the D word

Feeling a little lost for words this evening. It's Friday (or as I like to call it fried-day because by Friday night, the synapses are firing a little slower and the dark circles are a little bit bigger). Someone in my family died today. Well, really last night, but he wasn't discovered until this afternoon after not responding to phone calls. I have an acquaintance who lost his partner of 10 years to a sudden medical event (a few months ago). I have another friend who's navigating the simultaneous and sudden decline in both of her parents' health. As I think about it, I realize this list could go on for quite awhile. It's crazy how so much gloom can coexist with so much beauty, but such is the way of opposing forces. I can feel the cliches and platitudes right around the corner, so it's best to just get to the completely unrelated haiku. I tried to come up with something more poignant, but I'm giving up and calling it a day. 

is she trying to 

squash a bug between her teeth? 

no, she's chewing gum 

picture: a village church on Ilha Grande, an island off the coast of Rio, Brazil, September 2012, cross-processed film, Agfa Optima  

peer pressure

New Years makes me grumpy. Maybe it's the loss of sleep (we didn't even stay up until midnight!) or the excessive amounts of homemade pizza I ate or the annoying amount of trash in the park leftover from fireworks or the champagne bottles discarded by people who attended said fireworks. Could also be the gray cold day. Or the pressure to make New Year's Eve special, which ultimately ends with disappointment. My partner is really good at letting go of that pressure to crank up the volume on NYE, but I'm not quite there. Objectively, we had a very laid back and enjoyable time with friends' making the aforementioned pizza with their 3-year-old. We walked there. We didn't have to get dressed up or yell over loud music or pretend to give a sh*t about making conversation with people we barely know. Subjectively, I went to bed at 11:15 feeling lame even though I detest the kinds of activities deemed "exciting" by most people's standards. Yet another instance where I really need to choose my choice. Today, despite my crankiness, has been nice enough. How can I complain when I got to read a book and attend to some much needed house cleaning? Why get all fussy about a night that amounts to a cultural phenomenon? Need to work on this. In the meantime, here is the last hour in short form:

with tired burning eyes
and heavy lids, I read while
cats lounge on my limbs

find your meaning

I've recently become obsessed with spotting the statue of liberty on my train rides to/from Manhattan. It started on a particularly difficult day about a month ago. Another bout of professional inadequacy roared through my brain, and for some reason I had a moment on the train when I realized that I had gone from living on a military base in the piedmont of NC as a small child to an adult living in the chaos of NYC, riding the train across the Manhattan bridge to my job as a therapist, living with my partner, and taking care of other living beings. I don't know, something about the distance between those two states of being hit me as an accomplishment, even though I know that there's a bias wrapped up in the conclusion. Am I somehow more "accomplished" than the people who never stray 10 miles from home? No, but for me it feels important to realize that I have taken certain kinds of risks and am living a life that is proof of the ability to do hard things. I also have a ton of privilege and opportunity that makes my challenges a walk in the park compared to others, but it's important to hold both ideas and not dismiss one's accomplishments. Something about the raised arm of the statue of liberty triggered this thought process, and I'm sure there's some contentious back story that throws stones through my vision of it as a symbol for strength. It feels cheesy, and I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm also happy to have a trigger for helpful thoughts that keep me from getting too caught up in my failure narrative.

rattling over
the bridge, her arm extends through
fog, a reminder

//

walking along 6th
idly texting when a damn
pigeon grazed my phone

(yes, that really happened)

picture: fog rolling through the NC mountains, somewhere between Warren Wilson College and Boone, July 2013, film, Canon Tlb (because I don't really have a picture of the statue of liberty or one looking the correct direction down the east river) 

where do the hours go?

When we were in Brazil last fall, we had very few responsibilities. Pretty much all we had to do was eat*, sleep, wash a few dishes, try not to get sunburned on endless hikes or gobbled up by prowling mosquitoes in the night, and amuse our 1 year old companion.  On the surface, it seemed like a lot of people on the island were in the same boat (that pun was so unintentional, but I'm leaving it in because I can't help myself).  This sign at the center of the nearby village was a hot spot for socializing and doing what looked like a whole lot of nothing. I'm sure the people on the island all have obligations and worries of their own, but their constant loitering contributed to my overinflated sense of leisure.

Fast forward about 8 months, and I can barely remember what it felt like to have nothing to do for hours on end. We've been in constant motion since we left for our Brazilian adventure. Yes, everyone is busy. New York is overflwoing with doers. So many opportunities!  So much to do!  I know people that pick up extra hours at work because they're just not sure what to do with free time, but I can't say that I have ever had that problem. I know people that make plans almost every night of the week, but if I have plans 2 days in a row, I feel like my routines (and the resulting functionality of our household) crumble and it takes days to get things back on track.

What I've been trying to do lately is reframe my idea of "free" time because in my head it seems like it should be protracted hours in which I have to figure out what I want to do with myself. But that just isn't happening right now, and won't for the foreseeable future. So I've had to chunk down and try to appreciate increments as small as 15 minutes. Some days I dive right in and spend those 15 minutes practicing my banjo or scanning film negatives or (gasp) writing a blog post.  But a lot of days, I spend those 15 minutes sitting on the couch, resentful and bemoaning how little time I have.  Before I know it, my free time is up, and I have to go finish the dishes or walk the dog or feed the cats or pack my lunch for the next day or this, or that.

