Dear Brooklyn,
Fall is here. And it turns out that it doesn't feel so different than fall in Brooklyn.
JRoss is away and I've been staying at his house 'cause my dad was in town yesterday putting together bookshelves and such in my house, so it looks like three explosions went off in each room. Today, the dogs and I have been taking walks, playing tug of war in the yard, chewing on sticks (them, not me), roasting vegetables (me, not them), and wearing sweaters (all of us, in our own ways). It's awesome to be wearing heavy flannel and a hat when I take them out--I'm enjoying the solitude up here, and its multiplication when for days I don't speak to anyone I know well.
My dad's help yesterday means that things in my new home are coming close to being settled. Still some items to search for and a fair amount of sorting and organizing and putting away, but at least there are places to sit and to work and to write you all letters, and places to put things once they are sorted. My goal is to be all in and living like I've always lived there by September 30.
Most other things that are worthy of note are too worthy to be posted for free consumption--I've begun rereading this fantasy series that's the only fantasy series I've ever been into but also the only fantasy series I've ever read, so maybe that says something. JRoss is reading it too, so when I finish rereading the first one, we'll add reading the second one together to the long list of cute, New England-y, hibernatory fall activities I seem to be making.
Still sending lots of letters--if you'd like to receive one and haven't, send me your address and they'll never stop.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Transformation fucking hurts
So much deep shit is coming up, and it's coming up so hard and fast and from places so far down I didn't even know about them. Feels like it's coming up from the places where the fire that kept me alive back then was burning, the places where the fire was burning and I didn't even know, but thank God.
I am sitting on the porch of my new home. This home is amazing. There is a little garden that I can do whatever I want with, but gardening isn't really my thing, so I'll probably just let it be. It's filled with echinacea and some tall purple flowers and sunflowers that have passed but which will be amazing next year. The kitchen is green and very sweet and there is a huge fucking dining room and the living room looks like an old lady's parlor. I feel overwhelmed by how wonderful it is and also by the immensity of the task of putting it together, of filling it with furniture and with myself.
Right before I came up here, I saw this body-based psychic, and she said that there's some stuff happening for me now around letting my whole self be seen, be known, letting it take up space. She said that making this home really mine will be part of that. Making it a place I can fill.
For the last month and half or so that I was in New York, things got really fucking hard. Hard in the way they get sometimes--life or death hard. And something that happened in that time, which I think is something that's always happened but which has never before been named in this way, is that I disappeared from my closest people. I went inside what I was feeling, and though I reached out in need--of comfort, of care, of support--I did not share the darkness I was in. I assumed as I always assume that no one wants to know. That there is beauty in me, but that the darkness isn't part of that, and so I keep it hidden.
And that being gone, that distance I created, it hurt some of my closest humans real bad.
Here, in this new home, in this solitude and emptiness, I am digging into shit that's so old I'd've thought it'd be gone, buried or burned or dissolved by now, but it's not. Maybe it's my Saturn return bringing it up, I don't know. But here it comes and it comes hard.
I am finally naming how that one horrible, broken, breaking human is imprinted on me forever. I said earlier today that I feel defeated. I feel like I've been fighting and fighting to be rid of him and I just can't get him gone. JRoss said, "Maybe it's not about getting him gone. Maybe it's about accepting the imprint." He broke me open with that. Here I am, imprinted. Here I am, terrified all the time. And maybe that won't ever change. And I am still going to be here. And I am still going to love hard and hope that something about this imprinted person, this wounded, broken person who will not heal in the way she wanted to, hope that something in me just is deeper and more beautiful 'cause of that imprint and hope that there is love for me even so.
I don't even feel angry. I just feel so sad. I feel forever burdened, bowing beneath the weight of this stupid thing I did when I was a kid that will now last forever.
Obviously, in the past years there have been major healings, major breakthroughs, major lettings go. But there is something that will not leave. And I think Jules is right. I think I have to just integrate that something into all the rest. I think fighting it, trying to "get better" is exhausting and painful and damaging. I think real healing might come from integration more often than I realized.
But, damn. It is so hard, so painful, this feeling forever afraid. Like I have to be so sorry or so ready to be sorry. Always stepping back. Always making sure there is a safe path out the door. Always feeling like the other person is angry, and if they aren't angry it's because they are repressing their anger because they think I am too stupid or too sick or too weak to hear the criticism they want to give me about whatever I am doing wrong.
It's much easier when I am alone. When I am alone, there is no one to fear. But I do not want to be alone. I want to be with humans, and the one in particular. And I do not want the sweet and gentle humans in my life to feel the way they feel when I cower, like they have given me some reason to cower, because it is not and will never be any of you I cower from.
