puh-puh-puh

On a morning like this I'm glad I became a coffee drinker, I tell my shredded wheat. Am indebted to the roommate who makes it for me on weekends. The shredded wheat doesn't comment. Neither does Lady Gaga. I have her singing in the background. I don't know... clever idea for a Sunday morning? I am in need of stimulation to make up for the short sleep and bright blue skies.

I'm absolutely positive that yesterday was the best day of the month. Just in time to reset the clock.

the day fills with sunlight

I'm having lunch today with one of my fiercest defenders. She never has let the negatives in me outweigh the positives. This is how she proves me right: 'because I love you, April.'

Those words are familiar because I've heard them again. Last night, in a (dumbly) lower spirited voice I'd asked, 'why are you so good to me??' and he answered, 'because I love you.'

purge

Ah, shit. I think I just got hit with a burst of maturity. Or minimalism. I am suddenly irritated by the phalanx of whimsy on my desk: the neon slinky, the silly putty egg, the little gummy man shaped like a heart, the felt goldfinch with the sheriff hat. I open my bottom desk drawer and sweep them all inside. I feel a stab of loss a minute later but refuse to take them back out. I... have overflowed my recycle bin today.

keep yourself within yourself

The strap of the bag I wear over my shoulder as I walk to work leaves a mark across my chest. It fades within an hour. My skin is plain again about the time I'm finishing my morning cup of coffee. I make it strong and I drink it black. Not because I am proving anything. Although I can understand why you'd think that.

Today I am distracted by the worry that I am too selfish, and that this selfishness is somehow inherent. I mean not so much that I refuse to share objects or that I refuse to lend a hand... rather, I am selfish in this way: I don't know how to share myself. I don't know how to look you in the eye and trust you enough to hear my stories and carry them on. I am not unusual in this. Don't we all have a locked safe in our chests? I just worry that mine came without hinges.

AFTER "CHARMING"

...because charm is like love
the way ice is like water

Because to love is to bring water
carried in your hands,
most is squandered along the way,
making it impossible to offer
what you began with.

Because the method is slow and clumsy,
repeatedly not satisfying,
it begins to feel like empty work
only sometimes redeemed
by tripping and losing everything.

And because sometimes the tongue
drinking from the hand forgets
its orginal want and strays
across the palm to the pulse,
tasting a salt path to the inside elbow,

the original metaphor gets consumed
and love changes.
Because love changes its words,
trimming them expertly and close,
we say the wind has changed around it.

And because we see through the explanation
to its contradiction
the way a tongue can be thirsty and not be at once,
we trace opposites in a breath-clouded mirror
which is another way of not explaining need.

And because need is like love
only half the time, the other half
of love must be different, but not necessarily
opposite, because need has no opposite in language
since language does not name what it does not know.

Though we know ice can't live where water
does, though ice in the hand
is no ice,
because water is either with you or falling,
because falling water always knows where it is falling to.

~Suzanne Matson

good morrrning

I woke up this morning thinking, citrus! and above freezing! and don't stop me now! I was also thinking that my alarm sounded manly and that the puddle of drool on my pillow was just ridiculous, y'all. Ridiculous.

through my nose

The rider before me in the snug little elevator in the library stacks smelled of dead leaves and sweat.

ENTERING

Moonscape of snow at night.
To die, to crash,

could be a crush of snow.
All softness.

I imagine, driving alone,
being enveloped by snow, crashed into, quickly.

The mice must have these visions.
Talking quietly when they can't sleep

about tunneling in endless grain until, full of it,
completely enveloped by it, peacefully, it takes them.


~Laura Cronk

I'm sure I'm in here somewhere

So today is the day that I've dedicated to kicking bags I thought were empty but are in fact holding a heavy glass bottle.

