always ecstatic. Be filled with a divine intoxication."-Henry Miller
My fourth resolution was in the works this weekend as I took an unexpected bloggin break to complete the move (who knew one could have so much stuff?). As of Friday at about 12:30 PM I became a free woman. I kept Andrew, don't worry about that, but I did let go of a very heavy weight that I have been holding onto for almost seven years. We sold the house. The action deserves its own sentence, really, it's own paragraph if i wasn't so lazy. I hesitate to phrase that the way I did, considering the house wasn't always a burden, that there were a few good years there, but in the end, my most prominent and recent memories are stress-filled and packed with memories of a life that no longer exists. Because one of my largest and most powerful causes of stress and worry is now gone, my fourth resolution is to obviously, chill out a little.
I live with (officially now) one of the most laid back men on the planet. There is very little other than traffic that ruffles Andrew into any sort of worry weary frenzy. As much as I have tried to practice his approach to life over this past year or so, there has always been a strong tie down to reality that has kept me feeling slightly unable to really put anything into perspective. Five days into 2007, I lost one of my largest excuses. It's a strange thing, to lose one's fall-backs, the things that we can blame the weight of our hectic, harried life on so easily. My brain still tries to trick me into thinking about the air considtioner (does it still work? will it make it through summer?), the mortgage (will the renters pay? will I have enough for utilities? why doesn't my water bill ever go down?), and the yard (how will I trick Andrew into going down to mow the yard this time?). Then, as if it were hitting me for the very first time, I remember that right here, this little apartment with our shelves and shelves of books, teal kitchen, and fresh flowers is the only home I have to worry about. This is my home.
I guess I could have written this post sooner, but instead I was putting into practice what I was about to teach. We celebrated with crab at the beach, the constant trading of the smiles of disbelief, wine and tapas, a pretty new dress, and a long walk through town. I have spent the last two days unpacking all the things I had stored at the house, making homemade chicken and dumplings one night and green curry the next. We bought new books, poured small glasses of wine, and sat for small pockets of time in a silence that can only come from the letting go and the accepting - the accepting of something good.
Tomorrow I will go to the first class of my last semester of a college experience that has lasted entirely too long. It is time though, to move on, to let go, to take off the weights and keep moving, so much is already done, so much is still to come.
"Hours earlier she had been sitting in the breakfast nook two blocks up with a young man she’d been eying for the past few days. It was never the finding of love that was the problem for Penelope; she fell in love everyday. There were small reasons, the endearing jam dripped down a tie, a voice saying cream at the coffee bar, the small white hairs that trimmed a forehead; these incidentals made each new love unique and almost immediate. The immediacy of her unrequited love affairs was what caused their brevity; her own lack of stamina keeping her from the next step. Penelope had never made it past the finding, where for each quirky, almost insignificant reason she had given her heart to these men, there were soon a handful more that made her painfully aware of their shortcomings: denim stained with large blue ink dots, a tendency to pronounce wrestling as rasstlin’, and once, a solitary curled hair that had been left to encircle an earlobe. She wanted to love them, to appreciate the subtleties as she once had, but what time had taught her was that no charming detail was without its reality. On this particular morning, she had fallen in love with him by the time the waitress finished pouring the coffee. When the check arrived she felt flustered and overwhelmed, slightly self-deprecating for ever having thought he was more than what he now appeared to be: overgrown, covered in syrup, and much too inflexible. All in all, he seemed to her to be too close to the trees featured in Vermont travel ads and she decided, as she would later for the sentence, that he needed to be erased. She left the table to pay the check and never came back." -from Men Who Dive
Ah, how the scene changes ever so slightly in the early morning light (or lack thereof). Number 3 has a great deal to do with this early morning scene. Because once I have woken up (even slightly) I am awake for good, and because once I have woken up at the same time on multiple mornings in a row my internal clock will always wake me up at that time, and finally because Andrew has been working the 6 AM shift, I have been getting up very early. The first few mornings were filled with sleepy grumblings on the couch, the rants of a girl that could not sleep and yet could not function. I soon graduated to the next level of early morning rising which includes being able to process information given to me (think series discs of TV on DVD). This past week something different happened that I do believe might change my 2007 and help me with the third resolution on my list: write something each day (outside of this page). Andrew, being as sweet as he always is, bought me these as a New Year's gift, a gift that I not only love, but find to be just the nudge I needed to put these sentences that roam around in my head onto paper.
Because I am what I call a scene writer, I do not often have the framework of the story I am working on anywhere in my mind when I begin. Instead, I have what I believe to be one or two really good sentences, sometimes an entire paragraph even, that to me holds so complete of an idea, I begin to build around it with other sentences that come as they will. Some days, these sentences flock like pigeons, begging for attention as they are so hungry to be fed by my pen. Other days, even a single word remains elusive like that cardinal that your mother always saw first from the kitchen window, and although she was screaming for you kids to come look, come look! as loud and fast as she could, you always missed it in the rush to lift you up above the sink.
The act of writing more often is for me perhaps one of the most positive steps I can make for 2007. Not only does it factor into my graduate career and you know, all those childhood dreams you just have to keep working for, writing organizes my scrambled mind. The practice of stringing together these thoughts, even the tiniest bits, is for me a way to file and sort the thousands upon thousands of observations I make daily, the conversations I hear, the facial expressions I see, the connections I make between what I know from me and what I am beginning to know from them. This year I am starting my spring cleaning a little early and I'm beginning with my these stories that have been loitering in my mind for so long. It is time to put out a sign and call the police because it's time these lines found a home.
This one feels slightly too easy, considering that I write about it all year long, but when it comes down to it, I write about it because it's just that important and doesn't always come without a little nudge. My second resolution is to take more care to notice the good things, to make more lists full of the best things to counteract the mental lists of stressful, heavy ones that bog my mind. Making this resolution to begin with fulfills this a bit - the position that I normally take being, I never keep them anyway, why list them? Why list them? Because, a little optimism never hurt a new start (or year), and what better way to throw a few good prospects out there than a good old fashioned resolution? Besides, I'm a postmodern girl, and postmodern girls know that even the "strictest" of resolutions are flexible.
The other part of this resolution, the one that I am again fulfilling right now, is to write on this page more often, to make concrete (as concrete as can be) all that good stuff I'll be paying attention to in 2007. This blog is an act of accepting imperfection, of accepting that there is not always enough time to conjure the perfect post, the make each word tangle with the next in such a way to make clear to my reader the exact inspiration which urged me to write my thoughts out here. Instead, there are times when I open the template, sit in frustration, close the computer, open the computer, leave the room, enter the room, open a book, open a magazine, drink more coffee (this is usually after the first pot), all in the hopes that just by chance these routine and yet impetuous actions might jar the perfect post. In the end, some days there is just me, the screen, and one of my lists to fill the space. The thing is, in the end, it's these lists (these space keepers) that seemed so trivial that end up meaning so much, that remind me of the good parts of the heavy days that keep me just slightly above the ground.
So whether is three coffee cups in at 6 AM or half a wine glass down sometime after 6, expect to see a lot more of me here, where it's important to see the best, and necessary to accept the less than perfect.
