forgiveness and the need to eat

About a year and a half ago I wrote this.

Because I had read this and been so struck by it. I read it again this morning and was just as floored. It is haunting and beautiful and so very human.

I don’t really remember much about writing my small essay of a response. (We can call it a small essay, can’t we?) I was thinking about how to love myself and the refrain that I kept coming back to was: forgive yourself. I could love myself by forgiving myself.

It’s one of those small essays that people comment on more than the others. Which always surprises me because it was so easy to write and really, that’s what people go back to?

Thing is, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Because I remember that as I wrote, the real refrain was, forgive yourself for being the girl who must east--who wants to eat.

And instinctively, intuitively, I knew I could not write that. That to write that would say something about me that I was not ready to say—that at that moment in time I still wished I could simply. not. eat. Or eat less. That I still wondered what life might look like if I didn’t need so much food.

I knew I couldn’t write about forgiving the need to eat because what that refrain really said was that I still bought into our culture’s lie that because I couldn’t wrangle my basic human impulses, I was somehow less-than. Because I couldn’t rise above some basic needs—levitate beyond the pangs of hunger—I was not as good, not as holy, not as worthwhile.

And on an intellectual level all I could think was: holy shit. That our culture and media and advertising had left me, a relatively smart and independent and educated woman, with the notion that because I was actually human I was not as good—well that’s disgusting and terrifying and infuriating. But more than that, it is absolutely wrong.

I don’t write much about religion in this space because I think there is a big difference between religion and faith, and I was raised in the Catholic Church, where faith is a relatively personal and private thing. I will always be Catholic. It is my home and my culture and I quite like it. And much as I may rage against the politics of the church and call into question certain beliefs—the faith of it is the star I follow home. again. and again.

And again.

As a storyteller I recognize that there is no greater story than that of Christ. It is endlessly fascinating and interesting and layered in a way that constantly undoes me. It is ambiguous and at times oblique and I love that--I give thanks for the strangeness of it. It is not an easy story. Not easily told, not easily understood. It is a story that demands many leaps.

Any Catholic worth his salt knows that the immaculate conception refers to the fact that Mary was born without original sin (not that she conceived Jesus without having sex). And I gotta tell you, as a child original sin was one of those things that, well, frankly pissed me off.

I spent a lot of time thinking about it. So, wait, you mean, I started life from a little bit behind? I was already flawed and imperfect and less-than when I entered this world?

My eight-year-old-self was not pleased with this notion.

It’s always been one of my great failings that I try to order the chaos of this universe into a simple mathematical equation of give and take—more and less. I add up some numbers and take away others and assume that equilibrium is the product of a relatively simple set of numbers. So that original sin was a minus that put me into the negative before I ever even drew my first breath…I found that…upsetting. It is only now as I get older that I realize ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ If there is a perfect math than it is not for me to know or make sense of or even attempt.

The other thing we talk about a lot in the Catholic Church is the Holy Trinity. That God sent his only son—we hear that again and again. But you know what we don’t hear enough--talk enough about? God’s only son—that was Him. God came Himself, in human form, to experience human suffering. That he forgives us because he knows what it is to live this life. He knows the impossibility of it. Knows the miracle that is all of us getting out of bed each morning because life. is. Really. FUCKING. HARD. SOMETIMES.

And God knows that. The humanity of that. God was once man. Was once a boy who stumbled into manhood. Who experienced fear and probably love and who never knew a day past thirty-four.

Holy shit, you know? Because that is a story.

That is the story. And when I think about the reality of that, well I am nearly crushed by the gratitude I feel for the chance to live this life—what a supreme privilege. And I give thanks for a God who knows this, who understands this, who I imagine, respects our daily attempts to sojourn on against reason and sense and gravity.

I give thanks for a God who was once a man.

Humanity.

And isn’t that what original sin is? Humanity. The pat on the back saying, hey kid, there is no such thing as perfect, that’s not what this life is about. Your first mistake is out of the way, and that’s actually a gift, an invitation to screw up and make mistakes and be just as human as this life demands. Not to levitate above the base needs of this life, but to dive into the heart of them.

I give thanks now for who I was at eight years old—that little girl who questioned original sin. And I give thanks now, at nearly twenty-eight that I can’t think of a more lovely and perfect and grace-filled gift.

