Honey & Concrete

Summer Rain

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 13:31:00 +0000

Friday evening, I chose the rain jacket instead of the umbrella. Tornado watch and gray skies and not enough energy to fight the flight of a cheap umbrella, if and when.

I chose the light blue NorthFace rain jacket I bought in the LLBean flagship store, because of course, and packed tightly in my overnight bag for my Spring Break 2008 trip to DC. The one that got wet even in my bag, when we got caught in a downpour in NYC while running for our train at Penn Station from our train at Grand Central, because of course. A downpour so drenching it soaked through our bags and flooded our clothes. We ran blocks in this rain for the train, worried we would miss it. Two blocks in we laughed and turned our faces up to the rain and screeched. A release. When we arrived, still wet, in Annapolis, we put all of our clothes in the dryer, including the rain jacket, because of course.

Friday evening, on my seven minute walk home from the subway, the sky spit a couple of times and then burst open. Within less than a minute, my rolled up pants soaked up all the rain and then proceeded to drip down my calves and puddle around my feet. My sandals went from slippery to sponges, pooling my toes in rain water with every step. I shoved my bag under my rain jacket and hoped my phone in my pocket would repel at least some of the water. It occurred to me that I had never actually worn the rain jacket in the rain. I didn’t know if it was water proof or water resistant and it seemed to be raining so hard that it almost didn’t matter.

I thought about running. But there wasn’t really a point. I could not get any wetter. The strand of hair hanging out of my hood dripped onto my jacket and rivers ran down the front creating an almost-waterfall into the sidewalk. The puddles at intersections too large to jump over, and rivers of rain flowed against the curb, so I walked through them.

I walked home with a slow step and enjoyed the rain. I could not save myself from the it, I could not get any wetter, so I walked home and enjoyed having the sidewalk to myself — everyone else huddled under overhangs with their umbrellas in front of them as shields.

I remembered the early years of high school, before we had cars, when we would walk in the rain to the beach, hoping for a downpour. How we planned to walk on the rainiest days, miles downtown, miles back, in the warm rain and drenched clothes. How alive it made us feel — squealing, faces turned up the sky, tiny streams flowing down our faces. The warmth of the rain cooling the hotness of our skin and the steam rising from the pavement. The smell of the first downpour of the day. The heaviness of our clothes wrapped around us, clinging to us, how the fabric feels so differently when it’s warm and wet and heavy.

I walked home and let my jeans be warm and wet and heavy. I let the streams roll down my legs and waterfall off my jacket. I thought about turning my face up to the sky and squealing, the way I did when I was 14.

When I got home, I squished up the stairs and left my sponge shoes at the doorway of my apartment. I peeled off my pants in my bedroom and learned my rain jacket, after all these years, is waterproof and not just water resistant. I didn’t have a drop of rain on my top. I took it off anyway and thought maybe it was a bit of a waste — this rain jacket that worked so well. I took my shirt off anyway. And I missed the feel of the warm rivers of rain on my face, falling over my shoulders, and drenching my shirt.

I missed the feel of the total immersion in a downpour. The kind that drenches you from head to toe and even the rain jacket, packed so carefully in the middle of your overnight bag. The laughter, the squeals, the release.

Unsolicited Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 13:29:00 +0000

I got an email this morning from a very concerned woman, who I would describe as a distant acquaintance, chastising me — under the guise of “encouragement”— for decisions I’ve made about “my research” topic for my dissertation. She heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend… The details and the specifics don’t matter. She goes on to tell me things we learned together years ago and offers to bring me along with her to a meeting that I am more-than-capable of setting up myself. She ends the (long) email asking for forgiveness and to be excused for its approach because “I’m a mom!”

Unsolicited advice.

I get a lot of unsolicited advice. It always appears looking like kindness and generosity. Well-intentioned.

Here’s the thing: it’s not. It’s an assumption that we’re not all doing the best we can do. It’s an assumption that an outsider knows everything that’s going on inside. Inside a situation, inside a person. It’s an assumption that the outsider knows the larger context and where this moment sits on the continuum of life.

I would like to write back something snarky and aggressive, like: “Thanks for the email! After all these years, I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again! I made a change in my dissertation research because I had to get really REAL about my LIFE and my PASSIONS. As it turns out, I’m pretty PASSIONATE about my mental health, my financial health, my personal strengths, and my hopes and dreams for my WHOLE life. Also, people. I made my decision based on people I care about — myself included — and people I don’t so much care about. It was a HARD decision. And an EASY decision. I cried. Oh man, did I cry. And then I celebrated. In fact, I’m still celebrating. Because life is so HARD but we can do hard things. So really, this decision was about LIFE. As are most decisions, I think. It took me about 1,000 tiny decisions to arrive at the big decision you’re concerned about. And I’m about 1,000 tiny decisions beyond that big one. Because that’s how this life thing is working, at least for me. Lots of tiny decisions and a couple big ones followed by many, many more tiny ones. Thanks for asking! Oh wait, you didn’t!”

Here’s what I think: unsolicited advice is not kind and is not generous.

