ask, ask, ask. those damn questions. (on learning to sit with them).

this is what i can tell you about the start of my college experience:

the walls were white and the floors were gray. and we spent hours upon hours sitting on those gray floors, an imagined coffee cup between our hands, a teacher asking: but how do you know it is a coffee cup? what does it look like? what does it taste like? what does it feel like in your hands? is it heavy? hot? how does the liquid move? what color is the mug? is the handle curved? cracked?  and on and on the questions went. infinite, malleable patterns.

i went to school and was taught to ask the questions.

it almost sounds ridiculous.

but there's this funny thing that happens, after a while--after you've asked so many questions about something that doesn't exist--it does. it does exist. it takes shape and it's suddenly real. not because there are no questions left to ask but because you've kind of entered this weird little world in which the questions aren't the point. they are your way in. they point to the point. and when all is said and done, that coffee cup is between your hands. so real it is, that no one can deny to you its existence, and even if they tried, it doesn't matter--you don't feel the need to defend it.

once we did the coffee cup, we moved on to other things. eating utensils and chairs and monkeys and rocket ships.

don't rush it. just ask the questions. and so the mantra went. and so a foundation was built.

the irony is not lost on me that now--so long after college--my life is question after question after unanswered question. and no one would like them answered more than me, but there comes this small voice--the eighteen year old in me who had no idea how any of it would turn out--who still doesn't, don't rush.  there are things i was able to anticipate about living alone. and then there are the things i couldn't foresee: that the buzzer would buck me from my skin the first few times i heard it or how the questions that i've sat with for so long now would begin to press in in a way that is louder, more immediate. it is startling just how ferocious they've become and just how quickly the change took place.

i can't say with clarity what i want for my life. and i can't say exactly what type of woman i'd like to be. i don't know where i want to live or what i want to do, but i do know i will endeavor, at all costs, to live a full life--whole and happy.

and the thing is, that question of what happiness is--for me--begins with a cup of coffee. white mug, curved handle, foam on top. warm, but not hot.

irony. full circle. it all began with a cup of coffee.

happiness begins with my morning coffee. (i was not a coffee drinker at eighteen. and moreover, never anticipated becoming one). perhaps because i know that, because i've conquered the coffee cup, so to speak, now i can to begin to answer--or ask and ask and ask--all the other questions.

don't rush. 

perfect bodies, cellulite, and a little rebellion.

i don't have a perfect body.

i have cellulite; i will always have cellulite.

but you know what, i don't know a single woman without it. every women i know has it, every woman i have ever known has had it, and moreover, every woman i have ever seen sit on the subway in that particular way that reveals a bit of flesh, has it.

if there is a woman without it, i would like to meet her. and then i would like to know what she eats. and a full breakdown of her medical history,if i could take a look at that, just for shits and giggles--well, that'd be helpful.

thing is, i have this suspicion, that that woman does not exist.

i mean... okay, fine, maybe she does. but she is a rare bird, that one.

so you can understand my ire when i come across tabloid headlines proclaiming celebrities with cellulite! as though it is something new and unusual, rarely occuring in nature. when in actuality, what's rarely occuring is the display of a real body, of any sort, in any sort of glossy magazine.

so let me, let you, in on a little secret.

my body isn't perfect. i have cellulite and fleshy hips and more moles than a person can count. i have rosacea on my cheeks and a scar above my right eye and some sort of growth just above my left buttocks that i'm determined to get the dermatlogist to remove for no other reason than it absolutely freaks. me. out.

on top of all that nonsense my under eye circles are a force to be reckoned with and my feet are a source of great concern to anyone who has ever given me a pedicure. are you sure you don't want the spa treatment? they ask. and always i get the sense that the question is driven more by actual concern than money.

but holy hell if i don't love this body of mine. if i'm not completely smitten with the little renegade mole that sits on my right cheek. that little mole that only just appeared about a year ago and as the months pass seems to get ever so slightly, just a bit, bigger. i love that i can chart constellations on my body with all the moles i have. and that only a very small number--the very best--have seen the secret stores of all my spots.

