maybe all before this was fallacy

I think it happened somewhere amidst standing over the kitchen counter in the dark, eating cold spaghetti from a glad-ware container at 1 o'clock in the morning. Maybe that was the moment. The moment being the precise collection of seconds in which I realized the all together precarious and ridiculous state of my life. Somewhere in between the rapture of tomato and basil came this flash of images- pictures of me and my life and the people so colorfully populating it. And we were swimming, or rather floating. These tiny caricatures in my head attempting simply to stay afloat and failing to grasp at anything concrete.
Void of all stability.
Tempting fate and a drowning demise.

Here I stood, in my parent's kitchen, in a house that no longer felt like my own, eating cold spaghetti in the dark. It was all I could do to take this sharply close look at my life... at the very real and bizarre circumstance in which I now found myself. All I could see was a young woman, seemingly accomplished and of various interest and skill, yet completely and utterly lost in the immensity. The immensity of life and the universe and all its divine, cosmic and fate driven notions was holding me hostage. And for the first recognizable time in my life I couldn't uncover the strength to fight the immensity back. All I could see was this reflection of someone I didn't even know.

And I feel like I should have cried. As a highly emotional individual- one who sobs at Hallmark commercials and hot dog advertisements- all signs point to my inevitable tear shed. And yet, nothing. I felt as though I should have cried like a young girl learning the fictional reality of her beloved Santa Claus, or a 15 year old experiencing heartbreak for the first time. Nothing. I would have even settled for an outburst of obscenity or a rush of inappropriate laughter. I was in fact, so remarkably unprepared for what occurred next. I simply stood staring at a tiny crack in the hardwood floor. Perhaps a tomato and basil induced coma had set in leaving little to no room for an intensely emotional reaction. So I simply stood there for another good 30 seconds before putting the blue plastic lid back on my mother's spaghetti and went to my room.

...A man once told me that you can bloom where you're planted. We stood in front of a wall of cheese I was so expertly mongering at Trader Joe's when he said to me, "You can bloom where you're planted." I suppose this is a fact perhaps one comes to terms with later in life, once you've moved away from a place or seen the edge of something new. And upon returning to that place where you began you find that you could have stayed there all along. You could have grown into something or someone of just as much substance and interest. You can bloom where you're planted.

But then I think that I could just spend a lifetime floating... through space and time, between oceans and continents and cups of coffee, hiking paths and perfectly delicious kisses, old pairs of sweatpants and borrowed boyfriend t-shirts, dance studios, yoga studios, black and white photographs, endless Sunday mornings and farmer's markets, fresh peaches, hand holding, long distant phone calls and laughter, art, cardboard boxes, audrey hepburn films, and moments that pull you back into your body while simultaneously tossing you out into other dimensions and worlds and colors... I want to believe that I can bloom where I've been planted. But not yet. I am far too close to the drowning demise of an over watered houseplant or the perfect sunflower caught in an April monsoon. Perhaps this man forgot to also mention that one too can bloom where you're uprooted and re-planted. Or maybe said plant may live in a beautifully crafted pot allowing it to move and live in all kinds of homes and landscapes before being settled back into solid earth. Perhaps we can master this simultaneous planting and floating to offer room for adventure and discovery while still being at home in the world?

They don't teach you that in college. They don't teach you that anywhere really... how to be at home in the world. It's like one day you wake up and realize that you're living a life you never thought you would ever possibly be living. Leaving all judgement out of the equation, it's just that you never imagined your life would look as it does. And no one ever told you how to make the transition from perpetual student and academic artist to real life person. And not to say that anyone was supposed to. But, how can you make this transition into figuring out who you really are and what you really want when essentially, nothing in your life up until this point has actually prepared you for making such decisions. Maybe all before this was fallacy. Maybe we were all just playing at pretend hoping that when reality set in we just wouldn't notice?

At least I may take tiny comfort in knowing that for as long as I've been alive, my mother's spaghetti has always been delicious. This is a fact in which I hold complete faith and know will forever be truth. Especially cold... at 1 o'clock in the morning.

Currently seeking out other small comforts to make it through another week.
I promise it won't be so long between posts next time.

