fuh

Today's self is brought to you by the letter F and the word 'hey' in three different inflections.

neck-deep

I fell on my ass, I don't know, six times today. But it was always into a pile of dry, woodily sweet oak leaves and it was never without family at my side, falling right along with me. Hours later when I'm still wiping leaf dust off my cheek and pulling stems from socks, I think--I just had one of those days, didn't I? I think you could have heard our laughter rolling all through the valley. I think it was exactly right.

before I burst

I am thirsty and drowning.

graced

Have so much to be thankful for. We could start with the way I felt when I woke from a nap on my parents' couch this evening. Drool drying on my cheek, afghan balled up at my feet. I had fallen asleep feeling ragged and feverish and when I woke my head had cleared. This is the magic of parents living twelve miles from me. Five days and I'm already a convert. I could keep going with gratitude. I could close my eyes and transpose myself into any number of warm, welcoming living rooms surrounded by friends and family. Could count the many ways I fit to the inch into the job I've had for three years. Could pat lovingly the new bike in the garage that is now mine. It has a horn on it shaped like a rhinoceros head. I could begin to tell you how thankful I am for my ears and eyes, for the music I absorb and the art I try to create. I could say, there's this hill and that tree, and the way the grass feels under bare feet in the summer. I am thankful for water. Bright colors. Strong arms. For the smell of a piano and the taste of a Sunday morning. I am so, so thankful for long distance love and friends and people in my blood who delight in me as much as I do them. And I'm thankful for this: this is not the first Thanksgiving I have loved, but it is the first Thanksgiving I have been in love. It is like the exhale after a long-held breath and I am complete. I am blessed.

payback is a bitch

If there's a word for today, for the consistency of my brain and the soupy movements of my limbs, it's muzzy. I am muzzy.

a whole set

I had a yes in my heart and I was thinking: it really is fantastic to have so many senses with which to experience it.

this will be a little pitiful right up to the last part

I have made the six hour drive up to what used to be home twice in the past month, and this time was officially the last. R and I drove up through pouring rain Thursday evening. And we spent all day (ALL DAY) Friday packing the hell out of that big ramblin' house that used to be ours. And loading the hell into a gigantor moving truck. Fifteen hours of stress and heavy lifting will wear a body out. Especially as I forgot to communicate to my sister that the M&M dispenser mom had in the living room? THAT WAS WHAT WAS KEEPING ME GOING and she packed it away and it was buried under another layer of boxes in the bottom of the truck before I realized it was missing. We had help. Yeah, we had amazing, perfectly timed help. Could not have been better people at better moments--it was exactly who we needed down to the minute. BUT WE ALL WORKED REALLY HARD. And then slept on the floor, because the beds were long since lashed in and buried. Woke early again. So much more to be done. It was twenty six years worth right there. And the dust it left behind. Mid-morning the cat and I left in my dad's old mail car. She cried the entire time and I'm not sure if it was commiseration or just general drippiness, but I did, too. For half a state, tears were leaking out of the corners of my eyes. I hate that I can be such a sap. I also love it. There was a huge crew waiting to help out at my parents' new house. So many friendly faces and strong arms. We made short work of the unloading, and soon twenty six years worth was all inside the new walls. I hid in the master bathroom with the cat while some of the bigger stuff moved on through. I think we'd bonded over our shared hysteria. I read an article about America's first malls once and I remember that the first few to be built included specially designed calm rooms. They called them 'silence rooms for nerve-tired shoppers.' Yes. I was nerve-tired. My brother spilled a paper cup full of beef stew down the front of him. The dog licked it off. And then he and I drove the ten minutes into town and I had 45 minutes to shower and make it over to meet with the orchestra conductor to go over tricky sections in tonight's concert. I only played in the second half, so you know what I did? When the concert began I made my way up to the very top of the balcony and I stretched out on my back on the pew, and I closed my eyes and counted the muscles in me that were sore and the ones that weren't, and I listened to the chamber orchestra and some jazz and some choral pieces and was in time, was barely in time, getting back downstairs to warm up and check pitch during the intermission. The music was swimming in front of my eyes as I sat on stage. I was surprised when it began and surprised when it ended. It was complete, for the first time. Parents put down the boxes long enough to be there. I realized part of my new role is hitch. I grabbed one end of my parents and pulled it up to community members I think they should know and I jammed them together. I thought all along: as soon as I down this one glass of reception punch, I will walk back home. I will speedwalk back home. And I will run my head under water and I will put a fresh pillowcase on, and I will collapse and sleep for twelve hours or until my muscles unwind, whichever comes first. I didn't. Well, I did speedwalk home. You know how suddenly something like a gong can ring in your head? Inspiration? Clarity of mission? I realized I actually had something besides sleeping that I needed to be doing--something I'd not even considered doing til then. I drove downtown and as I walked up to the building, I heard rhythm and bass and something very solid, and when I walked in and toward the stage, I saw it. Took in the full picture first--the band. Then narrowed my vision down to a single point--the guy with the tenor sax in his hands. Forget just stopping in for a song or two. Once I caught sight and sound of him (I guess I mean 'them,' but not really), I was going to stay. And once he caught sight of me, I had won. Like, a prize. Am a winner. Ding. Several times I shifted like I was about to head out, but I seem to have found a very powerful attractive force and I can't think of anything I didn't like about staying for two and a half hours and feeling all my stiffness and tired nerves start to dance. Especially when he'd shoot me a look that was the from-stage equivalent of the kiss he gave me when they took a break and when I finally at the end, after the end, said goodnight. So I had said even before the orchestra concert that I was worn entirely out, and I think I was. Am. But I deserve absolutely no pity for the fact that I'm still awake. I think I worked for three days straight to earn the right to abandon absolutely everything else aside from that pure, delicious funk. Mmmhmm.

