at least for a little while

it's not safe out there, you know?

each day is a step further into a stream we are all trying to cross, in search of that secret, intangible something that touches our soul. we dangle these ideals, these goals in front of us, like golden carrots on strings, justifying each and every step across slippery stones, in rushing waters. We ask questions by our every action, we tell and we tell a joke, to which the answer is a smile, and we can carry on because  i am thisclose to being loved, because she almost laughed. Those questions tell us where we are along the way, how much longer we have to stand here shivering, before we'll be home.

these markers tell us if we are making progress, and we use them to make it okay that we are putting our lives in peril of the McDonald's hamburged filled, speeding car driving, heartbreaking, disease bearing world.

yesterday, a very kind doctor took a very large piece of me away, excised it, put it in a jar, and sent it away, in hopes that he was giving me something back.

he glanced back as he left the room and this is what he said, "Just have a low threshold, don't be afraid to call." And I wanted to scream out and say, what in the hell would you say if i called? would you comfort me? What does that even mean? why did you pat my leg like you were consoling me? The questions flooded me. And i knew if I kept asking them to the closed oak door he left in his wake, I'd never get off that table, get dressed, go to work.

he was supposed to be my reference point. he needed to tell me where i stood. and whatever he said, his brow was furrowed when he came out from under that great awkward sheet, as it had not been before he had disappeared beneath it. and i could not help but trying to translate each wrinkle on his tall shining forehead.

he hoped to give me time, this i knew, he told me as much. he hoped to find the delicate balance between the hope of having my own life, and someday bringing forth another. this was the hope. a delicate hope that made my entire body tremble. i don't know his motives, i want to pretend to myself that implicit in his glance was altruistic philanthropy. i want to pretend he saw something in me worth saving, and so he was going to make very absolutely sure that he did his very very best. I wanted to believe I was an exception to him. But the truth is this; it's his job and his job is to answer the questions by cutting away what he can: the confusion, the ugly parts, the pain. But there are more questions than he has time, or words, or strength, sometimes, I'm sure.

so sometimes, in light of the scary places within and without, we have to shut down. shut it off. crumple up the questions and leave them behind in the biohazard bin.

let it happen, let an afternoon of pastry and tea turn into an easy night at work, turn into the next day where we leave the laundry, and go on a salvation army adventure. just let the air fill us up and empty us out. (expandcontractexpandcontract, all the while, the only focus). nothing complex.

sometimes we have to let it rush past; from cheap sushi, to the pedicure you can't actually afford (but the red wine is complimentary, so please budget forget me for an hour), and metamorphose into speaking too loudly of books we love, with strangers who may not love us and try not to worry, for just a second about the question we are asking with the endless prose, and whether or not they are giving the right answer.

sometimes we have to say to someone, "this day hurts me to my core." and curl up in a ball under the mere effort of reaching out to someone. we can't wonder if it was too much to tell them; if they'll care. in those moments we are not allowed expectation or reservation.

there are so many questions, and no peace treaty which might let them cross over into the place of answers and find their justice. So Tuesday I stopped shooting questions into the air, trying to flag down some sort of rescue. I am fortified in the simple act of letting it all slide by, in watching things take their course, in doing only what must to carry on. I am not asking, I am not explaining. I am not apologizing.

my hope will not be pillaged by the desperation of questions unanswered, of the need to be validated. i have made myself a tautology, and at the risk of being a heretic, have taken a page from that great  yahweh. and today, i am.
All our questions are a way of asking directions to a more permanent refuge from the storm. We are all asking for directions home. No, I can't be safe, it's not the nature of this world I'm in. I can duck into the cramped doorways of love around me, though; the free latte, the hair brushed out of my face, the i miss you text from my mom, the generosity of new gloves on cold fingers. If my hand shake, I won't stop them, I won't ask why, I don't need to know.

i feel you.

It was a wasted spark of deja vu, hearing her just inside his door like that. She stood, barely across the threshold, begging for answers She, the opposite of me: tall and slender, well-raised and well off, convinced and naive. So sure that no one could be wrong but the other; a quality I frankly both envy, and want to slap right off any face I see it on.

I can't deny that there are two sides to every story. Three, in this case. His, mine, and hers.

And the most painful thing; the thing that kept me from standing up so so long ago. The cage that trapped the tiny fluttering "enough" in the back of my throat,  was built of the longe barbed prongs of my empathy.

