Childhood Essentials That You Never Get Too Old To Enjoy:
1. PB&J
2. splashing in the water
3. firefly hunting
4. ice cream cones
5. daydreams
6. hammocks
7. barefeet in grass
8. constellations
9. naptime
10. board games
(Can you guess who wants to be on summer vacation right about now?)
Friday, May 16, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Pacific Ocean virgin no more
Before moving to California, you picture that once you get here, you'll spend all your weekends at the beach, swimming and tanning and generally living an outside-oriented life. Then you get to San Francisco, and you realize you'll need a sweater and long pants at all times and most definitely a wet suit to get in the water. So after 2.5 years here, I know better than to expect to get in the ocean when I go to it. Instead, my beach visits involve a lot of walking, a lot of lying out of the wind and reading, and whatever tanning the weather that day affords. Thus today was a real treat for a girl who grew up in a hot climate and loved it.
Today it supposedly hit 98 in San Francisco. I would not argue with it having been 90. It was so hot when I walked outside in a bathing suit and shorts that I knew I was doing the right thing in playing hooky for a few hours and heading to Fort Funston. I knew I was doing the right thing in lathering on the sunscreen, packing a book and a towel, and heading to the sauna that was the sea. Normally the wind blows cool off that water even when the air is warmish; but today, as I settled into the sand, I started to sweat immediately, with the air barely stirring, and when it did, it feeling like a hot breath blown all the way up from the equator. I can't say it was the most pleasant sitting-in-the-sun weather, but it felt great to be hot—that's a rare sensation to feel here.
Eventually I got so hot that I knew I had no choice but to enter the water to cool down. If you've ever swum in New England in summer, you know what chilly water feels like. If you've ever swum in New England in spring, you know what frigid water feels like. I once jumped into 45 degree water in Maine, and every muscle in my body clinched up; my breathing halted. Thankfully, after a second or two I regained control of myself and bolted out of the water; but clearly I didn't learn my lesson, as a few weeks later I found myself diving into water just 5 degrees warmer—and swimming my heart out to get to the next dock and get out. I would guess that the ocean here today was no warmer than 50 degrees. When you first step into water that temperature, it feels refreshing, especially on a day like today. But within seconds, your feet start to ache from the cold, and the smart thing to do would be to exit immediately.
The thing is, you can numb to it. And when it's sweltering out, that doesn't sound like such a bad option. I would take a step and then let my skin settle into the cold; take another one, re-settle. To my amazement, after five minutes I was thigh-deep. I dipped my arms in, splashed them wet. The sweat was evaporating; my skin relaxing. So when a wave came, I did something I would never expect to have tried in the Pacific Ocean—I knelt down to let it overtake me. It crashed against my chest—and then I ran like hell back toward the sand. That is one cold ocean!!!
Today it supposedly hit 98 in San Francisco. I would not argue with it having been 90. It was so hot when I walked outside in a bathing suit and shorts that I knew I was doing the right thing in playing hooky for a few hours and heading to Fort Funston. I knew I was doing the right thing in lathering on the sunscreen, packing a book and a towel, and heading to the sauna that was the sea. Normally the wind blows cool off that water even when the air is warmish; but today, as I settled into the sand, I started to sweat immediately, with the air barely stirring, and when it did, it feeling like a hot breath blown all the way up from the equator. I can't say it was the most pleasant sitting-in-the-sun weather, but it felt great to be hot—that's a rare sensation to feel here.
Eventually I got so hot that I knew I had no choice but to enter the water to cool down. If you've ever swum in New England in summer, you know what chilly water feels like. If you've ever swum in New England in spring, you know what frigid water feels like. I once jumped into 45 degree water in Maine, and every muscle in my body clinched up; my breathing halted. Thankfully, after a second or two I regained control of myself and bolted out of the water; but clearly I didn't learn my lesson, as a few weeks later I found myself diving into water just 5 degrees warmer—and swimming my heart out to get to the next dock and get out. I would guess that the ocean here today was no warmer than 50 degrees. When you first step into water that temperature, it feels refreshing, especially on a day like today. But within seconds, your feet start to ache from the cold, and the smart thing to do would be to exit immediately.
