This whole place is a novel that practically writes itself.
In the north, there's a post-punk soup bar owner named Paul. He puts on a rabbit mascot head and calls himself the rhythm chicken on obscure wiccan holidays. He's likely to appear when its least expected, and he always dances. If you wanted to meet him, his small shop is located in a dry town called Ephraim 30 miles north. He's 40, with bright eyes, he wears a bucket hat and dark rimmed rayban glasses and writes for a music magazine. He makes jokes about cyclops rabbits, communist russia, and groudhogs day.
And then Gretchen, the displaced belly dancer from Maui. a mother, with laughter you could recognize in the next town over. Her eyes smile when her heart does. She loves doilies, and everything orange. She owns orange doily toms and is known to slide into a faux boston accent when she's not paying attention. I sometimes hear her greet people "I think I's seen ya befo"
Her birthday. a celebration of rebirth, we were required to wear only white, and perhaps some orange accents. orange is her favorite color. which is fitting because her body is stained the color from years of maui sun.
And then theres me.
The flawed protagonist. With more than one thematic issue than any novel can handle.
The quest to learn oneself, a loss of innocence, a rise from the pain of the past. coming of age, understanding my place in the universe. accepting that all will happen in its time, and nothing before its meant to.
Understanding that all will happen.
We are misfits. stranded on an island of odd inhabitants. We meet and work and fit together only because we don't fit together. We're all one entity of belonging because we don't actually belong anywhere. There's a home we've carved out of the stone beaches and sunsets. They belong to no one but us. The tourists get pieces of it, but they don't know what they are borrowing.
The only home we've ever known.
And only because it will always change, and the only thing we can grasp onto is that there will never be anything to grasp onto.
we are all bound by our lonlieness. we belong here because we belong in the warm company of those who are also lonely.
how did we get here?
we ask the stars.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
July 16, 2013
Nightswimming
The stars were bright overhead, and their eyes followed us like watchful big sisters from the parking lot of the wild tomato, to the gravel dead end road that leads to pebble beach. the earth had cooled in the evening hours, leaving us with only the heat and salt of our sweat soaked flesh to contend with. And all the clothes we'd spent hours soaking as well as we'd dished out pizzas to bloodthirsty tourists.
Here we'd met, on this island of misfit toys.
A place where no one grows up.
A place where everyone belongs because no one does.
gretchen, the mother and wanderer. sometimes i think the most mis-fittting of all the misfit toys. she'd returned to Door County after a shaky divorce, and 10 years raising babies on Maui. She is a bellydancing yoga teacher. She calls herself a mermaid.
Then theres marie, my kindred spirit. the theatre major i could have been. the instant life-long friend i've made on this lonely island.
And so there we were. Misfits bound together only by three decisions:
The decision to move to door county
The decision to work at the Wild Tomato
The decision to skinny dip in Lake Michigan after a long Monday.
Loaded only with our towels we walked the pebble beach down to the water. We laughed raucously, each of us nervous in our owns ways.
Personally, I'm always worry about being caught naked by law enforcement. You know, like you do.
There were others on the dark beach. We could hear the voices of younger men perhaps 200 feet down the rocky land. We joked about asking them if they were naked. Because we would be soon.
We figured we'd better not leave them with false hope.
I began to strip down first. I removed my sweat soaked t-shirt and black skirt and paused, waiting for the others to catch up.
After we'd stripped down I was astounded at how clothed i felt despite being completely clothes-less. Gretchen, the skinny dip queen, the hippie mermaid warrior, was unashamed also, her body half covered in passion-flower tattoos that stretch from her thigh to her top of her ribcage. She joked about her tan lines, in the starlight you could barely see the line of tiny Brazilian bikini. We laughed.
'I'm not going to think about it, i'm just going to jump it" gretchen declared. and we agreed.
don't think about it.
1. 2. 3.
We dove into the cool cove water. mMy body felt instantly leached of all aching anger that accompanies serving impatient people. I frog-swam under the water until i envisioned myself swimming right into a massive unidentified fish, and quickly shot my head above the waves.
It was like summer camp. or perhaps it was just like summer. The feeling of letting all go, the knowing that your makeup will bleed down your cheeks no matter how water proof, the feeling of lake soaked hair, and skin still warmed from the day's sun.
nightswimming
deserves a quiet night
This summer feeling is intoxicating and beneath all of it I feel the possibility of what's next calling me. I have this deep longing to wake up with the sunrise, paddle out on a borrowed board and look for the most perfect rolling water to gain my sea legs on. To sweat and soak and warm all of the old ache from my bones and be born again as the woman I so long to be. To do this again and again and again until the newness reveals itself like midsummer flower that grows quietly and unnoticed in the darkness and one day simply blooms.