Did you know that empathy will rob you blind? She is a good one to have on your side, that empathy. She's one of the people you need to know to really, truly be human. But if you are me, you will invite empathy to dinner, let her sit at your table, and she will be ravenous. I could not feed empathy enough, and so like the good, midwestern hostess, I fed her all I had, and starved.

That is why I have not been classy, on the blog. I have been this way because this is my place, this is the door empathy cannot break down. This is the place where I can commune with her and know that I must abide her, as she is thick in my blood, but here I have refused to be the better person, for the first time in nearly a year. Because I saw the other girl, and for all her visciousness I could not hate someone who stood in the same threshhold as me, with the same briny tide washing in and out of her eyes, taking away with it more and more of her resolve each time the tears abated. I could not hate the striking, angry girl who, after all, only had the same questions as I?

I could not begrudge that "why." So I followed her to the stairs, and I apologized. I cried, and told her I was sorry. I who had not knowingly committed any crime, was indicted by my empathy. The rest of the details are brutal, and mine. But I had to testify, that it was all my both-sides-of-the-storying that got me here.

My empathy for the both of them. For her, out of the aching knowledge that we are women, and we are fools. For him, out of a misguided love, that commanded I see, acknowledge, and fight his pain. Even if it leaves me jausting windmills.

I traded empathy for conviction, for self love. And for that, for a while, there was no room in my words for understanding, only for the rebuilding of fortitude, only for finding myself in the mirror at last, and not the negative space the filled the holes between all the qualities I didn't have.

I have been seeing myself, and I have acquired a feral hunger for my own strength. Angrily shooing those who might wish to partake. It will pass, of course. I will not be so demented with need, in time.

But until then, please forgive my need to be angry, to be right. To protect what is so newly mine.

a free willy moment.

i'm aware that this is going to sound like me being a weirdo again.
and i'm aware this is deplorably cheesy.
and yes, i know this will solidify any looming optimism that i might be cool.
so bear with me.
I'll write something real tomorrow,
but tonight, all I can think of is that damned movie.

 a big, black and white whale,
and how,
with winter coming
and my heart changing,
all i'm thinking of
is how pathetically
desperately,
strangely,
i want a willy.

i know it's a kid's movie.
but my whole life that kinship has spoken to me,
and so many times
when the human race let me down,
i turned to a stray dog,
or a turtle with a cracked shell
that my brothers found on the side of the road.

and tonight, seeing how far i feel
from so many of the humans in my life,
feeling a bit like the outcast,
irredeemable, unlovable
and embracing my inner jesse,
i just want a willy.
because it's so much easier than people who have expectations,
who have their own perspective.
because willy is all love.
and because i love willy with all my heart.
but alas, a girl can love a whale,
but where, oh where, would they live?

ugh, yeah. i'm a dork.
anyways this
on repeat
is the best i could do.

"but they told me a man should be faithful, and walk when not able, and fight till the end; but i'm only human"
'cause no one can say that like m.j., really. and no one should. ever.

oh my baby, oh my darlin, i've been taking a beating

i present, for your consumption, a conglomeration of the loveliest things about today.

(

there's a new lake in my neighborhood, and george eliot to be read.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns."  -   George Eliot  

the leaves are on fire, and my envy for autumn, and it's graceful capacity for change, to make even the leaves fall for it, is filling up my journal pages, faster than i'd like to admit.

it was so warm yesterday, i got to take off my cardigan and feel the sun on my shoulders just once more before the cold builds woolen walls between skin and sky.
btw, Nichole Krauss is amazing. I'm reading her latest "Great House" in between tests this week.
it's tickling my love bone.
(if you could pretend not to see my polkadotty bra strap, that'd be a-ok.)

and of course, zooey deschanel in all her way-cooler-than-everyone glory. :)

the soapbox derby champion of the world

I'm just going to hop right up on my soapbox, before I worry I'll sound too preachy and change my mind.

I want to talk about something. About the heavy workaday things I said I wasn't going to say yesterday.

Well, honey-darlin-sugar-pies, it is today now. 

There is a boogeyman living under all our beds. Sometimes, in the little bubbles of our daily drama's, between the kids who won't write their papers, the boyfriends we don't know if we should keep, the hangnails that drive us crazy, the irking slivers of life that get under our skin and seem for an instant like a Shakespearean tragedy...in the shelter of these predictable daily struggles, we begin to see ourselves as beings too small, too insignificant, or too intrinsically us to be affected by life's big scary boogeymen.

