variants and tentacles.

people keep asking the same two questions.

or, variants of the same two questions:

there's the first regarding acting and whether or not i'm auditioning and will i ever give it a go?

the second involves men, always, men.

am i dating? why not? do i want to date? would i like to go out with this person's brother's ex-girlfriend's cousin, twice-removed.

let me address the latter: of course i'm open to dating. but the thing is...i like (love) being single. never have i liked (loved) it more.

so i'm not worried. about acting or men. those two questions remain happily unanswered. because the long and short of it is, i don't know.

what i do know is this:

i love the feel of the heavy camera around my neck. and the scent of the sunscreen i put on my face each morning. i love watching late-spring-storms roll in across the hudson from my window.

i love that life is not easy or predictable and that each day brings new and unexpected strangeness.

this is not to say life is easy or i'm always all-together in love with it.

life has been tricky lately. there is not enough time. not enough courage in my well. i fail with words when words i most need.

but there is a sense that now--this now--is somehow sacred. that everything is on the cusp. i find i'm growing tentacles. moving outwardly with both thought and word and so living my way into innumerable answers.

i suppose what i'm saying is...i'm not worried about those two--those two questions that everyone else wants to answer.

because if i live life fully--if i live it outwardly. if i answer all the other questions, they will come along, no? sort themselves out. reveal their answers in their own time. on their own terms.

and i'll wake one morning and the response will fill me, prompting new questions--demanding new life.

loves.

i love the way the headlights traverse the buildings on the opposite side of the hill late at night. scanning and searching--so hitchcock-ian.

i love watching the barges float past. the proximity of the water both soothes and excites. i love the little white caps that poke up in the middle of the river. and the rivulets on the roof of the building across the way. they look suspiciously like the sugar cubes i used to build castles in grade school.

i love empty rooms in old apartments. the transformation of sound in the space. the creak of the floor, the vacuum of air. the holy quality of a charged space in transition.

i love those rare and lucid moments when i know--deep in my core, i know--that everything will be fine.

i love forgotten snippets as told by old journals and the smile that creeps into that moment of remembrance. i love how much i thought i knew at eighteen and how little i know now.

i love owning my mornings. my mug with a little blue m stenciled on. and the music that allows me to believe, for the hour before i begin the day, that i'm in paris roaming and rolling and frolicking and falling in love.

the "to be continued" part of yesterday's post.

i got the tree today. from my canadian tree farmer. just over the hill.

i walked home hugging the bundle close against my chest--my stomach. the wind whipping off the hudson burning my exposed hands. i nestled into the green and felt safe, warm.

as i looked around my room yesterday, it struck me that the only thing missing was a christmas tree. for 'tis the season and there's nothing i enjoy so much as the scent of pine and the twinkle of lights.


the thing about this summer is that there was a point when i felt stripped of all freedoms. it was no one's fault. not my own. not that of those around me--in fact i will never forget the goodwill and kindness of many--just a strange, unfortunate congruence of events.

i had no way to get from here to there. no room of my own. no space to stake a claim to and declare as private. i was constantly exposed, without the needed escape. so i started taking showers. often. because those few minutes with the water running down and washing me clean were mine and mine alone. i would then take the time to dry my hair (not something i usually enjoy) because it allowed me to stretch the minutes in that tiny, enclosed space where no one could follow.

it was a lesson in returning to the basics. in finding the great pleasure in the simplest of things. many an afternoon found me holding a warm coffee mug. i don't think i ever got past two sips into the thing--i simply wanted it for the warmth between my hands: a universe unto itself, an opening of space in which to seek solace.

perhaps this is why my room, more than ever before, has new meaning--new importance. why i was so struck in the second reading of eat, pray, love by liz gilbert's transformation of her apartment into something of a hospice. why i now take frequent baths--remaining in the water just long enough to soak myself warm. or indulge in hot cocoa late in the evening. perhaps this is why i finally bought a humidifier after years of putting it off due to expense. or why i now can justify fresh flowers every two weeks. why when the friends and family anthropologie sale happened this last go-round i bought pillows and candles as opposed to blouses and bowls. why for christmas i'm asking for a bed skirt (and maybe a new window treatment?).


