last night i sat staring into my skim latte, my friend alex sitting across the long and narrow, wood-grained table.
what should i write about? i asked. (i do best when prompts are dangled before me like a bowl of pepperidge farm cheddar goldfish).
what's her blog about? alex asked me.
sarah's? i lit up. oh, well, it's called fairy tales are true, and alex, they just might be. because she's tall and gorgeous and blond and she's married to a baseball player and now they travel the world together from one exotic location to the next and she's going to end the obesity epidemic with her living kitchen and yes, yes i'm gushing (and speaking at an uncomfortably high volume), but i might just be a little bit in love with her (and maybe, just maybe my fairytale {yet to come true} looks awfully similar to this).
alex responded, perhaps you could write about what the fairytale is like when you don't look quite so much like the fairy-princess.
scoff. kerfuffel. plunk.
(eventual chuckle).
this was not a slight on my beauty but rather against my dark hair. my, yes, brunette hair. (and also a testament to how well and how long i described just how gorgeous sarah really is). alex quickly amended the statement when i pointed out disney princess after disney princess who was not blond: belle (literary goddess and my life's great role model), snow white, pocahantas, mulan (and of course, anastasia {thought technically she was dreamworks, i think}). alex then went on to point out that i look most like pocahantas (paler skin, of course) and maybe a little like mulan. keep in mind i'm a white, irish-catholic girl from texas. thing is, he's kinda right.
as for the fairytale portion, mine is yet unknown. well, that's not entirely true. for now the fairytale is one of me living by myself in new york city and taking the world by storm (and by storm, i mean figuring it out inch by pain-staking inch).
i love new york, i do (much of the time). but i can't stop dreaming of red vespas, breezy sundresses, and sandals against cobblestone. the careless curvature of intersecting piazza and street. small, sunlit kitchens with copper kettles and adjacent balconies. unprocessed foods and bright shutters against aging stone structures.
europe has my heart.
oh, to be european! to dress like one and eat like one and travel like one. to love like one! and just as soon as i figure out how i promise you this: i'll spend my days traversing italy and france, scotland and germany, austria and switzerland, with the man i've always dreamt of and nothing but a pen, a piece of paper, and the very best camera my grubby little fingers can get a hold of.
(of course if the end days happens before this--and in new york, it's set to happen this saturday--i might be in trouble).
for now i toil away here in the states, living a charmed but often lonesome, little life. you see, i'm still waiting for the prince to arrive on his impressive white horse and whisk me away.
waiting is not quite right though. i am a modern girl in a modern world braiding my rapunzel rope one goldspun (brunet) strand at a time.
(and this is where baseball comes in). lately it feels as though i'm on the brink of something. on the brink of a new life--man, pen, camera and all. this feeling is persistent and nagging and all-together wonderful. and so the thing i keep coming back to, my touchstone words are these: if you build it, they will come.
and so i'm building. and dreaming. and sending up prayer after prayer that my fairytale comes to fruition. and i have this sneaking, wonderful, little suspicion that it just might. despite, or maybe just because of, my long, dark locks.
building this life
i think i'll look back on 2011 as the year i was made bold by a love of music and the weight of a camera against my chest:
these are the songs that will tell the story of this year. these are the songs i carry in me. these are the songs that will remind me of my first-ever-concert in boston, the long cab-ride to brooklyn, how music marks time and makes circles, of all the things i learned in chicago this summer.
i will remember what song i was listening to when i took the subway downtown to face my greatest fear, my greatest love, to mark the passage of could-have-been lives.
it will be the beginning of the soundtrack for when i finally get around to making my own cameron crowe coming of age film.
this past year was magic. heartbreaking and difficult and monumental and heaven-sent in so many ways. i may not yet have the words to adequately sum it all up, and my photos may not do it justice, so until i take the time to hash it all out, i offer up these melodies...
tip-of-the-tongue.
i got off the A train at 181st street around midnight last night.
from the train platform to the entrance of the street is nine stories. you can choose to take the stairs or long escalator up.
i hurried off the train last night, toward the towering, long escalator, and found myself in step behind a taller man, blond, dressed in an impeccable suit. and walking behind him i thought, this man reminds me of someone.
but i couldn't put my finger on it. couldn't dislodge it from that proverbial tip of a very real tongue.
it started to drive me nutty, who does this person remind me of? it wouldn't come. there were murky images and half-formed thoughts, but still, even now this morning as i sit with my coffee, a lit spiced egg-nog candle just off to my side, i haven't really a clue.
