This is the only place on earth that makes me feel guilty about wearing my headphones. What is there to drown out here? There are no bicycle bells or car horns. No one us trying to sell me anything or ask me for anything. No awkward strangers. No sirens, but the trees. Not even an airplane to break the silence. Which leads me to the sad conclusion that what I truly seek to drown out is probably just me. There are too many moving parts and I need music to distract the ones that buzz and get in the way.
You can only write one thought at a time.
But then, being here makes me want to put the pen down and stare at the siren trees. I can't even tell what the real distraction is here.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
It's a start....
On May 24th, 2005, in the heavy-humid dark, with no understanding of what surrounded me, I stepped off of something they call a "cab," paid the quiet man with a wide-brimmed straw hat, and did something that would shape at smallest my twenties and at most honest, the entire rest of my life and who I, it would turn out, am. It took a step. It took a man with a shadowed face named Jordan asking what my story was before he even knew my name. It took one breath.
Man, that first time you walk up those stairs, you have no idea. It had rained the night I got there, and my footing had never been less sure. If I had been able to see what was under the boardwalk, I would have been less scared to soar off. If I had known what was under the boardwalk, I would have been more scared. Catch and keep was not in my vocabulary yet. We trudged up to E3, right next to what would later be my own staff tent, and picked our sides of the two twin beds that had been smushed together. The sheets were damp. Now I understand that Maho sheets are roughly 50 thread count and walls are screens are giant, rain-welcoming holes, and if the night is damp, so are you. At the time, I just thought it was...weird.
But then the morning came. A Maho Bay morning is one of the truest of sacred things, and I would learn in time to be there at 7:20 to drink bad coffee out of a blue cup, resist scratching at my ankles, smell the bacon and discuss who was cooking so we knew whether or not to order the potatoes. But that first morning had not given me time to learn anything and so I was astounded. Truly. I woke up with the sun, as you do when the sun is Caribbean and shines into your eyes before you have even thought about saying good morning. The Caribbean sun does not wait. It has far too much to offer. That very first morning, as a preamble to (let me do some math, here) roughly 1500 more of them, I padded down the boardwalked green, past signs nailed into the splintering rails and felt, I don't know, everything. Like I could fill my lungs, though that may just have been the sea level. Like I was being held by something.
If you get up early enough on a sacred Maho morning, the night is still palpable, touchable. You can feel on your skin that the air was cooler, and you can watch dew evaporate off of the black asphalt road and up into the canopy. The earlier the better. That twilight cool is elusive and quick to warm, and you relish the opportunity to wear that one hoodie that makes you miss the states just a little every time you look at it.
Cool, wet, early mornings start long sticky days and you draw them out until their arms are stretched too wide and you give in to the daytime heat, when you lull through the thick air and trace hibiscus leaves onto beer cooler condensation to pass the slow time. These things I would learn.
Man, that first time you walk up those stairs, you have no idea. It had rained the night I got there, and my footing had never been less sure. If I had been able to see what was under the boardwalk, I would have been less scared to soar off. If I had known what was under the boardwalk, I would have been more scared. Catch and keep was not in my vocabulary yet. We trudged up to E3, right next to what would later be my own staff tent, and picked our sides of the two twin beds that had been smushed together. The sheets were damp. Now I understand that Maho sheets are roughly 50 thread count and walls are screens are giant, rain-welcoming holes, and if the night is damp, so are you. At the time, I just thought it was...weird.
But then the morning came. A Maho Bay morning is one of the truest of sacred things, and I would learn in time to be there at 7:20 to drink bad coffee out of a blue cup, resist scratching at my ankles, smell the bacon and discuss who was cooking so we knew whether or not to order the potatoes. But that first morning had not given me time to learn anything and so I was astounded. Truly. I woke up with the sun, as you do when the sun is Caribbean and shines into your eyes before you have even thought about saying good morning. The Caribbean sun does not wait. It has far too much to offer. That very first morning, as a preamble to (let me do some math, here) roughly 1500 more of them, I padded down the boardwalked green, past signs nailed into the splintering rails and felt, I don't know, everything. Like I could fill my lungs, though that may just have been the sea level. Like I was being held by something.