The thing is, you can numb to it. And when it's sweltering out, that doesn't sound like such a bad option. I would take a step and then let my skin settle into the cold; take another one, re-settle. To my amazement, after five minutes I was thigh-deep. I dipped my arms in, splashed them wet. The sweat was evaporating; my skin relaxing. So when a wave came, I did something I would never expect to have tried in the Pacific Ocean—I knelt down to let it overtake me. It crashed against my chest—and then I ran like hell back toward the sand. That is one cold ocean!!!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
between the lines
One of the age-old weaknesses of womankind is our proclivity for reading between the lines. Perhaps men do it too, but it’s by my female friends—and myself—that I see the most energy put into this behavior. And I have two conflicting viewpoints about it: on the one hand, I think it’s a pitfall to a healthy mindset; and on the other, I think what’s discerned through it can be very telling and can remind the reader of what she deserves—and what she doesn’t.
Yesterday I had dinner with the boyfriend of one of my closest friends. He has become a good friend of mine, and I adore him most of all for his incredibly rational take on everything. I have never been so sensically advised about my career, my finances, or my love life. In fact, I crave his input, because even when it’s hard to hear or I want to disagree with it, I know it’s based in solid facts, unbiased thinking, and logical expectations.
Last night he listened to my read on a situation with a guy I had some interest in a while ago and just shook his head. As I explained the email I’d sent asking this guy to do something alone with me for the first time (pathetic, of course, that I did that in writing), and as I described the obvious rejection of his response (suggesting instead that we do something with a group), this friend of mine began to grin, getting ready to lay into me with some wise and completely alternate explanation. “He’s not lego-ing it out, Lara.” (Good wording, I thought.) “He’s not over there strategically thinking. He’s just nervous. Maybe he’s not comfortable with being completely alone with you. Maybe that’s because he LIKES YOU.”
Maybe, we both agreed, my friend is wrong about that in that case; but I did admit that the prospect that this dating interest might have been thinking that way had never crossed my mind. I had seen it one way and one way only: if you’re into me, you want to be alone with me. Nuff said.
I hadn’t viewed my take on it as reading between anything—it just seemed obvious. And when I explained that to my friend, he conceded that it was a reasonable line of thinking. But, he suggested, maybe sometimes there was a little more to it. Maybe my own nervousness—the source, after all, of my avoiding asking in person—could indicate that people who are interested in other people don’t always show it just exactly as much as they feel it. Maybe actions aren’t louder than words. Maybe I was reading between imaginary lines.
The latter is a point I’ve become sensitive to as I’ve gotten older. By now I’ve seen it happen too many times. And I think I’ve gotten past it; but there are times when the line between misreading unsaid things and doing what’s best for me is hard to draw.
Consider this example: A few months ago I met another guy of interest to me; for a variety of reasons, it seemed unwise to pursue anything with him, but I liked him and he seemed to like me, so I decided not to think it through too much and just see what happened. And what happened is that we reached a point where things got good, and that may have given us each pause, because those obstacles were still there. And although I felt fully ok with the fact that this might have no real future—although I felt fully ok with just enjoying it for the time it could last—the minute it got good it also got confusing. When someone kisses you and enjoys it, he is supposed to want to do it again. Nuff said, right? So what if you don’t hear from him? What if you suggest doing something again soon and he passes that up? Is it reading between the lines to view that as passing you up—or is it the self-respecting, self-preservational, intelligent thing to admit?
My leaning on the answer to that is heavily shaped by an experience I had a few years ago. At the time, I had a boyfriend who seemed to be perfectly smitten with me turn up on my doorstep three days after taking me on a romantic weekend away to tell me that he couldn’t do “this” anymore. His explanation made little sense, as much of it included praise for our relationship being the best he’d ever had. Normally—probably any other time in my life—I would have asked him to clarify, to please try to make me understand how “seeing this go to marriage” and “being scared” could be reasons to break up. But what made this situation unique for me—and what made it pivotal in my thinking and perhaps in my maturing—is that he didn’t walk into my apartment wanting to discuss his feelings; he walked in wanting to walk back out. No matter what he said, the underlying point was that he did not want to be with me. And if there was one thing I could hear my inner self saying loud and clear, even through the tears that were already flowing, it’s that I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. Nuff said and no arguing it.
In light of that, I did something I had never before done, which was decide I needed no closure; after five minutes, I asked him to leave. I never got any answers. I did want them—I thought I might wait a week and then call and ask for an explanation—but when I said that out loud, people kept telling me not to. The clincher was when my dad told me not to. When I said, “I think I’ll wait a week and then call him,” and my father unhesitatingly responded with, “If you talk to him again it’s because he called you”—when my father weighed in on my love life for the first time ever and assured me of what I am worth, I heeded his words, which brought me great clarification. It doesn’t matter how strongly you want to understand something, how much you believe in closing things out in a certain way. If someone else does not show you that respect, it’s either because he is a jackass or, as in this case, he just is not that into you (to steal a popular phrase).
