Packing up my stuff to take to Boston -- suitcase full of boots, bins with fall clothes, dividing books into stacks I'm going to take and stacks I have to leave at home due to limited space. In my room there's a blue and white dresser in the corner that has become a holding place for things I've consciously or unconsciously wanted out of sight, but will never throw away. At the bottom of the top drawer, old cassettes from middle school. Bottom drawer, shirts that my grandmother gave me before she died when I was 11.
And on top of one of the drawers, all the high school clothes -- pastel blouses with bleach and makeup stains around the collars, Prout sweatshirt, Prout tennis sweatshirt and flannel plaid shirt unwittingly stolen from my first boyfriend. And then the skirt, faded grey with threads unraveling, such a familiar weight. Sharpie scribbles all over it, multicolored, exuberant. The most heartbreaking one, of course (love you so much, viking comrade! -- meant just to be funny but it means more to me, now. If a living person can be a ghost and if a ghost can manifest in faded Sharpie scribbles -- there she is).
I think about this stuff because high school was the last time I was surrounded by people with whom I felt like I belonged so much. I don't want to go back. I think that being frozen as an eternal 17-year-old would be misery. It's just when you've been going along and then look back at all this stuff, especially the stuff that you can't ever get back because people move and change and more than that, become living ghosts to each other. And among the people who are not ghosts to each other, there are still unsaid things and regrets and I-should-have-been-there-more. I'm sorry.
It feels very strange to be leaving because I have felt things in such a ghostly way these past four years. One mysterious loss-but-not-that-kind-of-loss (love you, viking comrade) made me expect hauntings everywhere. And I still wonder why I care so much and catch a whiff of womb-dark verdant air, think of skipping stones and the bridge, and there is the ghostliness. An absent person about whom I cared so much becomes not-a-person to me; maybe a poem, maybe a thought, a notion, which all qualify as forms of haunting.
--
It's our anniversary tomorrow and he said that the surprise dinner he is taking me to is at a formal restaurant. How formal? I say. Wear a really nice dress, he says. I pull out the dress from May 2006, green satin with rustling black tulle, delicate flowers (and dried flowers upstairs on top of the dresser in the corner). It's too formal but I decide to try it on just to see. It doesn't zip all the way. Rustle, rustle.
I love him because he ties me so wonderfully to the real breathing world, the beautiful things that aren't ghostly.
--
Is there a way to be a responsible adult and still have that exuberance and optimism? I see so many friends and acquaintances becoming Busy, Jaded, Cynical, Tired. It's what I've always wanted to fight against, but I see those things in myself too. As a teenager I was an optimistic dreamer, wannabe transcendentalist, definite theist. And a quite strong believer in possibility, and maybe even more in impossibility. Those things are still there but I have to work harder for them now. A cautious dreamer, someone who approaches philosophies with an academic and analytical eye, an agnostic who wishes I could just commit to believing. Wants definite evidence before accepting a possibility. This is not who I want to be. I want to be more like who I used to be. Less naive, but no less willing to believe and dream.
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation," Thoreau said. I read it for the first time at fifteen and said, yes, yes, yes, they do and I never will. Many people make these resolutions to be different and to hold onto their spirits as they grow up, but few stick to them. We get all swept up in time passing and things to do and are so captivated by the ghosts that we just forget, and then one day remember, and look around and think: where am I? Who am I? When that is what we should've been fighting all along. Fighting with paper flowers and smiles for strangers and guerilla poetry sidewalk-chalked in the paths of people going about their days, not expecting any miracles. I still believe in all of that stuff, but that's the problem -- everything has gone into theory and away from practice. I think: oh maybe, if only, what if. Not: yes, will do, now. I think in ghosts instead of handshakes and footsteps and spoken words.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
unchronicled
Ok, I've been pulled back into blogging.
I was reading parts of old blogs. The last period of hyperactive blogging, the beginning of 2008 to the beginning of 2009. I got that feeling of something being so far away but so close. Spring 2008, the tail-end of the abandoned theatre, was two years ago.
And so much has gone unchronicled. My relationship with Taylor (First date on the sea cliffs and the hat and coffee shop and pad thai and Miyazaki), how far I fell and how badly it went. The long summer after the break-up, driving to the therapist's office playing Patrick Wolf's "The Bachelor;" my car smelled like garlic sauce for weeks because of spilled Chinese take-out, then it smelled like the blue-and-green cloth air freshener from Walmart. No doubt, that smell would take me right back again, like a Patrick Wolf song did the other day when my ipod was on shuffle. There's a thing that feels far away and not far away.