I long to release this woman in me; the one with an unencumbered heart and a reverence for every grain of life. The one who believes in yoga, and nature, and love, and herself. the one who believes.
I feel this woman growing inside of me every single day. asking me to be patient. to remember that this time is important. That I must purge all of the old pain before I'll be allowed to become new. That I have to straddle these worlds for as long as possible in order to become whole.
But I'm so impatient. I want the answers, and I want the direction now. Even though I know that nothing will be revealed until the exact moment it is meant to be, I wish for it everyday. I resist the hollow sadness that i know is the key growing up.
Knowing the answers and yet resisting them, this is what makes me the girl
but perhaps realizing this makes me the woman too.
All this rattles in my mind tonight as I think back to our smiling faces in the moonlight. There we were: baptized in the waters of Lake Michigan, three agnostic priestesses of light, casting our pain and baggage to the abyss of the still black water. Each of us still learning what it means to simply be. To let happen. To sigh when we need to. To laugh at only the things that truly make us laugh. To be the women we can make sense of.
Or perhaps we simply jumped into an icy lake naked.
Either way,
I will see the stars above those towering evergreen trees underneath my eyelids forever.
The stars were bright overhead, and their eyes followed us like watchful big sisters from the parking lot of the wild tomato, to the gravel dead end road that leads to pebble beach. the earth had cooled in the evening hours, leaving us with only the heat and salt of our sweat soaked flesh to contend with. And all the clothes we'd spent hours soaking as well as we'd dished out pizzas to bloodthirsty tourists.
Here we'd met, on this island of misfit toys.
A place where no one grows up.
A place where everyone belongs because no one does.
gretchen, the mother and wanderer. sometimes i think the most mis-fittting of all the misfit toys. she'd returned to Door County after a shaky divorce, and 10 years raising babies on Maui. She is a bellydancing yoga teacher. She calls herself a mermaid.
Then theres marie, my kindred spirit. the theatre major i could have been. the instant life-long friend i've made on this lonely island.
And so there we were. Misfits bound together only by three decisions:
The decision to move to door county
The decision to work at the Wild Tomato
The decision to skinny dip in Lake Michigan after a long Monday.
Loaded only with our towels we walked the pebble beach down to the water. We laughed raucously, each of us nervous in our owns ways.
Personally, I'm always worry about being caught naked by law enforcement. You know, like you do.
There were others on the dark beach. We could hear the voices of younger men perhaps 200 feet down the rocky land. We joked about asking them if they were naked. Because we would be soon.
We figured we'd better not leave them with false hope.
I began to strip down first. I removed my sweat soaked t-shirt and black skirt and paused, waiting for the others to catch up.
After we'd stripped down I was astounded at how clothed i felt despite being completely clothes-less. Gretchen, the skinny dip queen, the hippie mermaid warrior, was unashamed also, her body half covered in passion-flower tattoos that stretch from her thigh to her top of her ribcage. She joked about her tan lines, in the starlight you could barely see the line of tiny Brazilian bikini. We laughed.
'I'm not going to think about it, i'm just going to jump it" gretchen declared. and we agreed.
don't think about it.
1. 2. 3.
We dove into the cool cove water. mMy body felt instantly leached of all aching anger that accompanies serving impatient people. I frog-swam under the water until i envisioned myself swimming right into a massive unidentified fish, and quickly shot my head above the waves.
It was like summer camp. or perhaps it was just like summer. The feeling of letting all go, the knowing that your makeup will bleed down your cheeks no matter how water proof, the feeling of lake soaked hair, and skin still warmed from the day's sun.
nightswimming
deserves a quiet night
This summer feeling is intoxicating and beneath all of it I feel the possibility of what's next calling me. I have this deep longing to wake up with the sunrise, paddle out on a borrowed board and look for the most perfect rolling water to gain my sea legs on. To sweat and soak and warm all of the old ache from my bones and be born again as the woman I so long to be. To do this again and again and again until the newness reveals itself like midsummer flower that grows quietly and unnoticed in the darkness and one day simply blooms.