Applying that same logic—accepting that logic—made me feel stronger. I still felt rejected, still felt completely blind-sided, but I felt stronger. I understood that people’s words and actions most certainly can indicate where their wantings lie, and acknowledging that is the most self-loving step I can take.
Lately, however, I’ve faced a quandary over that—wondering how to know when it’s the case. Recently I put a close to this situation in which the good part was followed by little else. I decided to put a close to it because of that acceptance that it’s not good for me to want something that isn’t. But what got me hung up, when I tried to explain this to the person, was his reaction to it. He did apologize for his not being in touch leaving me feeling hurt; but he also said he didn’t intend it to do that, he didn’t intend it to do anything—which is to say, he didn’t think about not being in touch. And he felt that should make it better (because it wasn’t malicious). I thought that made it worse, and when I expressed that, he said that I was “reading” his inaction as something much more than it was.
I’d hate to over-think or misread someone’s actions, especially if I’d be losing something meaningful in the process. But in this case I don’t think I was misreading anything. When someone kisses you and enjoys it, you think you’d stay on his mind, right? Words or lack of words, actions or lack of actions—these are the things that exhibit someone’s leaning. Maybe, accepting the point my friend made last night, I have to remember that in some cases hesitation is not the end all be all. But I can’t understand why I’d stay in a situation where a person thinks it’s fine to show me affection and then not show me anything; to have part of a conversation but not finish it. I’d hate to over-think or misread someone’s actions and lose something meaningful in the process, and I’m the kind of person who could worry about whether that’s what I’ve done for weeks. But I know that’s not healthy. And I know this, too: if he did care about me much at all, then he’d want to make things right. He’d make the effort to show me that I was not misreading anything; to show me that the problem was just that what I was reading was miswritten. When someone doesn’t make that effort, then the thing I’ve learned I have to do is let him go.
Yesterday I had dinner with the boyfriend of one of my closest friends. He has become a good friend of mine, and I adore him most of all for his incredibly rational take on everything. I have never been so sensically advised about my career, my finances, or my love life. In fact, I crave his input, because even when it’s hard to hear or I want to disagree with it, I know it’s based in solid facts, unbiased thinking, and logical expectations.
Last night he listened to my read on a situation with a guy I had some interest in a while ago and just shook his head. As I explained the email I’d sent asking this guy to do something alone with me for the first time (pathetic, of course, that I did that in writing), and as I described the obvious rejection of his response (suggesting instead that we do something with a group), this friend of mine began to grin, getting ready to lay into me with some wise and completely alternate explanation. “He’s not lego-ing it out, Lara.” (Good wording, I thought.) “He’s not over there strategically thinking. He’s just nervous. Maybe he’s not comfortable with being completely alone with you. Maybe that’s because he LIKES YOU.”
Maybe, we both agreed, my friend is wrong about that in that case; but I did admit that the prospect that this dating interest might have been thinking that way had never crossed my mind. I had seen it one way and one way only: if you’re into me, you want to be alone with me. Nuff said.
I hadn’t viewed my take on it as reading between anything—it just seemed obvious. And when I explained that to my friend, he conceded that it was a reasonable line of thinking. But, he suggested, maybe sometimes there was a little more to it. Maybe my own nervousness—the source, after all, of my avoiding asking in person—could indicate that people who are interested in other people don’t always show it just exactly as much as they feel it. Maybe actions aren’t louder than words. Maybe I was reading between imaginary lines.
The latter is a point I’ve become sensitive to as I’ve gotten older. By now I’ve seen it happen too many times. And I think I’ve gotten past it; but there are times when the line between misreading unsaid things and doing what’s best for me is hard to draw.
Consider this example: A few months ago I met another guy of interest to me; for a variety of reasons, it seemed unwise to pursue anything with him, but I liked him and he seemed to like me, so I decided not to think it through too much and just see what happened. And what happened is that we reached a point where things got good, and that may have given us each pause, because those obstacles were still there. And although I felt fully ok with the fact that this might have no real future—although I felt fully ok with just enjoying it for the time it could last—the minute it got good it also got confusing. When someone kisses you and enjoys it, he is supposed to want to do it again. Nuff said, right? So what if you don’t hear from him? What if you suggest doing something again soon and he passes that up? Is it reading between the lines to view that as passing you up—or is it the self-respecting, self-preservational, intelligent thing to admit?
