how Notting Hill (the movie) turned my day around

There’s a Miranda July quote that I’ve been thinking about for the last few days.  

All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life—where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.

It was on Thursday night that things sort of fell apart. And I use the term fell-apart loosely. I was out a bar with my very dearest friend and I didn’t have the proper credit card to pay the tab. It was the stupidest thing. The easiest fix. I simply had to find a debit machine, pull out some cash and that was it.

And yet.

And yet and yet it felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back and all of the sudden there I was, two months deep into a bad mood and only just waking up to it.

It’s been such a difficult winter here in New York. I haven’t wanted to admit it because I fear the long, sweltering days of summer and I’m pretty sure you don’t get to complain about both, but this winter has been really, really hard.

And then came today. This perfectly normal day at the end of a two-month-stretch-of-bad-mood whereupon I walked around thinking, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. I really can’t breathe, knowing all the while that of course I could.

But sometimes just to be alive and human is a nearly crushing responsibility. Occasionally brilliant, but very often quite, quite difficult.

I have a stack of pages I’ve been carrying around with me for a month, information and research that I’m quite sure have much to do with both my future and my past. And on the back of one of the sheets, in my dark scrawl are two words: interoceptive sensitivity. Something Tom said to me recently. I’m going to butcher exactly what it is—mostly because it’s sort of beyond my comprehension—but my very cursory understanding is that, it is the notion that some people feel emotions in a more physical way than others.

And there I was walking around today thinking I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe because there’s this tightness in my chest and I know it’s a tangle of fear and nerves and self-doubt, but fuck if it doesn’t feel like it might actually kill me.

And do other people feel this too? They must. Not everyone perhaps. But if there’s a medical term for it and a whole medical theory surrounding it, then surely I’m not alone.

It’s on days like this when sadness feels so very present and full that I wonder how everyone doesn’t see it. And then I worry that I’ve gotten too good at hiding it. Because what that really means is I’ve gotten too good at hiding everything. And hiding denotes a lack of courage.

And I am not courageous. I am really, really not courageous. I’ll cop to that.

Sometimes I’d like to walk around with a post-it on my back, a sort of disclaimer: Not as courageous as you think. Not unfriendly or unkind, so much as occasionally out-of-my-depth terrified.

And out-of-my-depth-terrified means I sometimes walk around working very, very hard to get breath into my lungs.

So yesterday’s lack of air meant that when I finally got on the subway home I tilted my chin down, my baseball cap—the one I wear when thinking about the shadow life I could have led—hiding my face, and I cried and I cried and I cried and wondered if other people find New York as tremendously difficult and unnerving and persistently lonely. And I wondered if others become frustrated with a subway that only gets more crowded as it hurtles toward Brooklyn. And if the sheer weight of so many strangers is upsetting to anyone else.

I used to be fat.

(How’s that for a segue way?).

I’m not anymore. I’m not skinny, but I’m also not eight, so that’s for the best. I’ve got hips and breasts and room for a baby if that day ever comes. But I am also tall and sometimes lithe and I am so very lucky to live in the body I live in.

I used to think that when I got un-fat everything would be easier. And some things are—a lot of things, actually. Getting up in the morning and letting my feet hit the ground. Getting dressed. Going to the doctor. Sitting on the subway and not worrying about my thighs touching the person next to me. The everyday things are easier. My overall quality of life so much better. I feel lighter in my skin. And some of this has much to do with being physically smaller, but also much to do with the really hard work of figuring out mental and physical health, and the journey that ensues.

But I’ll say this. In the body I’m in now—this very lucky body—I don’t feel any more beautiful standing in front of a man I find attractive. I am no more confident. No more self-assured. And I no longer get to blame my less-than-feelings on some extra fat, which leaves me feeling awfully exposed. Because all I’ve got is myself and the insecurities that I’m still wading through. And beauty is such a tricky thing because I don’t know how to trade in it—what’s the cash value of this particular commodity? People seem to think there is one, but I’m not so sure.