I long to release this woman in me; the one with an unencumbered heart and a reverence for every grain of life. The one who believes in yoga, and nature, and love, and herself. the one who believes.
I feel this woman growing inside of me every single day. asking me to be patient. to remember that this time is important. That I must purge all of the old pain before I'll be allowed to become new. That I have to straddle these worlds for as long as possible in order to become whole.
But I'm so impatient. I want the answers, and I want the direction now. Even though I know that nothing will be revealed until the exact moment it is meant to be, I wish for it everyday. I resist the hollow sadness that i know is the key growing up.
Knowing the answers and yet resisting them, this is what makes me the girl
but perhaps realizing this makes me the woman too.
All this rattles in my mind tonight as I think back to our smiling faces in the moonlight. There we were: baptized in the waters of Lake Michigan, three agnostic priestesses of light, casting our pain and baggage to the abyss of the still black water. Each of us still learning what it means to simply be. To let happen. To sigh when we need to. To laugh at only the things that truly make us laugh. To be the women we can make sense of.
Or perhaps we simply jumped into an icy lake naked.
Either way,
I will see the stars above those towering evergreen trees underneath my eyelids forever.
May 18, 2013
The day I moved to Door County. I wrote this in my car in the parking lot of Walmart.
Josh Ritter is strumming softly through my speakers. I park my car and everything about this place asks me to move gently.
i fumble with my phone. my things. i'm anxious. and excited. and nervous.
i finally move from my car
the boy turns and says
"Hi, Are you Brittany?" I'm josh, welcome to sturgeon bay."
He is quiet. Like the driveway and the street behind it. No painful shyness. just calmness. easiness.
A tall man who says his name is Abe walks around the corner of the garage. Josh's brother. I recognize his face like I've known him years, but only because of his Facebook pictures. His hair is long and curly and pulled up halfway. He has a full red mustache, brown hair and eyes that are the brightest clear blue I've ever seen.
Later, I am tired. From the most perfect drive. From all these unfolding things.But the midday sun streams through my windows. dear prudence turns on my record player, crackling through its speakers.
I walk to the kitchen
Outside a sander hums in the hands of Abe who scrapes away green paint from a large old boat. His dog lays sunning herself on the warm grass as her puppies tussle around her and without her. Curiosity bringing them to every corner of the yard.
I bite into an apple and hum the songs chorus and i can't help but think of how lovely this is.
Later, a woman sits on a blanket surrounded by sleeping puppies and she pets each one with the hands of a mother. She is young, and will be one soon.
Later, a woman sits on a blanket surrounded by sleeping puppies and she pets each one with the hands of a mother. She is young, and will be one soon.
I walk outside to water my tiny garden
she says hello and i walk down the stairs
Her name is Kate and we talk as if we've known each other, ages and lifetimes before this. With a comfort I share with only a few of my closest friends but this is the longest amount of time we've ever shared words.
Everything is easy an over and over in my mind i say
I have never felt so myself before. never
And now as the weather cools outside my window, I feel exhausted and yet steadied by all of this familiar new.
I've only been here 6 hours.
and i didn't know home could happen so fast.
May 15, 2013
Excerpt from a post that somehow features more rambling than can be explained.
And mostly
What if
its all there:
The chance to smile brightly,
The chance to have an adventure,
The chance to feel new?
What if this place and the people in it all have hope in their eyes and kindness in their palms, and warmth in their words?
And when it all adds up, what if it amounts something indisputably beautiful?
What if the most terrifying part is that despite how much the past has hurt, this place, this time in front of me
has all the makings to yield some serene, wholesome, and sacred gift of summer? The kind that leaves rainwater on my eyelids, sunlight on my thighs, and sand in every corner of my life?
The tears the well up in my eyes aren't the same types of sad ones i've cried before. They are a measure of many lifetimes I've lived but never known my own love. Until now. And in them, there is a sense of surrender that i'm learning, but is new to me. It has a hopefulness. a forgiveness. and a freedom.
i am scared. and i'll admit it.
I am terrified of what's next. but maybe if I remind myself, everyday, that breathing is enough, that being scared is allowed, and this too shall pass.
Then perhaps I can get through the growing pains of finding happiness.
Sadness is hard to bear, and they've warned me against fear, and angst, and pessimism.
I know the pain of anger, and I know how to carry grief.
But what they never tell you is how terrifying just the prospect of happiness can be.
I guess i'll just breathe deeply, and take it day by day.