I give thanks that I ate as much as I did. For those six impossible years. Give thanks that I was never able to levitate beyond my base human needs. Thanks that that impossible, implausible time revealed my own humanity like nothing else could.

That I am who I am and I know what I know because of it.

I give thanks for forgiveness and divinity and the need to eat day. after. day.

photo by the inestimable emma hartvig

as simple as...

Some days I think it may be as simple as I love the sound of rain more than anything in the world. And I am impressed by men who tuck their shirts in. By people who are willing to risk looking uncool. That a smile is a moving, living thing—and to watch it come about—how the face moves and the skin around the eyes softens and crinkles—how it mostly cannot not be stopped once it’s begun—this always floors me. Makes jelly of my knees. The humanity and the divinity of that everyday thing.

I still open the door to my small studio apartment and find myself in awe of this little tree-house-of-a-space. This is mine? For a time, this is mine? These white walls? And this window that peers out over only green? Heaven. That these trees fill me in a way that the Manhattan skyline does not—there is an answer in that.

I am sitting now before that window, watching as the soft rain falls, steady and stunning in its descent. How the occasional drops slap against the rail of my small fire escape--how there is a splash--a momentary bounce back. And how some drops collect and hang--upside-down crystal balls telling nothing of the future and everything of the past.

What miracles make up the every day. Perhaps this rain will make for a slightly more difficult day. Perhaps much of New York will run slower, bent at the knees by this common thing. I can hear the complaints. Already, I know what will be said. But listen to the music of it, will be my response. Have you ever heard anything so good?

blogging. and the love letter it is.

i live alone now.

in a tiny studio apartment. in a small neighborhood a little bit south of that place called manhattan. and i love it. i love everything about it.

i love walking east on fourth place just at the moment the subway is crossing ahead in the distance, above ground. the slow, soft rumble of it--its gentle movement--makes me feel as though i'm living life in miniature--like i'm a small piece on an oversized train set.

and sometimes it feels really good to feel so small.

i've finally gotten good at cooking dinner. it's almost always quinoa. or pasta. and almost always consumed between the hours of 11 at night and two in the morning. this feels unique to new york. and unique to living alone. and unique to not having a partner. unique to this particular, passing moment.

and this moment will pass.

i am grateful for the lonely. and grateful for the quiet evenings. i am grateful for how the air cools after the sun sets. for the soft summer rains and the smell of water on earth and pavement.

for how fleeting the wet is. for how fleeting the summer is. for how quickly time is moving.

and yet.

all of these many things terrify me, too.

how quickly time is moving! and how quickly this moment is passing, even as i use what little breath i have to curse the damn. thing. for. standing. still. for. so. damn. long.

sometimes i think, the reason i started this blog, all those many years ago, was i wanted to write a love letter.

to pause the movement of what was moving too fast.

i constantly look at things now and remind myself to look again. new york has this way of hardening a person, of making defense the default position. so, often i must  ask myself to look again. to look again through new eyes. softer eyes. to look again and with great compassion.

i began writing this blog as a love letter to the life i wanted to lead. to the person i wanted to become. as a way of looking at myself, just as i was--in that moment, that paused moment--a second time and with great compassion.

somewhere along the way i forgot this. somewhere along the way i forgot that this was meant to be a-love-letter-to-life-as-is. somewhere in that land where the anthroplogie aesthetic met kate spade saturday i developed a tremendous and nagging suspicion that this blog was somehow not good enough. or glittery enough. or marketable enough. no commercial niche to speak of. and blogging is such a different world than it was just a few years ago. and so i began to wonder if in this land of what to wear and what to buy and how to look while doing those things--i began to wonder if this blog still had a place? if it still had value? i want to be very clear, i do not admonish or fault anyone who has figured out the commercial element of blogging--it is an art form unto itself. and as a single woman living in new york city who knows just how hard it is to make a living--let alone make a living doing what one loves--i fault absolutely no one for figuring out a way into the world of business. i both admire and wonder at the talent of it, truly.

and then there is the question of how this blog-as-a-love-letter affects love--or rather, the search for a shared-sort-of-love.