I think questions and listening are kind and generous. Questions like: How are you REALLY doing? How does this relate to your WHOLE — as in all the context and maybe the entire continuum of —life? WHY are you making the decisions you’re making? HOW can I support you?

That’s kind and generous.

Whether it’s about a big decision — a career path, a family path — or a small decision — drinking three cups of coffee in the afternoon — questions and listening assume the person is doing the best she can. They assumes she’s the expert on her own life. They assumes she knows where she’s been and where she is at this moment and maybe even where she’d like to be in the future, whether the future be two minutes away or two decades away. It takes time to ask those questions and really listen. More importantly, it takes time to cultivate the type of relationship in which we can ask those questions and hope for an honest — real — response. That’s kind and generous.

—————

P.S. And don’t get me started on the please-forgive-me-for-this-approach-because “I’m a mom!” sentiment. Being a mom does not give you privileges other women do not have, and it certainly doesn’t give you a free pass to be less kind and less generous. Or the ability to be more kind or more generous. But that’s a topic for another day…

P.P.S. I won't write that back in the email. I'll do my best to be kind and generous. And, really, the utter disconnect of this email leads me to believe that it wasn't really about me. I'm starting to think unsolicited advice isn't actually ever about the person receiving it.

Showing Up

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 00:08:00 +0000

I’ve spent the majority of today in bed, inhaling Momastary.com, The Racial State, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream — chocolate therapy, thankyouverymuch — and salad. It’s allllllll about balance, I told him.

I’m slightly obsessed with Glennon Doyle Melton — I’m re-reading her book Carry On, Warrior even though I just finished it about a week ago. That’s what I’ve been doing this past year though: finishing a book and then immediately starting it again. Sometimes the first time around isn’t enough to learn even a fraction of what it is one needs to learn.

Glennon says some version of this (see, still haven’t really learned it all): Show up, be brave, be kind, do the next right thing for you, rest, repeat. So that’s what I’m doing. Brene Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert and Martha Beck and Rob Bell and Oprah all seem to be saying the same thing. I know because I’m reading and re-reading and listening hard — podcasts and super soul sessions are the same thing as reading, right? This day in age, no? I’m old, I’m learning. (I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.)

Last year, on this weekend, I watched fireworks in front of a cornfield and thought I knew things. I almost want to laugh out loud at that thought now, except I’m trying to be kinder to myself — a year: what a difference. All the things I got wrong, and hopefully a few I got right. I got a couple of the most important things right, that much I know.

I know because I’ve been very quiet. When I’m unsure now (which is often), I get still, I get quiet, immediately. Or as soon as possible. And I move through the next few minutes. Sometimes I take a large leap and move through the next few hours. That’s it; that’s all I’ll be doing for a while, and I’m so very good with that. (Good with it, not good at it — there’s a vital difference.)

I’ve made a thousand mistakes in this past year. I’ve said and done and been hurtful things. And I’ve been forgiven. I’ve been loved anyway.

Last summer, I learned that every cell in my body is actually made of glass and every cell can actually shatter. Those shattered glass cells can prick and poke and scratch and pierce every inch of your skin from the inside out. But over time, they melt and become heavy molten and although it feels far too heavy to carry on most days, you can, in fact, carry it. And eventually, ever so slowly, it drains out of you, and becomes less heavy.

As it drains, it takes away all the old and leaves wide open spaces for new. New feels as new is — uncomfortable and uncertain. But it isn’t the hot, heavy molten glass, and all the empty space is a bit airy, a bit light, and there’s plenty of room for the uncomfortable and the uncertain to hang out and just be.

That’s what I do now, mostly. I just be.

And I listen for myself in the stillness, so I can show up as myself.

It’s that simple (and yet still, always, hard — I’m good with that).

(And there is love, too, also, as well.)

—————

As a reminder to myself, if/when I should need it again, and to anyone else who may need it, this helped me get still and quiet, so I could hear myself:

1. Therapy
2. Yoga
3. Meditation
4. Routine (with a strong emphasis on sleep)

Other things that helped:
— Reading (Brene Brown — Rising Strong, Martha Beck — Leaving the Saints, & Pema Chodron — Things Fall Apart, over and over again)
— Coloring
— Watching the bears for hours because there’s something about nature that’s healing (http://explore.org/live-cams/player/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls)
— Saying yes to myself and no to everyone else

Hope & Yoga

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sat, 28 May 2016 14:31:00 +0000

"And hopefulness is really, for me, is not optimism, that everything’s going to be fine and we can just sit back. And that’s too much like pessimism, which is that everything’s going to suck and we can just sit back. Hope, for me, just means a Buddhist sense of uncertainty, of coming to terms with the fact that we don’t know what will happen, and that there’s maybe room for us to intervene. And that we have to let go of the certainty people seem to love more than hope, and know that we don’t know what’s going to happen." - Rebecca Solnit in conversation with Krista Tippett for "On Being"

On Saturday mornings, I pour my coffee into a paper cup and take myself to yoga. Hair disheveled, almost the way my pillow left it, on winter mornings the same leggings I slept in the night before, warmer mornings a pair of cotton shorts, an oversize t-shirt perhaps still wrapped around me from the night before, and a clean sports bra, always. To get there by 8am is the only goal, "Get onto your mat, Emma," I prod gently to avoid the whirlwind of morning demands.