If you get up early enough on a sacred Maho morning, the night is still palpable, touchable. You can feel on your skin that the air was cooler, and you can watch dew evaporate off of the black asphalt road and up into the canopy. The earlier the better. That twilight cool is elusive and quick to warm, and you relish the opportunity to wear that one hoodie that makes you miss the states just a little every time you look at it.
Cool, wet, early mornings start long sticky days and you draw them out until their arms are stretched too wide and you give in to the daytime heat, when you lull through the thick air and trace hibiscus leaves onto beer cooler condensation to pass the slow time. These things I would learn.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
A Late December Ramble
So you start over. You get a new apartment in a new neighborhood. You move sadly and silently past the old boyfriend and go on dates you're not sure you really want to be on. You remember breath. You watch the calendar creep and move and you're sure you can't stop it but you're not sure how you really feel about that. This is good, right? Newness. You need to learn all the creaks of your home so that it is, just now, home. It is almost January. Almost the time of those resolution things, and you are supposed to look into your hand mirror and pick out the flaws. You are to spot them, positively identify them, and make a tangible, trackable plan to rectify them. Is that supposed to work? Does that work for anyone?
It is a tricky time of year, this. Jingle bells! Joy! Santa hats and eggnog lattes! I love this time of year. I really, really do. I tend toward the annoying side of humanness, living inside car ride dance parties, multi-colored fingernails, googly eyes faces on light switches, etc. My morning alarm is the song, "Good Morning," from Singing in the Rain. Though my writing can be rather melancholy and far too introspective, I love..I don't know...cheer. And late December.
Ooh, but that New Year gets you, doesn't it? This summer was fire, the fall was a blink and winter has just begun, but it is already time to put your thoughts into what you will do with the next June, September, Halloween. We are silly humans. Taking only a few days out of 365 to reflect. Spending the rest of them filling out new planners. I just realized that I do not have plans. It feels shaky. Like those moving bridges in a fun house where the walls move in optical illusion and you have to hold on just to stay upright. It is at once terrifying and awesome, ending in a question mark and an exclamation point. How did I get out of that? I want to go again!
This year is interesting in that a new start does not necessarily mean a new start. It feels new. Everything does. But this is what people do, right? You move out, you break up, you cut your hair, you get to step back from what the year was and decide what to keep and what to throw out, and it's like new paint. It's the same thing, really, but it shines and some of the scratches have been covered up. Historically, my new starts have entailed moving roughly 3,000 miles away from whatever it was that was. There is no fun house about it. It's a footbridge, suspended above clouds and the past and once it has been crossed, it falls.
So. This year. Progress as opposed to leaps. No sharp turns, here. The road I have come down is clearly visible from the one I am on.
Do not be upset by your past, especially if you can see it. Be it the last year or the last decade or an old lifetime, look at it. Hold it. Brush the dust off with your fingertips and look at your new face and be thankful for the wear. Wear is growth is a shrinking staircase. It can be easier to climb when you see both where you were and where you are going. And cheer on this time of year, when reflection is expected, required. Miss what was, love what is, and prep yourself for the funhouse bridge.
It is a tricky time of year, this. Jingle bells! Joy! Santa hats and eggnog lattes! I love this time of year. I really, really do. I tend toward the annoying side of humanness, living inside car ride dance parties, multi-colored fingernails, googly eyes faces on light switches, etc. My morning alarm is the song, "Good Morning," from Singing in the Rain. Though my writing can be rather melancholy and far too introspective, I love..I don't know...cheer. And late December.
Ooh, but that New Year gets you, doesn't it? This summer was fire, the fall was a blink and winter has just begun, but it is already time to put your thoughts into what you will do with the next June, September, Halloween. We are silly humans. Taking only a few days out of 365 to reflect. Spending the rest of them filling out new planners. I just realized that I do not have plans. It feels shaky. Like those moving bridges in a fun house where the walls move in optical illusion and you have to hold on just to stay upright. It is at once terrifying and awesome, ending in a question mark and an exclamation point. How did I get out of that? I want to go again!
This year is interesting in that a new start does not necessarily mean a new start. It feels new. Everything does. But this is what people do, right? You move out, you break up, you cut your hair, you get to step back from what the year was and decide what to keep and what to throw out, and it's like new paint. It's the same thing, really, but it shines and some of the scratches have been covered up. Historically, my new starts have entailed moving roughly 3,000 miles away from whatever it was that was. There is no fun house about it. It's a footbridge, suspended above clouds and the past and once it has been crossed, it falls.