i love that the scar above my right eye tells a story and the stretch marks on my breasts point to my femininty. i love that i can't quite make out whether i have my mother's nose or my father's nose and most people i know have a different idea about it. i love that this body gets me from bed each morning, that this body does things that so surpasses my understanding.

certainly there are mornings that i wake and wish i wasn't five foot, ten. and certainly there are mornings i wish i knew what it was to be blond with thinner hips and perkier boobs. but usually i'm also wondering what it would be to have a perkier attitude. (perk, as it turns out, is not my thing. and truth be told, my boobs are okay).

i lost years of my life to wanting to lose weight.

and then, not too terribely long ago, i realized that the desire to change my body was the least interesting thing about me.

(that desire is in fact the least interesting thing about every woman i know).

it is not lost on me, however, that how i moved from a person consumed by wanting to lose weight to a person who couldn't really be bothered to then a person who not only couldn't be bothered but also acutally loved her body--well, that story--that trajectory is probably one of the most interesting things about me.

you see, i think to love our bodies in a world or a society or whatever-you-want-to-call-it that tells us we shouldn't is a powerful act of rebellion--an even greater act of love.

it is to say i refuse to buy those tabloids to see who has cellulite or who has lost weight or gained weight or grown a third head. i refuse to look at advertisements without also bringing in the knowledge that what i'm seeing is not real--it has been doctored and changed and tampered with. the vectors have been pushed and prodded to make for slimmer thighs and whiter teeth and waists so small that they don't exist in nature. it is to refuse to allow for my womanhood to be distilled to nothing more than what i look like. to refuse to buy products and spend money in search of an ideal that isn't ideal at all--a standard that is purposefully unattainable so that women just like me--smart, independent, loving women--begin to second guess and question and live in a perpetual state of doubt and plummeting self-worth and then spend money to climb out of the hole in which i was not just invited into, but pushed.

i want to know what it is to live to in a world, where we, as women, say enough. enough of this nonsense. and okay, so we're not there yet, i know that. but at least let me add my voice to my betters and my peers who have gone before me and said, there's more to life than this, and so i love my body just as it is.

these days:

some days things are just harder. i wish i could tell you why, but i can't. some days the girl that cuts the line at whole foods and whose silly boyfriend just stands there knowing she screwed up but instead of apologizing or pointing it out to her just gives you a king of sly/smug smile really gets your panties in a twist. and some days it's hard to untwist them. some days you cry, just a little on the subway. and you wonder why people can't begin their emails in a way that is a wee bit kinder way and you find you're really exhausted and without words and then your brother lays a piece of truth at your feet and you knows he's right and you know he says it out of love, but it's still hard to have someone else point out what you most dislike abut yourself--what you most fear.
and so it is on these days and in the days that follow that i remind myself to light a candle in the morning. to find a new song to play on repeat. to make a latte and sit and listen to the birds and slow down and give thanks for the fact that another day has come.


(and a little inspiration with which to begin the week):

Love after Love. 
Anne Lamott: Becoming the Person You Were Meant to Be.
3 AM.

happy father's day.

i spent the weekend in new jersey with my aunt, uncle, and brother. and along with fresh air and some really fine home-cooked meals my aunt sue (my mom's sister) provided me with these two photos of mother and father.

i'm so desperately in love with these pictures--you forget that your parents were once young and in love in that... particular way. your parents move mountains and sacrifice impossible things for you to have every opportunity and you, as their child, forget that there came a time before you. 

it's nice to have the reminder. 

(and find out that they were probably cooler than you).

summer check (wish) list:

image via. 

i have this running wish list for the summer:

wear a bathing suit (go to the beach is implied here)

eat a hamburger (yes, yes, i know. {more on this later})

see as much good music as is possible

picnic, picnic, picnic.

bike around brooklyn.

what about you all? what's pressing all of your hot-long-summer-day buttons?