And I do.

I get onto my mat and stretch and reach and let myself be. Cranky some mornings, bone-marrow sad on others, lightly refreshed, energized, scattered, sore, head-chatter too loud, weak, tired, annoyed with myself, all of it, I let myself be. Reach into the pose, not able to reach as far as..., let it be. To reach is all I ask. Let it be. Balance on the tiny places my body connects to the earth, the right foot, the left hand, falling, trying again, falling, laughing. "Play here," she instructs, and I listen. I play and laughter follows, and it's more than I could ever wish to ask for on some mornings. I play with the greatest stretches, the most tenuous places to find balance. "Find your down-dog,"she guides us to find the stability. I breathe in, I breathe out, release it all out, release, out, out, release, move into child's pose. Rest.

Let it be. Reach. Play. Rest.

I walk home on warm mornings, with my yoga mat slung over my shoulder, and headphones in my ears. The volume low enough to catch the hellos from the stoops and the good mornings from the sidewalk and toss them back. The week gone and only the block ahead in front of me. On each block, hope finds me well.

Not Just A Paper

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 17 May 2016 14:00:00 +0000

Three cop cars, a van, seven police, two undercover, arrested two boys under my window this afternoon. Mid-sentence, typing, at my desk, The Racial State section of my dissertation, a few paragraphs above the role of defense counsel in juvenile delinquency court, I heard the woop-woop of sirens that don't intend to travel far, feet against the pavement, a scuttle, a man's voice command, "Get him down," and a boy cry, "Why would you do that?"

I made a bee-line for my window. They had him down on the ground in handcuffs. Pinned tightly to the pavement below. Shoving hands in his pockets and patting down his thighs. He cried, "Why would you do that?" I held my breath, waiting for the gun. There wasn't one.

Two undercover cops wearing bullet-proof vests walked the other boy within feet of the one held against the ground. "Why would you do that?" "Why would you do that?" The seven police officers put the two boys into the van and drove away.

Boys.

I sat on my bedroom floor, under the window, and exhaled the tiniest sob. Without tears. Without a second. Walked myself back to my computer and continued typing.

The racial state. The role of defense counsel. Boys.

Two boys.

Values

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sat, 07 May 2016 01:41:00 +0000

They're written on a pink post-it note on my bedroom mirror. Only three of them so far, hard earned already – I'm turning right, they're steering left, bringing me to my knees, I have to show up for myself as myself, again and again and again -- hard earned. And yet, when I live them, with integrity, despite fear paving the way, they hold me, calmly, sweetly, gently, giving me back to myself.

Look for the Light

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 02 May 2016 01:19:00 +0000

Cold, rainy day. Not enough layers to wear and too many for May. Chocolate ice cream for dinner, but when I step out the front door the mist looks like snow in the streetlight. The drenched sidewalks glowing golden under the streetlight, forgetting to be gray.

“We can do hard things,” she shares time and time again, these past months. I match my breath to my movements, let it unravel on the mat, and follow her lead, this wom_n who walks the same path, the one lit by the starlight in the darkest nights.

We can do hard things. We can show up in the dark, in the rain, and look for the light.

Stoops

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 00:46:00 +0000

I sat on my stoop last Friday, with a cup of coffee from the coffee shop down the street, “Good to see you, my dear,” she said as she passed me the cup. Soft and steady and without needing a response. A warm morning, summer steady on spring’s heels already, my favorite season in this neighborhood. Open car windows and 90s hip-hop and the trees with tiny leaves, we’re all emerging again. These blue-cracked-paint steps and a tiny promise to sit here on summer mornings, sipping coffee, letting the sun warm me, letting my neighborhood warm me. With gratitude for a summer without a 9am office time clock. And last Friday, with gratitude for the black car that rolled up with the window down and a life-force smile. With gratitude for the second cup of coffee from the coffee shop. “Black please, I’ll add the sugar.”

Battles

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 00:52:00 +0000

Last night the lightning woke me up before the thunder. I know it’s supposed to be the other way around. But that’s what happened. A flash of light bouncing off the walls, I could see with my eyes closed. It snowed in Maine this afternoon, and we had 80 degrees and sunburns here just a few days ago. “New England weather,” we’d grumble, but I no longer can lay claim to that title, have laid it down among the sharp swords of battles lost.

Losing battles I’ve walked away from, crawled away from, pulled my bones by their skin far enough away to feel the flames of the battlefield scorch only second degree burns.

Or perhaps battles won. So often the destruction looks the same.

Shattered Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 20:57:00 +0000

I danced, a skin-bag of shattered glass.

Left weight-shift, right weight-shift, arm raise, big smile, shake shake shake with the bride.

The rest of me somewhere else.

Lying in a bed with a heavy quilt over my head.

Shake shake shake twirl.

Small plans to grieve, promises to myself, to cocoon for as long as, maybe forever.

Right foot left foot find the beat laugh laugh.

The glass shards shift and scrape and clang and gash with the rhythm of my hips.