So. This year. Progress as opposed to leaps. No sharp turns, here. The road I have come down is clearly visible from the one I am on.
Do not be upset by your past, especially if you can see it. Be it the last year or the last decade or an old lifetime, look at it. Hold it. Brush the dust off with your fingertips and look at your new face and be thankful for the wear. Wear is growth is a shrinking staircase. It can be easier to climb when you see both where you were and where you are going. And cheer on this time of year, when reflection is expected, required. Miss what was, love what is, and prep yourself for the funhouse bridge.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
What. A. Scrooge.
Right now, I am being mocked by two things: A box of Christmas cards to fill with cheer and the gaping lack of cheer I am feeling. One is making me think of the other. The other is making me think of one. They are a halo of laugh track from a crappy sitcom.
I am one of the most Christmas-y people I know. Last year, the house was lit up (like a Christmas tree?) far too early, with green and red and gold and jingle bells and holiday music on Pandora. A glittering cocoon of cinnamon and pine. If I remember correctly, I even baked Christmas cupcakes for the housekeeping staff, which is an incredible commitment and even more incredible feat from a girl who prefers to make macaroni and cheese in a coffee maker and once tried to microwave an avocado. Ask any roommate I have ever had-- I LOVE Christmas.
So, what the eff, 2012?
I have written a lot about keeping my whimsical little self whimsical. It is a focus of mine, and a worthy one. It is my humble and too loud opinion that most of everyone takes themselves so seriously because that's what most of everyone else does. You can lose yourself if you're not careful. You can get vacuumed up into the world of rent and cell phone bills and tie pins. There's not much light in there. And apparently, there is no where to plug in Christmas lights.
I will be moving soon. To a little city studio by myself. How...real. I think it's freaking me out a little, even though it's just about one of the most exciting things I can imagine. To some extent, though I have been in Denver for a year now, this still feels like a made-up life. As if I will snap out of it and wake up in my tropical little tent, take a cold shower next to a tree frog, spray some deet on my flip-flopped toes and get back to life as usual.
But that's not going to happen.
And the reason Christmas felt so much more like Christmas in a place where it is 85 degrees and you string on your red and white bikini to feel festive is because that place was home. Temporary as it was, it was most definitely home. I have not allowed myself that in Denver. Despite the car purchased, the relationships developed, the mailing address changed, I have not given Denver the go-ahead to call me its own. If you are supposed to be at home for Christmas, but you're not totally sure that you actually have one of those, it makes some amount of sense to be in a holiday limbo.
So. Goal for the rest of this warmth-scented season, which I have spent my entire life completely in love with, is this, which is the essentially the same one I always have: Be here. Live here. Without my chest collapsing on my heart from the pressure of a sepia past and a blind future.
And decorate my new house like a Christmas bomb.
And write those damned cards.
I am one of the most Christmas-y people I know. Last year, the house was lit up (like a Christmas tree?) far too early, with green and red and gold and jingle bells and holiday music on Pandora. A glittering cocoon of cinnamon and pine. If I remember correctly, I even baked Christmas cupcakes for the housekeeping staff, which is an incredible commitment and even more incredible feat from a girl who prefers to make macaroni and cheese in a coffee maker and once tried to microwave an avocado. Ask any roommate I have ever had-- I LOVE Christmas.
So, what the eff, 2012?
I have written a lot about keeping my whimsical little self whimsical. It is a focus of mine, and a worthy one. It is my humble and too loud opinion that most of everyone takes themselves so seriously because that's what most of everyone else does. You can lose yourself if you're not careful. You can get vacuumed up into the world of rent and cell phone bills and tie pins. There's not much light in there. And apparently, there is no where to plug in Christmas lights.
I will be moving soon. To a little city studio by myself. How...real. I think it's freaking me out a little, even though it's just about one of the most exciting things I can imagine. To some extent, though I have been in Denver for a year now, this still feels like a made-up life. As if I will snap out of it and wake up in my tropical little tent, take a cold shower next to a tree frog, spray some deet on my flip-flopped toes and get back to life as usual.
But that's not going to happen.