sometimes it all seems so silly and frivolous--the import i place on such things--how vital they are to my existence.

but on this morning i'm not gonna worry too much about that.

because on this morning i'll sit in my corner, read my book, and allow scent of candles and fresh pine to fill me.

for christmas is coming and i have found a home.

making a home from a room.

this morning i woke early.

knowing the wee hours were the only ones i could claim as my own today i was determined to enjoy them.  so i slipped out of bed despite exhaustion, brewed the customary cup of coffee, and retreated to my room where i ever so slightly cracked the window--oh for a light breeze to combat that unruly, but always powerful radiator!

i made the bed, lit the warm gingerbread candle i got just before thanksgiving when i feared i was going to need extra help getting into the christmas spirit, and then returned to the kitchen to pour the freshly-brewed coffee. back in my room, i set the mug on the window ledge and plopped into my reading chair.

peace. silence. stillness.

i looked around.

from this little corner my bookshelf looms tall. i see the many books and pictures and think to myself that if my life came down to two things these might just be it--books and pictures. which really means that my life--as of yet--comes down to one thing: stories.

directly diagonal is my worn, black desk. the mirror sits on it, leaning against the wall--it fell the day before i left for colorado and i've yet to put it back. in fact, i might just leave it there. i like it. perched atop is a strung, exposed time-capsule: my coffee filter pom-poms, childhood photos, birthday cards and the like.

next to my bed is the humidifier i finally broke down and got when i was sick for the fourth time this year. it is lovely. its cool breeze lulls me to sleep at night, nourishes my skin and throat--compensates for what that aforementioned radiator takes away.

i look next to me: my mug sits on the windowsill. the steam and winter wind mingle in dance. it is beautiful, lovely to watch, and i have the though that this can't be good for the coffee--making it cold--but it's such a miraculous little sight to behold that i can't bring myself to move it. beauty trumps taste today.

to be continued...

furniture as stability.

i got a bed when i turned fifteen.

my parents said something like, we're getting you a bed for you birthday. and i said, um, okay.

and that was that.

i remember going to pick it out. it was a cool, autumn morning in houston. and there in the eddie bauer home store (sadly,  no longer in existence) was the four-postered thing of beauty. light wood. simple. elegant and rustic all at once. and it was love.

i believe in love at first sight. because that's how it was with me and that bed.

i would dive into it at night--towering off the ground it demanded a running start. i'd lie right-smack-dab in the middle and admire the gentle curve of the foot-board, the sturdy posts reaching upwards all around me.

in the morning i'd carefully make the bed, place my head down on the freshly-smoothed covers, whisper sweet-nothings, and assure it of my imminent return that evening. and off to school i'd reluctantly go.

for me that bed is now a talisman of sorts. or rather a symbol--a goal. that four-postered sleeping wonderland is nothing less than stability made tangible.

you see, it is large. not easily schlepped from one nyc apartment to another. and because of it's size it will cost a pretty penny to get it here. or there. or wherever i end up. in short, care of my bed will require funds and continuity of location. and oh i long for funds and continuity of location!

but for now the bed remains. at the most constant home i have. 2,000 miles away.

and now i am twenty-five. and now ten years have passed. and the furniture gods have gifted me once again. i have a reading chair. for my twenty-fifth birthday i was given a reading chair.

i asked for it last christmas, but it was only upon my return from utah this summer that my mother pulled out the ballard designs catalogue, suggested a model, and then lugged me off to the fabric store in search of neutral fabric with a punch.

the days following utah were difficult. and so in some ways i think the chair was more my parent's peace-offerening to my mental health and happiness (the sultan of all the many forms of stability) than actual birthday gift. but what a lovely peace-offereing it was. because as of today, i have the chair. but in early september i had those few afternoons spent with my mother in the comfort of a heavily air-conditioned fabric store quietly perusing spool after spool after spool.