I am not there. I am watching myself dance from somewhere outside my body. I am making a cup of evening tea in a quiet apartment. I am standing in front of the classroom bearing the weight of this grief. I am typing my dissertation with a pile of tissues in my trash. I am collapsing into my bed in sobs on early February nights.

Keep going just move my feet shake shake shake spin spin twirl laugh. I keep going.

I danced, a skin-bag of shattered glass.

It Is Me

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:44:00 +0000

It was years. It was friendship. It was love. It was a future. It was homes, marriage, kids, retirement. For the record, it was all of those things. It was good, for the record.

It was also, as it turns out, lies. Unintentional, coming from a broken place, lies. Not my lies. Not my broken place.

It was the jaw drop of my therapist when I told her what happened. It was the declaration of my friends and family, every one of them, that this is The Worst of the Worst and stranger than fiction, more heartbreaking than fiction. They had never ever heard of something like this... Never expected... What the fuck.

It was an oncoming freight train, it was a Mac truck, it was a sniper shot.

It was my trust, love, kindness, strength, used against me.

It was six weeks of trying to sort out what happened, without him. It was him in crisis. It was suggestions of psychological diagnosis by those without a psychological background. It was a loosely identified and named issue from my therapist/psychologist.

It was my therapist saying "distance" repeatedly. It was my therapist worried I might be in physical danger (not from him).

It was disbelief that any of it could be happening. It was disbelief that it was happening. It was disbelief it could be happening to me.

It was them saying: NONE of this is your fault. ANYONE would have done/felt/experienced what you did.

It was another fucking email from him.

Her.

It is my strength now. It is my determination.

It is me saying this is now a pile of shit and I am pulling myself out of it. It is my friends and my family pulling me out of it.

It is a realization that lies are lies. Deception is deception. Betrayal is betrayal.

It is my cheerleader therapist and the kickboxing instructor who knows by looking at my face when I throw punches. It is how hard I punch.

It is my story now. It is my voice.

It is my recovery. It is my healing. It is for me. It is me.

It was him. It is now me.

Kickboxing & Birth

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:08:00 +0000

I go to free kickboxing classes in Harlem and joined the BedStuy YMCA. I haven't seriously worked out... ever. I listen to pop music, angry pop music, exclusively. On Spotify -- I can't even fathom diving into my semi-indie iTunes account. Katy Pery, Ciara, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Destiny's Child -- hard punches, one-two, jab jab jab cross. I care only about protein in my smoothies now, could care less about greens. Strength. Go to bed hours earlier than I ever have to make up for the five am wake-up-can't-fall-back-to-sleep roughest hours of the day. Feel a sense of relief to slide into a desk in an office where nobody knows (terrible and wonderful), same desk, same office, same great people, for the third summer in a row. Part-time because I thought another summer in an office would kill me. Now I'm the first one here each morning, almost every morning, despite my part-time status, breakfast in hand. I eat breakfast now.

"Push" came the text message instruction, in response to my mid-meltdown-trying-to-breathe-through-it-please-help plea.

"Am I in labor?"

"You are birthing a new you."

I am, I am.

American Pharoah

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 15:04:00 +0000

American Pharoah won the triple crown. I cried for blue green grass I thought I’d see with your palm against mine. For the first gust of air through the open window as we pass over the state line and your face turned out against the country side, summer air, fall, winter, spring air, year after year. The mile markers and radio stations I’d memorize. Your fingers intertwined in mine, stolen kisses at stoplights after miles and miles and years and years, still.

I can’t imagine fall without you. After a hot, sweaty summer, with office air conditioners, us curled into each other under my fan, an almost-ocean breeze coming through your bedroom window, walking in the wet sand where the beach meets the ocean each morning, condensation dripping off our ice coffees as we walk by block parties in my neighborhood, even after losing every moment of this summer, I cannot imagine fall without you. The flicker of the television screen against the dim light of the basement, me propped up against you, your hand in my lap, each play rundown, each touchdown, every word I write on my dissertation, chili cooking in the crockpot upstairs. The train rides into the city together, afternoon coffee between meetings, falling into your arms on a dark Brooklyn corner after teaching — you waited, the train ride home together, hand in hand. Friday night high school football games with hot chocolate. Saturday night city lights with whiskey and wine. After the loss of this summer comes the loss of this fall the loss of this winter the loss of next spring, next summer, next fall, winter, spring, summer…

Promotions, birthdays, high school graduations, and college graduations — a cupcake, a cake, streamers, balloons, cheers, and hugs, celebrations of accomplishments and love, always love. Hospital visits, emergency midnight drives south, nursing home arrangements, first broken hearts, make it better, make it stop, we will, we will, we will together, side by side.

My toes cracking each morning, the always misplaced sunglasses, the constant reminder to go to bed, the too much coffee and always dwindling sugar supply, half-eaten meals, the messy hair and two attempts to get my clothing on the right way, the terrible navigation assistance, the need to get everywhere too early, the back-up plan for the back-up plan, yours, the tiniest parts of me, without grandiose declarations, yours, always yours.

American Pharoah won the triple crown and I cried.

