I was a lion this morning (growl!). My three co-workers and I won second place in the library's Halloween costume contest. My prize? A whoopie cushion. Worth it.
But part two of my day is right now, and it's not going well. Am currently fuzzing out over here trying to be ready to leave in 45 minutes and feeling, in a different way, needy. Needy as in, this is the first Friday in quite a few that I will be ending on my own. Growl.
10.30.2009
10.29.2009
home is changing
I am going to have to move moment-by-moment for the next four days. Like, take cookies out of oven. Put cat outside. Make tuna sandwich. Brush teeth. Orchestra. Pack weekend worth of clothes. Find tail. Sleep.
I have been feeling 50% apprehension and 50% anticipation for this weekend ahead and the going home for a last time. I have such a preemptive hole in my heart when it comes to the people, house, town, state I'm about to say goodbye to that I've been aching for weeks. It will be less permanent than I'm picturing, I know, but it will still be a turning over. I'll miss the willow tree. Have I mentioned that? And the picture window in the living room. Being in that place was always so warm--of the heart, I mean--and I am not yet convinced that the warm I have found and am finding down here will ever match it.
I am usually not afraid of change because it proves to me again how malleable I can be. I adjust. I always adjust. And maybe not always, but often, I like the after-me better than the before-me in the end. So. We'll see. I'll say the goodbyes. I'll run my hands up and down the stairway walls. Maybe do one last frantic lap around the house up one flight of stairs and down the other. I think if I have time I'll walk up the hill to my old elementary school. To see it. I think maybe I'll fall asleep curled against my mom on the brown loveseat and take a picture of the Tree I Let Live (there's a story) and circle around a few of the neighborhoods that made me who I am.
And I think I will cry myself to sleep at least once. I'm not trying to be an adult here. I'm just going to feel. The maturity will come later.
I have been feeling 50% apprehension and 50% anticipation for this weekend ahead and the going home for a last time. I have such a preemptive hole in my heart when it comes to the people, house, town, state I'm about to say goodbye to that I've been aching for weeks. It will be less permanent than I'm picturing, I know, but it will still be a turning over. I'll miss the willow tree. Have I mentioned that? And the picture window in the living room. Being in that place was always so warm--of the heart, I mean--and I am not yet convinced that the warm I have found and am finding down here will ever match it.
I am usually not afraid of change because it proves to me again how malleable I can be. I adjust. I always adjust. And maybe not always, but often, I like the after-me better than the before-me in the end. So. We'll see. I'll say the goodbyes. I'll run my hands up and down the stairway walls. Maybe do one last frantic lap around the house up one flight of stairs and down the other. I think if I have time I'll walk up the hill to my old elementary school. To see it. I think maybe I'll fall asleep curled against my mom on the brown loveseat and take a picture of the Tree I Let Live (there's a story) and circle around a few of the neighborhoods that made me who I am.
And I think I will cry myself to sleep at least once. I'm not trying to be an adult here. I'm just going to feel. The maturity will come later.
10.27.2009
too much macro, need more micro
Have been feeling antsy. I need to remind me to stay seated in the now. Don't get up just yet. Keep touching the little things, like the way black coffee + cherry tomatoes + peanut butter crackers + baby carrots tastes like nacho Doritos (I swear.), and the warm arms of this too-big sweater and the earthy blue smell of an overcast morning.
10.26.2009
10.25.2009
over the hump
I woke before my alarm and had an extra hour to sit in the kitchen and sip and think.
I had a fight with silver symbolism and won.
The cats reminded me of the value of an ambush.
My eyes devoured red and gold dipped trees.
My ears were given a gift--sounds the shape and texture and flavor of an apple. Fresh and tangy and crisp.
There was a hill, and the world at my feet.
I ran towards the sun through a field of brittle corn.
I remembered the words and what they mean.
I overcame a low-grade panic through sheer, muscley reason.
I was a feast.
I feasted.
I tasted love on my tongue.
I felt at home.
I had a fight with silver symbolism and won.
The cats reminded me of the value of an ambush.
My eyes devoured red and gold dipped trees.
My ears were given a gift--sounds the shape and texture and flavor of an apple. Fresh and tangy and crisp.
There was a hill, and the world at my feet.
I ran towards the sun through a field of brittle corn.
I remembered the words and what they mean.
I overcame a low-grade panic through sheer, muscley reason.
I was a feast.
I feasted.
I tasted love on my tongue.
I felt at home.
10.24.2009
is it any wonder
I woke up with the blankets piled at my neck and for a brief flash was disoriented, grasping for something not there. I have been incomplete ever since.