And my relationship with Tristan: unchronicled. The top of the Prudential Center and the reflecting pool in October, Salem on Halloween night (the packed train of crazy costumed people at Boston's North Station), vegetable quesadillas in the kitchen, on and on.
Another unchronicled thing, at least unchronicled in journal entries: the actually life-changing creative writing workshops I started taking junior year. The blue walls of the Hoffmann room. Awards ceremony. And: how I have spent all of college scribbling and bemoaning how I don't know what to do with my life, and all along it was staring me in the face. Didn't I ride the bus home in high school through spring-drenched afternoons with the rhythm of poems in my head, then burst through the door to write them down? When I was depressed or anything on the blogs, didn't I intersperse the self-reflective monologues with poetry?
I guess I wanted to keep it down and pretend that what I really wanted in life was something that would be easier. I tried for ages to convince myself that I was a fiction writer -- at least SOME fiction writers actually make money completely from their work; not poets. At least fiction writers get read all the time. Or if I wanted to be a journalist or an editor, museum curator, whatever -- at least there was some way that maybe it could be easy.
And right now I am having daily panic attacks because I applied to grad school for an MFA in poetry and I want to get in more than I have ever wanted anything. And the fear is awful and always there, but there's also: at least I want something.
I was reading parts of old blogs. The last period of hyperactive blogging, the beginning of 2008 to the beginning of 2009. I got that feeling of something being so far away but so close. Spring 2008, the tail-end of the abandoned theatre, was two years ago.
And so much has gone unchronicled. My relationship with Taylor (First date on the sea cliffs and the hat and coffee shop and pad thai and Miyazaki), how far I fell and how badly it went. The long summer after the break-up, driving to the therapist's office playing Patrick Wolf's "The Bachelor;" my car smelled like garlic sauce for weeks because of spilled Chinese take-out, then it smelled like the blue-and-green cloth air freshener from Walmart. No doubt, that smell would take me right back again, like a Patrick Wolf song did the other day when my ipod was on shuffle. There's a thing that feels far away and not far away.
And my relationship with Tristan: unchronicled. The top of the Prudential Center and the reflecting pool in October, Salem on Halloween night (the packed train of crazy costumed people at Boston's North Station), vegetable quesadillas in the kitchen, on and on.
Another unchronicled thing, at least unchronicled in journal entries: the actually life-changing creative writing workshops I started taking junior year. The blue walls of the Hoffmann room. Awards ceremony. And: how I have spent all of college scribbling and bemoaning how I don't know what to do with my life, and all along it was staring me in the face. Didn't I ride the bus home in high school through spring-drenched afternoons with the rhythm of poems in my head, then burst through the door to write them down? When I was depressed or anything on the blogs, didn't I intersperse the self-reflective monologues with poetry?
I guess I wanted to keep it down and pretend that what I really wanted in life was something that would be easier. I tried for ages to convince myself that I was a fiction writer -- at least SOME fiction writers actually make money completely from their work; not poets. At least fiction writers get read all the time. Or if I wanted to be a journalist or an editor, museum curator, whatever -- at least there was some way that maybe it could be easy.
And right now I am having daily panic attacks because I applied to grad school for an MFA in poetry and I want to get in more than I have ever wanted anything. And the fear is awful and always there, but there's also: at least I want something.
Friday, February 5, 2010
outside the abandoned theatre
I haven't thought about it in a while. That long walk through the dusty place, then the Ferris wheel and wide sky. The distant strip of sea stays in my mind.
I have been looking more toward the future than the past, but the past is implicated in my worries about the future. Like: Why do I tend to think I'm inadequate? (Flash to the empty dark theatre.) Why do I fear getting trapped? (How the theatre was a maze and it almost never ended.)
I don't want to go back to the dark and claustrophobia. But in flashes I go back numerous times every day. (The sea and exuberant screams. Skipping stones in cold March light, wrapped in her cream-colored shawl. Bare feet on a trampoline. Always, the courtyard gardens.)
A friend appears at my door holding a script and he asks me to continue investigating the abandoned theatre. Maybe now as an archaeologist instead of a prisoner. I am afraid of what bones I might find.