On Repeat

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 01:15:00 +0000

It’s Katy Pery’s Roar blaring through my headphones, on repeat, over and over again. Walking through Grand Central one day later, feeling like I just walked into my best friends’ arms. My home. My city. This part has not been taken from me. Will not be taken from me. A power that comes from walking across the same floor for the past twenty five years and all that’s happened and I’m still here. I’m still here. I live here. This city is mine. A beaming smile and rush of endorphins, I could run a marathon, I just ran a marathon.

It’s fleeting, but it’s enough to know that I will survive this. With power and strength.

It’s the text she sent me on the way to the bachelorette party, “Tonight you are… Anna! The happy go lucky “25” year old! Anna is still in grad school and recently got back from Spain.” I have to go to the party, life goes on I decided immediately, but it’s nothing short of becoming another person that will get me through the night. The ones who don’t know, who I can’t say a word to, about the beginning or the middle or the end, gush about how wonderful he is, sipping cranberry vodka through penis straws. I escape to the bathroom, “Leave. Now.” she replies. I hesitate, “Anna doesn’t know who he is…” But even Anna can’t keep the fake smile plastered on my face and I leave.

It’s the sob on the Queensborough Plaza subway platform.

It’s the hooded sweatshirt I’ve had since 14, pulled on over my dress, as I slide onto the train seat, curl up against the window, teeth chattering in the air conditioning. I reach for my phone and write him the email. All the words that I couldn’t get out on Friday morning. Angry, hurt words.

It’s Ciara’s Like a Boy.

Second by Second

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sat, 30 May 2015 09:21:00 +0000

I call her and cry. Hysterically. She lets me. Tells me to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. “Minute by minute” she says, I tell her it’s too hard, too long. “Second by second” she says, and I breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth between sobs.

“Deep breaths,” he texts me. I think of his terrible breakup over ten years ago, him on the side of the road. “It’s amazing what deep breaths will do.” I trust him.

I breathe in. I breathe out. It’s the only thing I can do right now.

She sits with me while I fall asleep. For a few hours, I don’t have to practice breathing.

“You don’t have to eat today, but you do have to eat tomorrow. Water for today. You have to drink water.”

She handed me the slice of pizza enough times that I took four bites. Half a glass of water to down the tylenol to cure the pounding headache.

It’s five am and the sun looks like it might, miraculously, rise again today. I cannot fathom how.

I tell him I am so scared I will not survive this. He tells me I am the strongest woman he knows. I am layers of shattered pieces. There is no strength left here.

They are literally holding me together. These people who love me. Who love me.

When I write, I do not have to remind myself to breathe.

These are things one should not post on the internet.

And yet.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 29 May 2015 23:56:00 +0000

I moved to New York City because I knew it could hold my sadness. Vast avenues, tall buildings, longer, taller than my eyes could focus on, space and strength not to feel burdened by my sadness. I moved to NYC to make a home for the person heartbreak had shaped. Too many, so many, so very many, all those years ago, one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, like waves shaping sea glass, it turned me into who I am today. Equal parts heartbreak and love. I will always be equal parts heartbreak and love. There will always be sadness. If other cities could not hold my sadness, I could not expect them to shoulder my grief. And there would be grief. Without grief there is no joy. I moved to New York for joy.

A hundred well-thought out reasons, professional, personal, a goal without a plan, a blog titled “If Ever I Could,” a photo of the city sky line all those years ago, five years ago. And then a plan, a timeline, first and second and third steps, and I was here, in NYC.

This city has held my sadness. Effortlessly, with grace. It handed me joy, effortlessly, with grace. It gifted me love. And I thought, maybe I could.

On a hot summer night in July of 2010, unemployed, a recent and official “failure”, broke, saddled with law school debt, long-term single, living at my mom’s, I watched a CMT special with Keith Urban, who belted out the lyrics to If Ever I Could Love and handed me a tiny, small package of hope. Hope. If Ever I Could…

I moved to NYC. I fell in love. There was a love story and I didn’t write it here because it is hard to write when I am happy. Sweet dreams at night don’t make any sense when paired with words over coffee the next morning. “Forever” whispered under the covers in the morning light sounds hollow when announced to the crowd at the dinner table. In this person, I found what I have not found in another person and I wanted to keep him forever. He said the same.

Past tense. Only hours later, already past tense.

With joy comes grief. This city won’t explode against the weight of my grief. The weight of my heartbreak. Vast avenues and tall buildings, they won’t shatter, even as I am shattering, even as they are picking up my pieces and storing them away for me.

“If Ever I Could” — there is some small, tiny package of hope in there. I’m not sure what it looks like or what it contains, or if I have the strength to look for it, but it’s comforting to know it’s still in there.

This is now the story of a heartbreak. The kind without the love story attached.

Begin Again

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 01:59:00 +0000

Begin again.

Always, begin again. Slowly, quietly, with hope.

The past twelve months, how many? Count them and name them one by one: January, February, March... More months than I have fingers, fewer memories than I have fingers. Let that sit.

"I know you're too busy for me..." It's a tease, but I text back quickly, "I'm bad at priorities!"