And mostly
What if
its all there:
The chance to smile brightly,
The chance to have an adventure,
The chance to feel new?
What if this place and the people in it all have hope in their eyes and kindness in their palms, and warmth in their words?
And when it all adds up, what if it amounts something indisputably beautiful?
What if the most terrifying part is that despite how much the past has hurt, this place, this time in front of me
has all the makings to yield some serene, wholesome, and sacred gift of summer? The kind that leaves rainwater on my eyelids, sunlight on my thighs, and sand in every corner of my life?
The tears the well up in my eyes aren't the same types of sad ones i've cried before. They are a measure of many lifetimes I've lived but never known my own love. Until now. And in them, there is a sense of surrender that i'm learning, but is new to me. It has a hopefulness. a forgiveness. and a freedom.
i am scared. and i'll admit it.
I am terrified of what's next. but maybe if I remind myself, everyday, that breathing is enough, that being scared is allowed, and this too shall pass.
Then perhaps I can get through the growing pains of finding happiness.
Sadness is hard to bear, and they've warned me against fear, and angst, and pessimism.
I know the pain of anger, and I know how to carry grief.
But what they never tell you is how terrifying just the prospect of happiness can be.
I guess i'll just breathe deeply, and take it day by day.
May 13, 2013
In which I write another Mission Statement. This was 4 days before I moved to Door County.
Today Grizzely Bear started playing while I was driving to Target. I've had that band on my ipod since high school, but before today I've never listend to a single song.
The indie soundtrack made me feel like I was in a Diablo Cody movie in which scene I had realized that my life is slowly unraveling before my eyes. I saw my reflection in the visor mirror. My pores were red and cluttered and raw. I could see each one through the translucent layer of skin and it reminded me of the long month I've spent sleeping on my friends Molly's couch, using her shampoo to wash my face and her sunscreen as moisturizer. If you think that sounds abrasive, ask me sometime about the 3 months I spent washing my hair with dish soap. I was more desperate then, and much more self destructive.
Despite my recently wretched visage, my life is not unraveling. At least, in a negative sense.
I've spent my time lately counting. Counting the the items on my "to do" lists, counting the sad words that no longer need to be said, and counting the days, hours, minutes, and sunsets until I move North.
This is what has brought me to this Target parking lot, writing these thoughts and mulling over the last few weeks that have passed since I closed my last blog, since I made the split decision to move out of my parents home and never go back, since I looked at the calendar and counted the days in order to find the earliest one that I could manage to move, and since I held my breath, pointed at May and said "I hope the 18th is sunny" and decided it would be a great day to start something new.
And now the week is here. 4 days until I move to Door County.
Without much explanation, and with little to no say from me, it seems in my blood to be a traveler. I don't know if I ever really decided it, if I ever got the chance to tell God "look, I'd really love a tiny home near a forest. 3 kids would be lovely, maybe some adopted? and 5 rescue dogs, cats and some chickens. And maybe even a few rows of vegetables. And I'd love to stay put. In that tiny home near the woods"
But fate has other plans for me. Plans on maps, and in boxes in my car, and on the edge of airplane's wings, and in the views underneath them. All I can surmise from these travels thus far is that every place has a song, and I'm to learn each one by heart so that maybe when I'm old enough, I'll understand the words.
I've lived in three cities in 2 years. I am headed to a fourth town that is meant to be a temporary residence by most who live there so I know, as I pack my things once more, that this will not be the place where I plant my feet. And as every bit of me inhales, preparing for another dive into another unknown, I feel unsteady. Nervous about the commotion of what's next. Uneasy about making new friends, about leaving the old ones, and about saying goodbye. again. And yet there is another place deep down, and when this place exhales it sighs the simple truth that this is meant to be, and that I am ready for it.
I didn't ask for a home in the wind, but I will take it.
And wherever I roam, I know home is just an adjective that you must find on your shins, or in your words or on your heart
or something.
The road isn't paved yet which is why it is awkward to walk on,
but I feel ready to move my feet.
Wish me luck.
Today Grizzely Bear started playing while I was driving to Target. I've had that band on my ipod since high school, but before today I've never listend to a single song.