-L

Lately I've been giving a bit of thought to the secret lives we keep. More like, if our lives were to be considered a soundtrack- a composition of melodic stories and cover art, they too would contain hidden tracks. What elements of our lives do we keep hidden, perhaps protected? What, if anything, do we keep purely for ourselves and no one else?

Surely we must all have those ritual practices... those exercises that make us feel a little more like ourselves, a little more alive or at peace. And maybe it's the child like play: singing into hairbrushes and practicing our air guitar, acting out scenes from the make believe film that we see as our life. Maybe we're all just living Pinocchios and Peter Pans, challenging a world requiring us to grow up and become certain things. And perhaps we're all playing at something in these secret little lives we keep- these hidden tracks intended for our ears only. Because at the end of the day, we can only fully know ourselves. And regardless of how complicated or confused or essentially screwed up we are, there's a kind of comfort in these hidden moments. In these hidden moments we are the most authentic versions of ourselves, and most of the time, it's easier to share that truest form in the private delicacy of our make believe realms.

Someone once told me that not everything is meant to be shared with others. Some things are meant to be saved and kept for ourselves. And just ourselves. But then I wonder, in finding love or a life's companion, how much of that sacred space do we give up, or rather share with another? Do we in fact end up melding these two lives into a twisting web of its own making? Or can we actually hold onto those hidden tracks while still giving fully and vulnerably to another? At what point are we with holding from someone else in attempts to keep things so intimately our own?

We write in journals, day dream and create fictional stories whether in our minds or on paper... we have revelations and thoughts of significance... and perhaps the difference is recognizing the moments in which something has greater value only when shared with another versus being complete on its own... with only me having come to know of it.

I guess it just feels like a struggle- to hold onto things that are so completely and uniquely yours. Especially in a world where we're so set on making connections and fostering relationships. I'm not sure how you negotiate the two.

Anyway, more to come...

I and Love and You

It's kind of funny. The way life works out. The way people surprise you in even the simplest of ways. How a letter or a phone call can seemingly change the course of your very existence. I think it's something about the power of words. Or maybe it's more the people saying them. For a time I've attached myself to this theory that words are not enough. That words actually carry very little weight. They're empty. Because no words can fully encompass all that someone is or what they mean to us. No words can truly encapsulate the depths of emotion. Only we can comprehend our feelings- their immensity and shape.

Yet we grasp at alike words: happy, sad, love, fear... and think that we each mean to express similar sentiments when in actuality, that's impossible. In actuality, we have no way of knowing the capacity of another to feel happy or sad, to fear, to love. Yet in clinging to these words one has to believe that we at least move in like minded directions. That my 'love' could not be so off course from that of another. That your 'happiness' sits close to mine if not so neatly beside it.

But, I suppose aside from action, from the physical depictions of emotion, words are sort of all we've got. So it's no wonder that relationships become so complicated. You'd think they could be simple. You'd think that at our very core, human beings are actually quite simple. We all want and need the same basic things. We're just struggling to understand one another's words... how we express our needs or desires for those common necessities. We dance around ideas, bull shit, lie, pretend... we use and abuse a language so expertly devised to simply tell the truth. And find ourselves wondering why these things are all so complicated.

Well then maybe it's not the words themselves, but really the people saying them. It's how one's emotions and thought and intent manifest themselves inside the framework of words. How one can shape or manipulate or color those common words to mean what he or she needs them to mean...

The Avett Brother's have a song called "I and Love and You." It's my latest obsession. Maybe it's their struggle with words that rings home. Check it out, friends. And until next time...