if ever i think of throwing in the towel altogether, it's mostly because of men. because dating is hard enough. and dating in new york city is nearly impossible (and not in the good, rewarding, wow-i'm-so-glad-to-have-this-experience-sort-of-way, but more in the this-is-an-as-of-yet-undiscovered-circle-of-hell). and to blog as a single woman about actual experiences when we're all just trying to figure it out, both separately and, when we get so lucky, together...well, it may just be... too. hard.

because i worry about the men i go on dates with. i worry about last names and the power of google and the sheer volume of information. i worry about the internet or a blog supplanting real conversation. i worry how oblique and out-of-context information can be misconstrued and misunderstood and falsely placed atop real experience. i worry that my melancholic writer's voice will somehow sound more loudly than the stutter of my laugh as we sit at the bar.

i dated a guy for four months and never once told him my last name. eventually he stopped asking. he knew why and he respected why and we made a small go of not-it,but something. and for a time it was really good.

sometimes i think if i could just hit the blogging-pause-button. figure out the man thing. get a grasp on the next five years. get married. have a baby. write a book. or some such. and then pick it back up again. assuming of course that (1) the aforementioned things will happen, and frankly i should be so, so (so very, very) lucky and (2) that blogging will still be around after i've lived my way into those major milestones (and the chances of that are...rare. no? perhaps just not blogging as we now know it).

i won't stop. but i will beg your patience if i go quiet for longer stretches of time. i'll beg your patience if my writing seems tedious and staid. if there aren't enough photos. if there are too many words. because, believe it or not, i am trying to figure out the next five years right now, day by day. and sometimes that means there is not the time nor the desire nor the energy to blog.

but if all of this is a love letter, a second look, than i ask for your kind eyes, your great compassion. i beg your understanding if a quiet does come. because sometimes silence is it's own sort of delight. sometimes silence is a love letter unto itself.

on growing up

  There are things about getting older that no one prepares you for.

Like that first time you look at your face in the mirror and realize you’ve aged. You’ll have had your suspicions for a while--sort of squinting at your reflection in the mirror, wondering at the changes. Disassembling your face and attempting to add up the sum of the parts.

And then one morning you’ll wake, rinse water, look up, and it’ll hit you. I’ve aged. I’m older. And your face will reflect that. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s not an altogether bad thing. It’ll suit you. The age will settle in nicely around the eyes, pop your cheekbones just a bit. But there will be a certain youthfulness that is lost. A sweetness and roundness that is no longer yours to claim. And there will be a sadness to that small loss.

There is a loneliness to adulthood that is sometimes good and sometimes not. A loneliness to knowing that all of the firsts still ahead of you have long since passed for many you love so dearly—the people who came before you and readied the path. Their firsts are now shadows and ghosts and loss lurks in the wings, a persistent threat.

Your breasts may come in late. Like at 22. And you’ll think it has something to do with the added weight of that age. But when the weight is lost and the roundness of those curves remains, make peace with it. It is okay if they look nothing like your mother’s breasts. It’s okay if you do not have your mother’s body. This is not a betrayal. It is not a betrayal of your mother that you do not look like her. The look of a woman is a vast, boundless thing.

You will arrive at an age when what you develop this insatiable need for the conversations that come at the end of the day.

Oh, you’ll want the other stuff too—this kisses and the sex and the Sunday morning coffee runs. But there is a thing so particular about needing a person in which to empty secrets big and small. To tell the really banal stuff. And you’ll go on all these dates, so many dates. Bad dates and terrible dates and lonely dates and good ones too, but at the end of them you’ll just want to go home, crawl into bed, and tell your person just how hard and funny and ridiculous it all was. But they won’t be there. In fact, you’re only going on those dates to get to that person. And the irony of this is a sort of insult to injury. But that person—your person—will be born of these dates, both bad and good.

Or so you are told. And so you keep going.

The cost of some friendships is too high. And you must let them go. You may feel like a bad person because of this. You may feel disliked. And you may think it is because you are not bubbly enough or kind enough or palatable enough. And that may be true. But you know what else may be true? Sometimes you outgrow things. It is as simple and as complicated as that. You do not have to be liked by everyone. Let me say that again: YOU. DO. NOT. HAVE. TO. BE. LIKED. BY. EVERYONE. And you must be courageous enough to accept that. Not everyone grows up. Not everyone takes risks. So not everyone deserves what little time you have.