So there I was last night, riding the subway home, crying—in a mostly private way—my head spinning as I thought about love and how that’s sort of all there is—when everything fades away—that’s it, and if it’s so goddamn important then shouldn’t I being willing to risk more for it? But, then again, if I’d only ever lived in New York I’d be sure that no such thing as a-really-good-man actually existed. And as I’m thinking of all of this my thoughts land on Notting Hill.

The film.

And that really genius line that’s been quoted again and again, because it’s really as good as we think it is:

I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

And Anna Scott says that and she is a fucking movie star. Like real-deal-top-of-her-game-MAMMOTH-OF-A-MOVIE-STAR. And she’s saying this to some daft, goofy, English bookseller. But isn’t that just the thing about love and the alchemy of affection, it levels the playing field!

It makes giants out of the people we adore.

What I mean is, when you’re really nuts about someone, they are more exciting, more powerful, more thrilling than anyone has ever been or ever will be and so who the hell cares who’s the movie star and who’s the bookseller? It’s hard to say I love you. Period. Full stop. Status and power and fame and wealth, and dare I say, beauty don’t even enter into. Because everyone has been whitewashed equal with the unparalleled force that is attraction. Affection.

I’m not making any sense.

I think, the thing is, I was walking around yesterday feeling really bad that I’m not able to smile more easily, or flirt more easily, or turn-soft-and-lovely more easily (as the expression goes), but if Anna Scott had difficulty with it, well then, maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s just life. Or part of my particular experience with this particular life.

Maybe it’s just a part of who I am.

And yeah, okay, I get that Notting Hill is a movie. But I imagine whoever wrote it thought, I know this story, I’ve lived some version of this story. And I feel some need to tell this story. And that need alone validates the experience of it.

(Also, can we talk about how good Julia Roberts is that role? So simple and clear).

And I think the flipside of my point is that, everything in life can be going swimmingly—the perfect job, unlimited funds, men the world over talking about how bang-able you are (well, that’s not quite as good as we might think) and yet, none of these things make that ultimate leap of hey-I-like-you-do-you-like-me-check-yes-check-no any easier.

It’s like we’ve got these cups in our life. One for family, and one for friends, and one for work, and one for a love—and any one of these cups can be so full that it’s literally running over, but the part that runneth over doesn’t runneth over into any of the other cups. Excess work-juice doesn’t fill up an empty family cup, any more than an abundance of friendships can fill up an empty love cup.  Which is maddening and a little unfair, but probably, just as it should be.

And we’re all scared. I have to remember that. That, probably, the guy is scared too. (my metaphorical, somewhere-out-there-guy). Because the good ones usually are.

So I got off the train yesterday, got myself pizza, cursed that no grocer ever lets you finish actually checking out before calling the next guest over (which would NEVER happen in Texas), headed home to my small studio apartment and ended up entering the building at the same time as another young woman. And since I never see my neighbors and even if I do, no one in this city smiles much at eachother, and this young woman was so kind, which is to say, friendly, which is to say, she smiled and told me to have a good night.

And it helped. Sort of turned my day around. The unexpectedness of it. That it asked nothing in return.

And it reminded me of the weight of that very simple action.

Turn soft and lovely.

Which is to say, smile.

When you can.

clarity

(I interrupt this blogging break, for a blog post...because why not?)

I was struck by the clarity of his image the first time we met. How very in-focus he felt. And how the nature of such clarity cast immediate aspersions over everything else.

As if everything had been ever so slightly out of focus and I hadn’t known. Until this man—this very handsome man with his sharp angles and neatly trimmed hair—stood in front of me.

But our first date was unmemorable and I walked away thinking, If that’s all this is, that’s okay.

The thing is, I am a sucker for a good story and the way we met felt like the start of a very good story. Chance encounter, locked eyes, all that nonsense. And so I emptied everything into that amorphous catch-all of in-service-of-a-good-story. And I glossed over the bad.

Like how at the end of our first date he didn’t offer to take my heavy bag as we walked away from the bar. Or how on our second date he complained about the table instead of simply asking to move. How his hand never, not once, went in search of my knee.