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell ones that need to know
We are headed north

All one foot in and one foot back
But it don't pay, to live like that
So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks
For never to return

Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

When at first I learned to speak
I used all my words to fight
With him and her and you and me
Oh it's just a waste of time
It's such a waste of time

That women shes got eyes that shine
Like a pair of stolen polished dimes
She asked to dance I said it's fine
I'll see you in the morning time

Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
What you were then I am today
Look at the things I do

Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
You dreams to catch this world the cage
The highway sets the travelers stage
All exits look the same
Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
I and love and you
I and love and you

every morning the maple leaves

I love Sunday walks in the park with Noel. Noel is my soon to be 8 year old pup- a sheltie mix of sorts we happily rescued from a shelter on the Eastern Shore those many Christmases ago. And I suppose I just love walks in the park in early Autumn, as colors begin changing: the mix of red, orange, yellow, and greens taking over a tree infused landscape. I stop when Noel stops- pausing to take in the smells of grass, trees, and the crispness of Fall. I think there's a sort of vitality in the air of Autumn. We are awakened and brought into a deeper, more heightened sense of experience. The senses illuminate in a way that can only happen in these months of October and November, with a sweet dog by your side, reminding you to slow down and take moments to pause every now and then. And I get to thinking about Elizabeth Bennet- the pensive and stubborn character Austen so expertly created... a lover of walking, much like myself. And I begin wondering if perhaps Austen imagined Bennet's experience of walking to be something like this- a meditation of sorts, taking in the colors, smells, and sounds of this outward place, dreaming of chance encounters while allowing a moment for reflection and self introspection. One can find a sense of peace while walking, and ideally when walking in a physically beautiful place.

So I got to thinking about walking in a city like New York- something which I at one time found to be a different kind of meditation but now deem a sport of sorts. Competitive, fast paced, each individual so tightly wound up in his or own world of thought and focus, merely aiming to get from point A to point B seemingly as quickly as possible. One does not walk in a city like that for the sense of calm or inner peace it brings. One does not see this practice as a means of restoration but rather a means of transportation. It's like a million atoms in space attempting not to collide- dodging one another and hot dog carts and yellow cabs, trying not to be distracted by bright city lights, angered Yankees fans, or posh downtown hipsters donning far too few accessories. I don't think Noel would enjoy those kinds of walks, and more and more I'm thinking I wouldn't either. Because who really wants to live in world overflowing with zombies donning headphones apparently cut off from that outward experience? I think I'd rather an openness to that space, allowing all that a park or a path or landscape can wash over me as I move through it.

So there's that.

I'm no longer one of those Starbucks dwelling people... but more so my need for employment and some fund saving as transformed me into a Trader Joe's dweller. And not just for the free samples. I now get to spend mornings, afternoons, and some very late evenings unloading trucks,stocking shelves, bagging groceries and making attempts to interact with those other specialty food loving people. I work at Trader Joe's. I live at home with my parents. In a good number of ways, I'm lost. And each day is a struggle to allow myself to be okay with all of that. To be okay with where I am, what I'm doing, and what I have. Because really, I'm not lost. I'm just trying to figure out who I am and what I want without the regulations or labels of some larger institution or structure deciding for me.

And it's kind of amazing... finding yourself in the vast openness of possibility existing in the universe. But it's simultaneously terrifying- thinking that you have to choose a path, a passion, an occupation. What if you're just too overwhelmed by option? By interest? What if you're just in a transition... because transitions DO exist. And as of this moment, I am in one. The ultimate one. And I have to believe that this is going to lead to another moment... or maybe just another transition. Maybe there are no certain things or final destinations in life. Maybe it's all moving through one transition after the other- like riding the waves of an infinite sea... loving the thrilling rush of the crash, all the while terrified of drowning. I guess I'm just having a hard time. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to be living life... when the reality is, I can do or be anything. Really. So why a sense of fear or guilt or judgment? Why not just rid yourself of all of that and allow life to be what it is, where it is, in this very moment... in this transition?
Easier said than done I guess, right?

Well for now, there is some sort of satisfaction that comes from making someone smile, from seeing the world through the eyes of an affectionate, loving, animal, and so perfectly stacking jars of salsa and beans and tomato paste. There is a sense of peace one feels after reading a good book purely for pleasure, of having the time to write and write and write, and taking endless moments to pause and think, to meditate. And all I can hope is that I'll figure this thing out. This thing being life. So perhaps that will take a life time. Perhaps that's kind of the point. We spend our lives trying to figure this thing out... so we make connections with other people and places, we develop skills and interests and passions, we feel and think and dream, and we hope that at the end of the day we're left with something or someone to hold onto. We're all just trying to figure this thing out. I'm not sure that any of us really know what we're doing. And maybe there should be some sort of comfort in that.