There will be men who hurt you. And there will be men who make a fool of you. And the second is somehow far worse than the first. Because it is disrespectful and unkind and stitched together by small, selfish lies. These men—the ones that take you for a fool—these are the men more concerned with being seen as the good guy, than actually being the good guy. These are the men who worship at the altar of cool and casual and isn’t-this-fun. The men who lack courage. Who say they are fearless when fear is their motivating factor.

Many of these men are really, really good and worthy people who have yet to figure out just how good and worthy they are. But they’re not there yet. And you don’t need to wait around for them to figure it out.

The great challenge of adulthood (other than figuring out just what the hell it is you are actually doing with your life) is learning to speak honestly and kindly. Finding where those two things live—which, I’m pretty sure, is in that sacred space where courage and self-worth meet.

The pursuit of honesty and kindness is much like standing small and vulnerable in the great, big ocean. Leaning into the waves as they crash over you. You might come up gasping for air, totally water-logged. But hell, if it doesn’t feel good. Scary and overwhelming, but vital. Like there’s more life in there—in that moment of impact. Because to go in pursuit of honesty and kindness takes fearlessness. It demands power and self-awareness and a heaping dose of humility. Honesty and kindness are not easy. They expose vulnerabilities and flaws and force us to admit our wrongdoings. But they are humanizing. Which is the only level on which any of us can ever really meet. Not too high, not too low.

Assertiveness is a hugely misunderstood and undervalued skill. You have to figure it out. That’s part of what growing up is. Read about it and practice it. And hold yourself accountable. Assertiveness is neither passive, nor aggressive (and most certainly isn’t that thing we call passive aggressive, which for the record is still aggressive). Be better.

Because some things don’t age well; anger is a really ugly thing in an adult.

There are certain words that will resonate differently as the years pass. For example, I am a woman possessed by the notion of home. Obsessed with its meaning and variations and color. I want to know what it tastes like and what it feels like and if I can hold it in my hands.

At the age of twenty-six, just months shy of my twenty-seventh birthday I moved to what I now declare is very-nearly-the-most-perfect-neighborhood-that-ever-was-and-ever-will-be. And a little bit of home was revealed to me in the mess and perfection and symphony of these tangled streets.

I travel away from it each day. Because I must. For work and for play and for all the things between. I take the subway to midtown Manhattan, which I hate. And I take the subway to Williamsburg or Park Slope or the West Village, which I love. But at the end of the day, I return home. Always, I return home. To this small pocket of green and brownstone. And my eyes soften and my chest unfurls as I come up and out of the train station onto Second Place. And I think: if the only value of this place is the joy I find in returning home to it, that is enough. Even if I didn’t have to leave, I would, just to experience the pleasure of the return.

I think maybe that notion applies to worth as well. Sometimes self-worth flags. Sometimes it is lost all together. But if the value of that happening is the journey back to it—the journey back to self-worth, which is maybe just the journey back to self...well, that alone is worth it. Therein lies the value. Because it’s a really good, really worthwhile, really satisfying journey back.

Home and its many gradations.

And I go in search of it. Again and again and again. Forged as much by what I find, as the search itself.

the fun of all the others

a few years ago i worked with a girl (one of the best i've ever known) who was engaged to a man she was mad about.

he was not the first to have asked for her hand in marriage, but he was the last.

they now have a beautiful baby boy.

there was a particular day at work when we were filling in the long and lazy afternoon with mostly useless chatter and she turned to me and said, if i had met the right guy, right off the bat, i would have missed the fun of all the others. 

i was navigating a particular sort of heartache at the time and didn't give it too much thought. i mean, when you've met the guy that you think could be the guy, who cares about the fun of the others? especially when fun so quickly, so easily, gives way to loss. and even small losses cost something.

but then i got over that guy. it took way too long and was way too hard, but i got over him. and then i fell in love with someone else. and then i had to get over him. and something about this feels really unfair because i gotta tell you, once you've loved someone and they don't--or can't--love you back, i cannot see the value in ever having that experience again.

but that's life. and maybe there is a point. maybe the hapless mess and chaos and unknown is actually ordered by a divine grace that is simply unknown to us. or maybe it really  is just mess and chaos and unknown. because i believe in those things.

