a sunday lover.

there comes a point every night when i crawl or hoist myself into bed and in the space between bended knees and face flat into the pillow that i give thanks for the comfort of a bed that is all my own.

for anyone who has ever shared a bed--be it a single night or several years--with someone who's not quite right, you know the joy that sleeping alone can bring. the not-quite-right provides a perspective like no other. a glorious thing that perspective is.

someone recently asked me if i mind being single? what a silly question. well, i haven't yet met someone who makes me wanna to give up my current Facebook status, so no. i don't mind it. not at all. i'm pretty sure that i wasn't so snide when responding to him, but he was angling, and i was side-stepping. (and just in case you didn't know, i'm not the girl that feels the need to list any sort of Facebook relationship status at all. so there). and why does blogger keep capitalizing Facebook for me? maybe i want a lowercase f...

damn, this was meant to be a poetic and lovely post about sundays and the space between and the yearning for a companion.

let me try again:

i don't mind this single life.

not usually.

but sundays are different. sundays i feel the absence upon waking. it is on sundays that i long for a brunch companion. or someone to help me with the new york time's puzzle. someone for whom to make an extra bit of coffee. someone to fall back into bed around noon with.

a sunday someone.




one of my girlfriends recently said she was in search of a part-time lover.

i'll take one just for sundays, please.

in inches.

i ran down the hill toward home.

home for now.

the air was cool, bordering on blistery, but certainly not becoming of february.

my feet throbbed and i wondered why i had chosen to wear my blue-suede-pumps to work--where was the sense in that?

it was close to two, middle of the night, exhaustion creeping in that uncomfortable way around the back of the head.

this is your becoming, this is your becoming, i repeated, calling forth the wisdom of my elders and betters.

i could make a list of everything that's upsetting me. and in three months time most of the issues will have passed or receded or proved blessings. i know this. there is comfort in this.

and yet, three years ago i might have said the same, but there are still those few, same uncomfortable, unanswered questions. the same unanswered love, the same unfulfilled home in this city.

this is your becoming.

it can change in a new york minute. that's what they say. but it's been eight years now and any good changes have been a fight. slow and painstaking and absolutely measured in inches--won in inches and years. nothing resembling a minute.

this is your becoming.

you see, most days i feel like i'm banging my head against the same damn walls and lord i need a good cry, but hell if it'll come.

this is your becoming.

just one good thing, i think. one good, unexpected little miracle. let it surprise me.

that's all i want.

i sit with that wish. for a good long while i let it take up just enough space, careful it doesn't consume.

and then, just the other day, while listening to the avett brothers and paging through a script on the long, unforgiving train to the outer-fringes of brooklyn, there is a thought:

you are the miracle.

this is my becoming.

i am the miracle. my very existence. the breath that rises and falls. the little rebel heart that continues to pump blood, continues to fall in love even when i can't see the sense, or summon the strength. the will to be better, to be more, to see wider and love more freely, i. am. the miracle.

the rest will come. because i exist and i want and i'm willing to fight--even in inches. each day is more, even when it feels little and ugly--the day is more. the inches will add up, the inches will accumulate.

this is my becoming.
i am the miracle. 

playing the numbers.

sometimes i have to pull out the really rational (and, i fear, underutilized) part of myself--the part that knows life is just a number's game.

the harder i work, the more i fail, the more i experience, the more growing-pains push me this way and that, the more i come up against what i fear and the more i don't get what i want, the longer it takes to meet this person or that person or get this or do that, well...

the chances of the good happening--of that one thing or one person or one job or one moment that could turn the course, dictate the path, illuminate--the chances get better each day.

it's a number's game. my chance of success increases each day it doesn't happen.

sometimes it's hard to remember that when my head is stuck in the mud of a very busy block of weeks and the universe seems to have just thrown a few things at me that while livable, feel like what-are-the-chances, cruel twists of fate.

a few months ago i was lying in bed, terrified by the idea that i might actually get what i want, and there was this thought: too soon. too soon, it hasn't been hard enough yet.