On a lighter note, the following items are assisting me in welcoming my favorite season of Autumn... check them out:

Poetry of Richard Siken: Crush
the musical stylings of Ingrid Michaelson, Ryan Adams (from Easy Tiger), Courtney Jones and Ben Folds
new books including: The Kids are All Right and The Stranger (Camus)
Baking and eating pumpkin bread
abundant walks in the park
actually dressing up for Halloween this year and enjoying it

Until next time,

L

I've become one of those lap top typing, latte sipping, starbucks dwelling people

The thing I've realized is that none of us really, actually know what we're doing. We're all just fumbling around in the dark, making messes and complicating situations. And I don't know if it's a gamble, each of us painting on poker faces making attempts to win the game at hand, or perhaps we've succomb to the notions of make believe. We find ourselves caught in moonlit dreams, playing at life the way we imagine it, rather than allowing ourselves to exist within the consuming depths of reality. Maybe we're all Alices, falling through the rabbit hole, scared beyond all recognition, grasping at twisted felines and mad hatters for some spec of truth. Maybe none of us really, actually know what we're doing.

My life these past 22 years has primarily consisted of some sort of formal structure, educational systems, carefully controlled environments, a family tree demarcating my life. These have been 22 years transitioning between tiny squares and boxes, compartments, bubbles, a brick house with square windows, a red door, and a chimney for Santa Claus. I'm starting to wonder if all the things I thought were assisting in this path toward self discovery and growth have actually inhibited my individuality. What if all of this so-called knowledge and and room for experimentation has been nothing more than the inevitable result of a structure or institution? What if all that I am is nothing more than a reflection of the spaces having contained this body...this vessel, this soul, the somewhat random structure of muscle and sinew and bone? What if all this has just been some ridiculous test?

College provides one with boxes. Boxes within boxes to organize, categorize, and compartmentalize life. And we all know it's happening as we conform to routine or plans and a certain path marked by specialty or specialties chosen. This can only offer so much room for growth and exploration...maturation. And then you graduate from that world only to find a life void of such containment. Welcome to the vast expanse. Welcome to the "what the hell do I do now?" phase of your life.

I sat in Starbucks watching a little boy shoot blue sugar packets into the trash can- his arms darting upward with certain victory, a smile so pure and simple, the direct reflection of innocent joy. I envied him. Me: 22 years old. 2 college degrees. and unemployment set on by "challenging economic times." I envied that little boy and the profound thrill found in sinking sugar packets into the trash.

I once said that we're all fumbling. Falling through reality. Through space and time, and broken hearts. Broken clocks. Repaired frames and reframed pairings of ourselves and others. Through fiction. Through the moment when you wake up in the morning and still wish you were sleeping. Because it's within the solace of sleep you tread the purest stream of conscience. And maybe this has all just been a test. Maybe this life is nothing more than stories unraveling between our bodies. Between our fallible, complicated, tragically beautiful little lives. This is what happens in the vast expanse. This is what happens in the thick of reality, when you've hit the bottom of the rabbit hole and simply allow yourself to exist within it.

The truth is I'm lost. And even as I say that I'm not sure if it's me that's lost in the vast expanse of possibility and harshness of reality. Or did I somewhere along the way just lose myself? In the moments and experiences I thought I was so clearly coming into my own, honing my individuality and artistic identity...was I really just consumed by this overwhelming force of structure? Was the outside shaping me rather than me having some profound impact on the outside...because of who I am, and what I make, and what I believe in?