Thinks like cancer become words that can't possibly apply to us. That word, oh no, that is the word that is someone else's to carry around. It's what the grown up's use to keep us from microwaving food inside plastic, or smoking cigarettes, or sitting too close to the tv. But this word is yours.

This word is as close to you, as the three blocks between your morning class and your yearly checkup with University health. 

But this one, today, is for the girls. Cervical cancer awareness commercials are all over the place now. It's not because it's some more sinister form of cancer, it's not because the makers of the Guardasil vaccine want your cash; it's because it's caused by a virus that one in three sexually active women will acquire at some point in their lives. And because it may be one of the few cancers out there that may be preventable, and because there is a test that can be done regularly and painlessly, to catch it in it's baby stages, to stop it in it's tracks, while it's still manageable.

So, boys,(i know there is at least one of you, mike) this is for you, too. For your daughters, your wives, your friends. This is for the girl you see smiling every day, and never get the chance to tell her about the sacred heaven ascending light she brings to your life; this is for the girl you might not get a chance to tell.  This is for your chance to hear that, girls.

If you are under the age of 23, get the Guardasil vaccine ( i promise, they are not paying me for this). Most colleges subsidize the vaccination for their students and even doctors are recognizing the importance of a possible cancer preventative, and are willing to help. You may not think you have the money, but let me tell you, most ardently; you can find the money to protect yourself from cervical cancer.

For women of all ages: always wear a condom. Most men are carriers of the HPV virus, and the destruction of cells by this virus is the leading cause of squamous cell carcinoma.

Always get checked. Fifteen minutes, once a year. If you are, or have been, or are considering being sexually active, get checked. If you are embarrassed, it's as simple as saying to your doctor "I need my yearly." The social stigma and awkwardness of actually having a pap has made it a very easy thing to ask for.

I could save myself some embarassment here, but I don't think each and every one of you realizes how close you are to this disease. So I'll tell you. My first love, the man to whom I first gave my most sacred possession to, was a carrier of HPV. Six years later, I have a carcinoma on my cervix.

I blew it off. It's just some boogeyman meant to scare you into spending money you can't afford at a doctor who doesn't care, right? Something too big for you, right? I got checked when I was 18 and found out about the HPV. One sexual partner. I thought, "This can't possibly be serious, I've been so carefuly, I've been so protective." But six years ago they were still saying 1 in 3 women has this, and most forms just go away. Now, we know. But it's that close. And you do need to be careful.

This is your life, and there are so many things in this world we can't control, so many things that can hurt us. We have millions of tiny heartaches we can't prevent, car accidents, lighting strikes, muggings, and a frightening list of cancers and diseases we can't do anything to prevent. But this, this is in your hands.

Protect yourself. 

oh yes

oh.
one of my favorite words.

today, there are heavy, thick, leathery workaday things at play.
saddle-fat, and careworn, they are waiting by the front door,
to be taken out when I go
or to take me out,
should i try going without them.

but I could not care less.

i have new boots.
and today,
there is no panic in my heart.




I have a sweet empty afternoon, and a rectangle of sunlight on my bed, whispering catnaps in my chilly ears. I can almost hear my own heart purring in feline reverence to the possibility of a mumbling wakeup, and an endless stretch. I have
a five foot square sanctuary
in which,
even if it's only for a moment,

i can keep my peace.

and that small two-letter revelation,
to keep me company.


oh.

a toast.

fall's first great soak began this weekend.

I feel as though the skies are pouring great cupfuls of change, and I walked home tonight with even my socks eager to drink it in. And I would like to raise a toast to the heavens:

To an old post, which reminded me of a me I love; of a girl who set out from home to set to rights what she had wronged, with a single suitcase, and shaky knees. A girl I plan to see much more of.

To the people who are already on their way to get you, because they are worried your hair will get frizzy on the way to start your new job.

To bright yellow glass pitchers, and the promise of mimosa brunches.

To understanding, finally, that empathy for others does not invalidate my own feelings.

To the final straw, which galvanizes you to actually tell her (while awake) that cosmetic aptitude and an ability to use hair product and do a truly excellent disgusted hair flip does not constitute true beauty, but a courteous kitsch, a cheap mass appeal, which is easily replicated. That beautiful insides, kindness, and empathy are of greater value.

To calling myself beautiful, and meaning it. 

To a long lost someone, who reminded me tonight of what it means to be unashamed.

Salud.