Like This

We talk about it, you know, and we're okay. We're getting by, I'm getting by. But sometimes, having my best friend busier than he's ever been, more engaged and necessarily focused that I've ever seen him, completely occupied by law school...is like this:

I know there's pressure and I believe with my whole heart that school should be number one, but sometimes, it sucks. Sometimes, law school is all there is, and I get lost in the shuffle. I don't even make it on the list.

I know he's busy, and there's not enough time. I know sometimes he can't ask how I am because he doesn't have the time for all the things I feel. Sometimes, there's not space enough in this world for all the things I feel.

I know I said that I'm tough enough to do this, to stick it out and give him the space he needs. And I am. But it's hard, and it doesn't come naturally, and some days I fall apart because tough just doesn't work.

I know I overthink things, and I put too much pressure on myself, and on us, and on everyone, and every situation ever. This was hard before he was in school, and now, it's harder.

I know that it will get better and that eventually, he'll have more time and a choice of how to spend it. But I'm scared that when it comes to choosing, he still won't choose me. I wonder how many things will fall in line before he gets to me.

I know I talk big about independence, about becoming the kind of person who doesn't need time and love and reassurance to feel secure. I say it, and I believe it, but I don't know how to get there, and some days I don't want to. Reassurance is easier some days than trying. This doesn't make me happy, or get me where I need to go.

Not Said

I went to the coffee shop today to sit and read and have a dreary inside day while it was dreary outside. I found a table and stood in line, then stepped up to the counter to order: large Chai, for here. I'd be staying awhile, shrugging down in my seat and burying my nose in a book and a steaming mug. I like the way they deliver the drinks "for here" in big glasses with sturdy handles. I handed over my three dollars and the guy at the cash looked at my fleece vest with the logo of my organization embroidered in the corner.

"Do you work there?" he asked.

"Yeah...how do you know about it?"

I was thinking maybe he'd volunteered. I love meeting volunteers. Immediate relation, common ground, long lost brothers, nearly.

"So you must know Robin," he said, rushing over the end of my question.

"Oh, yeah! I do. We work together, and we actually went to high school together."

"Oh, then you probably know my sister Abby, too. I'm Peter."

In my head, I leapt with excitement. I do know Abby. I remember her from high school, and biology class, and soccer practice. She was quirky and fun, and smart and sarcastic. She had a great laugh. We were friends. I wanted to ask him how she was, where she was. I wanted to know what she was doing and what he was doing, and why he hadn't gone to our school too and who else he might know, because if you grow up here like he did, you know everybody.

The line behind me shuffled and I hesitated.

"Yeah! Nice to meet you," I said.

"62c is your change. Here's a number. We'll bring the tea out to you."

I sat, and a minute later he brought me my tea. I stumbled over my words, suddenly nervous.

"We--we played soccer togther, your sister and I...I'm Elli, by the way."

"I'm Pete," he said, and shook my hand, and then turned and walked away.

I sat there reading, and watching him from the corner of my eye. He walked back and forth behind the counter, back and forth, and then walked out from behind it and straight toward my table. He pulled a lever on the wall nearly behind my head, and coffee beans spilled into a paper bag in his hands. I wished we could talk more, but it was awkward then. I felt like I'd shown too much interest or tried too hard, and he was uncomfortable or worse, not interested in talking to me.

Later, I stood up to leave and he crossed my path. I smiled in that way you smile at a stranger on the street, or a coworker in the hall. Closed lips, no emotion or eye contact. I kept walking.

"See you later," he said to my back.

I was surprised, and immediately sheepish. I stuttered a goodbye as I walked out the door.

It's funny, I fancy myself some kind of social dynamo sometimes, feeling like I've gained so much confidence over the years and can finally interact properly with other people. I think that I am friendly and open, and that I smile and make people feel comfortable, that I am likeable and personable and have made huge strides since those awkward high school days. And maybe I have.

But what I forget is how much is not said while I'm busy spinning circles inside my head. I forget how much I feel that never makes it past my lips or is betrayed in my eyes. I forget that I'm still that shy, self-conscious kid I always was, only now with a better idea of what I'd rather be.

On Holiday

Yesterday I didn't have to go to work and instead celebrated one of the best benefits of working for a non-profit: they don't pay much, but they sure do pass out holidays like hot cakes. My car spent Veteran's Day (or I guess it was the day before Veteran's Day) getting its 60,000 mile tune up, so I walked the length of town runing errands and wearing myself out. It was warm outside, and I carried my coat in one arm and collected packages from different stores in the other. It was good to be on foot and to break the pattern of daily life in these small Northern towns. This isn't city living, and everyone fulfills the expectation of individuality, zipping around town in their personal automobiles. We all go to the same places at the same times, but damned if we're going to inconvenience ourselves by walking or riding together. It's a luxury of the country, where roads and intersections expand over time to accomodate our increasing righteous consumerism. I'm one to talk, I know, but yesterday I went on foot and I think I'll do it again.

It was good to be out, to be walking through town and noticing things at a different pace. Headphones and game face on, I walked by lines of cars stopped at red lights and didn't waiver, though they all watched me pass with passive curiosity. I noticed the river, rushing through town and under a bridge I usually whiz over in my car. I noticed a copper green mechanic monolith on top of a hill I hadn't seen before. I noticed the distinct lack of sidewalk on one side of 12A and the saddening absence of crosswalks at integral intersections. Car horns urged me through sticky mishaps of civil engineering and I crossed with a quick wave and a nod of my head. I made it back home in one big loop just as the repetitive motion of shoe rubber on concrete became more than my joints could stand. I missed lunch, but my cheeks were flushed and my day full of accomplishment and purpose. I miss city living sometimes.