And the reason Christmas felt so much more like Christmas in a place where it is 85 degrees and you string on your red and white bikini to feel festive is because that place was home. Temporary as it was, it was most definitely home. I have not allowed myself that in Denver. Despite the car purchased, the relationships developed, the mailing address changed, I have not given Denver the go-ahead to call me its own. If you are supposed to be at home for Christmas, but you're not totally sure that you actually have one of those, it makes some amount of sense to be in a holiday limbo.
So. Goal for the rest of this warmth-scented season, which I have spent my entire life completely in love with, is this, which is the essentially the same one I always have: Be here. Live here. Without my chest collapsing on my heart from the pressure of a sepia past and a blind future.
And decorate my new house like a Christmas bomb.
And write those damned cards.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
On Happiness, and Eyelid Movie Theaters
Happiness is not leisure. Nor is it upward mobility or delivery sushi or blushing Instagram photos of every day life made to look more beautiful and interesting and more like art glowing from an Otterbox frame. Happiness is not a sparkling ring or a sparkling kitchen. It is not bragging rights. It is not sepia. It is not the perfect man or the perfect woman sitting on a teetering white pedestal. It is not butterscotch chips or snowglobe mornings, it is not Christmas, it is not the warm smell of bread baking in your own bread pan in your own oven in your own house. Happiness is none of these things.
Happiness is reality, and the acceptance of it. Knowing what you can change, knowing what you can not and driving with the map that this information draws for you.
This quest that I have been on- the search for the perfect place or the perfect feeling- is wholly, entirely useless. Useless. Perfection, as it is now, does not exist in the long term. Virtually nothing exists unchanging. The trick to sanity, I am finding, and to the truth of happiness, is that nothing will ever be exactly what we had hoped. Dreamers' eyes are closed, playing sweet, flawless movies projected on the insides of pink eyelids. The vice is not the dream. The vice is the alarm clock wake up, when you are not ready to give up what you have spent all this time seeing because now you have to see what is actually there. The vice is the distraction of the dream. The pursuit of it to the detriment of your current experience.
I have much more to say about this, but I also have wine and that shiny glass just took all my attention away from intellect.
Happiness is reality, and the acceptance of it. Knowing what you can change, knowing what you can not and driving with the map that this information draws for you.
This quest that I have been on- the search for the perfect place or the perfect feeling- is wholly, entirely useless. Useless. Perfection, as it is now, does not exist in the long term. Virtually nothing exists unchanging. The trick to sanity, I am finding, and to the truth of happiness, is that nothing will ever be exactly what we had hoped. Dreamers' eyes are closed, playing sweet, flawless movies projected on the insides of pink eyelids. The vice is not the dream. The vice is the alarm clock wake up, when you are not ready to give up what you have spent all this time seeing because now you have to see what is actually there. The vice is the distraction of the dream. The pursuit of it to the detriment of your current experience.
I have much more to say about this, but I also have wine and that shiny glass just took all my attention away from intellect.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
I can only think clearly when I do it for the sake of someone else.
I wrote an e-mail to one of my best friends today, and this came out. Which is about the closest thing to my brain that I can come up with right now...
As for me. Oy, life. It is giving me a big stress fracture in my heart right now. This is a weird feeling! Like I said, I wish I could start over. I would not have bought this car, would not live in this house, would not have this life. It's strange to wish that almost EVERYTHING were different. Not that it's awful. It's just not sustainable. I am beginning to realize that people in this real world do not value "down time" as much as they maybe should. What they think is boredom is really just, you know, time. To think or dream or just be. St. John teaches this to people. But only people who maybe stay for too long and are then faced with life afterwards. There are things I love. I will list them now so as to remember myself:
-I finally have a very good relationship with my sister. We still drive each other batty, but we each see the value in having someone who really gets it. All. Of. It.
-I love my boyfriend. He is patient with me when I don't deserve it. He is uplifting and smiling and thoughtful and seems somehow immune to my crazy. And I have a lot of that. I go to bed every night wishing we were in the same place, when I have wished for space from so many others. Thinking of being farther away from him than I am makes me consider staying in one place. What?
-SEASONS! I loved watching the leaves change. I love seeing my breath in the morning, even though I sort of hate that it feels like my ears might freeze off of my head. There are changes here from month to month. In mood, in music, in food, in shoes. I love change.
-I can drive to see any number of family members whenever I want. I don't have much time for that, but if I really needed a grandmother fix, I could have one.