(but i believe in grace too).

now i think of my dear friend's words when i kiss men for the first time.

because, thing is, i can remember every first kiss.

every first kiss, every in-between kiss, every should-we-really-be-doing-this kiss?

there was the kiss that took place just inside the front of my apartment building this past january. it wasn't terribly good and didn't last terribly long and i wasn't terribly keen on the guy. days later he had said that it wasn't his best attempt and i was baffled, guys think that way? i just  figured people kiss in all sorts of ways and either you fit or you don't. never thought of kissing as a thing of practice and false starts and poor attempts.

there was that one kiss when i was nineteen, sitting with my back against a row of tall, dark lockers. i had made an art form of fantasizing about a particular boy in school for so long. i always imagined our first kiss would be a sort of delicious collision: a little bit messy and a little bit dangerous--all-together something really good. but that day as he emerged from a classroom--old sweats and socks--he stopped in front of me and  leant down, pressed his lips against my forehead. it was simple. and soft. as gentle a thing as can be. and in the space between what i had so long wanted and what i actually got, was something all together better.

with the last man i dated we were standing inside of a liquor store at the end of our first date and knowing there would probably be more dates to follow, i had but one thought: this cannot happen here. our first kiss cannot be inside of this place from which we are buying a handle of whiskey (at my request). it didn't. it was just inside the door to his small west village studio apartment. he spent five minutes just below my left ear before he ever got to my mouth...                                                 (and that's all i'll say about that).

there have been so many kisses.

the i'll-do-this-once-and-check-it-off-my-bucketlist kiss.

the middle-of-the-day-is-this-really-about-to-happen? kiss.

the knee-deep-before-you've-even-begun kiss.

the we-can't-let-anyone-see-this kiss. the the-whole-of-my-face-will-be-raw-tomorrow-but-it's-so-worth-it kiss.

the i-don't-like-the-feel-of-your-tounge-in-my-mouth-so-get-out kiss.

the i've-just-met-you-and-walking-in-here-tonight-i-told-the-girl-at-the-front-desk-that-i-didn't-know-what-you-looked-like-and-now-here-we-are-sucking-face-(or some such)-and-i'm-a-little-bit-embarassed-but-not-enough-because-holy-shit-i-sort-of-like-you-and-it's-fun-to-feel-sixteen-again kiss.

the i-don't-know-your-name-but-i'll-figure-it-out-after kiss.

the five-am-post-karaoke kiss.

there were the kisses that never were. the kisses that hung in the air, silent what-ifs.

the last kisses that i didn't know--couldn't know--were such.

the this-is-just-a-kiss kiss. which is always so much more than just-a-kiss. always so much more than just-an-anything.

there were the kisses that took a little while to figure out. the kisses i laughed through and groaned during and pulled away from, before. trying. again. there have been unexpected kisses, and climbing-from-bed-in-the-morning kisses--those that mostly land on the bony and angular parts of the body. there have been the come-back-to-bed kisses. the middle-of -the-night-are-you-still-there kisses.

there was that one second-first-kiss that was eight years in the making.

there have been gateway kisses and goodbye kisses. kisses that feel like breathing, like water: easy and sweet. of-course kisses and  kisses laced with white wine and courage. and then there's the first kiss that feels like you're falling into the person--like you've kissed them a thousand times before and it's second nature and you think maybe, just maybe it's true. maybe the future does indeed have an ancient heart.**

and there are still more kisses to look forward to. more fun. more chaos. more mess. more that will make very little sense. until it does. until sense sweeps in. and the last first kiss is had. the this-is-home kiss.

this-is-home.

nothing more and nothing less than that.

which is pretty much everything.

**the future has an ancient heart--words by Carlo Levi, as explained perfectly by Cheryl Strayed

also, for what it's worth, no one has ever talked about kissing/kisses better than Jeffrey McDaniel when he wrote the poem The Archipelago of Kisses (which inspired much of this post--art is about borrowing and stealing from your betters, no?) and ended it with these perfect words:

"But one kiss levitates above all the others. The intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss./ The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss. Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the earth/ like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next t your bones."

photo by the ridiculously talented Emma Hartvig (who i'm honored to call a friend)