Sometimes I think there should be a handbook to life. A book of instructions like Angella Chase said, telling you where to go and what to do. And the macho men of our time would cast it aside, attempting to build the foundations of a life by themselves, whether through intuition or a natural, keen sense of 'how to.' While the careful few would take things step by step, only to ensure a lire constructed carefully, safely, in search of the most perfect product possible. Yet life doesn't work that way. I suppose because none of us know what it's supposed to look like. And we can pretend that we do, we can make plans and develop skills to try and realize the promise of a specific color and shape and classification of life. But in the end I suspect we'd only find ourselves disappointed. Because life doesn't work that way. None of us actually know what we're doing. We're all just little kids shooting sugar packets into the trash. Hoping to make shot after shot, but more often than not, failing, at a seemingly simple task.

anacortes

So I suppose this post is long overdue. I returned from Europe over a week ago. And I feel like I'm supposed to be all amped and looking to write about every adventure and story and evocations of emotion and thought... And I have all of that... stories and memories and moments reflecting back as these glorious images and sounds and phrases in my mind, but I just feel... deflated. I feel deflated.

Don't get me wrong, I had the time of my life. Truly, I saw and felt and experienced and tried and ate and drank and sang and wrote and... and... and. It was phenomenal. But I guess it's like any major event in one's life, that when asked to talk about it or explain it to someone else, it seems nearly impossible. And it all feels like it was yesterday that I was night swimming in Cinque Terre watching shooting stars, or eating pesto and drinking wine while watching the sunset, walking along the Champs D'Elysee, Eiffel Tower in clear sight, or finding myself in awe of The David, strolling the streets of Venice, eating pancakes with Australian friends in an adorable flat in Lyon... And yet, it all seems like a million years ago. Like I was someone different then. Or rather, the time warp and transition back to the US stripped me of this person I had become while travelling, this person I was excited to be and try on... but now due to timing and circumstance and lack of decent pain au chocolat, she's gone. And I want her back.

I feel deflated.

I'm back here, in Maryland. I'm sitting at this little white desk, in my room, in my parent's house, surrounded by yellow walls, feeling small. This room feels too small. This desk, this bed, these ridiculous buttercup walls making all attempts to confine and smother. And I know it's this transitional period. This 'post college- what the hell am I doing with my life' phase. And part of me says that I should just recognize where I am and how I feel and just embrace it... accept it... allow. Allow, allow, allow. Well, as always, easier said than done, right?

I hate the transitions. I believe in them. I understand their purpose. But I hate them. I hate this constant feeling of being in between, of limbo, of uncertainty. I hate the perpetual trap of applying for jobs and searching for new homes and coming up with nothing, all the while wondering if want you think you want is actually want you want... or even, need. And second guessing every decision of every thought and action or hypothetical notion about your future... about the course or direction of your life.

I get that we're supposed to be "growing up" now. That we've entered the "real world" and all its responsibility. But I just don't see what it has to be so hard... why we should have to struggle so much, and get stuck in this place of essentially losing who we are. Losing the strong, confident, independent people we became through college- a challenging transition itself. Yet here we are. Grasping at straws and making grand attempts to simply get our feet underneath us, failing to understand why, after 4 years of formal education and degrees later, we can't seem to get our feet underneath us.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Seattle to attend my grandmother's funeral. My grandmother passed away on Tuesday and that in itself has sent this household into an unexpected frenzy. And while I wish it was certainly under different circumstances, I have to admit I'm looking forward to being in Washington, seeing family, surrounding myself with water and mountains and my aunt's delicious cobbler. There's something about the Pacific Northwest that's restorative in its peaceful calm and radiance of positive energies. Maybe this simultaneous grieving will find itself accompanied by a release... of all the frustrations and sadness and anger and fear... and I'll return here a week from now, ready to really get my feet in place.

Wish me luck.

Red Cloud and Blue Coyote greet the Old World

Well it's getting late and I need to head to bed, not to mention repack this backpack of mine for the umpteenth time. It's always a challenge when I pack, and even more so when all I'm carrying for a month will be on my back the entire way.

So, it's here. Eurotrip 2009. We leave tomorrow afternoon making our way to first stop: Athens, Greece for the beginnings of what I have no doubt will be the trip and experience and adventure of my life to date. I don't know what else to say except that I finally feel ready. I just want to get on that plane tomorrow and let the universe take it from there.

I'm hoping to maybe put up a few brief updates from time to time. Let you all know where I am, what I'm up to... that sort of thing.

So for now I'll say goodnight. See you in September.