the strongest thought or sense or notion, is more that it's someone i've yet to meet. not the man i followed behind, this really has nothing to do with him, it's that he reminds me of someone i've yet to meet.
nonsense.
and yet.
not.
i don't know.
it's been happening a lot lately. this pervasive feeling that i have exciting news to share and then thinking, well, what is it? and coming up blank.
everything feels so on the cusp. just over the ridge. beyond that next hill. so close--closer than ever before.
but what if it's not?
you know when you've can hear a really great song in your own mind? and it sounds so good rattling around up there that you attempt to sing it aloud. it's clear as a bell to you, perfectly crystallized, but when it comes out, oh dear, hideous. the journey between your mind and the mouth, the surfacing that has to happen, it distorts, mistranslates.
i feel like that's where i am: a song surfacing. coming through water for air. on the way up, so very near to the surface. but what comes out, well, that has yet to be seen.
it could be nothing short of disaster.
or not.
i don't know.
i just feel like i'm nearing the end of this nine-story-long-escalator. and as for my sense of what's waiting at the top when i get off? murky, half-images, at best.
i believe...
in stemless wine glasses. in the feel of the bowl in my palm. i believe in white wine. sauvignon blanc, of the new zealand persuasion, imbibed barefoot in the kitchen--vegetables roasting in the oven.
i believe in men who can wear a sweaters. in over-sized oxfords and penny loafers. that cauliflower is the most interesting and versatile vegetable out there. that truffle oil pairs nicely with almost anything worth having (popcorn).
i believe in laughter and big, rolling tears--the need for both, the importance of of both, the beauty of both.
i believe all things aspire to music.
i am learning that a lease hardly ends the moment you are ready to leave. and so a shuffle-step ensues. of learning to live around those things that elicit frustration and unease. and that sometimes an expansive room and a jaw-dropping view are not enough to tether one to a place.
i believe in buoyancy. in the calm that comes from dusting. or reading. or long, hot baths. that we've all failed. and we're all flawed. and that happiness must be found on one's own. separate of anything or anyone else. because everything ends, eventually, everything ends. and most things, given enough time, enough space, enough heaven-sent perspective reveal themselves as blessings.
i believe that no gift is greater than that of sitting in silence and listening. really listening. and that we get to choose our friends. and as we grow and get older, discernment is vital.
i believe in peanut butter. an on an intellectual-level i believe in peanut butter in moderation. but on an experiential level i only believe in peanut butter in moderation when it's already too late.
i believe in the attempt. in the leap. and that things happen the very moment you think they never will--the very moment you give into that, accept that, make peace with that (easier said than done).
i believe in the return. in coming back. in coming home, wherever home may be.
image.
studying the seasons.
it has been suggested to me that there are seasons to these lives we live. and that they aren't always clear and summer doesn't always follow spring and every once and again winter will yield more winter will yield more winter will yield more.
so i've been giving some thought to this season, to this season i'm in now. it's not clear whether it's winter or spring, summer or fall. but this i do know:
it is a season of strong women. a season in which i've been blessed by tremendously strong women. women who model friendship for me, who are driven, who take no prisoners, who laugh freely, and demand the very best. women who actually listen. intelligent, feminine, no-nonsense women. i'd met women of this ilk before. in passing i'd met them, but suddenly i am surrounded by them. suddenly i have collected a whole group of them and few things in this life have felt so important (so totally and truly lucky) as that.
this is the season in which i crave simplicity. in which i long for clean lines and uncluttered floors. in which i, unfortunately, feel a half-stranger in my own home (but know {humbly and with gratitude} that feeling will pass).
this is the season in which an unexpected october snow-fall awakened something within. demanded i order a chai latte and watch the white accumulate while standing in the warm light of the corner's coffee shop. there's something to seeing and studying and loving that cold and that dark and that dim from under the subtle yellow lights of familiarity.
this is the season i dared leave the light for the snow. into the white.
this is the season i am surrounded by, swathed in, ambivalence.
this is the season i find solace in a cabinet stocked with spices.
this is the season in which i attempt forgiveness. of myself. for the past. for my mistakes. for all that abandoned, lost time.
this is a season of reckoning. of acceptance. of remembrance. oh yes, that's who i am. oh yes, for better or worse that's what i'm made of. oh right, that's a part of my story. still.
image by Carol Reed.