And what about friendships?  You can't nurture a relationship with scraps of time, and forget about making new ones.  Well, I guess you can if go virtual, but what I'm craving is 3 dimensional face time.  I used to spend entire weekends visiting friends on a regular basis. Granted, I was single, hated my job, was apathetic toward my living situation, and did not own a dog. But there has to be a way to make time for people, right?

I've been a variety pack of contradictions lately: lonely and craving a network, too possessive of time to use it on anything besides zoning out at home, and too married to routines that make me feel functional to break the cycle. There's no pat resolution to this post. I merely wanted to use a few minutes of my newfound weekend (no more working on weekends!) to share what's been on my mind for awhile.


*Eating was not actually as small a feat as I'm making it in this sentence. To buy groceries, we had to hike 20 minutes down into the village and then hike back up the side of the hill (I don't think it really counts as a mountain, but it was pretty steep in places) with all of our groceries in tow.

progress?

There's a line from the Scott Jurek book Eat & Run that has really stuck with me: "Sometimes you just do things."

I'm not really in to just doing things.  In fact, part of what contributes to my eternal stagnation is that I can't just do things.  I always have to ask "why" or "what's so important about this" or "what is the point of doing that," and look how far all of that rumination has gotten me.

It seems like such a simple statement, but you'd be amazed at how useful it is when you're 8 miles into an 11 mile run, and the humidity is 127%, and you think maybe your toes have turned into little ginsu knives.  Other useful statements at such a juncture: "this is what I want" "I choose to be here" and "I will eat my face off when this is over."

Because choice is important, isn't it?  Feeling in control is a creature comfort.  Although it becomes less of a comfort for other creatures when you decide to try to control them, but overall I would say that feeling like you are your own master is an important element to happiness.

I turned 32 last week.  32!  Which I know won't seem like much to some of you, but it feels like a big deal.  People in their 30s own things.  They have paths.  They are in charge of stuff.  Or so it seems.  I've decided to embark on my own 30-something avenue that will be kind of a big deal if I see it through.  Naturally I don't plan on sharing it with you yet (not for quite awhile really), but I have to say it feels good to decide to just do something.  Because why the F not.  

*and sometimes 2 people in the course of a day ask you to write more blog posts, so you just sit down and do it 

blahttes and crappucinos

Remember when I used to write some stuffs?  Yeah, me neither.

There are so many things I could try to use as an excuse.  Post marathon depression.  Holiday Hangover.  February flops.  Mental hay fever.  The real reasons are so existential and wiggly that I can barely figure out how to describe them.  I tried to explain the problem to an old friend today, and it sounded like I was quoting a Portlandia script, minus the quirky coolness.  

I'm not sure people with my grab bag of neuroses are supposed to have blogs.  Being torn between wanting attention and gold stars (comments! thumbs up! like me!), not wanting attention (don't ask me questions about myself!), and not understanding the point of anything makes for a difficult first draft.  But why does everything need to be injected with meaning?  Why can't something just be a collection of stories for the sake of storytelling?  I spent over 30 minutes this evening scrolling through Humans of New York (non-Facebook version here), completely enthralled by the snippets included with each photo, and would have kept going if I hadn't promised myself I would write something tonight.  

So I'm not breaking up with you internets.  I'm merely trying to define our relationship and figure out how to make this space something I look forward to inhabiting instead of this thing that needs to be Great and Noticed.      

don't fret my pet

There's a lot of hoopla out there about staying present and experiencing the moment and blah blah blah, but sometimes it's essential to look ahead.

When you're riding a motorcycle (or a bicycle for that matter) and you need to make a tight turn, it helps to look at where you want to go and almost like magic, the bike will follow your gaze. There's this awful exercise that they make everyone do in the motorcycle safety course that consists of making a figure eight in a very small box outlined on the pavement. The only way to execute the move is to turn your head in the direction that you need to go. If you look directly at the course the bike is taking instead of where the bike needs to go, you'll never be able to make the tight turn required to stay in the box.

The same thing goes for reading music. To stay with the tempo, you have to be able to play one note while looking at the next set of notes to see where the melody is headed. If you look at each note as you play it, you will always be behind the beat, and if you're sight reading (i.e. playing a piece of music for the first time, possibly for an audition or for your monthly hootenanny), forget it. You'll stumble all over yourself and wish you had taken up latch hooking instead of music.

It also comes in handy for instruments that have a large geography to cover. If I'm playing the guitar, and I need to get from the 3rd fret to the 7th fret, the best way for me to hit the right position is to play the 3rd fret chord while looking at the 7th fret so my hand knows where it's going (assuming you have to look when you play, which I do because I'm just not there yet). If I wait until the last second to mentally and physically transition to the next chord, it's sloppy every time.

What's my point? Well I thought I was going to be able to wrap this up neatly into a lesson-shaped package, but I'm having trouble keeping it cohesive today. So, instead of hitting "save now" and attempting to perfect this message, which we all know I will avoid like the dentist, I'm going to publish as is because it's been far too long since I've contributed to the cloud. Sometimes you have to vomit before you can get to the good stuff.