The indie soundtrack made me feel like I was in a Diablo Cody movie in which scene I had realized that my life is slowly unraveling before my eyes. I saw my reflection in the visor mirror. My pores were red and cluttered and raw. I could see each one through the translucent layer of skin and it reminded me of the long month I've spent sleeping on my friends Molly's couch, using her shampoo to wash my face and her sunscreen as moisturizer. If you think that sounds abrasive, ask me sometime about the 3 months I spent washing my hair with dish soap. I was more desperate then, and much more self destructive.
Despite my recently wretched visage, my life is not unraveling. At least, in a negative sense.
I've spent my time lately counting. Counting the the items on my "to do" lists, counting the sad words that no longer need to be said, and counting the days, hours, minutes, and sunsets until I move North.
This is what has brought me to this Target parking lot, writing these thoughts and mulling over the last few weeks that have passed since I closed my last blog, since I made the split decision to move out of my parents home and never go back, since I looked at the calendar and counted the days in order to find the earliest one that I could manage to move, and since I held my breath, pointed at May and said "I hope the 18th is sunny" and decided it would be a great day to start something new.
And now the week is here. 4 days until I move to Door County.
Without much explanation, and with little to no say from me, it seems in my blood to be a traveler. I don't know if I ever really decided it, if I ever got the chance to tell God "look, I'd really love a tiny home near a forest. 3 kids would be lovely, maybe some adopted? and 5 rescue dogs, cats and some chickens. And maybe even a few rows of vegetables. And I'd love to stay put. In that tiny home near the woods"
But fate has other plans for me. Plans on maps, and in boxes in my car, and on the edge of airplane's wings, and in the views underneath them. All I can surmise from these travels thus far is that every place has a song, and I'm to learn each one by heart so that maybe when I'm old enough, I'll understand the words.
I've lived in three cities in 2 years. I am headed to a fourth town that is meant to be a temporary residence by most who live there so I know, as I pack my things once more, that this will not be the place where I plant my feet. And as every bit of me inhales, preparing for another dive into another unknown, I feel unsteady. Nervous about the commotion of what's next. Uneasy about making new friends, about leaving the old ones, and about saying goodbye. again. And yet there is another place deep down, and when this place exhales it sighs the simple truth that this is meant to be, and that I am ready for it.
I didn't ask for a home in the wind, but I will take it.
And wherever I roam, I know home is just an adjective that you must find on your shins, or in your words or on your heart
or something.
The road isn't paved yet which is why it is awkward to walk on,
but I feel ready to move my feet.
Wish me luck.
December 10, 2012
The final day I lived in Madison
Sometimes the past sneaks up behind me and wraps its uncomfortable but familiar arms around my shoulders and encapsulates me and haunts me and tires me. and refuses to release me.
It makes me see the entire world through its filter. Every street I see through a lens of an accomplishment or failure of a before. The place I sit, the socks I slipped my toes into this morning, all seem to be choices that have come to fruition as a consequence of something I can't remember anymore. Or something I can remember and simply choose not to.
What is happening? Why are all of these memories finding me everywhere? In places that they don't belong, in street signs and old buildings that I've never passed until today, and yet they have the color and contour of some other more familiar place.
Maybe I've made this a choice. The past houses a lot of pain. But maybe I've invited it in. maybe I even said "I'm ready to remember you, to give you room, to unlock you from your box and I'm ready to grieve you" but I'm not sure I knew how overwhelmed I would be by its constant presence. I'm not sure I knew it would manifest itself as if it were a standing, living person with me in every room, breathing in my ear and whispering to me about the memories, whether sweet or painful, that I'd prefer to forget. making me relive them every moment.
I dream of Seattle streets, I hear my mothers shouts, I see his cold, thin back turned to me, I feel his lifeless hug around my ribcage and I remember what it meant to be truly alone. To be with someone and actually without anyone.
I know as soon as I stop running from the past I will stop reliving it. But its hard, even now, to let it catch up with me. So much of me wants to keep running. and yet I know the faster I run the farther away I'll get from palpable, grounded, feelings. The realness in everything is lost when you are so concerned with running from things that you cannot run from. You have to live in a dream or how could you possibly keep it up?
I made Seattle another Wisconsin and Madison another Seattle, and what of the next place? Is it possible I can do it again and again and again forever?
Let me explain. Right now I'm sitting in a cafe in Madison. I'm in between yoga classes, and I've never stepped foot in this cafe before today. I've seen it a hundred times, I've been curious about coming in, but never did it. not until today. I don't even live in Madison anymore technically. Once inside, I see on the walls that they have live music on Saturdays and there are tons of people here talking, spending whole days inside. I could have met people here. I could have been happy here. But I chose the walls of my apartment.
