last night i stood with my fingers poised on the doorknob listening for the footsteps to recede into the room furthest from my own.
i hadn't even realized he was home.
the roommate.
just as i'd been about to open my door, i heard the shuffle of his feet and so paused, hand in the air, breath in throat, waiting
we've entered into a dance, both of us, without ever speaking of it or agreeing to it, with no words at all, we've found a way of living in which we shuffle step, one around the other. never occupying the same space, interpreting the music of closing doors, running water, the sweet hum of the kettle.
i'm not proud of this, this way of living. this absence of hello's or how are you's. this passing as strangers on the street. and we are, we're strangers, tied together only by the loose bond of mutual acquaintances and similar schooling. he had seemed the best choice to fill the third and largest room.
and he was. he is. he's fine.
it's not really about him, you know?
this three-room apartment, this once castle-in-the-sky, this once playground-of-open-space, endless flooring, and hudson views, it's--well, it's not enough now.
priorities have changed. values have shifted.
i want my own space. i'll take a closet, if i have to, but i want it to be mine and mine alone. i want to build a home. i want to recognize all the smells, know the hair on the bathroom floor. i want to be sure of who to blame for the over-stuffed and over-ripe garbage (yes, me). i want to be sure the nicks and scratches littering my favorite bowls were the product of my careless fingers--and until the possibility that they were caused by the man i love, by our growing children, well, until that possibility is more than just hope or passing thought, let me live alone.
i want to know that the next time i share a space with someone the impetus will be love.
this new need is so immediate, so strong. startling, really, in just how physical it is.
i was talking about it at work when another girl said, oh, you're moving, do you need a roommate? in her defense, she had caught the tail-end of the discussion.
no, i replied, taking a deep breath and smiling slowly. i want to live alone.
alone, why would you want that?
i gave her a little laugh, oh you know...
the oh, you know was my kind way of saying if you even have to ask, it's not worth explaining.
perhaps it's age, perhaps it is shifting wants and needs from this thing called life, perhaps it's just part of my makeup. perhaps it's part of my fierce need for independence, product of my believe that space is charged and sacred.
who knows for sure.
all i know for now is, let me live alone. let there be a new adventure, a new experience. for the first time in all my years of new york city living, let me lay claim to a space, let me build a home.
week two of this new year: january 8-14
i've been waking up with no sense of what day it is or where i am or if i even know my name. this is how i know i am busy. so i am trying--really, i am--to focus in on the little things. the chance meeting of feet against cobblestone. the warmth of a really good latte. a book so well-loved and so oft-read the pages are falling out. beautiful plates. the sighting of a vespa. animal crackers and their ability to transport me some twenty-two years. and the joy that comes from days well-filled with work and laughter, new friends and cute men, and the dreams we share over the breaking of bread.
the need to say.
i got home tonight positively alight with the need to put pen to paper.
to expel the clawing, clamoring words.
it's been so long since i've felt the immediacy of that push--the inner-gnawing folding the stomach in on itself.
but the need to write, the words, they were nothing if not fragmented. cutting shards.
and where to begin?
i am not so patient. and i am not so strong. and i can't wait. i want to. but i can't. because it's fair to no one. i have to let this one go. cast it up to the fates and move on. trust that if it's meant to be, it will. was it just one lie that was told? or many? were there things misremembered and confused or were they just not remembered at all? i worry it's all too far gone. worry i'll never be good enough or pretty enough, that'll we'll never meet as equals. and i know this penchant i have for speaking honestly, for saying everything, can alarm and undo, but it's as much who i am as the dark moles littering my skin. it cannot be rubbed off or snuffed out--i've tried.
really, i'm not so strong--a common mistake. and the turmoil and disease of contradictory thoughts, well, i struggle with that, am wounded by that. perhaps i could choose the bits i want to believe--listen to the gut. but i am human, and woman, at that. and the thoughts, the warring words, they're just not enough. i'm not asking for more. that would be unfair. but know this: i am as terrified and fallible and deeply insecure as anyone else.
and so i offer it up. all of it. i throw my hands up, casting it to the wind, trusting the dust will settle as it must.
pho in chinatown.
in NYC
i have reached this lovely little phase in my life in which i'm surrounded by the most amazing women. kim, is one of those women. we haven't known each other terribly long, but i can confidently say, i adore her. she's the best. the BEST. (she's been a showgirl in vegas, a lounge-singer on a cruise ship, and a woman of international intrigue {i imagine}). she loves to travel (and she's good at it) so when we take to the streets of new york we do so with idea that we're visiting--and what i mean by this is--we take it in with fresh eyes and force ourselves to traverse the parts of the city we're not terribly familiar with. we seek out independent book-sellers, eclectic fashion boutiques, bars with dim-lighting and cute bartenders.
kim introduced me to pho (pronounced: fuh) which is a vietnamese noodle soup that will knock your socks off. (add the hot sauce and that won't just be metaphor talk). we went in search of some today since i'm now four weeks in to a chest cough that won't quite budge (my socks needed some knockin').
so if you ever find yourself in chinatown (you can take the N/R/Q from 42nd to Canal) go get your pho on.
did i mention it's all of about 4 dollars?
places to go:
Pho NhaTrang
Pho Pasteur
(they are next door to each other and located on Baxter street, between White and Walker streets)
the tin atop my desk
there is a tine atop my desk filled with coffee-stained scraps, unfinished lists, scribbles of things i felt the call to remember.
this tin--well, the contents of this tin, might be my most prized possession.
it is random and chaotic and has absolutely no rhyme or reason, but it is important. to me, it is important.
it is a memory box.
i pulled it out the other day, took to leafing through the bits and pieces, scratched out lines that i felt i had properly tended to, circled words and phrases i wanted expand upn.
and i came across a list from november.
november was hard. the fall was absolutely hard this past year.
it was a list of the things i did one day when the going was particularly rough:
i slept with the humidifier on. ordered the books from amazon i'd been wanting. ordered some skirts from asos. woke early. i showered with my new body scrub. took the time to use lotion after getting out. i made sure my phone was fully charged. i ate a nourishing breakfast of oatmeal and flax seeds and slivered almonds. i scrubbed the mold from the shower curtain.
an innocuous list. not terribly exciting. someone else might come upon and wonder why i had thought to save it.
well, because on that day, when i was feeling so blue, each of those things was prefaced with i love myself enough that...
even at the lowest, even feeling blue and unworthy, and terribly sad, there came the thought:
i love myself enough to wash the shower curtain because i deserve to live in a clean home.
i love myself enough to eat a hearty breakfast because my body deserves that much.
i did the things i didn't feel like doing, because the larger, better part of me knew i deserved them.
it was a list of my successes that day. short and simple and not terribly interesting. but hugely triumphant, for me a triumph of the little odds and ends that keep one afloat and lead to that delicious territory in which happiness sings.