Walk the Line

Sometimes it's hard to blog when things are happening, and they're affecting you and yours, but they aren't your stories.

I try very hard to walk that fine line between talking about my life and William's life, our life together ... and talking about our world. Two completely interconnected, but yet different, sets of reality and privacy. This week has presented some challenges, but William and I are simply Support Staff, not Chiefs of Staff.

So, with that, I'll just say that healing powers sent this way are all to the good and will go to several deeply good people who deserve all the love and support in the world. Want to join me in sending some up into the atmosphere and aimed this-a-way? I'll be sure to cast the net and bring them to those who need it most.

Thanks, friends.

PS: How do you overcome the idea of blogging about you vs. your world?

What You Miss

When I was in college, I had to do a writing assignment that was based on a poem. The subject sounded morbid— "What you missed by being dead." I don't recall the poem itself or the author—nor did a very cursory Google search.

But it's always stuck with me, that idea of explaining to a long-gone someone, here's what came after you. And I remember sitting in that overheated, tiny classroom and writing a list of the things I wish I'd shared with my grandma. It felt therapeutic.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with my mom about her. I knew her as a child, and I have many happy memories to treasure from that time, but I didn't know her as an adult. I wish I had. I wish I could see how our relationship would have unfolded. I wish she would have been there to talk with me about fashion. I wish she'd taught me how to sew. I wish I'd gotten old enough to have her use one of her snarky comments on me. I wish, I wish, I wish.

Back to the conversation with my mom. It turned the idea on its head, because I learned what I missed by someone being gone.

Because, for someone who has been gone since October 12, 15 years ago—can that be right?—I learned something about her that I'd never known before:

My grandma had a pretty singing voice, and she could play piano by ear.

I was so struck by that little, glittering gift. A little gift to worry around in my head, to think about, to add to her biography. It's not that often that you get to learn something new about someone who has been dead for so many years—especially a person that you felt you knew so well.

My grandparents never had a piano in their house. The fact that she could play must have been one of those things I never got around to talking with her about. (I do remember her telling me that the clarinet was her favorite instrument and that I should take it up. I didn't. I played flute.) And maybe she sang around me, but I don't recall what her voice sounded like when she did.

I never got to ask her much about her childhood. I never related to her as an adult. Luckily, my mom has a great memory and can recall lots of things that Grandma told her. And then once in a while, a little shooting star straight from heaven lands in my lap and I feel, again, like she's here.

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone when we're uncool.

I have never been cool.

I am not sleek, subtle, cool-as-a-cucumber cool, mysterious, secretive. None of that.

No, no, I am more like the golden retriever running in circles, slobbering all over you with my melodramatic chatty-chat and panic this and quasi-crisis that. I am not the person in the corner at the party, quietly sipping on a drink and looking bemused—the person people wonder about—because I pretty much can't hold myself back from putting it all out there.

I've never really wanted to be that cool person, either.

Whenever I've attempted any semblance of being cool, I've fallen flat on my face. Whenever I become too conscious of my writing process, I feel like it shows. When I just go about my life, I find that I have kind friends, supportive family, and my knight in shining armor. When I just write for writing's sake, write to share, write to breathe, I find I do my best writing.

Philip Glass said in his fascinating documentary on PBS that he doesn't really "think up" music. Rather, it's this rhythmic current that runs underneath everything, below in the subconscious, and he's tuned his ear to dip into the water and express it.

That's the first time that another person has articulated my process. I never had the words to explain it before. I almost fell off the couch. How could I have the same process, the same feeling about creation as a FLIPPING MUSICAL GENIUS? I'm not comparing my talent level to his, but suddenly I felt like a had a kindred spirit. Have you seen Philip Glass? He's not cool, either.

When I write, I have hot and cold spots like the springs in the lake my parents' cabin sits on. Sometimes life presents me with rich material. Sometimes it doesn't. The art is to take the everyday and elevate it; after all, that everyday is what people understand.

I won't ever be cool. I am my own stumbling block. I need to get out of my way, be me, and just write. And by that process, maybe something cool will happen.

Online goodies

I've been a very good girl lately about not shopping. But there are two things that are really catching my eye.

I can't seem to get the photos to hang out here, so links will have to do. :(

Hell or High Water ring

Elephant ring

Just sayin'.

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye...

This morning, I got up at 5 a.m. I showered, put on my makeup, and got dressed in the dark, so that Wm could sleep til our usual wakeup time.

It felt like a normal day, except it was early, and I was going to say goodbye to my best friend.

About two and a half years ago, C and I sent the Kilipino, our other best friend, off to South America, to join the Peace Corps. It was the hardest thing I'd had to do with my friends, to see one of them get on a plane and know that definitively, our lives diverged at this point. We were here, she was there.

And it doesn't matter how supportive you feel and excited you are for that person--you still have that corner of your heart that feels sad. And it's for multiple reasons: one, you're not going along for the adventure; two, you know that things will not be the same. The rest of the reasons just sort of spiderweb out from that and are small but sting all the same--your friendship just doesn't have the same immediacy when you can't dial up the phone and talk about the latest. We'll have a twelve-hour time difference between us.