That's not why, but I feel like I am struggling with impulse control. Want to do something permanent and sudden. I might settle for a brisk walk instead.
I have a recommendation. Two, actually. One is to be friends with someone attending massage school because you get to be their homework. The other is to walk out and say hello and ask questions and do some relationship soldering when you have a chance instead of staying under the covers. I know the first one from reality and the second from alternate reality.
Today I am into cinnamon flavored coffee, the word 'peripeteia', stretchy black pants, Harry Potter, and fudging the process but still getting a decent result. I'm well.
That's not why, but I feel like I am struggling with impulse control. Want to do something permanent and sudden. I might settle for a brisk walk instead.
I have a recommendation. Two, actually. One is to be friends with someone attending massage school because you get to be their homework. The other is to walk out and say hello and ask questions and do some relationship soldering when you have a chance instead of staying under the covers. I know the first one from reality and the second from alternate reality.
Today I am into cinnamon flavored coffee, the word 'peripeteia', stretchy black pants, Harry Potter, and fudging the process but still getting a decent result. I'm well.
10.23.2009
this is what shows up when I blink
I have spent an entire minute hunting around for the storage key, the one with the bright blue tag. The one that was sitting, all the while, six inches from my right elbow. I blame this on the dimness of the sky (remember the summer when we could leave the office lights off all morning?), and the seething hatred I felt toward my alarm this morning (I'm usually so much more charitable). And I blame the train that stopped me as I biked up the hill (I was already running late) and the smell of the hand lotion I have at my desk (it creates such a cloying thick fug, thig fuck).
I have been drinking my coffee black because I have been getting over sugar (it's an amicable breakup).
And I miss my brother. I really, really, really miss my brother. I'll leave the parentheses off that last one because if I got started I'd run on about needing irreverence and rhythmic tapping hands and the attack of Nova Scotia and a baseline for the harmony that springs up when my family is together. I mean that literally. I mean I miss his low notes.
When I plan ahead I start wondering about claws and brown fur--I'm going to be a lion one week from today. I start wondering about one week from today + twelve hours, when I'll be unloading into the house that has already been sold and spending the second-to-last weekend ever in the red room at the left end of the upstairs hallway. I dreamed last night, in one of the few hours my eyes were closed, of the pond in the park behind the church behind the house. There's an island in the middle, and I used to cross over the bridge and slide between the bushes at the far side of the island and watch a family of seven baby ducks. It's been years, and I still seize up when I think of those ducks, because over the days that summer their number kept dwindling. One day there was only one. I named him Pip because I liked the sharp, cute sound of those Ps and I daydreamed about catching him and taking him home with me. I didn't. I don't know whose meal he ended up being. THIS is what I think about.
I think about the maze bridge and the river and the willow tree and the way it feels (has always felt) to run full speed down the halls at my dad's church when the building was empty. You could start on the carpet of the altar up front and push off and sprint through the sanctuary and through the double doors and down the hall ahead. If you wore socks you could stop your legs but keep going at speed, all the way down into the door at the end. The mat would stop me a second before I'd fall forward into the doorframe. I can think of how that smells. And I think: I'll be cold. In one week I'll be sleeping in the red room in the Bed of Sleep, and I'll be by myself and I'll be cold.
I have been drinking my coffee black because I have been getting over sugar (it's an amicable breakup).
And I miss my brother. I really, really, really miss my brother. I'll leave the parentheses off that last one because if I got started I'd run on about needing irreverence and rhythmic tapping hands and the attack of Nova Scotia and a baseline for the harmony that springs up when my family is together. I mean that literally. I mean I miss his low notes.
When I plan ahead I start wondering about claws and brown fur--I'm going to be a lion one week from today. I start wondering about one week from today + twelve hours, when I'll be unloading into the house that has already been sold and spending the second-to-last weekend ever in the red room at the left end of the upstairs hallway. I dreamed last night, in one of the few hours my eyes were closed, of the pond in the park behind the church behind the house. There's an island in the middle, and I used to cross over the bridge and slide between the bushes at the far side of the island and watch a family of seven baby ducks. It's been years, and I still seize up when I think of those ducks, because over the days that summer their number kept dwindling. One day there was only one. I named him Pip because I liked the sharp, cute sound of those Ps and I daydreamed about catching him and taking him home with me. I didn't. I don't know whose meal he ended up being. THIS is what I think about.