It's also a day I am feeling stupid about. My morning was ridiculous because I woke at 6:00 and because I wasn't actually myself until 10:00. And then I found where (I am 90% sure) my sister and I will live in ten weeks. Well, that's not stupid. But sometimes doesn't it feel... I don't know? when the answer is practically given to you? SO MUCH OF MY LIFE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO ME. In this new place, we will have an excellent neighbor and there will be 100% less chance of unfamiliar voices in my living room. Then, I paid bills and bought stock and car decals and later I drove off and sat in a parking lot and ate a taco and listened to Sarah Mclachlan very loudly and wiped the tear out of the corner of my right eye with a napkin. I was near a thrift store, so I went in, and I hit the motherlode/load of flattering shirts and, naturally, came home and did some laundry. Huh, when I look back like this there's less to hide from. I'm not stupid, I'm just... damnit. I guess it was ok after all. I even had a short hour of kisses with the single most self- and life- and love-affirming person I've ever known. And then a chat with his dad and a meal with his family while he strode around doling out plastic straws and taking orders. I dunno, I was proud. The kind of tip I'd like to give for that kind of service? Mmm. There was a lady at the restaurant who made me and all of my coworkers a piece of fudge in the shape of a heart for Valentine's Day. I saw her across the room and my mouth watered, it was that good. I walked over to say thanks and it surprised me (it ALWAYS SURPRISES ME) when she smiled and greeted me by name.
I'm home again, listening to the hum of the dryer, emptying out the bag that keeps tripping me. Still feel slower than normal. Feel ungainly and unappealing. Feel stuck-in-limbo.
I am having one of those phases again where I wish I could close my eyes really tightly and open them again and have it be May.

record

I found a voice recording of my New Year's resolutions for 2009. I didn't remember that it existed until I stumbled upon it by accident in an unused folder on my computer, the file sticking out from the series of half-recordings of myself at a piano I've made over the years. I have all these pointless little recordings of myself making a pianioic mess. I get started with my fingers on the keys, it's a good musical thought, and then mid-song (if you could call it a song) something grates, or I tire of the key, and I stop. I don't even finish the phrase. I'm done. I was letting these play in background yesterday while I sorted pants in my room. Fits, doesn't fit, gross, isn't gross. I've never actually listened to any of these half-recordings the whole way through--I half-listen to the half-recordings maybe once. I sound like a quitter. But anyway, in between these minute long clips of keyboard there was this six minute monologue I'd recorded more than a year ago. I don't speak. It's not how I communicate best and it's not easy for me to fill six minutes with my own spoken words. So it was surprising to hear myself, to hear my voice flow out like that for a long unbroken period. I'm not sure if I can describe the way it made me feel to hear what I'd said to myself about myself and about the twelve months ahead of me--the ones I have just finished living. In a way it was like listening to a stranger and in a way I know there's no one else who could hear that and understand. So many things hanging in the air there that I'd promised myself and promised others... and that I ended up letting fall away. But also, I did do... I did do a lot more than I expected. There are a lot of ways in which 2009 was the end of things and a lot of ways in which it was just the beginning. I surprised myself. I want to tell the voice on the recording that. I want to tell her I will be a surprise.

lost things

I think I saw a timetraveler in the library today. Straight out of 1992. I look through old yearbooks; I would know. The first clue was the haircut, but what sealed it was the stack of books open in on the desk in front of him with no cell phone, laptop, or ipod in sight. It gave me the reverse-creeps.

Also today I saw three dirty silver earrings ground into the pavement under my feet as I walked to and from work. One was a four leaf clover, one was a daisy, and the third was a tiny round loop. This may be a portent but it's probably not.

Just like the other brisk slap I received today, a return to the drawing board, a change of key signature. It is so much littler than I think it is. All will be well. Eventually.

love

Oh, this makes me so happy. I could post the eventual conclusion, which, you know, by take four or five, sounded whole. But I am so much more into this outtake than the end product. Because! Well, it should be obvious, but I love my family so damn much.

I had a two hour lunch today with the brother of mine who always answers my questions and matches my rhythms without prompting. We have a club, the Miller Siblings Who Are Currently Dating Someone Awesome Club, and he and I sat and ate warm pretzels dipped in spicy mustard and counted pennies and talked about his heart and mine and where they're going.