It doesn't even mean it's all bad; but no one can remain unchanged, and we're all moving forward at a different pace, or on a different path, with our life plans. A little reminder that we're all growing up.

Last spring, C told me that she was going to go to Thailand for a semester to teach. After the total shock wore off, I rallied into excitement mode. The rest of the year was spent in preparation; helping myself get used to the idea, starting to plan a trip to visit, and keeping her spirits up if ever they faltered.

But still, even though I've been in this place before, in an airport, crying, knowing this person will be chasing their dreams ... it was hard. it was hard to say goodbye, even if it's just a "pause." Even if it's just a couple of months -- and haven't I been talking about how fast time has been going lately? I had convinced myself that this goodbye would not be difficult. It would be joyous and I would say the right thing and feel just fine afterwards. But after waving at her one last time as she walked through security, I had a tough time reining in the tears. OK, I cried. A lot.

This is a friend who extends far past the term friend. When you've been close for more than twenty years, that person is your chosen family. We know nearly all the things about each other there is to know--for instance, when she said last night, "I never sleep the night before flying." I said "I know," and shot her a pointed look--indeed, we've shared that before our own trips together. We laughed then.

We grew up just three short blocks from each other; we began playing together as soon as our parents would let us cross the busy street by ourselves. We met each other halfway each time; indeed, people must have seen us walking the neighborhood daily. We rode bikes, our hair blowing out straight behind us, transitioning from little kids in terrycloth shorts to teenagers, from corduroys to flannel shirts and Doc Martens, braces and too-skinny bodies, secrets and rumors, drivers' licenses and boyfriends, dance clubs and library research, high school graduation and college graduation, plus all the challenges life tends to throw your way once in a while, just to see if you're still paying attention.

There have been a million transitions we've faced together, and always come out the other side. This challenge will be no different. But I'm here and she's there. She hasn't even touched down in Bangkok yet, but I already miss her. My little friend group has dispersed; they're there and Im here. Things will feel just a little emptier while she's gone.

Stories

I caught up with a source today--someone I spent a lot of time with before my layoff. Together with her cooperation, I wrote the most important story I've ever written.

Tonight we just had tea and I dropped off some of her photos and some extra copies of the magazine she appeared in. We talked about politics, her community, what's sh'es been doing, what I've been doing. It was lovely.

And as I left, I had the same thought I've had over time, but I felt it more strongly tonight: I want to write good stories. REALLY GOOD stories. Stories about different cultures, about different lives, stories that change the way people see life. Even if it's a miniscule shift. I'm not expecting a Nobel Prize overnight. But I need to write stories people care about. I need to write stories I care about. I need to write stories that shape the world, whatever the size.

I need to find a way to do it.

Maxin'

There hasn't been much downtime around the Willikat household in the last few months.

We have had multiple weddings, friends giving birth (two more tonight!), and side projects going on...

One super positive thing is that William has been contacted by a very popular local store, and they will be carrying some of his work! How awesome is that? but it's been a lot of work to get there, and a lot of work to finish so they can finally go on the shelf.

I'm juggling a couple of different assignments myself, plus preparing myself for my best friend's departure to Thailand next Monday. Then there's meeting with an old source to give her the magazine she appeared in and her old photos. The friend I need to visit in the hospital. Yoga and dance classes. A wedding. A birthday party. Errands.

It leaves so little time for organization, contemplation, writing, my family, myself.

This is like month four of this kind of schedule. I kept thinking it was going to slow down eventually, but I think it's not. Because...here come the holidays! It already snowed four inches today. Good lord. With still-green leaves on the trees.

I'm really wondering how to keep myself from constantly feeling like a hamster on the wheel and running behind--even though many of those things are good things. HALP!

We're Gonna Win Twins

My god, what a baseball game.

I have a rocky relationship with sports. Most of them I don't like. I'm not good at sports. I hate most athletes.

But I have always loved the Twins. Tonight they proved exactly why. What a nailbiter of a game. So clutch.

Now David faces Goliath in NYC tomorrow.

Our little underdogs. Happy sigh.

Freeze Out

So, our building has to turn on our heat. We can't do it ourselves. Typically this happens around October 15. Usually it's warm 'til then
Not this year.
Compounding the problem, we live on the north side of the building. We have two walls that are pure brick (not insulated) and one wall has three nearly floor-to-ceiling windows.
It's been 39 degrees at night.
It's only been like 60, at most, usually cooler, during the day.
It's been damp and dark.
Our plants are dying.
It's freezing in here.
Calls to the management have been basically ignored. We are undergoing a management switch, and since they don't have to LIVE HERE they are probably not putting heat high up on the list. But I bet the heat's on in THEIR HOMES.
And the bass. I am being battered by bass on all sides with neighbors lately. It's like water torture. Thud, thud, thud boring holes through my skull.
DAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!