i have to tell you,
there are days i feel so deeply flawed and imperfect,
the most so, really. and i wonder if
everyone can see that. just by
looking.
but then i hear myself laugh
in spite of it,
or because of it and i remember that
i'm quite happy. and it's been nearly a week
since i've felt loneliness. and that's not so bad.
i'm not so bad, you know.
Uncategorized
skiing
it was spring break during my second year of college that i went and saw a life coach. depression had just hit and it was so dark and murky that i was grasping at anything that might help. i remember quite liking the women. her no-nonsense approach to certain things, her look-to-the-future attitude. one of the things i remember with startling clarity is that she had me list out the things i wanted in a life-partner. the idea was that if you were able to name the things you wanted than you were more likely to attract those things to you (energy and whatnot). there were three categories: deal-breakers, basics, and icing-on-the-cake.
i want a man who can ski well. that was my icing-on-the-cake, at least the one i remember.
here's what i have to say all these years later: i still want it. and it may not be such an icing-on-the-cake thing as a basic desire. and the good news (for me) is (1) that the majority of men who ski are extremely attractive and (2) the ratio of men to women on the mountain has to be something like 6:1.
all the men-gazing aside, there is just something about the mountains that centers me--reminds me of my size and place in this world, my own fragility, but mostly of that little seed of fearlessness i so seldom let out.
really must expose that to the sun more often.
gone skiing.
i'm gonna level with you all right now:
you should see the bags under my eyes right now. dark, heavy things. a force to be reckoned with.
when the play i was doing finally came to a close and i finished that next week of my-job-that-pays-the-bills, i had worked it out that it was something like seven and a half weeks without one day off. seven and half weeks of working, performing, rehearsing, riding the gosh-darn subway to back and forth and back and forth and on and on.
and the thing is, well...
i loved it. i loved being so darn busy. and because some of that busy was made up of stuff that i actually found fulfilling and meaningful i was able to continue on day after day. but when the ball stopped rolling and suddenly there was a bit more time.
i lost my balance. couldn't find my footing. i couldn't get enough sleep to satiate me. couldn't eat enough food to placate the stomach. and those darn bags under my eyes. not a thing to be done.
and don't even get me started on the blog. so much to say and absolutely no time or energy or will to do so.
and in the wake of the tumult i tend to be not tremendously kind with myself. there's this thing i have to do next week and i want to feel beautiful and i've not been feeling beautiful (and can we talk about how all the sudden i'm aging? hello acid reflux and the need for prescription glasses) and on and on and blah and blah.
how tedious. how boring.
meghan, i said, because sometimes when i need to be serious i talk to myself and use my full given name. meghan, you're about to go skiing for a week. and you're gonna breath in that cool mountain air and your gonna awaken muscles in your body that you haven't felt in far too long and it's gonna empower you. because you love it. you love to ski. and nothing makes you feel quite so beautiful as doing that which you most love. so here i am. in utah. still with the dark bags. the eve before the first day on the mountain in years (with the exception of one very scary afternoon in vermont last year). i'll let you know if it's true, that if at the end of five days of the sun and the snow and challenge to the body and the pure love of coming so close to flying...if that's the true serum to that long-sought-after glow.
gas-lighting
back this fall i was feeling a bit undone. you see, there was a boy and he made me feel beautiful, or rather it was that around him i didn't feel beautiful or not beautiful. beauty was a non-issue. beauty didn't exist where he was concerned, it wasn't important. does this make sense? i'm not making sense.
my affection for him stretched far past caring what he thought i looked like. but i didn't want to admit this.
and so i looked to others to give me the standard social cues. suddenly, for the first time in my life, i craved long glances from men. wanted to know that men found me attractive on the physical level. wanted to gather as much evidence into my basket so that when the one egg rolled out, as i knew it would, i'd survive with the rest, not happily no, but i'd survive.
i was at work late one night, standing at the front in my black cocktail dress (and a pretty modest cocktail dress as that). the evening was winding down and a young gentleman cut away from his group and headed up the long, spiral-staircase to use the bathroom. on the way up, he stopped, mid-step, turned around and looked at me. really looked. for a moment we both froze. and then he turned back-round and headed up the stairs.
