a year: part one

In November 2010, I left Boston. Heartbroken.

I moved back into my parents' home, the parsonage, into the basement that I knew when I was sixteen. I cried a lot that month, and sat on the couch where I'd experienced my first (thoroughly awkward) kiss. I didn't have much to say, except to mourn. The words I could muster manifested themselves in a complex indigo, private.

So I baked. A whole lot. More even than before. I played with several kinds of scones and cookies and biscotti and bread and eclairs and cakes and buttercreams and macarons and... and... When I felt powerless to pull anything beautiful out of my own life, I let my hands move independent of me.

I tried to pull myself out of my grief with online dating. I wanted to scream the whole time I applied my makeup. I wanted to wear a snow suit that utterly covered my form or no clothing at all, to teach myself to separate from the body that trapped me. I slammed the door as I left the house.

I gave up.

And finally said: there are worse things than living like Emily Dickinson, small. Cheerful donater of flowers and baked goods to neighbor children with a secretly cultivated garden heart tucked in a chest for someone to find much, much later. There are worse things.

sing me to sleep tonight

I made you a mix of the songs that have kept me company as the snow falls deep.

2010: the year of openness

Often, as one year wraps up and another unfolds, I find it useful to reflect on the year. This year, I'm journaling with a community called reverb10. Some of these reflections I will post here.

One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell)

I can imagine my life as a house. Classic, refined, impeccably decorated with a mix of vintage and modern, with shelves and shelves of books. My house is shielded by trees, so light and wind are filtered. Neighbors and children rarely visit; the sounds within are muted, controlled. My house is often wrapped tight, curtains drawn, windows closed.

But this year, I have opened the door, torn down the screen, pulled back thick curtains and allowed winds to blow through my carefully arranged house. Even when the skies darkened and the clean air turned wet and angry, I held open the door.

Winds blew into the dusty corners of the living room, kicking up dust shapes that beckoned to me with glittering tendrils. You have choices, you know, they say. Don’t be afraid, they whisper. The winds have been brazen, kicking statues to the ground and watching them shatter, rifling through book pages and catching up the pressed flowers, setting a few violets down unharmed on the pages, and dissolving others to dust, sweeping them out the windows. The storm has penetrated every recess of my careful rooms, sweeping out the basement with my embarrassments, blowing open the attic with its disappointed hopes for love.

Out with a job that defined but controlled me. In with time to think. Out with some relationships I had hoped to keep, while others have been returned to me more precious than ever. Open, to a different job, to new friends, to love, to honesty, to faith, to a totally new life, and to what old lives still want to tell me.

Open. This year I’ve been open, like a book, like a room, like a womb. Unknowing, blindly, I have cracked myself wide and allowed wild winds to blow through this careful life, handing me back to myself. I have resisted the urge to cling, forcing my fingers to release, allowing this breath to take and leave as it will.

Next year, my house will be cleaner and less careful. Next year, I want to invite in more strangers, more neighbors, more children. I want light, and I want uncareful sounds, laughter, silliness. I want to welcome joy.

conversation at work

I'm reaching into the milk refrigerator, probably in order to refill a pitcher.

Cody: Be careful. The skim milk is topless.
Me: Umm... I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that. But, I guess as long as she is.
Cody: Oh, who would notice anyway? She's skim.

timestamps

So, I work at a cafe now. Today was the first full day of school at MATCH High School, and I wasn't there.

7: 15 - Around this time, I realize, Kirsten would be waiting for me by the elevator, our high heels echoing in the dark, empty "big hall," unmuffled by the college pennants. We were rarely fully verbal until one or the other of us slunk across Comm Ave. to pick up coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. Instead, I'm scraping out the unused raspberry muffin batter the bakers left, then washing the bowl in cloudy water, letting warm sanitizer drip down my face and shirt as I hoist the clean dishes onto the drying racks above my head. I'm deep in thought, prayer even, as the water wrinkles the tips of my fingers.