It seems to me that places are best either in my memory or before I've ever arrived.
Promise you won't.
Promise you won't let me do this again.
I can't walk forward 10 years in my life and still be saying that I've hated everywhere I've been.
I can't keep moving and never find a still moment to see the beauty of the place where i already stand.
Now I know.
I know that all of these places, Seattle, Madison, the last 3 years of my life,
they were all shadows of him and the time we spent together and the hollow hardened person i became during those years. They were the shades of a past I was still living and healing from. and I know this. Fully.
I know i'm running from Madison because he's still there. Even though he never lived there with me, I grieved the loss of us within its city limits and that place is now just another painting of him. Only this time it was a painting made of tears, and an offering of catharsis rather than muddied, buried, broken numbness. I think it'd be one of those pictures you look at that you see as stunningly beautiful at first, but the longer you look the more its sadness sets in. Then all of a sudden its inescapable, and after you've looked long enough, all you can think about are the worst things you've ever done, and the more dangerous parts of the person you've ever been.
Does that make sense?
Because I think in a way that's what has made this place the hardest to let go of. I feel like i'm prying it from my own fingers, saying "you're ready, you can do this, you can move"
But i still have this sad, silly painting clutched in my hands, and though I no longer want to look it at, I cannot bear the thought of being without it.
I was pain. but it was my pain.
And also, it was the last bits of him.
Letting this place go means letting all of it go. It means moving forward once and for all. and although my feet are moving ahead, quickly, without me, my heart wants one last look.
At all the places we saw together.
At the times we laughed when we wanted to cry.
At all the moments that could have been.
All the chances he had to make it right.
This time I have to look back. I have to glance over my shoulder and truly know, and truly understand,
all that we were and all that we weren't.
and all that we will never be.
I feel almost ready to exhale this whole thing.
Almost ready to let it out.
But how long will i be almost ready to be ready?
Promise you won't.
Promise you won't do this to yourself again.
But better yet, promise you will.
Promise you will walk away with a tear in your eye
Promise you will promise to feel it all
Promise you'll never make yourself feel like you have to run
And if you have to paint a place into a sad picture, because that's what you need to get better,
then promise you will.
Its all getting better, but it does take time.
Sometimes the past sneaks up behind me and wraps its uncomfortable but familiar arms around my shoulders and encapsulates me and haunts me and tires me. and refuses to release me.
It makes me see the entire world through its filter. Every street I see through a lens of an accomplishment or failure of a before. The place I sit, the socks I slipped my toes into this morning, all seem to be choices that have come to fruition as a consequence of something I can't remember anymore. Or something I can remember and simply choose not to.
What is happening? Why are all of these memories finding me everywhere? In places that they don't belong, in street signs and old buildings that I've never passed until today, and yet they have the color and contour of some other more familiar place.
Maybe I've made this a choice. The past houses a lot of pain. But maybe I've invited it in. maybe I even said "I'm ready to remember you, to give you room, to unlock you from your box and I'm ready to grieve you" but I'm not sure I knew how overwhelmed I would be by its constant presence. I'm not sure I knew it would manifest itself as if it were a standing, living person with me in every room, breathing in my ear and whispering to me about the memories, whether sweet or painful, that I'd prefer to forget. making me relive them every moment.
I dream of Seattle streets, I hear my mothers shouts, I see his cold, thin back turned to me, I feel his lifeless hug around my ribcage and I remember what it meant to be truly alone. To be with someone and actually without anyone.
I know as soon as I stop running from the past I will stop reliving it. But its hard, even now, to let it catch up with me. So much of me wants to keep running. and yet I know the faster I run the farther away I'll get from palpable, grounded, feelings. The realness in everything is lost when you are so concerned with running from things that you cannot run from. You have to live in a dream or how could you possibly keep it up?
I made Seattle another Wisconsin and Madison another Seattle, and what of the next place? Is it possible I can do it again and again and again forever?
Let me explain. Right now I'm sitting in a cafe in Madison. I'm in between yoga classes, and I've never stepped foot in this cafe before today. I've seen it a hundred times, I've been curious about coming in, but never did it. not until today. I don't even live in Madison anymore technically. Once inside, I see on the walls that they have live music on Saturdays and there are tons of people here talking, spending whole days inside. I could have met people here. I could have been happy here. But I chose the walls of my apartment.