I think this integration might come from feeling the fear and choosing to live in the face of it. Choosing not to cower, not to duck, not to back up or apologize. Choosing to say, okay, yes. There is a chance this moment could turn unexpectedly, and that that could be terrifying. But there is also a chance that it will not, and so here I am, choosing to be fully in this moment, fully in it and alive.
I think I have to hold onto the truth I know more deeply than any other truth--even if things in some way get terrifying, even if some force tries to reach inside me and extinguish the fire, I know I can live through it. I know I can live through anything. I know there is something in me that is hotter than anyone's grabbing fist. Maybe that's the imprint.
I am sitting on the porch of my new home. This home is amazing. There is a little garden that I can do whatever I want with, but gardening isn't really my thing, so I'll probably just let it be. It's filled with echinacea and some tall purple flowers and sunflowers that have passed but which will be amazing next year. The kitchen is green and very sweet and there is a huge fucking dining room and the living room looks like an old lady's parlor. I feel overwhelmed by how wonderful it is and also by the immensity of the task of putting it together, of filling it with furniture and with myself.
Right before I came up here, I saw this body-based psychic, and she said that there's some stuff happening for me now around letting my whole self be seen, be known, letting it take up space. She said that making this home really mine will be part of that. Making it a place I can fill.
For the last month and half or so that I was in New York, things got really fucking hard. Hard in the way they get sometimes--life or death hard. And something that happened in that time, which I think is something that's always happened but which has never before been named in this way, is that I disappeared from my closest people. I went inside what I was feeling, and though I reached out in need--of comfort, of care, of support--I did not share the darkness I was in. I assumed as I always assume that no one wants to know. That there is beauty in me, but that the darkness isn't part of that, and so I keep it hidden.
And that being gone, that distance I created, it hurt some of my closest humans real bad.
Here, in this new home, in this solitude and emptiness, I am digging into shit that's so old I'd've thought it'd be gone, buried or burned or dissolved by now, but it's not. Maybe it's my Saturn return bringing it up, I don't know. But here it comes and it comes hard.
I am finally naming how that one horrible, broken, breaking human is imprinted on me forever. I said earlier today that I feel defeated. I feel like I've been fighting and fighting to be rid of him and I just can't get him gone. JRoss said, "Maybe it's not about getting him gone. Maybe it's about accepting the imprint." He broke me open with that. Here I am, imprinted. Here I am, terrified all the time. And maybe that won't ever change. And I am still going to be here. And I am still going to love hard and hope that something about this imprinted person, this wounded, broken person who will not heal in the way she wanted to, hope that something in me just is deeper and more beautiful 'cause of that imprint and hope that there is love for me even so.
I don't even feel angry. I just feel so sad. I feel forever burdened, bowing beneath the weight of this stupid thing I did when I was a kid that will now last forever.
Obviously, in the past years there have been major healings, major breakthroughs, major lettings go. But there is something that will not leave. And I think Jules is right. I think I have to just integrate that something into all the rest. I think fighting it, trying to "get better" is exhausting and painful and damaging. I think real healing might come from integration more often than I realized.
But, damn. It is so hard, so painful, this feeling forever afraid. Like I have to be so sorry or so ready to be sorry. Always stepping back. Always making sure there is a safe path out the door. Always feeling like the other person is angry, and if they aren't angry it's because they are repressing their anger because they think I am too stupid or too sick or too weak to hear the criticism they want to give me about whatever I am doing wrong.
It's much easier when I am alone. When I am alone, there is no one to fear. But I do not want to be alone. I want to be with humans, and the one in particular. And I do not want the sweet and gentle humans in my life to feel the way they feel when I cower, like they have given me some reason to cower, because it is not and will never be any of you I cower from.
I think this integration might come from feeling the fear and choosing to live in the face of it. Choosing not to cower, not to duck, not to back up or apologize. Choosing to say, okay, yes. There is a chance this moment could turn unexpectedly, and that that could be terrifying. But there is also a chance that it will not, and so here I am, choosing to be fully in this moment, fully in it and alive.
I think I have to hold onto the truth I know more deeply than any other truth--even if things in some way get terrifying, even if some force tries to reach inside me and extinguish the fire, I know I can live through it. I know I can live through anything. I know there is something in me that is hotter than anyone's grabbing fist. Maybe that's the imprint.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
My new digs...
Dear Brooklyn,
What you can't tell from this photo is how enormous this living room is. It's true about the whole house--HUGE! There is a dining room. A DINING ROOM. This is not New York.