And how on our third date he ate his hamburger with a fork and a knife.

Let me explain.

I have this girlfriend Alisha who is one of the very smartest people I know (and I’ve known some smart people). But she’s smart in a bookish-meets-no-bullshit-way that is equal parts fascinating and unnerving. Alisha and I have a mutual friend who is married to a man who doesn’t like to get his feet dirty. Ever. I remember Alisha telling me about this and saying, Meg, a man with outdoor and indoor shoes isn’t going be great with the messier parts of sex. And let’s be honest, the messier parts are often the best.

So when he used his utensils to cut his burger and explained that he did so because he didn’t like to dirty his fingers, I thought of Alisha.

And how Alisha would say this portends not. good. things. And how Alisha would totally use the word portend.

But at twenty-seven, having never done it right before (as though that’s a thing) I thought, no need to sweat the small stuff—no need to worry that the small things actually point to the big things. Because what the hell do I know?

And so I went about it all a little bit differently. Chose not to worry so much. Practiced unfolding slower.

But there was no flutter. No sense of falling into something. And he was never so handsome as that first moment we met. And the person should become more handsome, no?

Thing is, the small things do point to the big things because there is no template for how to speak about the-really-big-fucking-things in this life. And sometimes everything else falls away and all we’re left with are small looks and small gestures and they should mean something.

It wasn’t all bad of course. Now I look back and think it must have been, but of course that’s untrue. Would’ve been easier if it was. Instead time passed quickly and we never ran out of things to say and upon occasion he would lean back in his chair and look at me like he could sit there forever.

Until he couldn’t. Until he became tentative and unresponsive and at a dinner party too far in he said about someone else, She’s thirty-two, I’d never date a thirty-two-year-old. And there I was twenty-eight wondering what the hell difference it made to a thirty-five-year-old man.

And holy hell if that wasn’t a different sort of clarity. More of the oh-so-he’s-an-asshole-variety.

And I was embarrassed. Both for him and by him.

I think back now to our first meeting . The clarity didn’t come so much from how handsome I found him as from how very present he seemed, like he was right there at the front of himself. And I was awed by that because I hardly ever am, if at all.

It took me far too long to realize it’s tremendously easy to live at the front of yourself if that’s all there is. And generosity, but only on your terms, has nothing to do with generosity and everything to do with control.

I’m so angry with him. But not so much with him as about him, about the actions and non-actions and experiences surrounding him.

There is a small list of men I owe a great debt to. Men who adored my body when I loathed it most. Men who revealed my beauty in the way their upper teeth caught their lower lips as I undressed. And the truth of their gazes pulled me across a very large, very deep chasm—one that separated understanding beauty from inhabiting it.

I know what it is to be ashamed of my feminine form. But until this man I didn’t know what it was to feel that shame in front of a person who claimed to adore me.

Didn’t know such a thing was possible.

Until I lay in his bed, wearing his t-shirt, and he had no interest in seeing what was beneath it.

And the experience of that took something from me. Made that space in which two people meet less safe. Made words less reliable.

And so I’ve been walking around feeling a little bit angry and a little bit resentful and a little bit less.

But then this week I thought about his hands.

And then I thought about my own.

And how there’s a bit of mess on mine.

And that realization makes everything easier.

Because I like a man who’ll go barefoot—prefer a guy who isn’t afraid of some dirt beneath the fingernails.

Life is messy—literally and otherwise. And to avoid the mess is to miss the point.

Ah. Okay. Perspective.

Clarity, at long last.

January

Oh January.

January, January.

January in New York. When the city is cold and a little bit bleak and in the absence of the holiday gleam, a little bit less.

I had my card reads recently. Two years. That’s how long they said I had left in New York. Two years. Two very important years in which I would actually love New York, even if only upon occasion, and just a little.

Two years, a delayed love-affair with New York City.

On the good days I think yes--yes! The city is so easy to love today, and love it I do.