It seems to me that places are best either in my memory or before I've ever arrived.
Promise you won't.
Promise you won't let me do this again.
I can't walk forward 10 years in my life and still be saying that I've hated everywhere I've been.
I can't keep moving and never find a still moment to see the beauty of the place where i already stand.
Now I know.
I know that all of these places, Seattle, Madison, the last 3 years of my life,
they were all shadows of him and the time we spent together and the hollow hardened person i became during those years. They were the shades of a past I was still living and healing from. and I know this. Fully.
I know i'm running from Madison because he's still there. Even though he never lived there with me, I grieved the loss of us within its city limits and that place is now just another painting of him. Only this time it was a painting made of tears, and an offering of catharsis rather than muddied, buried, broken numbness. I think it'd be one of those pictures you look at that you see as stunningly beautiful at first, but the longer you look the more its sadness sets in. Then all of a sudden its inescapable, and after you've looked long enough, all you can think about are the worst things you've ever done, and the more dangerous parts of the person you've ever been.
Does that make sense?
Because I think in a way that's what has made this place the hardest to let go of. I feel like i'm prying it from my own fingers, saying "you're ready, you can do this, you can move"
But i still have this sad, silly painting clutched in my hands, and though I no longer want to look it at, I cannot bear the thought of being without it.
I was pain. but it was my pain.
And also, it was the last bits of him.
Letting this place go means letting all of it go. It means moving forward once and for all. and although my feet are moving ahead, quickly, without me, my heart wants one last look.
At all the places we saw together.
At the times we laughed when we wanted to cry.
At all the moments that could have been.
All the chances he had to make it right.
This time I have to look back. I have to glance over my shoulder and truly know, and truly understand,
all that we were and all that we weren't.
and all that we will never be.
I feel almost ready to exhale this whole thing.
Almost ready to let it out.
But how long will i be almost ready to be ready?
Promise you won't.
Promise you won't do this to yourself again.
But better yet, promise you will.
Promise you will walk away with a tear in your eye
Promise you will promise to feel it all
Promise you'll never make yourself feel like you have to run
And if you have to paint a place into a sad picture, because that's what you need to get better,
then promise you will.
Its all getting better, but it does take time.
October 11, 2012
**excerpt from a monstrously long story about going to Door County**
... I starred off into the distance but my gaze was suddenly interrupted when a very drunk danish girl, with fire red hair and a Nordic sweater stumbled over and began slurring,
"You have thhhhe most BEAUTIFUL eyes!!!" I laughed aloud and smiled appreciatively,
"Thank you so much!" I responded
"I..I was gonna tell you earlier...I like your outfit too....but it thought, i thought it was too much to say at once...i, uh, i didn't want you to be weirded out!!!" she laughed and swayed. I laughed too.
"There's no way I would be weirded out, thats awesome thank you! I'm in love with your sweater!!"
"Thanks!" she said, and as she did, I saw a boy saunter back over to where this girl and I were conversing.
She turned to him and blurted to him "her eyes are beautiful!!" he laughed, and the three of us began talking.
I found out through our conversation that this stranger and this girl were roommates, and that they lived just down the road.
Eventually the red-headed girl became distracted and wandered away, leaving me and the unfamiliar boy awkwardly starring in opposite directions. I couldn't bear the unusual silence,
"So, you know a lot of people here" I proclaimed to ease the awkwardness
"Yeah, I grew up here. I haven't missed a summer"
"oh really? and you live in Milwaukee for the school year?"
"Yeah, but i'm taking some time off. I'm almost finished with my degree but I don't know what i'm going to do with it. I think i want to get out of the state for a while, take some time to figure things out"
finally. an actual conversation.
"Thats cool, where do you want to go?"
"Colorado. my friend and I want to move there in the winter"
"I've heard great things. iI've never been, but its supposed to be incredible"
Our conversation went on like this for a while. I peered at the clock and noticed it was getting close to bar time. I felt a sense of now or never. and i asked a bold question
"Hey, do you know how far the piers are from here?"
"Not far, just down the block actually"
"Do you want to go for a walk?"
He smiled, so did I
"Sure! Let me grab my coat and say goodbye"
"Yeah, I have to let my friend know."
I walked over to Indy with a huge smile.
"We are going to go for a walk!" I told her, "I will keep my phone on loud, what are you doing?"