Too Little Too Late?

So, I voted, and I hope you did too. It was fun and painless and even if I didn't get a sticker, I got to feel proud and patriotic and count my blessings that I live in a democratic country. And this time, it actually felt like votes meant something! It's not necessarily because my team won (which is great, by the way), but because I think that people weren't tricked into voting. We've had time to process what a ridiculous situation our country has been thrust into over the last six years, and we've decided with our own little brains that we don't like it.

And I say, about damn time, America.

I mean, I don't want to spoil any parties or excitement. It's clearly wonderful that some things will change now that we have new people to make decisions on behalf of us all. I guess I just feel like...meh. I was pissed off in 2003 and ready for battle in 2004. When my fellow Americans re-elected his royal douchebaggery that year, I stopped feeling riled up because I knew I simply had to. I knew what was to come, and that it wasn't going to be good. So now, it's bad in that two-by-four to the head kind of way, and we have finally had enough. I guess I'm just not that impressed. I'm chalking the dems' wins yesterday more up to the political pendulum swinging back from whence it came than to any real, thoughtful voting effort on the American public's part.

I'm clearly no barrel of optimism when it comes to this stuff...more of a jaded and bitter pedant. This attitude applies to our first female speaker, too. When I heard the announcement this morning and it hit me that she is the first, the very first woman ever to hold that position, I was happy for approximately .2 seconds. I was then filled with a seething indignation that it had not happened until, oh, yesterday. Year two-thousand-six. Um, hello? If this is not proof of the vitality of institutionalized sexism, then I don't know what is.

I'll get over it, and I'll enjoy the ride back into the blue like everybody else. I just couldn't let it pass with little more than a hoot and a cheer, is all.

How to Live

How to Live
by Charles Harper Webb

"I don't know how to live."
–Sharon Olds

Eat lots of steak and salmon and Thai curry and mu shu
pork and fresh green beans and baked potatoes
and fresh strawberries with vanilla ice cream.
Kick-box three days a week. Stay strong and lean.
Go fly-fishing every chance you get, with friends

who'll teach you secrets of the stream. Play guitar
in a rock band. Read Dostoyevsky, Whitman, Kafka,
Shakespeare, Twain. Collect Uncle Scrooge comics.
See Peckinpah's Straw Dogs,and everything Monty Python made.
Love freely. Treat ex-partners as kindly

as you can. Wish them as well as you're able.
Snorkel with moray eels and yellow tangs. Watch
spinner dolphins earn their name as your panga slam-
bams over glittering seas. Try not to lie; it sours
the soul. But being a patsy sours it too. If you cause

a car wreck, and aren't hurt, but someone is, apologize
silently. Learn from your mistake. Walk gratefully
away. Let your insurance handle it. Never drive drunk.
Don't be a drunk, or any kind of "aholic." It's bad
English, and bad news. Don't berate yourself. If you lose

a game or prize you've earned, remember the winners
history forgets. Remember them if you win. Enjoy
success. Have kids if you want and can afford them,
but don't make them your reason-to-be.
Spare them that misery. Take them to the beach. Mail order sea

monkeys once in your life. Give someone the full-on
ass-kicking he (or she) has earned. Keep a box turtle
in good heath for twenty years. If you get sick, don't thrive
on suffering. There's nothing noble about pain. Die
if you need to, the best way you can. (You define best.)

Go to church if it helps you. Grow tomatoes to put store-
bought in perspective. Listen to Elvis and Bach. Unless
you're tone deaf, own Perlman's "Meditation from Thais."
Don't look for hidden meanings in a cardinal's song.
Don't think TV characters talk to you; that's crazy.

Don't be too sane. Work hard. Loaf easily. Have good
friends, and be good to them. Be immoderate
in moderation. Spend little time anesthetized. Dive
the Great Barrier Reef. Don't touch the coral. Watch
for sea snakes. Smile for the camera. Don't say "Cheese."

***

Someone sent me this at work on Friday, and I liked it, and I found myself running down the list and making mental check marks next to things I already do, things I already am. I came up short. How about you?

In other poetry news, I went to Walgreens today, parked and got out of my car as an old, sputtery green Saab was pulling out of its space. I waited, and the man in the driver's seat waved me across his path. I looked at him and was sure, for a second, it was Billy Collins. I love Billy Collins. He spoke at my high school graduation and I think he might live around here somewhere. I have no idea, really, if it was him, but I'm going to keep on believing it anyway. Why not?

Links to Love

Some days, the internet reminds me how awesome it is, how it brings people together around common experiences, how it reaches into the dusty corners of life and pulls even the sparest details into stark light. It's refreshing to see that when people are given a place to be honest-- to ask real questions, that we do it. And when we do, we see how completely not alone we really are in the world. The things I read online every day make me believe in people more. They make me want to be more honest, more real in my every day life. They make me want to create that space for openness, to give people permission to be themselves by showing them how I do it myself.

I don't always succeed; in fact, I rarely do. I'm still learning to exist in that space myself. But I feel lucky to live in a time where connections are literally a click away, where people are brought closer to one another, even if through a secondary medium. I think the internet is a revolution in human relationship, in human understanding. It has created a liminal space between fiction and reality in which people can do away with fear and just be.

See:
Modern Feminism
Real Relationships
Common Ground

Howdy Hallowargh!

Ed was a cowboy. Yeehaw.

Elli was a pirate. Big surprise, matey.

This is us, unsure of how this new fangled camera machine works. "Is this thing on?"

This is how spooky our porch looked, and how awesome our Jack-o-Lantern.

Here are all the kids who came by for trick-or-treating:



Oh wait. There weren't any.
More candy for us! HaHA suckers!