My leaning on the answer to that is heavily shaped by an experience I had a few years ago. At the time, I had a boyfriend who seemed to be perfectly smitten with me turn up on my doorstep three days after taking me on a romantic weekend away to tell me that he couldn’t do “this” anymore. His explanation made little sense, as much of it included praise for our relationship being the best he’d ever had. Normally—probably any other time in my life—I would have asked him to clarify, to please try to make me understand how “seeing this go to marriage” and “being scared” could be reasons to break up. But what made this situation unique for me—and what made it pivotal in my thinking and perhaps in my maturing—is that he didn’t walk into my apartment wanting to discuss his feelings; he walked in wanting to walk back out. No matter what he said, the underlying point was that he did not want to be with me. And if there was one thing I could hear my inner self saying loud and clear, even through the tears that were already flowing, it’s that I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. Nuff said and no arguing it.
In light of that, I did something I had never before done, which was decide I needed no closure; after five minutes, I asked him to leave. I never got any answers. I did want them—I thought I might wait a week and then call and ask for an explanation—but when I said that out loud, people kept telling me not to. The clincher was when my dad told me not to. When I said, “I think I’ll wait a week and then call him,” and my father unhesitatingly responded with, “If you talk to him again it’s because he called you”—when my father weighed in on my love life for the first time ever and assured me of what I am worth, I heeded his words, which brought me great clarification. It doesn’t matter how strongly you want to understand something, how much you believe in closing things out in a certain way. If someone else does not show you that respect, it’s either because he is a jackass or, as in this case, he just is not that into you (to steal a popular phrase).
Applying that same logic—accepting that logic—made me feel stronger. I still felt rejected, still felt completely blind-sided, but I felt stronger. I understood that people’s words and actions most certainly can indicate where their wantings lie, and acknowledging that is the most self-loving step I can take.
Lately, however, I’ve faced a quandary over that—wondering how to know when it’s the case. Recently I put a close to this situation in which the good part was followed by little else. I decided to put a close to it because of that acceptance that it’s not good for me to want something that isn’t. But what got me hung up, when I tried to explain this to the person, was his reaction to it. He did apologize for his not being in touch leaving me feeling hurt; but he also said he didn’t intend it to do that, he didn’t intend it to do anything—which is to say, he didn’t think about not being in touch. And he felt that should make it better (because it wasn’t malicious). I thought that made it worse, and when I expressed that, he said that I was “reading” his inaction as something much more than it was.
I’d hate to over-think or misread someone’s actions, especially if I’d be losing something meaningful in the process. But in this case I don’t think I was misreading anything. When someone kisses you and enjoys it, you think you’d stay on his mind, right? Words or lack of words, actions or lack of actions—these are the things that exhibit someone’s leaning. Maybe, accepting the point my friend made last night, I have to remember that in some cases hesitation is not the end all be all. But I can’t understand why I’d stay in a situation where a person thinks it’s fine to show me affection and then not show me anything; to have part of a conversation but not finish it. I’d hate to over-think or misread someone’s actions and lose something meaningful in the process, and I’m the kind of person who could worry about whether that’s what I’ve done for weeks. But I know that’s not healthy. And I know this, too: if he did care about me much at all, then he’d want to make things right. He’d make the effort to show me that I was not misreading anything; to show me that the problem was just that what I was reading was miswritten. When someone doesn’t make that effort, then the thing I’ve learned I have to do is let him go.
Monday, May 12, 2008
(recuperation)
Enjoy the sunshine squirming through the blinds. Ignore the desire to stay in bed; crawl forth.
Shower. Eat. Pull on your favorite jeans and your favorite sneakers. Let the pink of the canvas tickle your fingers as you tie up the laces.
Get in the car. Pick up some beer. Chuckle at the name of it—Skinny Dipping. Drop it off on the picnic table, crack a bottle open, fall into the grass.
Take in the odors of the grill and the soil, the laughter and chatter, the soft woosh of a football flying overhead.
Sit in the full sun. Lie beside your friends. Listen. Relax.
When the time comes, arise with energy. Line up in batting order; give the large ball a solid kick. Run to first base; run from getting tagged out. Laugh and fall into the grass.