"Well I have to take a few people home, do you want a ride too?" I nodded furiously
I wasn't all that drunk, but I knew my car would live in Sister Bay that night.
"Well, I will drop these guys off and come back for you.
"Well, I will drop these guys off and come back for you.
I didn't want this to be a long and drawn out thing. Boy or not, it was a harvest moon and I intended to sit under the stars by the water and soak it all in. Just for a few minutes.
I saw that the boy had put on his coat. I made sure I had my things and walked over to meet up with him.
"You ready?" I said. he nodded. We made our way outside.
If only there were actual words to describe this night.
The moon was high overhead, it was full. It was the harvest moon. Not a single cloud hung in the sky and the stars overhead shown infinitely against the blackness. There were no planes in the sky.I'd grown accostumed to green and red flashing lights filling Madison skies. But not here, Here there were only stars.
It was cool outside, and the wind off of Lake Michigan blanketed everything, we were of the water because we couldn't escape it. Smells and breezes intermingled with our scarves and faces and the ends of our hair as we walked down to the piers.
Grass ended in the park that lead to the water and led to a concrete ledge. Past which lay hundreds of giant boulders piling high out of the water. The water was close and if I climbed down a few of the boulders I could have easily felt the waves wash upon my feet. The moonlight cast a midnight blue across the entire bay. This harbor, which I had seen during the day, was a completely new world at night. An alien one that seemed created from a dream or a film strip; completely unreal and foreign and breathtaking. In the distance I spotted the steep cliffs of the land that encircled around us to create the bay. The white moon's light reflected off the trees and rocks and bluffs. The black water gently played with its beams as it rose and fell in shimmering waves, crashing heavily on the rocks below us. The lake was calm but fluid. It wasn't flat, like it would be on a windless night. It rolled rhythmically. The motion was peaceful, and the sounds were comforting, Like how the beating of a heart, and the rise and fall of lungs are comforting when you're resting your head on someone's chest.
If i could paint a better night, it would seem too perfect; too crisp in its presentation, It would lose all its beauty. In truth, no picture, or painting, or memory even could recreate that place. As we sat there it barely mattered who we were, or who we were with. All that mattered was that night. All that made sense was being there to experience it.
There were words exchanged. I remember few or them. It was late & my mind was full of stars. My chest bursting, trying desperately to inhale this place. To find a way to keep it inside of me forever.
My phone rang after about 20 minutes of us sitting there. It jolted me back into a world where time had a meaning.
It was Indy. She would be there in a few short minutes, she told me, we should walk to the road so she can see us. I hung up the phone. I told the boy we had to go.
He didn't say anything, He just looked at me intently and I gazed back at him. I think we were overwhelmed by this place, not feeling quite human within it. He leaned in and kissed me.
It was surprising and unsurprising. my first thought fell on how long it had been since I was last kissed. probably over a year. It was odd, I had been kissed regularly for four years. I'd forgotten how weird it was, but I'd also forgotten how nice it was.
Our lips were shiver cold. It wasn't a bad kiss, but it was a kiss out of context. In all honesty the night had worked its magic on our minds. Moonlight is painfully deceiving. So the kiss seemed formed from the world we were experiencing, and not from any fire that we had created together. The action was pleasant but the feeling was vacant. Although it fit uncannily well in the mysterious and unnatural place we found ourselves encapsulated within.
when we broke apart i looked up, smiled, and began to laugh. an involuntary reaction that I experience often. he smiled at me, looking puzzled.
"What?" he said.
"oh, nothing. i just...I like laughing" I had no better answer
I hopped up from the seat, having seen a car drive past in my periphery.
We made our way to the street. I ran there, feeling weightless and giddy. We waited on the sidewalk. Exchanged phone numbers.
as Indy pulled up, I hugged him goodbye. I asked if he wanted a ride home. he said no, he would walk. I couldn't blame him. I would have walked if I could. I would have given anything to never let those midnight hours go.
It seemed clear to me that he was interested in more of a painless fling. That honestly annoyed me less than the way he had carried himself all night; just another guy trying too hard to be cool and detached. I don't have any patience for it.
My car was parked in sister bay, So I had time to eat breakfast, read, and get ready. I didn't know that this next day would be the epitome of the surprises i would experience that weekend. little did I know that the next one was waiting at the cafe just down the street.
I made my way down the road, my headphones were in, music playing, words repeating
"as the years go by
close your eyes
because everything is
perfectly aligned"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)