did you see that? tell me you saw that? i said to the other girls, turning round behind me to make sure it wasn't something else that had caught his eye.
i'd never been looked at like that. so openly.
flagrant.
and then he came down the stairs, and curved towards where us girls were standing.
and he looked right at me.
i'm still shocked sometimes that a man might ever wish to look at me--and when i'm next to two exceptionally beautiful women and the guy still looks?
what time do you finish work tonight? he asked.
the audacity. it was strangely appealing.
men can be such fearful creatures that the boldness of his swagger made me weak in the knees. it didn't hurt that he looked like a younger, taller, better looking version of ed norton.
around midnight. and without giving it too much thought, here's my number. he took the slip of paper, promised to call, and went to collect his friends.
my friend whitney who had witnessed this turned to me and said, i've never been flirted with like that. she then proceeded to drive her point home by saying something very crude and actually quite funny, but not appropriate for the likes of this forum.
ten minutes later, ed (let's call him ed, shall we?) returned. i'm not sure where we're gonna end up tonight, so let me give you my number as well, and that way we'll be sure we won't miss each other. i handed him a pen and paper and he began writing when something caught my eye, and started me round the edge of the desk.
what, um. oh, huh, what's that there? oh, this? he said, drawing up his left-hand, gold-wedding band and all. oh, that's not a problem for you, is it? deep intake of breath on my part. small nervous laugh.
yeah, yes. it is. deal-breaker actually. oh, umm, rapid backtracking on his part, oh, yeah for me too. it's a problem for me too. no, come one, no. it's not like that. my friend thought you were cute, i'm doing this for a friend. well, that's nice, but no thanks, and from there i turned away to carefully collect my bottom-jaw from off the floor.
around midnight i tucked myself into a cab. homeward bound. and my phone rang (you do remember i gave him my number?).
meg, come on, just come out with us. no, thank you.
do you know who this is?
yes, it's a number i don't know and you know my name, so yes, i've figured it out, i know who this is. i knew you were a smart gal, that's why i liked you. i am a smart gal, ed. among the smartest you'll ever meet. that's why i'm in a cab, going home. no, just come out. listen, i am so flattered (i was really trying to be nice to this truly undeserving man {and keep in mind he was all of 29, maybe, a young guy, probably newly married}). i think you're extremely attractive and you have a certain charm about you, but you've got a wife at home, waiting for you, trusting that you are on this business trip of yours doing only that, business, and honoring those vows you made to her. no, it's not like that. really, this is for a friend, it's for a friend, i would never cheat on my wife. okay then, ed, have a good night. let me tell you why i found the whole thing tremendously offensive. adultery aside. cheating aside (i mean, really, don't get me started on that. or the fact that he looked at me and thought i'd be okay with those things) nothing makes me angrier than when the man tries to make the woman the fool. for a friend? really, for a friend? gas-lighting on a grand scale. do not play me the fool. and do not make a fool of me. do not make me feel as those i misread the very clear signals. do not make me feel like i was the one who should be embarrassed for being so presumptive as to assume you were flirting. because the thing is, i want to take what you're saying at face-value. but by believing that, i undermine what just happened on the experiential level and find myself at odds with myself. don't lie to me and do not insult my intelligence.
i keep thinking about this because it happened on a much smaller scale recently. and what kills me, is that men think they can do this (and it's a pride and preservation thing, i get it)--but they think they can do it (sacrifice you) and then continue on and pretend as if life should continue normally.
good news is, the more it happens, the better i get at identifying it, and doubting them, before i doubt myself.
made bold by music
i went to my first concert just over a year ago.
i had gotten tickets for my brother for christmas and the plan was that i'd take the bus to boston to visit and we'd go together.
i remember that saturday night: our late dinner ordered in, the cold air blanketing the city, the feeling that i had not a single thing to wear, what does one wear to concerts? i finally settled on a black shift dress and my frye motorbike boots. we entered the small venue--standing room only--and found a spot close to the stage, but not too close. connor got us drinks and then we waited, remarking mostly on how lucky we were to be tall (tall is good where no seats are concerned) and how we were not the usual hipster crowd (in a sea of beanies our heads were hatless).