I forget sometimes just how amazing it is that I have such warmth and laughter in my life, so much of it way beyond even the realm of my understanding. I mean, it is almost Valentine's Day, and even though the date itself is arbitrary, lord, I have so much to love and am so loved. It was something I'd asked for--sometimes explicitly, but mostly just in sub-thought and sub-hope--the close family and beautiful friends, and definitely, definitely the lover I’ve found--a man delightful and extradimensional and frank, who comes in from the cold to kiss me goodnight and carries me away. When he first told me he loves me my reaction was ‘… you’re crazy.’ But he is telling the truth, and moreover, when I look into his eyes and say the same, so am I. We spent last night in front of a fireplace full of lit candles, and I know how lucky I am, how blessed to have someone like this to read my thoughts and echo them with his own. Ah, ah bless.

half of what I say is meaningless but I say it just to reach you

I'm learning more about the muscles contained in me these days. In my neck, for instance, which is today encased in an unfortunate tan sweater. The neck of the sweater is making my own feel face-down in sand. But that's just the surface. Yesterday I became aware of what's inside, of my scalene and my levator scapulae muscles. I met them all as I lay, gormless, on a massage table. I wouldn't say that I make an ideal living model for my in-home massage practitioner-in-training, but I will say that I have in the past year lost quite a bit of any previous bashfulness I have had when it comes to my own body. I am aware that I am far from perfect—as body, as soul, as mind—but this does not have to prevent me from feeling whole and comfortable. I am, in my way, beautiful. And so, I don't mind laying bare on the table and letting my roommate's strong fingers search through and under my skin. She always acts as if I'm doing her a favor, but it's kind of in reverse, isn't it?

I was at work for a handful of extra hours yesterday and will be again today. I haven't yet added up minutes or numbers, and they might be alarming, but I can say that somehow I am maintaining a state of calm. The pile-up of missed work because of all the snow is overwhelming and I am not overwhelmed. In a way, this is what I've asked for.

I have had The Beatles' song Julia looping through my head for hours. It can only be helping my appreciation of the lovely in today.

stuck

This winter is pissing me off. I woke up a minute ago to a text alert telling me today is ANOTHER snow day. I am IN THE WRONG PLACE. I am biting back a dull panic at the prospect of how much worse catching up will be after yet another day's work is stacked behind my stacks of days to set right. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I relish about the prospect of another day spent at home. If I wasn't so angry at the skies I might bless the chance to stay in bed until noon, but I am not going to find sleep an easy escape--the blood in my veins is throbbing too loudly. Get out of my way, snow and ice and disruption and caged-animal-eyes.

beh.

I am smashing my fingers into my teeth.

Should not resent things like, a break for coffee and a break for sparkling cider, or an empty kitchen and the heater on full blast, but I did today and will tomorrow. Have so much to do when I'm not at home and nothing at all when I am. Especially if there's more snow. If there's more snow, I've done this all wrong.
There was a highlight of today--I left work late (late late late!) and had company for a few blocks of my walk through the thick snowflakes--this was welcome, both the company and the way the snowflakes melted against my cheeks!--and then I poked around in a small burrow of an apartment and followed the way the floorboards all slanted toward one corner. Thinking: I could be happy here. Ten minutes later I stood in the doorway of a locked up elementary school and I made the call to say I'd live in your house if you'll have me. I am maintaining a neutral line because I did not call first dibs. I am maintaining a neutral line because chances are I'll have to start over again. I am doing this for my sister because I could take the weight of failure.
My mood this evening is... a long bath didn't help, and my shoulders are still sore from shoveling this weekend and, well, that's not done. My mood tonight is ugliness and jealousy and curiosity; it's I would slap your hand away and I need you.

cloister

witness

A minute ago I was just sitting in my room, legs crossed, tossing chocolate chips one by one into my mouth, when the large sheet of bubble wrap on the very top of my shelves began to slide. I watched it shift and pick up speed, and didn't miss any of its inevitable fall to the floor six feet below. I think I am grateful that it waited through a whole weekend of me being away before gravity got the best of it, because I was here to see the way it drifted to the right as it fell and settled at an angle against the base of my chair.