But it's been a long time since I've seen this friend, with whom I escaped, the last time. I miss him. So I agree.
I have been looking more toward the future than the past, but the past is implicated in my worries about the future. Like: Why do I tend to think I'm inadequate? (Flash to the empty dark theatre.) Why do I fear getting trapped? (How the theatre was a maze and it almost never ended.)
I don't want to go back to the dark and claustrophobia. But in flashes I go back numerous times every day. (The sea and exuberant screams. Skipping stones in cold March light, wrapped in her cream-colored shawl. Bare feet on a trampoline. Always, the courtyard gardens.)
A friend appears at my door holding a script and he asks me to continue investigating the abandoned theatre. Maybe now as an archaeologist instead of a prisoner. I am afraid of what bones I might find.
But it's been a long time since I've seen this friend, with whom I escaped, the last time. I miss him. So I agree.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
relationships
Aside from missing him terribly and being heartbroken, I'm finding it really hard to deal with this new "being single" thing. Just that word makes me all cringey. I love being in a relationship. I think there's nothing in the world better or more meaningful than being in love. So now... that's been taken away, and I have this "lost" feeling. My friends have been enormously helpful, and I've been with them all the time, and it really does help, and I laugh and have a good time... but then have to come back to my house, my own bed, alone. And it hurts, and it's lonely.
I've been thinking... And what comes to mind first is that there is nothing better than love, nothing better than falling asleep and waking up next to someone you love, cuddling while watching a movie, hello and goodbye kisses and kisses for no reason at all, sharing a bed and a shower and so many private jokes and memories, being tickled and picked up and spun around, having someone to write love letters to, and wear sexy lingerie for, and bring surprises to. There's nothing better than standing in your love's kitchen wearing your pajamas and his old college sweatshirt. And having someone who makes you just so grateful for his existence, so appreciative of the precise way he takes up space in the world.
But then, and this is what I have to tell myself now, to get through, but also what's true... Is that there is something better than what I've had, something better than just loving - which is loving, and being loved with just as much passion as you're giving. And with Taylor I wasn't getting that, not at all toward the end. And no matter how much I loved him, it never would've been enough, when he didn't love me. So there is something better than what I lost, and I don't have it now, but I hope I will someday. And there's a realization now: knowing that if I hadn't lost this relationship, then I could never find the something-better. And just thinking about how amazing what I had was, makes me think that what I can have in the future will be even more amazing and beautiful. I hope.
Even though the thought of being with another guy right now makes me feel panicked... I have to trust that time will make it better, and easier, and that I'll find someone else when I'm ready.
I've been thinking... And what comes to mind first is that there is nothing better than love, nothing better than falling asleep and waking up next to someone you love, cuddling while watching a movie, hello and goodbye kisses and kisses for no reason at all, sharing a bed and a shower and so many private jokes and memories, being tickled and picked up and spun around, having someone to write love letters to, and wear sexy lingerie for, and bring surprises to. There's nothing better than standing in your love's kitchen wearing your pajamas and his old college sweatshirt. And having someone who makes you just so grateful for his existence, so appreciative of the precise way he takes up space in the world.
But then, and this is what I have to tell myself now, to get through, but also what's true... Is that there is something better than what I've had, something better than just loving - which is loving, and being loved with just as much passion as you're giving. And with Taylor I wasn't getting that, not at all toward the end. And no matter how much I loved him, it never would've been enough, when he didn't love me. So there is something better than what I lost, and I don't have it now, but I hope I will someday. And there's a realization now: knowing that if I hadn't lost this relationship, then I could never find the something-better. And just thinking about how amazing what I had was, makes me think that what I can have in the future will be even more amazing and beautiful. I hope.
Even though the thought of being with another guy right now makes me feel panicked... I have to trust that time will make it better, and easier, and that I'll find someone else when I'm ready.
Friday, June 5, 2009
so you know
He broke up with me.
He'd been a bit distant for a while, not returning calls, reluctant to make plans. So I asked him if something was wrong, and he came over. We went for a walk. And he told me staying together wasn't fair to either of us, because I loved him and he didn't love me, and knew he never would.
A couple of months ago, after I'd told him I loved him and he'd never said it, I asked him if he did. He said he didn't know. And then he realized he just didn't, at all. I constantly had a lot of anxiety about our relationship because I always felt like I was more into it than he was; this anxiety caused me to start arguments over small things and get jealous. I was always terrified of losing him, and now it's happened.