we were there to see the head and the heart.
now, i can just imagine readers all over, nodding their heads, of course, of course, the head and the heart. but just over a year ago they were virtually unknown. just over a year ago they were the opening band for someone else. and when we saw them, just over a year ago, no one knew the words to sing along--almost no one had heard of them. but their music was heaven. and so connor and i stood there, drinks in hand, bobbing and swaying, as the music moved through and up, as the air was charged with the sound and the guttural need of those voices.
and that was it. i was sold. hook line and sinker, or however the expression goes.
the next day we went skiing and had dinner at outback stakehouse. i mostly regard that weekend as one of the best of my life.
when i returned to new york i began buying up cheap tickets for fringe (i use that word loosely) bands playing smaller venues. the tickets would arrive in the mail and then sit in a little white box atop my dresser. tickets, the promise of a concert, something to look forward to.
i saw noah and the whale at the bowery ballroom. beirut at the wellmont. the lumineers at the mercury lounge. slowly and surely over the course of the year i refined my taste in music and began to chart the city as i did so--venturing into downtown neighborhoods and once foreign boroughs. mapping city and self, unfurling new york and my place in it.
at some point it became very clear: i was made bold by a year of listening to live music.
but how or why i was made bold by this was still hidden--well, maybe not hidden, but certainly beyond words.
it was just about a week ago that i went out with some girlfriends i hadn't seen in quite a while and i was explaining all of this and what bands i loved and why and what about their music made my weary heart thrum when my friend vivienne took a deep breath, all of the music in my library was given to me by friends and ex-boyfriends--mostly ex-boyfriends.
ah, ex-boyfriends. i've come to realize that in every relationship i've ever had--first loves, half-loves, reluctant flirtations--music plays a part. i tell you, the passing of the mix-tape might as well be a relationship marker. music and men. to this day i can't listen to nick drake without feeling a sadness and longing for one sunday in december many years ago in which i both lost and found the very best parts of myself on the couch of my first love.
i'll never forget sitting on the floor of my first boyfriend's apartment. i was just out of high-school, new to new york and terrified by nearly everything. i sat on his floor surrounded by record sleeves and pictures of him as a boy and i was quite sure that i wasn't actually that keen on him, but i had yet to really wake to that though. he picked up an ella fitzgerald album: ella, she's the one, you know? she's my one. she's my music. she sings and it stirs something low in me. something i hardly know how to place.
who's your ella? he looked right at me and asked.
who is your ella?
who is my ella?
i hardly knew what he was talking about. i don't know. i don't think i have an ella.
oh man, i can't wait for the day you find yours. finding it is the best part.
sometimes i wonder how often his question hung over me. a wet, pregnant cloud, eclipsing the landscape.
it took six years, but i know now.
i figured it out this last year in dark and crowded concert halls among nearly perfect strangers.
i found my ella in the sounds of the folk movement coming out of london and the pacific northwest. i found my ella in the broken voices of charlie fink and kristian matsson. i found my ella in the sublime dissonance--that perfect space between the avett brothers' voices. in the ferocity and haunting vulnerability with which laura marling sings and johnny flynn plays the fiddle. i found my ella in the lyrics which call upon bukowski and shakespeare and hemmingway for their piercing (and humblingly simple) wisdom.
i found my ella. and in finding my ella i found myself.
and i did it all without a man.
my music library is made up of those songs that i love. those songs that stir that low unknowable, unnamable part of myself. the songs that upon listening to i can't help but move and laugh and sway my hips, putting socks to wood floor and shimmying this-a-way and that. those songs that grant, when i least expect it, a perfect, quiet moment, in which i stand just as still as i possibly can and cry--because someone else has given voice and melody to my great triumphs and deep tragedies--because someone else has unwrapped what i thought singular and secret.
and in those moments i am not alone. i am never lonely. i stand listening to the chant of the human experience. music is tangible, don't ever let anyone tell you different.
it's that knowing i'm not along bit--that knowing that others have gone before and others will follow after--that vulnerability is what makes for this human experience--that's what made be bold.
that and the music.