disclaimer: two years later

i get sad after christmas. in my stomach. a wet sponge of sadness. heavy and porous all at once.

the lines on my forehead are deepening. the skin around my eyes becoming ever-more fragile.

i sleep with the humidifier on. and i wake early just so i have time to read before the day begins.

my left eye still leaks. not much to do about that. it simply is, this little leak.

when no on is home, i pump up the music and remember how as a little girl i would pull out my big-bird-record-player and my father would move the living room furniture and we'd dance. oh, how we'd dance!

i don't have bangs now, i'm incredibly vain about my eyelashes, and i'm highly susceptible to any sort of sales-pitch. (one might in fact call me gullible. and they might in fact be right).

i love riding a bike. and i still yearn for a vespa--in my toes i yearn for it.

i long for a year in europe. the consumption of lattes without restraint. open-air piazzas and history etched into every nook. i long for trains and the lilting musicality of an unknown language.

i think a person can be a million things. things that seemingly stand in direct opposition. there is no end. nothing more stunning than a little humanity. or humility.

i want nothing so much as a little balcony. just off our apartment. wrought-iron fencing. and plants!

i want a life lived in color. vibrant and deep.

i believe in dressing up. for the theatre. for church. for morning meetings and nights out. i believe how we dress ourselves is an unconscious indicator of how we'd like to be treated. (i actually like panty-hose).


i'm a firm believer in strict-parenting. and boundaries. that education begins at home. and education, more than anything, will change this world. it transcends party lines, divisions between culture and country--it is the great equalizer (in the best possible way).
i believe that pleases and thank yous speak volumes of a person's character. that an unsolicited smile is a profound act of kindness. and that the more love a person cultivates for himself, the more he then delivers freely into the world. (and surely this world needs a little more love).

and yes, i climb onto soap-boxes more often than i should.
and yes, i get passionate--such is my cross.

and i'm so much better. so much better than two years ago when i first wrote this. so much better. so much fuller. so much more myself.

so much more aware that this christmas sadness will pass. that all things pass. that things change and deepen.

and that this life, hard as it is, is so damn worth it.

just so you know.

love,
me

the two-days-after-Christmas-gift

you spend months, years, (a year?), weeks, fortnights, minutes, innumerable seconds pining after someone. wanting them, missing them, needing them. feeling unworthy of them-because that's the story that was told. by him? by you? somewhere in all that passing of time you've forgotten. where to lay the blame? doesn't really matter, you suppose. not anymore, anyway. or did it ever?

and then one day you wake and the light has shifted. and the lens comes into focus. and you realize that all along--actually--it was he who was unworthy of you.

and god does that realization feel good.

the blizzard's aftermath.

a photo account of montclair, nj post-storm. all photos taken by my brother (since i was stuck here in the city).

new yorkers were encouraged to stay home today. 

work was cancelled. the day was suddenly mine and free.

my family was only twenty minutes away in new jersey. however with the 20-24 inches of snow on the roads they were as good as across the world.

so i was snowbound. all by my lonesome. 

and what's a girl to do when the day stretches long before her? clean, of course. 

i scrubbed the stove. the inside of the fridge. i soaked the garbage and recycling cans (in the bathtub, no less). got down on all fours and worked away at the spots on our aging wood floors. 

and when all was said and done i took a walk. 

i felt how the snow changes the city. how a quiet takes hold. inundates everything, everyone. how when the snow settles, but has yet to be cleared the city takes deep, gasping breaths. reaching for the stillness, the calm. pulling it into itself. storing it away. reveling in the short time it  is allowed to simply be. to exist. and when no one is looking--when they're shielding their eyes from the snow, or digging a car out of the snowbank, the city exposes its heart. for just one moment. it opens up, unfolds, unfurls. feels the electric cold against its great, naked nerve. and then closes again. recharged. ready for the next. 

if you're really quiet. if you stand really still. and you get really lucky. you'll feel it--the reverberations of it--in your bones. and the heart carries on. 

a little bit of Christmas.

(and yes. that santa i'm with? it's made of ice cream).

around noon today i enjoyed the first hint of blizzard...

but as i walked home around nine tonight enjoyment would not have been the word i used. nor would i employ hint when referring to the blizzard. 

let's just say, i had my umbrella facing headlong into the wind, my free arm shielding my eyes from the potent precipitation, and i still didn't think i was gonna get through the block and the half to the subway. 

it's gonna be interesting to see what kind of a world i wake to tomorrow, because it sure as heck is snowing. and i mean snowing. 

(rough as it may prove to be, don't think i'm not enjoying every second. the sound of white: thrusting wind and city silence.)