Enjoy the rigors of out-fielding. Jog after the ball; grin as you hurl it at an oncoming opponent; avoid getting drenched by his beer.
When the game ends, clap your hands together. Pat your teammates on the back. Keep that smile on your face. Then pick up the frisbee. Toss it. Chase after it. Learn to let it fly from beneath your up-lifted leg. Do a cartwheel, for old time’s sake. Return to the whizzing; to trying to catch the disk under a leg. Fail. Let laughter drop you back into the grass.
Let the running ease something out of you.
Rest your voice. It is not needed for everything.
Shower. Eat. Pull on your favorite jeans and your favorite sneakers. Let the pink of the canvas tickle your fingers as you tie up the laces.
Get in the car. Pick up some beer. Chuckle at the name of it—Skinny Dipping. Drop it off on the picnic table, crack a bottle open, fall into the grass.
Take in the odors of the grill and the soil, the laughter and chatter, the soft woosh of a football flying overhead.
Sit in the full sun. Lie beside your friends. Listen. Relax.
When the time comes, arise with energy. Line up in batting order; give the large ball a solid kick. Run to first base; run from getting tagged out. Laugh and fall into the grass.
Enjoy the rigors of out-fielding. Jog after the ball; grin as you hurl it at an oncoming opponent; avoid getting drenched by his beer.
When the game ends, clap your hands together. Pat your teammates on the back. Keep that smile on your face. Then pick up the frisbee. Toss it. Chase after it. Learn to let it fly from beneath your up-lifted leg. Do a cartwheel, for old time’s sake. Return to the whizzing; to trying to catch the disk under a leg. Fail. Let laughter drop you back into the grass.
Let the running ease something out of you.
Rest your voice. It is not needed for everything.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
quote of the day
Written by a wise friend and greatly appreciated by me:
"Sometimes I think there should be a frequent-flyer program or some other type of credits system for the injuries some of us have had to suffer as single women. As in, when a guy doesn't return a message because he is a complete candyass, you get 10 points towards a facial or something. When a guy stands you up, maybe you would get a bottle of champagne... and when you get dumped by a guy that himself should have been the dumpee, you get a car."
I hope some of you enjoyed that as much as I do every time I read it. :)
"Sometimes I think there should be a frequent-flyer program or some other type of credits system for the injuries some of us have had to suffer as single women. As in, when a guy doesn't return a message because he is a complete candyass, you get 10 points towards a facial or something. When a guy stands you up, maybe you would get a bottle of champagne... and when you get dumped by a guy that himself should have been the dumpee, you get a car."
I hope some of you enjoyed that as much as I do every time I read it. :)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
ah, childhood
On Omar's birthday he gave me a marble. It was a party favor; at the end of dinner, he pulled out some portion of his marble collection and let each of his guests pick one out. Gleefully he then told us what type we'd each taken. Mine he called a "robin's egg." It's an opaque navy blue with tiny pastel dots. It's the smaller size that marbles come in. It's delightfully unique. I rolled it around on the tips of my fingers, admiring it, amused to find that Omar and I might've been good friends even in childhood. He might've liked the way we played marbles at my house.
My brother and I would stretch out on our bellies in the living room. He'd take the end of the carpet near the sofa; I'd take the end by the fireplace. Propped up on elbows, we'd sort through our respective marbles, making sure they were all there, considering our best starting option. Then we'd get out our metaphorical bowling pins; we'd each arrange our Star Wars figures in a durable configuration, generally blocking Princess Leia with a Storm Trooper or Chewbacca. (We owned the whole collection, from both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, so we had multiple of each character and divvied them up fairly, balancing out my second Princess Leia with his favorite, some green monstrous fellow whose name I long ago forgot.) We'd get our figures in place and then we'd start—no doubt before anyone said go—maniacally shooting marbles across the oriental rug, trying to be the first to knock down all the opposing stars.
