Beauty

My mother says lighten up. Freedom, she says. Butterflies are free, you don't know how young you are. She's right, and I wonder when and how I let it get so heavy. Chicago maybe? Graduation day and the real world? Summers in between, career paths and pressure? Looking so far ahead that I tricked myself into thinking that it was now. It's no fun to think this way, and I remember a time when I would have shaken my head at anyone like me. Not so long ago, really, three years maybe and I was the one saying "Naw baby it doesn't have to be that way. It's about having fun and being happy, chasing down an adventure and launching into the world to see what it has to offer." I said it then and I want it now, so really what's the difference? A little taste of my own medicine, a little spark of my own wisdom, passed on down through the family tree. Luckily for me, the apple never falls far.

Also luckily for me, my boyfriend is terribly understanding and willing to let me swing through these schizophrenic bouts of confusion and fear. I guess he knows what it's like be around when I come back to me. Pretty good, isn't it? Aren't I? I knew I could be this way, I promised you and now I promise me.

If you haven't listened to Kristoffer Ragnstam yet, please, just do. Go download Do you want a piece of me? or Beauty and be happy. I heard him first on NPR a few weeks ago, and the rattling jug band sound of his echoey tunes just put me in another place. It's so good, you've got to know. NPR, actually, is my best source for new music lately. I heard a bit of Bound Stems last night on a new show...Fair Game, I think? Anyway. They were harmonic and bitter and sad and lovely and I will be listening to them as much as I can.

I hope you're well. I am better than I've been for a long spell and darn if it don't feel good.

Not Much

Yesterday, Ed's insides wanted out and out they went! Inside out. It was the flu, a 24-hour behemoth worthy of terror and fright. Today he looks pale and tells me he feels"wan." Seriously. Wan?

Anyway. I used his illness as an excuse to not get dressed all day, to sit in the comfy chair in my pajamas and read and knit and zone out at the television for, oh, hours. It was slovenly and I am not proud. Okay, I'm a little proud.

The weather simply shat from morn 'til night. It started as snow and isn't that charming, but soon it was sleet and then oh! Freezing rain. I went out once (with real clothes over my pajamas, I will not be defeated!) to walk 100 yards to the gas station to buy Gatorade for my ailing friend. When I returned, my ailing friend had to take the chisel to me so I could once again move my body freely. Frozen into place, like the tin man only colder.

This morning, the same phenomenon occured with my automobile. Before driving to work, I first had to crack my way through the inch-thick glaze of ice that had formed around my car overnight. I imagine this is what it's like to sculpt those things in Boston on First Night. I imagine what it might have been like if I could have driven my car out from under the shield of ice and it had stayed, like a car-shaped shell. I imagine I might create a unique garage like this in Antarctica someday. My imagination is really useless.

In short, there may have been valiant things to do on MLK Jr. Day, but I didn't do any of them.

Resolute

Sleep enough
Make time to read
Find a play and work on it
Sit on the rug
Make things
Keep knitting
Wear headphones
E-mail friends
Have a party
Bake bread
Ask questions
Drink gin
Go hiking
Fly kite

That's good for now.