Last year's priorities: Sleeping. Dating, the dinner and a movie kind. Work. Finances (hahaha! but true.) Family. Not in that order. Maybe sometimes in that order.

Some shoulds and some YESES but mostly moving through the motions, the past twelve months.

Begin again.

Words in marker, written on white paper, taped to my wall.

Intentions. Hopes. Truths.

My best promises to myself usually involve less sleep and more caffeine. An irrational disregard for risk. Playlists on repeat and lists on the wall in marker. The hard, the messy, the impossible.

The years I remember best, I write the most. The best years I write the most, even in the worst years, which end up the best years.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." (Zora Neale Hurston) For the first time in over ten years, I have no idea whether the past year asked questions or gave answers. I haven't even thought about it. I hardly remember it.

Begin again.

October Rolls In

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 04:49:00 +0000

October rolls in and my lips chap every third hour, the patches of skin below my elbows grow rough. I throw split ends into a low braid, warmth for my neck, knots from my coat collar. My Brooklyn apartment suddenly feels too big, a vast wide open space, the couch not enough to fill it. I forget to worry about shoebox bedrooms and kitchens comprised of no more than a short row of cabinets. I forget, sometimes, that this is New York City, this is Brooklyn, this is how I learned to breathe in and out. "Do you ever just run across the floor in your socks? Slip and slide, you must do that all the time here." I forget I am the silliest.

October rolls in and the night arrives sooner. I don't finish my cupcake, the icing too sweet, and I bite my tongue. When will I learn how to exhale? I knew once. "You are a pattern," they say, all of them, but I don't even recognize myself. Some days I climb the stairs, pressing hard into my heels, and feel the strength in my legs. Muscles built by this city, I built these muscles, they carry me, and some days I think I need nothing else. Exhale.

October rolls in but I think it's spring. A change of seasons. An ending, the summersault, head over feet of the school year concluding and the brand new buds blossoming. I am waiting to lose something, someone again. A chilled park bench conversation, sweat dripping down my back on the subway platform, a song on repeat, over and over and over again. Octobers give, a harvest, a bounty, a cornucopia, I am not ready to receive. November will come, brown leaves, bare branches, dried weeds along the ocean banks. I wonder what will burn. Red embers and gray ashes.

Dark night windows and tall ceilings, everything echoes, my quiet, stockinged steps. I spin and spin and spin and lay myself out across the hard wood floor. "Fall in love whenever you can," we called it Practical Magic Crying because I was unconsolable. I've always mixed hopeful with hopeless, sweet and sour margaritas, dizzy. I am asking for magic. To circle time and tie its ends together, to bend the earth like it's a map, I step forward, I step backward, I roll over and we are together, to put the world into a snow globe at midnight, to stand at the edge of a lake deep enough to hold our dreams and drown our fears, to feel strong and soft, young and wise, to find heartbeats in the darkness. October rolls in and I ask for magic.

For the Record

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 03:41:00 +0000

When I would play my song

You would sing along.

I always seemed to forget

How fragile are the very strong.

For the record, I did the work.

I walked Back Cove in chilly October air, with the sun setting too soon, swallowed the tears, force-filled my lungs, and took another lap. I made the decision. Until it wasn't mine to make anymore. December. The news was quick and painful, but nothing like a ripped-off band-aid, instead the dull swoosh of a balloon deflating. After, I closed the bathroom door, strung together profanities, hurled them into the mouth piece of the phone, and she listened. Until it all became quiet. The Weather Channel blinking on the television screen through the night, tucked into the couch with a cranberry afghan. I studied for the final exam. I aced it. I let her hold me. I don't remember tears, although they must have arrived, singular, at least. Or perhaps not. A Bird's Song on repeat. Half the Carvel ice cream cake for New Year's Eve. Another's TV showing the countdown, I turned it off and went to bed.

I'm sorry I can't steal you.

I'm sorry I can't stay.

So I'll put band-aids on your knees

And watch you fly away.

March. I decided to buy a plane ticket. Late March. I decided to buy a bus ticket instead. A summer ticket for a shorter ride. Early April. I decided to decide later. Until that decision wasn't mine to make anymore. July. I walked the hot concrete sidewalks of DC in the heavy summer humidity. Mile and miles and miles. Every weekend. Between the Lines, on repeat. Step by step and mile by mile, I walked away. A meditation, a steadiness. Until knees down on the shower floor, a release, a flood, head down, the water gushing but only my tears streaming over my knees. A deep breath, a good night's sleep, the sound of my feet against the concrete, the piano notes memorized, I kept walking.

I'm sending you away tonight.

I'll put you on bird's strong wing.

I'm saving you the best way I know how.

I hope again one day to hear you sing.

Fall leaves and heavy winter snow and a life to sort through. Different types of decisions to make. Ones only I could make. And I did. For myself. For my life. One foot in front of the other, slow if not steady. Through the changing seasons. Yes's and no's and a life. My life. Changing cities and changing careers and changing hands who reach for me, a life in motion.

A promise to myself under a big, old tree, in front of a big, old church, walking through a historic section of DC, summers later. An old mixed CD in a brand new rental car as I drove through the mountains a decade later, and the old restroom stall almost too tiny for a cry. I was too close and too far away. An expert in letting go, I drove on. I kept walking.