I can do this.

I am not apologizing for staying up three hours too late. It was reasonable, because my evening made sense. I began it all writing stories and hearing poems around a long, noisy table, and then I sat in a dark car in the rain before I warmed up a little in a bright, ariose bar and then overheated in someone's arms a bit later. It's fair that this took hours and it's fair that this is something I wouldn't want to cut short.
There's really no weighing the justice of what is coming next. I can't say whether or not it's fair to be leaving from work today to drive the last time to the old home and to be there as it is ripped and wiped clean. And to be one ripping and cleaning.
My reaction to the idea of this is varied. On my chart I have spikes of selfish and I have spikes of selfless and at least once I've shut off the first though I didn't want to... I really, really didn't. But, I AM AN ADULT. ADULTS ARE CALM AND PATIENT AND ADULTS DO REASONABLE, RESPONSIBLE THINGS. And, more to that, I am collecting experiences, and even solo this is a good one to add to my list. CHECK.
I know EXACTLY how to make it the six hour drive with my sister tonight: the boxed cd set of 90s pop I snagged from the library and a midway stop for Taco Bell and I know EXACTLY how to get back home in one piece (without my sister, but with a cat, in a car that smells of gasoline and mail): one last iced coffee (cream, no sugar) from the Dunkin Donuts on the corner, really loud mood music (to block out the sound of the cat's semi-drugged panic) and anticipation for What Comes Next.

I'm hoping I autopilot well

I just (opened my eyes) shook my head and realized it's 3:00. It comes as a surprise because my day has? not been made of task and completion--it's been made of Bless Yous and delighted cupcake eyes and a pile of sand pouring from the binding of a book on child psychology. This is good--this is why I am who I am. I wonder if it's enough, and I wonder if the reason I am lacking is the sugar build up under my fingernails or the empty mug.

working late

I am not
worried
but what I have here between my thumb and forefinger is a marble worry stone direct from Connemara.
It's keeping me grounded in Touch
as the rest of my evening is spiraling away in Feel.

renewed

This evening was cathartic.
I bought funfetti cake mix and listened to soul music and played soul music and
sorted laundry and finished leftovers and
played yahtzee and
told a love story from my angle and
had a taste of burn-your-lungs moonshine and
a taste of needed (much much) reason and
perspective! and
maybe it's time to be as selfish as that! and
I loved the faces around the table especially the one on my right and
I'm sleeping alone
but he's coming back.

(mute)

I am having to bite my tongue to keep from ripping it out and handing it to you.

balance

I am walking a knife's edge today. Very little to stop me from toppling off to the left into a big steaming pile of OMFG I CAN'T DO THIS. But I do have coping strategies. A violin concerto, for example. And my own advice.

ctrl+v

I have been without an 'o' key on my laptop for too long. I know this because just now at my work computer I typed this sentence: 'I lcodifyingcodifyingk fcodifyingrward tcodifying hearing frcodifyingm ycodifyingu.'

because it needs to be said

I am in love.

morning song

I think this is the most reliable high point of my week--the Sunday morning one. I wake and immediately my problems are tiny and my possibilities are endless. I am happy. Helped enormously by a cup of coffee (accidentally too weak this time), my second-hand fluffy pink bathrobe (I always suspected I could be a bathrobe person), the smooth feel of my arms and legs, and the anticipation of a whole free day ahead in good company under a sunny sky.

self

My sense of self has been, these past seven days, I don't know. Everywhere.
Last weekend someone I'd met only hours before gave me a check for $500 to help cover medical bills. I have never ever felt I deserve something like this. Twice this week I have been strong enough to stand behind words I'd written and call them mine, and twice, strong enough to claim beauty as my intended result. I've swallowed down lumps in my throat the size of a fist and swallowed down pure mouthfuls of love--the type I always thought I'd have to bargain for, but no! It's just been given! I have been Not Good Enough and Not Reaching Far Enough and I have also been Exactly Right. I have not replaced the ripped bike tire. I am not going to. I have played through half a hymnal at a piano keyboard and wished I'd remembered to say thank you one more time to the woman who first showed me middle C. I have been a disaster. Nothing less than an utter failure. I'm stung, but worst still, stinging. I am going to just hope that the smell of decay wafts away. It's true that I am a coward. I'm also taking leaps. I have been a child and a shadow and a lover and a piece of stone and am surprised when I realize this all adds up.

Today I

am pumpkin spice latte and
showing too much sock.

off

I was listening to a sweet thin woman tell me about her new granddaughter, and how, when she is refusing a bottle, she will stiffen her whole body down to her toes and squinch shut her eyes. That is how I'm feeling in regards to today.
It is a flat tire day, and that is both a metaphor and not one.

flip

I'm becoming binary. Off, or on, and I can tell you exactly the when of each.

Life Goes On

I spent yesterday uncovering things. I found a three-page rhyming poem about my great-great-grandfather while I was packing the bookcase. The best part was
There was many a tree that fell at his swing,
The sledge on the wedge through the thicket would ring.

I like to make boundaries distinct. That's why I remember when we crossed the line into New York on Friday night. It was 10:13. I was curled to the left in the back seat of the car and when we passed the welcome sign, I slapped my hands down onto my legs. I think I'll always do that. I'll do it late this evening (probably 10:13 again) when we're passing the border going south.

In a few hours will be my dad's last sermon here and the last afternoon and then the goodbye party that's been in the works for months. They've said the first announcement was heartbreaking and doubly so because they could see dad was stifling his excitement. Now they say they've realized Life Goes On, and they will be excited in the same way we will. There will still be tears. I am ready for it. I don't often like to be the center of attention, but today I will be and today I am learning to revel in it, and stand up straighter because of it.