snOMG

Such a potpourri of what-I-choose for this weekend. The snow that measures up to my hips hasn't limited me. Have chosen to participate in tripping over snowbanks in a pair of my mom's too short fleece pants and $7 boots. Have burrowed into the middle of the front lawn, reminding myself just how nice the close cocoon of deep snow can feel. Have tracked clots of snow back into the house with me, spraying wetness off my legs and shoulders just the way the dog does. Have also spent hours--HOURS--sitting at the window watching the snow birds dart up to and around the birdfeeder. The length of this is particularly impressive for me, who struggles to sit still long enough to watch an entire movie or read more than a dozen pages of a book. But those birds! I cannot get enough of their tiny round bodies and quizzical hops. They never bore me! I can't help but pick favorites. Mom and I got halfway through a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. I've exhausted my entire repertoire of appropriate chords on the piano. I've used a soup ladle to clear snow off the windowsills and I've taken afternoon naps and long snowy wet walks down my parents' country road. It has been three days since I've bothered to put in my contact lenses, and two since I've bothered to put on a bra. I've been eating grilled cheese sandwiches and have stuffed whole handfuls of snow into my mouth, because there's nothing quite like that. I want to light a fire in the fireplace. I think I will this evening, with dad's help, and I'll sit and crochet and watch the flames. Like when watching the birds, I won't have inner timers going off at intervals. I could stay for hours.

snowed in

I made the [bold] [iffy] [self-indulgent] decision to ride out this next blast of February snow at my parents' house. Sometime after midnight last night I tossed a few bags into the trunk of my car and drove out and up until I was kicking snow off my boots and fumbling around for the spare key hidden out back. I let myself in and kissed the sleeping cat on her furry forehead and slid into the bed in my mom's sewing room. I'll be safe here. My phone buzzed a few hours later. University is closed. I knew it would be. I've spent this morning watching dark-eyed juncos dancing around the birdfeeder by the dining room window. They stand out so well against the snow, the little coal gray birds with the round white bellies. I can't see much further out the window than the birdfeeder. The mountains are all blending into the sky and it's all the strange white of snow.

The good of this is: mom and dad and sister and pets and soft brown couch, among other things. The bad of it all is, well, I packed in a hurry and didn't bring some things along. I mean there are little things I missed, like my vitamins. And there's a big thing. My boyfriend.

I

I always pause, momentarily displaced, when someone doesn't remember my name. It just happened a minute ago-- a coworker I rarely run into had me confused with someone else. 'I'm looking for April.' 'That's me!' 'You're not April... wait, are you?' For that quick second I believed her and had to search around inside of me to figure out who I am, then.
No, no wait. I remember now. I am.
I think my self concept is always going to be fluid. It has a habit of shifting--as everyone's does! At least these days I do know that I have a shape, a form, a face. I was in middle school before I believed that I looked the same from day to day, that anyone would be able to close their eyes and picture my face unless I was standing right in front of them.
I'm not wearing my contacts today. Or my glasses. So perhaps that's why I'm feeling less specific than normal--when I look in the mirror I blend inwards.

this is not crazy, this is personal looseness

Universe, your time and space is unimpressive. I'm not there. I'm... feeling vague and extratemporial. I can say that. This is a day when it made so much sense to stop halfway to work and sit down on the snowy sidewalk because, one foot after the other? No. I didn't. I'm finishing off the remains of my thumbnails. I have a cowlick, and prickly armpits. I just realized that it's been more than a year since the time I hung up a greeting card above my desk and said to myself, it would be acceptable to throw this away in a week, but I didn't.
There is a book with sepia-toned pictures on my desk and it is bothering me. BOTHERING me.
I somehow have lost two hours of my day--maybe they slipped by as I was glaring at sepia photos or maybe when I was sitting at the window and talking to myself and to you about all the layers of this shaken-world snow. I can't wait to stand out in it again and can't wait until it melts.
Today, just, it's weird. I have not been hungry at the right times, I haven't been facing forward when my name was called.

blissed

I have a lot of wonderful in my life. I could go all out and make a list, but it would stretch far beyond the edges of this page. Maybe I could sum it up in one breath: ten minutes ago, dusted with friendship and good smells, I was curled up in the living room to listen and laugh, and as I sat--feeling secure and lovely, feeling chosen and satisfied--I ate the sweetest, juiciest orange and, smiling, I put the peels into the empty mug that had earlier held peppermint hot chocolate.