For the record.

I'm sending you away tonight.

I'll put you on a bird's strong wing.

I'm saving you the best way I know how.

I hope again one day to hear you sing.

I'm saving you the only way that I know how.

I hope again one day to hear you sing.

I hope again one day to see you bring your smile back around

Again.

[Italics: Lyrics to "A Bird's Song" by Ingrid Michaelson]

Quiet

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 03:37:00 +0000

Quiet. I only want quiet these days. To hear the winter snow melting. The crack of the branch under the weight of the snow.

I looked back two blocks later, hands chapped by the iced wind, grasping my cellphone. My voice streaming, louder and louder while she listened, strained above the Madison Avenue engines and horns. I turned around, and it all fell silent. My voice, the traffic, the echos off the buildings fell away, fell silent for just a moment as I turned. Half expecting him to still be standing there. Half expecting to go running back to him.

A block too late.

The horns blare and I didn't miss a word scrambling to tell her what just happened. What just happened? My throat feels scratched but I toss the hot chocolate in the garbage pail rather than take a sip. Tourists shout at each other as I pass by the NY Public Library and even the lion statue roars too loudly. My voice gets lost. I hang up the phone. The lobby of school has students milling around with the fervor of the first week of classes. Too many. Too much. Too loud.

Classmates tripping over each other to make first-class impressions with their lengthy comments, a chorus and a round and it's all a hallow echo of voices inside a tin can. The screech of the subway against the rails and the roar of the train car as it travels through the tunnels and spits me out in a sea of people in Brooklyn. The laughter of roommates like juice glasses breaking. I put on headphones and the sound of a fan, turn the app volume up, and fall asleep in my coat, in my clothes.

When I wake, it's dark still. It's quiet. The sound of my suitcase rolling down the sidewalks stands out against the silence. The quiet hum of the plane as it takes off for Portland. Her arms as she retrieves me, her Prius' quiet, quiet engine, her pup's soft nose against the palm of my hand. Quiet, gentle, soft, calm, quiet, quiet, quiet. The mostly empty office building, the glass of red wine, the way he murmured, "the fam's back together again," the peach walls of my old bedroom as I put myself to bed, quiet, quiet, quiet.

I sang, I danced, I laughed, I discovered Pandora's "No Diggity" channel, I remembered how fiercely I love these women. I remembered how fiercely I am loved. It might have been loud, and I might have been the loudest, but it was still the quiet I needed. The hours we spent on that couch together. Sitting, reading, watching, eating, drinking, cuddling, sleeping, together and together and together. Quiet.

The Portland airport had rocking chairs in front of wide open windows. A few straggling passengers who came despite canceled flights and two delays and we finally boarded. I watched the sunset from the runway, from the assent, from the plane window as we broke through the clouds.

JKF is loud and noisy. NYC is loud and noisy. But I am still quiet.

The quiet settles easily. I carry it around lightly. Pack it in my bag as if it's just one more book.

I burry myself in books and piano notes amid long measures of rests. Turn my bedroom lights off early, curl up in the window of my hotel room during the conference, cross the street to find a coffee shop with fewer people, wake to see the sunrise, sit alone on the train ride home.

I wait to see when it will let go. Soon, I think, it's so light, it can't hang on for long. It's not the angry radio songs or the late night confessions, spilling out like marbles rolling across a metal counter. It's not the sound of my feet racing across the frozen ground or dewy grass. It's not even the dull hum of the weather channel, local on the 8s for the nineteenth time. It must not be much, I think. It's so quiet and still and light.

And yet. It remains.

Loyal. Steady. Unassuming. Constant.

I only want quiet these days. It think it means "this is not the right..." but I am realizing I am wrong. This time, the quiet might be the strength, the certainty, the falling away of the noise, my noise, the city's noise, all the noise. The falling away of the noise when I turned around on that second block corner. It might not matter whether he still stood there or whether I would have gone running. It is the noise that fell away. It is the quiet that matters, that perhaps, means the most.

After A Year...

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 04:24:00 +0000

...I finally pulled my camera out last weekend. And I am so very, very glad I did.

Yardsticks

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 04:11:00 +0000

I think, sometimes, of his tiny studio apartment. Before I knew studio apartments existed. Of the futon frame and card table, the folding chair set up in the corner. A single chair. The meals we ate perched on the edge of the futon. The kitchen table abandoned and standing alone against the kitchen wall. I remember the heat, sweating itself, and the hum of the air conditioner, the tip of my nose frozen at night. Chilled and cozy-warm, all rolled up into one. I remember his nighttime routine of spraying the perimeter of the room with roach repellant, while I watched from under the covers. I remember how vastly I loved everything. The solitary folding chair, the yellow glow of the kitchen light, even those tiny roaches as they came out to play each night. Too young to know any better.

I walk the city streets often now. Choosing the thirty block walk over the ten minute subway ride. "Have to enjoy the city while the weather is nice!" I excuse myself. But I'd walk these blocks in the January winds. I have. This city saves me. From what, sometimes I do not know.

