Disappearing

     "The day he first told me he 
was starting to disappear I
didn't believe him & so he stopped
& held his hand up to the sun & it
was like thin paper in the light &
finally I said, you seem very calm
for a man who is disappearing &
he said it was a relief after all
those years of trying to keep the
pieces of his life in one place. 
Later on, I went to see him
again & as I was leaving, he
put a package in my hand.
     This is the last piece of my 
life, he said. take good care 
of it & then he smiled & was
gone & the room filled with the
sound of the wind & when I
opened the package there was
nothing there & I thought
there must be some mistake 
or maybe I dropped it & I 
got down on my hands &
knees  & looked until the light
began to fade & then slowly
I felt pieces of my life 
fall away & suddenly I 
understood what he meant 
& I lay there for a long 
time crying & laughing at
the same time. "

Brian Andreas
Story People

studying the seasons.

it has been suggested to me that there are seasons to these lives we live. and that they aren't always clear and summer doesn't always follow spring and every once and again winter will yield more winter will yield more winter will yield more.

so i've been giving some thought to this season, to this season i'm in now. it's not clear whether it's winter or spring, summer or fall. but this i do know:

it is a season of strong women. a season in which i've been blessed by tremendously strong women. women who model friendship for me, who are driven, who take no prisoners, who laugh freely, and demand the very best. women who actually listen. intelligent, feminine, no-nonsense women.  i'd met women of this ilk before. in passing i'd met them, but suddenly i am surrounded by them. suddenly i have collected a whole group of them and few things in this life have felt so important (so totally and truly lucky) as that.

this is the season in which i crave simplicity. in which i long for clean lines and uncluttered floors. in which i, unfortunately, feel a half-stranger in my own home (but know {humbly and with gratitude} that feeling will pass).

this is the season in which an unexpected october snow-fall awakened something within. demanded i order a chai latte and watch the white accumulate while standing in the warm light of the corner's coffee shop. there's something to seeing and studying and loving that cold and that dark and that dim from under the subtle yellow lights of familiarity.

this is the season i dared leave the light for the snow. into the white.

this is the season i am surrounded by, swathed in, ambivalence.

this is the season i find solace in a cabinet stocked with spices.

this is the season in which i attempt forgiveness. of myself. for the past. for my mistakes. for all that abandoned, lost time.

this is a season of reckoning. of acceptance. of remembrance. oh yes, that's who i am. oh yes, for better or worse that's what i'm made of. oh right, that's a part of my story. still.





image by Carol Reed.

i'm back.

just about two weeks after getting a brand-spankin-new-macbook pro last july there was an incident.

it involved an eight a.m. skype date to australia, a wee bit of coffee, a spill, and then a hairdryer.

the computer came out okay (or so i thought). the loss of the caps-lock key and sticky shift seemed manageable.

but then the trackpad stopped working just about a week ago. so into the store we went. i copped to the water damage, batted my eyes, and begged for mercy.

the genius kindly obliged. checked it in under tier-four damage and waved the fee (water damage is not covered under warranty).

but in helping this working-girl out, the genius did so with a caveat:  it was incumbent on me to get a protective case and a silicone cover for the keys.

he fixed this lovey of mine. and i obliged. case and cover procured.

we're back in business, baby.



(though, can i admit something? a week with no computer? no endless surfing, beholden to no one and no thing...it was nice. i'm not gonna lie. it was really nice).

the swell and the breath.

i've never really been of the belief that happiness is a choice.

there was that one summer i went around paying lip-service to it--to the belief. that one summer i wanted so desperately for it to be true that need eclipsed sense and i wore the phrase heavy around my neck.

i should clarify.

it's not that i don't think happiness a choice, it's that i think the choosing only goes so far.

it's part choice, part fight,  part smidge of luck, some indeterminate amount of divinity, a hell-of-a-lot of hard work, part ritual, part mystery, part getting out of bed in the morning. and when all is said and done, you offer those things up. like a prayer, you offer them up. and then you wait. you wait to see if they're enough.

because the blue is big and the blue is deep.

and some days, some weeks, some indeterminate stretches of time, they're not .

and sadness swells and breathes like an out-of-tune accordion.

i watched it approach this go round. watched as it appeared on the lip of the horizon. watched as it slowly, steadily, hurtled toward me. and i got out of bed each morning, and i payed homage to the ritual and the mystery, and i had my morning coffee, but the sadness took hold.

that hauntingly familiar sadness filled and unfurled. settled in.

both hollowing and hallowing is that blue.

and in the space it created, i with flailing arms and pitiable grace, groped for meaning.

two days ago, on the train, i began to cry. while reading a short essay about a father's love for his son, i wept.

i wept not because i was sad but because the words were beautiful and simple and wholly solvent.

and in doing so, in weeping, there was a thought:

here i am.

here i am, the girl moved to tears by the love a father not even my own.

and the meaning--the reason for this stretch of time--while still unknown, is somewhere in there--there, in that moment.

that is what is known, the boundaries of this swath: the reading of an essay on a train. and the human response.

and for now that is solace enough. for now, that is the salve that will heal.