When we tired of that game, we'd collect our friends and throw them in some bag, tote them out back. We had a lot of space at that house—first a proper backyard, with a garden and a swing set, encircled by bamboo and roses and a stand of tiger lilies by the stone stairs. Down those few steps, we had a second yard, a wide opening of nothing but grass—a field to play in, though it mostly went ignored, for beyond it lay the best of all backyards, the third one: the swamp, with the long green board Dad had laid down to help you cross it; with the high pass covered in pussy willows around one side of it; with the pair of magnolia trees at the far end, just beside the creek. Some days my brother would climb one of those magnolias, then drop down its branch-free neighbor as though down a fireman's pole, but not shooting down it quite as fast. Other days we'd head straight for the creek, collecting magnolia leaves as we ran. If you don't know the southern magnolia, you don't know its leaves' waxy exterior, the slight curvature that makes each one like a boat. We'd collect handfuls of those rafts and then lay a Star Wars figures atop each one, kneeling in the moist dirt of the creekside to set them all free. We'd cheer as they raced down the slow rapids and then tumbled over a short falls; we'd argue and delight over the winner; we'd hurry back to the start line to send them off again.
We'd play like that for hours, my brother and I, not knowing we'd ever outgrow it, not thinking we'd ever love anything quite as much.
My brother and I would stretch out on our bellies in the living room. He'd take the end of the carpet near the sofa; I'd take the end by the fireplace. Propped up on elbows, we'd sort through our respective marbles, making sure they were all there, considering our best starting option. Then we'd get out our metaphorical bowling pins; we'd each arrange our Star Wars figures in a durable configuration, generally blocking Princess Leia with a Storm Trooper or Chewbacca. (We owned the whole collection, from both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, so we had multiple of each character and divvied them up fairly, balancing out my second Princess Leia with his favorite, some green monstrous fellow whose name I long ago forgot.) We'd get our figures in place and then we'd start—no doubt before anyone said go—maniacally shooting marbles across the oriental rug, trying to be the first to knock down all the opposing stars.
When we tired of that game, we'd collect our friends and throw them in some bag, tote them out back. We had a lot of space at that house—first a proper backyard, with a garden and a swing set, encircled by bamboo and roses and a stand of tiger lilies by the stone stairs. Down those few steps, we had a second yard, a wide opening of nothing but grass—a field to play in, though it mostly went ignored, for beyond it lay the best of all backyards, the third one: the swamp, with the long green board Dad had laid down to help you cross it; with the high pass covered in pussy willows around one side of it; with the pair of magnolia trees at the far end, just beside the creek. Some days my brother would climb one of those magnolias, then drop down its branch-free neighbor as though down a fireman's pole, but not shooting down it quite as fast. Other days we'd head straight for the creek, collecting magnolia leaves as we ran. If you don't know the southern magnolia, you don't know its leaves' waxy exterior, the slight curvature that makes each one like a boat. We'd collect handfuls of those rafts and then lay a Star Wars figures atop each one, kneeling in the moist dirt of the creekside to set them all free. We'd cheer as they raced down the slow rapids and then tumbled over a short falls; we'd argue and delight over the winner; we'd hurry back to the start line to send them off again.
We'd play like that for hours, my brother and I, not knowing we'd ever outgrow it, not thinking we'd ever love anything quite as much.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
lost my voice
Do you ever lose your voice—metaphorically, that is?
It's not the being silent that I mind; sometimes I need that; sometimes it helps me catch my breath.
What gets to me is the oscillation, the way the words form, rising up to a crest like a whitecap, but then rather than crashing into sea foam they just wither, because another set of words has arisen, another set of thoughts that defy them, and contort them, and maybe even erase them—as in a dream, when one thing morphs illogically into something else. The oscillation between understanding and still inquiring—the back and forth—the resultant contortion. My mind swings from one place to another and I can't think straight. I can't write straight. I can't string a row of words together without taking them right back.
There are ways of being that I believe in. There are ways of being that I know will leave me hurt. That some of them are one in the same is just as illogical as the dream sequence, but this is real life, not imagination, and I take each step as I want to and know I should not feel disappointment when the path I was walking evaporates.
It's not the being silent that I mind; sometimes I need that; sometimes it helps me catch my breath.
What gets to me is the oscillation, the way the words form, rising up to a crest like a whitecap, but then rather than crashing into sea foam they just wither, because another set of words has arisen, another set of thoughts that defy them, and contort them, and maybe even erase them—as in a dream, when one thing morphs illogically into something else. The oscillation between understanding and still inquiring—the back and forth—the resultant contortion. My mind swings from one place to another and I can't think straight. I can't write straight. I can't string a row of words together without taking them right back.
There are ways of being that I believe in. There are ways of being that I know will leave me hurt. That some of them are one in the same is just as illogical as the dream sequence, but this is real life, not imagination, and I take each step as I want to and know I should not feel disappointment when the path I was walking evaporates.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)