He said he cares about me very much. He hated hurting me. He told me it would be all right.
I'm a mess. I keep thinking of all the things we didn't get to do, and all the things we'll never do again. And I know there's nothing I did wrong, and nothing I could do to make him love me, but it hurts more than anything I've ever gone through. I loved him so much - still do. Waking up next to him, being held by him, having him make me breakfast... made me the happiest I've ever been in my life. I gave everything to him. While we were together, I was completely focused on him. All my happiness was because of him, and all my unhappiness too. And now I feel like there's nothing. Logically I know that's not true, but it's still the feeling I have.
My friends have been over all the time, which is good, but I've still been crying for days and hardly eating or sleeping. I've been calling out of work. Nothing I usually enjoy seems to mean anything anymore or bring any happiness. And... that's all I can think to say about it right now.
He'd been a bit distant for a while, not returning calls, reluctant to make plans. So I asked him if something was wrong, and he came over. We went for a walk. And he told me staying together wasn't fair to either of us, because I loved him and he didn't love me, and knew he never would.
A couple of months ago, after I'd told him I loved him and he'd never said it, I asked him if he did. He said he didn't know. And then he realized he just didn't, at all. I constantly had a lot of anxiety about our relationship because I always felt like I was more into it than he was; this anxiety caused me to start arguments over small things and get jealous. I was always terrified of losing him, and now it's happened.
He said he cares about me very much. He hated hurting me. He told me it would be all right.
I'm a mess. I keep thinking of all the things we didn't get to do, and all the things we'll never do again. And I know there's nothing I did wrong, and nothing I could do to make him love me, but it hurts more than anything I've ever gone through. I loved him so much - still do. Waking up next to him, being held by him, having him make me breakfast... made me the happiest I've ever been in my life. I gave everything to him. While we were together, I was completely focused on him. All my happiness was because of him, and all my unhappiness too. And now I feel like there's nothing. Logically I know that's not true, but it's still the feeling I have.
My friends have been over all the time, which is good, but I've still been crying for days and hardly eating or sleeping. I've been calling out of work. Nothing I usually enjoy seems to mean anything anymore or bring any happiness. And... that's all I can think to say about it right now.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
first summer adventure
The boyfriend and I went on a biking adventure & beach picnic last week! We put the bike rack on the car, stopped at a grocery store for supplies, and drove to Jamestown. It was lovely to drive over the bridge and see the ocean with the windows down. When we got there, we went to the beach first (Mackerel Cove), spread out blankets, took out the cooler, and brought books of course. We had a nice picnic of tortilla chips and grapes while reading.
After that we got on the bikes and rode all around the island. He lived there as a teenager so he knows his way around. One nice thing was when we rode by his old house and found a pine tree he planted in the backyard when his family first moved there. I am admittedly not in the best shape, having avoided exercise for the past three years, so biking wasn’t as easy as I expected… but it was still fun. And rewarded with ice cream.
The ice cream was eaten after we rode into town for lunch at a deli. Then we lingered around a bit, then got back on the bikes and took a very roundabout way back to the beach, where we lay around on blankets again and read more.
It was one of those excellent spilled-sunshine-on-the-road summer days. On the way back, boyfriend drove while I lazily looked out the windows, and was happy.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
happy wandering day
The Providence Journal had a feature the other day on interesting things to do on Memorial Day. I picked “Shop Downcity,” an event on Westminster St. where the shops do kind of a sidewalk sale, selling stuff outside at discounted prices. My mom came along with me. We got there toward the end of the day so there wasn’t all that much left, but it was nice to walk around anyway.
The best part of the day was when we stopped in Tazza Cafe for a drink and ended up having a delicious lunch & dessert. I had an iced chai and a panini, and for dessert a strange and marvelous creation called pistachio napoleon. Layers of phyllo with Grand Mariner cream and vanilla-coated mandarin oranges.
While we had lunch we talked about plans for my 21st birthday in September and college graduation one year from now. About the first, I’m very excited. Plans include classy dinners at places with wine lists (one with my parents, one with the boyfriend), an adventure with my best friends (maybe a road trip). About the second thing – graduation – I’m more scared, but the prospect of a party on a nice lawn somewhere with a band playing in the background makes it better.
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