9:00 - Last year, I would be in the middle of period one -- probably a brain frame or two on the whiteboard, probably at least one whiteboard marker dried out, probably trying to wake up a few sleepy sixteen-year olds leaning against the wall. Today, I'm wrapping lemon ginger scones in eco-friendly paper, and handing them over to salivating customers.

10:30 - Last year, period three begins. I'm standing at the doorway to room 203, shaking each kid's hand as she walks into the room. With some, elaborate routines have evolved. Salutes. Primitive daps. Mostly smiles. I remind one student about staying super-focused today, ask another about his weekend. Around this time a few days ago, a woman I recognized entered the store with her girlfriend. We used to be in a book club together. She asks if this is what I do now, if I'm not teaching. I confirm this. She says, "Oh. I'm sorry."

12:30 - I would be sitting at my desk right now. Or rather, at a table facing away from my official workspace (as I cannot work with my back to the open space). There would be a small pile of assignments haphazardly stacked on my desk, a scraped-together lunch (probably takeout from across the street) half eaten in front of me. There would be at least one other lion-hearted teacher within earshot, planning, processing, laughing. There would probably be swearing at the photocopier. Now I am standing in a narrow space before a long cutting board, frenetically assembling sweet potato sandwiches and turkey wraps for faces that are becoming familiar. I don't have to call John's name. I remember him. I know that this time of day, this ham sandwich will leave off the cream cheese. Got it. I'm in a zone, moving around my coworker like a dancer, grasping at tomato wedges and cucumbers without thought. If I make a mistake, there will be half a sandwich to throw away (or, more likely, foist upon a roommate); it will not translate into a frustrated child calling my cell at 10pm with questions.

5pm - I would still be at work... making photocopies, ravenous. Kirsten and I would be rushing each other out the door, trying to scheme up a justification for a beer or pizza run. We would rehash our frustrations, triumphs. The whole ride home would feel like a swift decompression or a slow high-five. Tonight, I am sitting on the green couch when she comes home. Though I showered after work, my wet hair is already completely dry. I'm wearing a tank top. No makeup. I'm laughing with another roommate, telling silly anecdotes from earlier years.

It's not better, exactly. Nor is it worse. It is change, though... needed change.

And we're ordering thai tonight. High five to that.

natural history

I envy the gryptodont, ancient car-sized armadillo,

his thousand-bone-coat

But you can’t buy one of those in the museum store

So I tug on the stretchy gray cotton and absently trace

my own collarbone

Such a frail little skeleton is mine, still scented of fig from the shower.

I stare into the eyes of the white-furred Asian tiger,

count how many times I would fit into the ribcage of the fin whale suspended from the ceiling

Standing straight?

Curled into a ball?

Somewhere between the vibrantly feathered tatingers

and the porous kickball sized egg of the extinct elephant bird,

the chill creeps past the pink polish on my bare toes, sinks deep into my calves, knees, up into my arms, shoulders

And I am shivering there, uninterested in reading about the evolution of the mammal jawbone or the helmet of the beetle

But bracing against the terrible cold

Trying to hide the evidence screaming from my own ribcage and its small pink thermometers

As the whirling of my own centrifuge begins,

Leeching all the strength out of the iron pinions on which my skin hangs

Melting down the muscles and bones and spinning them inward toward the center

Every fiber silent and serving

The one that waits

Weeping blood

For the child that I was

And the ones who won’t meet my eyes on the subway platform

And for the ones I will not bear

Even now in August, the misting raindrops by the train station greet like icicles

But I crane my neck toward the sky and close my eyes

As if I deserve the cold stinging

For being such a small thing in the wide world

Just another homo sapien in the great hall, yellowed bones like the others

Like the skull of the triceratops or the giant sloth

While in my abdomen,

Small worlds make and break themselves.

I am bodily.

Terrestrial.

Of the earth like a geode.

summer music shouldn't brood

Hey folks. I made you a summer mix. And it's of the giddy, irresistible movement-inducing sort. Just right for this weather.

Also, today is my last day teaching. Ever. Tomorrow I go home. Home! And then, on Saturday, I start my new job at a cafe three blocks from my house. Life is unspeakably good.