I think, now, of what thirty means. Salaries, mortgages, babies. The yardsticks by which I measure myself. "Kindling for the fire," I reassure myself, break them up, try to toss them aside. Furniture and pots and pans and a recipe book. I stood on a Manhattan rooftop bar during the first few minutes of my thirtieth year and declared that this was going to be a fun year. The colorful lights of Hell's Kitchen below, bright abundance.

I taped together the broken yardsticks when he asked me, quietly, my favorite question. Old ones: tidy cuticles, cute clothes, hair that behaves. My hair will never behave. I'd gladly never be called cute another day in my life. Yet I'm scrambling trying to find the pieces, trying to get the tape just right. New ones: restaurant week choices, tickets to the ballet, creme brulee pulled right from my oven. Absurd for me. And yet.

I think about how much I loved even those roaches. The hum of the air conditioner. The kitchen table we didn't need. I think about the city blocks I choose to walk over the subway lines. How this city saves me. How I know how to save myself. The lights of Hells Kitchen from above. The questions that still take my breath away.

That's enough. I am enough.

all of the above.

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 19:55:00 +0000

sanity.
long walks from columbus circle to herald square. two cups of coffee a day. text messages. “MUST update you. very good meeting.” of course, of course. friendship with that much urgency. rambled email messages that say more than the words i write and to know i’m heard. dinner with my brother. shared quiet moments at the end of charged-sparked ride. songs on repeat. hooded sweatshirts that smell like dryer sheets. requesting hugs. used novels on amazon. hot lattes. writing.

insanity.
redundant complaints up and down the sidewalks. stomping. un-dried hair, medusa default. a bedroom without a light. contradictory instructions. heavy responsibility without any authority. two-thirty am work sessions. trying not to wait for the phone to ring. incomplete assignments - mine. six years of coursework. mistaking frustration for stress. loneliness. the way she looks at him. unpacked bags. unpacked boxes. unpacked emotions. anticipating a subway cry.

life.
the lake. even on a rainy evening. his courage. her church whispers. when they both say “...didn’t burst into flames.” honesty. kindness. watching us (us, us, us) eat in the college dining hall more than ten years later. four hours of tears. red autumn leaves. realizing i already let it all go. for the better. unintentionally making him laugh so hard water comes out his nose. “what are you thinking?” in a quiet that matches my quiet. to be known, in a moment, in a decade, in a single glance, in an old, familiar squeeze of the hand. i am here.

A House

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 03:54:00 +0000

I picked us out a house in the country. An old Victorian with a wraparound porch and crickets that we can hear through the screen door in the kitchen. Their chirps in the background of our murmured conversation. One last cup of coffee for the night. The dishes drying in the rack and your finger aimlessly tracing my knuckles as you talk.

I am carefully disassembling the house now. The table's empty; I'm not sure you'll even hear. The soft pop of each shingle, the swing of the door out only - each screw in the hinges removed. Board by board, I take down the walls and neatly pile the lumber. I know better, I have learned better, than to be a wrecking ball, slamming into its side - and then crumbling along with it. I wish instead to be a Notebook page and still build us a staircase, fix the leaky faucet, watch the geese migrate from the front porch. But I am of the faithless. I am taking up the floorboards of a house we never bought.

You're holding the door as she laughs her way through it. I'm looking to the moon out the train window.

[I never intended to leave this space for so long. Which makes me uneasy to say I've "returned" or unpack the (mostly boring) reasons I've been gone so long. I don't want to say "I'm back!" and then unintentionally disappear again. But if I do unintentionally disappear, I want to let you know I'm still pretty active on tumblr, twitter, and instagram (links to the right). And if I do, I'll be back again. Of that I am sure.]

June Third Two Thousand Thirteen

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:56:00 +0000

Hard, horizontal rain and the broken umbrella with one spoke sticking out, sharp-edged and pointed. Hot coffee down the front on my dress, first-day impressions undone in the humidity, rain, unexpected and unplanned for, I should have known, I should have known. Duck into the bathroom to run my fingers through my hair before I walk through the office door and slink into the seat in the corner, next to the empty desk with the empty chair. I could wait for years and he'd never slip into that chair, I am learning, I am learning. I could wait for years and I would still have the desk in the corner, I am learning, I am learning. I worry about this summer with the too-long hours and the studying and the rain and the rain and the rain. How many years have passed and the summer rain still undoes me. Clouds gray all day. At 5pm it downpours, and I suddenly wish for a place on that old couch in the old apartment with the rain slamming its fists against the window. There I had a place on the bathroom floor and the faucet I could turn on to muffle the sounds of my sobs. And no one knew, and no one knew.

It's a click here and a click there and the end comes, brilliant with a plus in front of the first letter, the first letter, and this should have been a celebration, success of this kind in its highest form, but I learned long, long ago to measure success differently. Of course, these days I've failed. Failed in the largest way possible because I feel like I've failed. New foundations of measured success, abandoned, step one: "beyond a wholesome discipline, be kind to yourself." I am back to step one and suddenly relieved to have the chair empty beside me, to be sitting in the corner. Drenched by the rain, wearing my morning coffee, reciting Desiderata. Over and over again.