I am in the slow, slow process of filling my new home with furnishings and unpacking my belongings. It's somewhat of a challenge, given the fact that I fled bed bugs in Brooklyn and so left without any furniture. And most of my stuff is in storage in JRoss's basement, so it's step-by-step.
I'm loving it here, though. This room is shaping up faster than the rest--it's furnished now, though I've no place to store my books as of yet. There is a reading chair for when you come visit and want the real New England experience, and there will be a writing desk, too.
What you can't tell from this photo is how enormous this living room is. It's true about the whole house--HUGE! There is a dining room. A DINING ROOM. This is not New York.
I am in the slow, slow process of filling my new home with furnishings and unpacking my belongings. It's somewhat of a challenge, given the fact that I fled bed bugs in Brooklyn and so left without any furniture. And most of my stuff is in storage in JRoss's basement, so it's step-by-step.
I'm loving it here, though. This room is shaping up faster than the rest--it's furnished now, though I've no place to store my books as of yet. There is a reading chair for when you come visit and want the real New England experience, and there will be a writing desk, too.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
This is where I've been...
From Wednesday to Sunday, ten of Jorie's and Hal's closest and most loved descended upon her mom's house in Charlotte. We ate and drank and laked and pooled and hot tubbed and played Mafia and watched sunsets like these.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
"His delusion is preferable to the actuality of the situation."
Brooklyn, I wish you were here.
I am sitting in the sun in my parents' backyard, the dog under the table. I'm working on my children's book proposal and drinking coffee, so glad to be here and alone except for the dog. But still: I wish you were here. It's just so fucking beautiful, and so quiet, and so nice. I am getting so much done--all I can hear is the sharp buzz of whatever insect goes all summer days making that sharp buzz. It was chilly yesterday, cold at night. And this morning: chilly too. But now the sun is warm, almost hot, and I am evening out my A-shirt tan so I don't a) look weird in my bridesmaid dress or b) have to get a spray tan.
Last night Schnipper and I went to see OAR play at the Burlington waterfront. OAR is a band we liked in high school--back then they were also in high school, white boy hippie kids playing reggae-inspired jam-band music. Now they are 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution, playing to 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution. There were no people of color and so many dreadlocks. But: it was so fun. It was fun to see the hippies of our youths grown up and there with their kids. It was fun to see hippie women dancing with hula hoops. It was fun to hear "One for three, two for five," called over and over. It was fun to watch the dynamics of a group of straight people who seemed to be swingers. It was fun to track the movements of a beautiful boy we were calling "our hoodie boyfriend." It was fun to feel like my high school self was accessible without regressing. By the end of the night, my foot hurt bad and my back hurt bad and I felt old and like my high school self was long-gone, but: those few minutes with her were awesome.
Tonight Nas and Damian Marley are playing in the same venue, and though we want to go, it seems like my body just can't handle it. We'll see, though. It's hard to pass up the lake and the summer and the Schnip, especially when I've been without all three for so long.
And: I wish you were here.
I am sitting in the sun in my parents' backyard, the dog under the table. I'm working on my children's book proposal and drinking coffee, so glad to be here and alone except for the dog. But still: I wish you were here. It's just so fucking beautiful, and so quiet, and so nice. I am getting so much done--all I can hear is the sharp buzz of whatever insect goes all summer days making that sharp buzz. It was chilly yesterday, cold at night. And this morning: chilly too. But now the sun is warm, almost hot, and I am evening out my A-shirt tan so I don't a) look weird in my bridesmaid dress or b) have to get a spray tan.
Last night Schnipper and I went to see OAR play at the Burlington waterfront. OAR is a band we liked in high school--back then they were also in high school, white boy hippie kids playing reggae-inspired jam-band music. Now they are 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution, playing to 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution. There were no people of color and so many dreadlocks. But: it was so fun. It was fun to see the hippies of our youths grown up and there with their kids. It was fun to see hippie women dancing with hula hoops. It was fun to hear "One for three, two for five," called over and over. It was fun to watch the dynamics of a group of straight people who seemed to be swingers. It was fun to track the movements of a beautiful boy we were calling "our hoodie boyfriend." It was fun to feel like my high school self was accessible without regressing. By the end of the night, my foot hurt bad and my back hurt bad and I felt old and like my high school self was long-gone, but: those few minutes with her were awesome.
Tonight Nas and Damian Marley are playing in the same venue, and though we want to go, it seems like my body just can't handle it. We'll see, though. It's hard to pass up the lake and the summer and the Schnip, especially when I've been without all three for so long.
And: I wish you were here.
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