(hasn't been hard enough, yet?! bite your tongue, ms. fee, not a helpful thought).

dearest universe: i'd like to take that back--that thought, if you might be so kind as to allow me. okay, well, not take it back, but amend it, or just altogether change it. not too soon, it's definitely been hard enough. perhaps that particular story isn't finished yet, and that's okay. but some of the other stuff, not too soon. not too soon. 

i think i'm ready. i'm ready.

so i'll do my best to keep showing up, and if you wouldn't mind just fudging the numbers a bit in my favor? well, that would be swell.

okay. deep breath. onto and into the day...




image: brian w. ferry

the kind of woman i want to be:

i want to take my makeup off every night before bed. i want to floss my teeth just as often as is recommended. i want to wear high heels. or not. i want a little garden. whether it be mounted on a wall, contained in a window-box, or a full backyard plot, i want my own greens. want to mark time by their progress. want to pick them fresh for dinner. i want to bike to the farmer's market. i want to like green tea. or not. but drink it anyway. i want my food to be rich in the colors of the earth. i want to live near the water. or the mountains. or both. i want to pray and give thanks beneath trees that reach upward and out. i want balance. balance between investing in all the right things and paying attention and putting in the work and then letting it go and not giving two shits. i want to turn off the lights when i leave a room. and i want to find a partner who can honor that. i want pictures everywhere. frames everywhere. i want the words hung right up there on the wall. i want to wake early. to move my body because it's good for my heart. because it keeps me light and kind. i want breakfast in bed on saturday mornings. and fresh flowers and gifts for no reason at all. i want to be the kind of friend who honors commitments, takes the time to make the call, sends ridiculous emails just because, who speaks truly and freely, and plans birthday trips to paris. i want to wear colorful socks and knee-length skirts. bright lipstick and my hair in a high bun. i want to never go another six-year-period without owning a pair of bluejeans. i want to return to a bar just because i thought the bartender was cute. and i want to sit late into the night, as darkness folds over itself, falling in love, if only for a morning.

this new need. a home.

last night i stood with my fingers poised on the doorknob listening for the footsteps to recede into the room furthest from my own.

i hadn't even realized he was home.

the roommate.

just as i'd been about to open my door, i heard the shuffle of his feet and so paused, hand in the air, breath in throat, waiting

we've entered into a dance, both of us, without ever speaking of it or agreeing to it, with no words at all, we've found a way of living in which we shuffle step, one around the other. never occupying the same space, interpreting the music of closing doors, running water, the sweet hum of the kettle.

i'm not proud of this, this way of living. this absence of hello's or how are you's. this passing as strangers on the street. and we are, we're strangers, tied together only by the loose bond of mutual acquaintances and similar schooling. he had seemed the best choice to fill the third and largest room.

and he was. he is. he's fine.

it's not really about him, you know?

this three-room apartment, this once castle-in-the-sky, this once playground-of-open-space, endless flooring, and hudson views, it's--well, it's not enough now.

priorities have changed. values have shifted.

i want my own space. i'll take a closet, if i have to, but i want it to be mine and mine alone. i want to build a home. i want to recognize all the smells, know the hair on the bathroom floor. i want to be sure of who to blame for the over-stuffed and over-ripe garbage (yes, me). i want to be sure the nicks and scratches littering my favorite bowls were the product of my careless fingers--and until the possibility that they were caused by the man i love, by our growing children, well, until that possibility is more than just  hope or passing thought, let me live alone.

i want to know that the next time i share a space with someone the impetus will be love.

this new need is so immediate, so strong. startling, really, in just how physical it is.

i was talking about it at work when another girl said, oh, you're moving, do you need a roommate? in her defense, she had caught the tail-end of the discussion.


no, i replied, taking a deep breath and smiling slowly. i want to live alone. 


alone, why would you want that? 


i gave her a little laugh, oh you know...


the oh, you know was my kind way of saying if you even have to ask, it's not worth explaining. 

perhaps it's age, perhaps it is shifting wants and needs from this thing called life, perhaps it's just part of my makeup. perhaps it's part of my fierce need for independence, product of my believe that space is charged and sacred.

who knows for sure.

all i know for now is, let me live alone. let there be a new adventure, a new experience. for the first time in all my years of new york city living, let me lay claim to a space, let me build a home.