But on the not-so-good-days I reach for numbers. Two years. How many more silent subway cries will that make for? How many more mice will I catch? How many more first dates on which I am stood up? How many more too crowded New Year’s parties or too-crowded subway cars? How many more nights drinking expensive wine at bars populated by young women who look just like me?

And when I do leave two years from now, how many more fine lines will ring my eyes? How many more gray hairs? And will it be just me, or me plus one, as predicted?

Oh January.

Such a fine and strange month you’ve been.

Circling round people and promising adventure and in the end ripe with education.

Sitting in the cab en route to the airport, Paris—or the promise of it—hanging by a thread, his response to my mistake so new and unexpected, I said to him, It’ll make for a good story, at least.

If it works out, it will, was his response.

Which has never been how I’ve lived my life. At least, not these last several years, having just learned (and more than once) that very often it does not. work out.

And in that cab I sent up a silent prayer. Out of need and desperation and quite a bit of fear I offered up four words: get. me. out. of. this.

And that prayer was answered.

And there was this very strong sense that I hadn’t just dodged a bullet, but that that answered prayer was actually in service of a different story.

I have spent so much of my youth in pursuit of a good stories, collecting them like trinkets for a mantle. Yes. Yes, a nearly automatic response. Yes, because why the hell not?

But now as I get older I can’t help but notice that a good story simply for the sake of a good story is no longer good enough. I want a better story. Which is where yes meets no and the two learn to dance. Which is where choice and ownership build a home. Which is where the overarching theme of one’s life starts to feel directional and long.

Here’s the thing about growing up that is only ever hinted at--very rarely explicitly stated: it is fucking incredible.

Because things start to fall way--unhelpful things. Because you start shedding everything that's not in service of your ever-after.

Because not-good-enough becomes so very clear. Because confidence becomes a more constant companion. Because the gut is almost always right. And you’re learning to listen to it. Because you stop feeling the need to defend your decisions or explain your choices.  Because justification is not the point.

I was so lonely when we dated. I had just started a new job and was working more typical hours and I thought it was an-evening-sort-of-loneliness.

I thought it was a-going-home-to-an-empty-apartment-at-the-age-of-twenty-seven-sort-of-loneliness.

A-still?-sort-of-lonely.

But then we stopped dating. And I wasn’t so lonely anymore.

Turns out it was a-this-isn’t-the-right-guy-and-you-know-it-but-won’t-admit-it-sort-of-lonely.

Which is of the more brutal variety.

Because it has everything to do with you. Everything to do with that small tug of the gut that says move on, you know better.

And there’s nothing like the loneliness of turning away from one’s self.

But it’s hard to be twenty-seven with the thought that you’ve never done it right before and maybe you’re doing it all wrong—and what the hell does the gut know anyway?

Well, everything. It knows nearly everything. Which I think was the point of this guy. To remind me of that. Because while few things are so exciting as slowly unfolding in front of someone you adore, to try and do that in front of a person you’re just not that keen on is confusing and unsettling and  leaves you months later in a cab on the way to airport barely breathing because you-all-of-the-sudden-can’t-stand-this-person and that’s not really fair to him because he’s not all bad, he’s just not-right.

I spent much of my youth in search of due north. Wondering where it was and what it was and if I was moving in the right direction, spinning in circles because without a map between my hands I was out of my depth.

Being young is a sort of perpetually terrifying existence. Until it is not. Because enough happens that you start to trust that more will happen and because in a very real and very physical way your body hooks into something bigger.

Because suddenly due north is so very clear. Because the star of it—the truth of it—lassoes you round the waist and pulls your forward. Into the great (and still mostly) unknown. And that's not only okay, it's good.

I have learned that I can’t engineer a really good life; I can only give over to one. Because I am not as good or as smart or as clever as what is actually intended for me.

January: ill-fated cab rides—1; subway meltdowns—2 or 3 depending on who I’m talking to; travel mishaps—4; number of men who left me at the airport—1; too crowded subways—at least 15; friends who’ve been really very good to me—4; wonky days—8, maybe; blue days—2; days I really loved the city—1/2; days I remembered not-just-good-but-better—2: yesterday and today.