-Denver has potholes that gush steam. Driving through them feels like a movie. Or like an episode of Law and Order. Whatever.
Ok, those are some things. There are more things. It is ridiculously hard not to miss my old life, so I have to remind myself sometimes that unhappy is not what I am. There is no rut here. I am not stuck. I am in a weird place that might take some awkward wiggling, but there is happiness to be found here. Plenty, actually, and I don't even have to search. St. John was just so....comfy.
As for me. Oy, life. It is giving me a big stress fracture in my heart right now. This is a weird feeling! Like I said, I wish I could start over. I would not have bought this car, would not live in this house, would not have this life. It's strange to wish that almost EVERYTHING were different. Not that it's awful. It's just not sustainable. I am beginning to realize that people in this real world do not value "down time" as much as they maybe should. What they think is boredom is really just, you know, time. To think or dream or just be. St. John teaches this to people. But only people who maybe stay for too long and are then faced with life afterwards. There are things I love. I will list them now so as to remember myself:
-I finally have a very good relationship with my sister. We still drive each other batty, but we each see the value in having someone who really gets it. All. Of. It.
-I love my boyfriend. He is patient with me when I don't deserve it. He is uplifting and smiling and thoughtful and seems somehow immune to my crazy. And I have a lot of that. I go to bed every night wishing we were in the same place, when I have wished for space from so many others. Thinking of being farther away from him than I am makes me consider staying in one place. What?
-SEASONS! I loved watching the leaves change. I love seeing my breath in the morning, even though I sort of hate that it feels like my ears might freeze off of my head. There are changes here from month to month. In mood, in music, in food, in shoes. I love change.
-I can drive to see any number of family members whenever I want. I don't have much time for that, but if I really needed a grandmother fix, I could have one.
-Denver has potholes that gush steam. Driving through them feels like a movie. Or like an episode of Law and Order. Whatever.
Ok, those are some things. There are more things. It is ridiculously hard not to miss my old life, so I have to remind myself sometimes that unhappy is not what I am. There is no rut here. I am not stuck. I am in a weird place that might take some awkward wiggling, but there is happiness to be found here. Plenty, actually, and I don't even have to search. St. John was just so....comfy.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Girls Who Press Flowers
I used to press flowers into books. When I was young, the natural, wilted death of a wildflower seemed so unjust. Purple petals to gray. Dying in the sun. We never came to the mountains in the fall- only in the green summer and the blue silver winter- and so I had no understanding of the cycle and I never saw the golds. Just gray. Though I was mostly right, wasn't I? Wildflowers do not get caught in the fall.
Now I come here as an adult. Alone, if it can be done, and I sift through the same books that have sat on these same shelves for nearly twenty years. They are my grandparents' books, conservative and a little stuffy with titles like, "The Libertarian's Bible," and in them, in many of them, are my tiny, flattened wildflowers.
I do not read these books, but I search them for the petals and smile when I meet my ten year old self. Knobby, with ears that my head had not yet grown into, who dreamed of becoming a singer of commercial jingles and having a roly poly farm.
Thus far, most of my adulthood has surprised me. Not much has happened that I can say I saw coming. A too thoughtful girl who ran away to the Caribbean, where she lived in the trees, got to understand creatures, almost grew into her ears, decided along the way that she really only wanted to eat plants, and dreams of living everywhere else. Where did she come from?
And then I find these pressed flowers and realize that people don't actually change at all.
Now I come here as an adult. Alone, if it can be done, and I sift through the same books that have sat on these same shelves for nearly twenty years. They are my grandparents' books, conservative and a little stuffy with titles like, "The Libertarian's Bible," and in them, in many of them, are my tiny, flattened wildflowers.
I do not read these books, but I search them for the petals and smile when I meet my ten year old self. Knobby, with ears that my head had not yet grown into, who dreamed of becoming a singer of commercial jingles and having a roly poly farm.
Thus far, most of my adulthood has surprised me. Not much has happened that I can say I saw coming. A too thoughtful girl who ran away to the Caribbean, where she lived in the trees, got to understand creatures, almost grew into her ears, decided along the way that she really only wanted to eat plants, and dreams of living everywhere else. Where did she come from?
And then I find these pressed flowers and realize that people don't actually change at all.
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