I think about the maze bridge and the river and the willow tree and the way it feels (has always felt) to run full speed down the halls at my dad's church when the building was empty. You could start on the carpet of the altar up front and push off and sprint through the sanctuary and through the double doors and down the hall ahead. If you wore socks you could stop your legs but keep going at speed, all the way down into the door at the end. The mat would stop me a second before I'd fall forward into the doorframe. I can think of how that smells. And I think: I'll be cold. In one week I'll be sleeping in the red room in the Bed of Sleep, and I'll be by myself and I'll be cold.
10.20.2009
me
Every once in a while I run headlong into my outlines. The edges to my blob of being. I did that again just now when I was digging and found a phrase I wrote four years ago: 'The thing I want most in the world right now is a hug and complete solitude in which to receive it.'
stasis
I watched the walk-away, and tried to imagine what he was thinking. 'This is unbalanced! I'm not on a bicycle! She must have watched the clock!' I bet I was wrong on all counts.
Through a tangled route I heard from someone other than my mom that my great uncle had died. I found his obituary online and looked at the photo of him. His sister is the grandma of mine who died when I was four, and of whom my memories are only warmth, butterscotch chip oatmeal cookies, and blue beads. It's another sort of unbalance, not like I meant above, to be so separate from two generations ago. It's been a year, maybe more, since my other grandma has known who I am. I'm not sad. I should be.
I cut myself this morning and bled in a line. I always think I'll remember this! but no, not yet.
Through a tangled route I heard from someone other than my mom that my great uncle had died. I found his obituary online and looked at the photo of him. His sister is the grandma of mine who died when I was four, and of whom my memories are only warmth, butterscotch chip oatmeal cookies, and blue beads. It's another sort of unbalance, not like I meant above, to be so separate from two generations ago. It's been a year, maybe more, since my other grandma has known who I am. I'm not sad. I should be.
I cut myself this morning and bled in a line. I always think I'll remember this! but no, not yet.
10.19.2009
noch einmal
Up too late again. Still not tired. Will regret this in the morning. But.
I guess you don't get it until you get it.
I guess you don't get it until you get it.
10.17.2009
on my mark
If ever there was a day for refusing to speak, for counting the tiny hairs that run along the back of my wrist. Brushing the dead weight on my chest off to the side, pouring the unmatched coffee back into the pot. I hear echoes of a guttural growling, and then realize it's because there's a bird perched on the bush under my window. I've been sitting here for two hours waiting for the chronology to reset, waiting for four years ago to line up with today. I have sore muscles--stiff, at least--and a lack of foresight and
I think,
I'm running away
for the day.
I think,
I'm running away
for the day.
10.15.2009
the problem with rain
The problem with a late afternoon full of rain is that it makes me feel like curling up in bed with a book. The problem with that is bed + book + purring kitten asleep on chest = nap. And this becomes a problem when I wake up from the nap with an inflated sense of energy. Which in turn causes me to decide to spend the evening out instead of in, which becomes a problem when an evening out involves being with my boyfriend and being with him makes me want to be even more with him, which becomes a problem when I realize it's already well after 11:00, damnit, and this is a big problem because after I've pulled myself away from him, by the time I'm back home I am WIDE AWAKE AGAIN and all I want to do is eat peanut butter straight from the jar (PROBLEM) or maybe watch tv for a while or pick up my leather-bound journal or a book or or or but it's past midnight and all these little problems have added up to one huuuge one, and that's the fact that I have to get up early tomorrow and I need my sleep, folks--I don't function well on less than seven hours a night--and too freaking late, kiddo.
I REGRET NOTHING.
I REGRET NOTHING.
10.14.2009
patter
The silver kitten--the not-Oliver, the bane of the gray cat's existence--fits in through the biggest hole in the upended milk crate I use as computer table. Barely. He's growing at such a rate that if he ever takes a nap while he's inside, he'll be stuck. You'd like to make that a lesson, wouldn't you?
10.13.2009
feeling bruised
I've forgotten the laws of physics, or maybe everything has shifted a few centimeters to the left and I stayed still. Either way, the world is full of sharp edges today and I'm running into them all.
10.09.2009
quick, before it hardens
Here I am dripping with sap. So am going for a twilit walk to let the sap run down and form pools in the places I leave behind.
all-at-once
In my head is the silver balloon bigger than the silver kitten
and
the pile of papers I've lined up on my floor
(I will never be rich!)
It's my three year workaversary
I thought it was fitting that this was the morning the storage area in the basement was flooded with coffee.
I took the scenic route home because today is a scene
and
I'm pleased by how well I was trained by my 6th grade English teacher to say, when someone asks for me by name on the phone, 'this is she.'
Today I had a taste of the autumn-euphoria that I catch every year. But it's different this year. I am impatient.
and
the pile of papers I've lined up on my floor
(I will never be rich!)