So not bad. January was not all bad.

an open letter to my one-day-Sunday-someone

Don’t underestimate just how far flowers will go.

Ask me to dance. On the subway platform, at the bar, in our living room. Not because you can, or I can, but because who cares? Because that’s not the point. Because the last guy didn’t. Because you’d use any excuse to place the palm of your hand on the low of my back.Because we’re a little bit foolish you and I (and thank God for that).

Encourage me to write. I like myself better when I’m full of and on words—or in pursuit of them, at least.

I’m an introvert. I’ll need the occasional time and space to just be alone. Give me that.

Sometimes I eat tortilla chips in the shower. Or under the covers. Or barefoot in the kitchen before I’ve even poured my morning coffee. And I really like my morning coffee.

On hard days, when I’m feeling a little blue, I’ll get a latte just for the warmth between my hands. Let me.

Don’t ever ask me how a writer makes a living.

The sound of someone eating an apple is enough to drive me from the room.

Social graces only go so far; a person is nothing without empathy. We will raise children who know the difference.

Yeah, I want you to cut a fine silhouette in a tux, but I'm far more excited about the mettle of the man beneath.

I have no poker face.

Sometimes when I’m nervous I'll get a little quiet, a little unfriendly, a little prickly. It means I like you. I know it doesn't make any sense. To me either! Please forgive me these moments...it’s just that sometimes looking at you is like looking at the sun. Good and overwhelming and a little blinding.

I’ve been staring at the computer for an hour now, thinking on what else to write, but my mind keeps coming back to your penny-loafers and your sometimes-side-part and hell if I’m not sunk.

*ps: Take me to Paris one day, won't you?*

photo source. 

(It's been a while since one of these, no?

You can find others here.)

faith

The thing about life being really, really shitty for a really, really long time is this: it gets better.

Which doesn’t seem like much of a consolation, I know. But I don’t think it’s meant to be. It’s not the consolation, it’s the reward. It’s the everything-after.

It gets better. And that better is a delicious and meaty sort of that thing.

It. Gets. Better.

I say that with a deep exhale of relief and exhaustion and joy.

Like collapsing onto a bed at the end of a very long and very good day.

It gets better.

Shame recedes like the waves at low-tide. And gratitude rushes in. For everything. For the whole of your life. Not a part of it, but the whole messy lot. And for the grace that is that mess. The perfect ordered chaos of it.

It gets better and good becomes a flutter in your chest. A constant hum.  And you become aware of the musculature of the heart—how it pulses and expands and grows. And to be privy to the physical experience of that.…Everything begins to feel like a prayer. One of gratitude and wonder and a delicious sort of blooming. Every action an act of faith.

Faith.

I don’t think of myself as a religious person. And yet. And yet and yet…faith, the word that wets my lips and sits on my tongue and fills what once was empty.

Faith.

The thing that rolls out like the proverbial yellow brick road.  A path before you. And you don’t know where you’re going, but you know you’re on your way.

Faith.

Which makes fear beside the point.

Which lays waste to timelines.

And makes tributaries of loneliness and sorrow and grief—small streams leading to a larger body of water, important and necessary but not the point.

Which disappears loneliness—transforms it—makes it sweet in its impermanence.

Everything worthy and good I learned through the lens of an eating disorder. Which is something I struggle to explain—it’s not exactly an easy lead in at a cocktail party.

Now standing firmly on the other side of the thing, the question of how I got better is one I’m often asked. And the answer is a simple and complex as this: I had faith I would. And so I did.

And faith is what I move forward with. That nearly overwhelming stretch of time succeeded in distilling everything dark and complex and seemingly impossible into that one thing—that one word. And that one word broke me open—made me sturdy and soft and so very human.

Faith, the invitation to my very own ever-after.

It gets better. 

It really, really does.

....................................................................................................................................

{more on the subject}

more faith

the mystery of faith

(for any new readers out there

this post deal with things i've previously

written about in much detail.

more information to be found in the food +health

tab)