Oh, man. Am I really writing about this?

I have a first date on Saturday. What, exactly, is supposed to be accomplished on a first date? You are commissioned to be the very coolest, most interesting version of yourself, so as to secure a second date. It seems to me that first dates consist so much of making sure you are intriguing that you don't listen to the other person try to advertise their own best facets. First dates are forced narcissism disguised as outward interest. I can count on one hand the number of first dates that I have been on. I usually go through the side door, doing the friends thing that turns into the whatever comes after friends thing. I am, admittedly, a relationship girl. But maybe more than that, I am a spark girl.
A little while back, I wrote about the first time I was ever in love. Like, IN. LOVE. Though I would never put myself back in that relationship, I find that I have been dissatisfied by anything that made me feel...less. So, against, better judgement, here is an account of that spark. As written by a girl recently back out of what she had hoped was love.

I was 21 years old when I met him. Quietly sweeping fallen leaves from the store front, I was wearing a flowered scarf on my head to hide unshampooed, salt-bitten hair. I had a green tank top, a long white skirt and tan lines. I had just moved to the mystery Caribbean from the mountains of Colorado, and I was going for "islandy." I was new.
He sat on the wooden bench behind me and asked my name. Where was I from? I had not even known he was there until he spoke. And it was unremarkable, wasn't it? That curious boy with brown curls and deep eyes and a gap between his front teeth said hello and walked down to the beach and I thought nothing of it.
Did I know that he was beautiful? How could I have not seen that?
One, or maybe two nights after that first encounter, we had just gotten back to Maho from town with a group of rum-drunk twenty somethings who all gleefully ran up the boardwalk stairs to their own tents. He turned to me at the top of my own staircase,this boy whose name I did not know, grabbed my hand and said, "Let's go." And then I was with that curious boy in the Caribbean Sea, mindless and thinking out loud that more stars seemed to fall from the sky there than ever hung where I came from. He thought that was beautiful. He thought I was beautiful and he held my hand under the clear water and showed me bioluminescence as he guided my fingers with ocean fireflies. My God, I had no idea who he was that night, but I could not have named another soul. No one else existed.
The solid Earth I had been standing on began to crack open, and he kissed me. I barely knew his name and he was the only thing I could see.

We moved in together two weeks later. There was nothing to question, and questions were never asked. Not even by those around us. It was clear that we were supposed to be together, and so we never entertained logical thought about it. We were, then, together because we couldn't not be together.
That first year. That first year was the Garden State Soundtrack and Christmas lights hung on deck railings and doors always open to soulmates and kindred weirdos and people who loved each other at our best and at our living-in-Spring-Break worst. There was a softness that year, and I felt the entire thing to the very tips of my toes.
And him. He would play his guitar shirtless and tanned, his curls reaching for his dark eyes.
There was no television. No internet. We had one cell phone and never bothered to look at it. We did not have distractions from one another, and so we fell explosively in love. Deeply, and with true madness.
Our bungalow had screen for walls and vinyl for a roof and we slept to the white noise of a box fan and tree frogs and the laughter and music of new friends on the green hill we were coming to call our own. I would read out loud to him. From my books, from my journals, from whatever he wanted. And he would play his songs. I would curl against him and he would brush my salty hair out of my eyes, strum his guitar and say, "This song is you." My fingertips would trace his ears, his neck, his face. And then we would run to the sea, the way we did the night we began to understand everything, and we would strip off our clothes. Pad through the white glowing sand and disappear in the midnight water, cold until we were warm, the fireflies tracing our bodies.

Explosions, by their very nature, do not sustain. They are an instant. They spend all of their energy illuminating the entire sky until nothing is left to burn.

We began to argue. And we could not figure out how to stop.


What did we have to argue about? I can't remember now. The flames lasted for about a year until they sucked all the oxygen out of the air and died. The end was incineration, as nothing that intense ends easily. We were all or nothing. A sparkler, meant to exist as lovers and burn out.
I can remember the very last time I saw him. He was wearing a red shirt and he wheeled a small suitcase behind him, past the tent we lived and loved and fought in together for that fiery year. He was leaving our little island, the one we both stayed on just to keep close to each other. It had been more than a year since we were us. A good deal of life had happened in the interim, and we were beyond repair.
We walked by each other like the history was false, like we always did. As if our first year was some sunlit Narnia, a Never Never Land impossible to revisit. But we looked at each other this time. I am not sure what I wish I would have said. When I really think about it, there may have been nothing to say. But to pass by him like that--this curious boy who took my entire world and showed me how to love and showed me who I could be--to just walk by him, my head darting down as soon as I saw his face, felt unjust. Due weight was not given.
I could not have touched him or we would have combusted. But could I have thanked him? Could I have finally leveled with him that moment? Just the two of us, ending as strangers the way we started.
I will never see him again. I know this to be true. There is no chance of running into this boy on another wooden bench somewhere, and there is no other Caribbean Sea.
I should have told him at least--at the very tail end of least--that I was grateful to him for showing me how much I could feel. The regret is in the muted, matte ending. Where we walked by each other on a creaky boardwalk, inches away from the person who had been bigger than any empty space, and said nothing.





I will probably delete this post as soon as this wine wears off. But I think some of the issues I have with boredom, particularly in the light of dating, can be directly attributed to this island boy and the kind of spark that doesn't actually last, anyway.

Chasing sparklers.

Even Single Girls Like Valentine's Day

Oh, Valentine's Day. Here is it. Am I supposed to care? I am supposed to care. As a single girl who is sometimes happy about that and sometimes not, or really just as a girl, I am definitely supposed to care. So, here is my favorite quote about love that ever existed:

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

Ooh, ooh, or this:

“Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker


Maybe this whole post should be about how Tom Robbins is probably the love of my life.


Cynical I am not, and I am not a Valentine's Day hater. I feel like that's a bit dramatic. Anti-Valentine's Day parties are not my bag any more than the inevitable pictures of sweetly tagged roses that will take over Facebook like a petal tsunami. Plus, I LOVE love. And I love this holiday, even if I do think it means a bit too much to too many people. It is a pink-shaded day where Necco wafers come in heart shapes and Hallmark sells massive amounts of the same sentiment to shrugging men who hope they're doing it right. Growing up (and still), my dad always bought flowers for my mom on Valentine's day. Growing up (and still), my dad bought flowers for my mom on random Wednesdays or Sundays or Thursdays, too. And that's what I have to say about Valentine's Day.

A Mountain Morning

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.