It's my three year workaversary
I thought it was fitting that this was the morning the storage area in the basement was flooded with coffee.
I took the scenic route home because today is a scene
and
I'm pleased by how well I was trained by my 6th grade English teacher to say, when someone asks for me by name on the phone, 'this is she.'
Today I had a taste of the autumn-euphoria that I catch every year. But it's different this year. I am impatient.
10.06.2009
Oliver
I have been collecting good feelings today. The first one happened the moment I awoke--there was something very glad-to-be-alive about this morning. And there were other good feelings throughout my day... correctness and ease and completion. But the best, easily, is the feeling I've got trapped in my ribcage right now: I am wanted. This is the best. I say this even after I've ended my evening watching a sweet little gray striped kitten methodically explore its new home. He's a scientist, I think, and clever and he likes me--he walked along the length of my leg and curled up on my hip as I lay on the floor studying him. I might have said 'there's nothing better than a kitten!' But I don't know, today I still maintain that he came in second.
10.05.2009
the rebound
I'm needing to erase.
So I'll say that there was all this layered gold as I drove over the mountain at 7:00 this morning. Sheets and sheets of new sun on top of blue mountains and drifting white fog. I pulled over at a scenic overlook. I started to use my camera before I realized that I should instead use my eyes. I'd already gotten out of the car twice before the overlook. But at least I drove the whole way home in one stretch.
Work today was a gift, and I know this because I had enough fleeting free time to create a birthday banner with clip art flowers.
I got home ok. I atoned a little. I ate well. I'm going to be well-set for the rest of the evening. There will be couch and there will be a banana with peanut butter in about thirty minutes. In the meantime, I have a letter to write and I have some history to transcribe (I take my own dictation), and I'm going to play nurse and let myself drift to sleep without losing hold of my mind first.
God, it really is true that I have been blessed.
So I'll say that there was all this layered gold as I drove over the mountain at 7:00 this morning. Sheets and sheets of new sun on top of blue mountains and drifting white fog. I pulled over at a scenic overlook. I started to use my camera before I realized that I should instead use my eyes. I'd already gotten out of the car twice before the overlook. But at least I drove the whole way home in one stretch.
Work today was a gift, and I know this because I had enough fleeting free time to create a birthday banner with clip art flowers.
I got home ok. I atoned a little. I ate well. I'm going to be well-set for the rest of the evening. There will be couch and there will be a banana with peanut butter in about thirty minutes. In the meantime, I have a letter to write and I have some history to transcribe (I take my own dictation), and I'm going to play nurse and let myself drift to sleep without losing hold of my mind first.
God, it really is true that I have been blessed.
10.04.2009
DAMMIT.
MASSIVE FRIENDSHIP FAIL.
I meant to be in bed an hour ago... tomorrow I have an early morning full of needles. But here I am, peeled back and human and clearly, for the last time, unable to juggle.
I meant to be in bed an hour ago... tomorrow I have an early morning full of needles. But here I am, peeled back and human and clearly, for the last time, unable to juggle.
10.03.2009
Oktober
The gray cat is sneezing all over my green afghan--the one I made to mimic my mom's dark brown afghan that used to be the roof to all our living room forts. You could see out through the holes. Lie on your back and pretend the points of lights through the dark yarn were stars.
I was all set to spend the afternoon with Lis and oompah music, but one of those components just sliced off the tip of her finger.
And. I am trying not to focus on negatives on a day like today (do you want to know how my today began? Or how my yesterday ended? You'd envy me). But I AM, ANYWAY. I am looking at bottles of pills. And thinking about cake. And I am resenting myself for being so internal when I know full well that I need to learn to reach out again.
I'm restless. And needy. And impatient. And using the word 'and' too much. I think it gives me a false sense of connection, when in reality I'm really more of a here then there with no explanation for the change type of girl. I think if I stood up and stretched my arms toward the ceiling and moved around a bit I'd be happier.
I was all set to spend the afternoon with Lis and oompah music, but one of those components just sliced off the tip of her finger.
And. I am trying not to focus on negatives on a day like today (do you want to know how my today began? Or how my yesterday ended? You'd envy me). But I AM, ANYWAY. I am looking at bottles of pills. And thinking about cake. And I am resenting myself for being so internal when I know full well that I need to learn to reach out again.
I'm restless. And needy. And impatient. And using the word 'and' too much. I think it gives me a false sense of connection, when in reality I'm really more of a here then there with no explanation for the change type of girl. I think if I stood up and stretched my arms toward the ceiling and moved around a bit I'd be happier.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)