"something obsolete"

When it arrived, a year ago, it was huge. She gave two others plants, one as an afterthought, though just as remarkably thoughtful and well chosen for her, the other to our mutual friend whose home was full of fake plants. It was clear she went there to get something for me. My tree towered over everyone else's gifts, and when she led me to it, biting back a giggle, I remember being surprised at how big it was. Nearly three feet tall, it was wrapped in heavy brown paper, which I took off in front of her, feeling the burden of her nervousness; how best to commemorate the time we shared?

At the time, as I removed the paper, as I realized how perfect a gift it was for me, the bright green bristles of the conifer, a norfolk pine, it's leaves soft and supple against my skin. I have always loved conifers, that they survive the harshest beatings of winter, and still stay wooly and warm against the heat of summer, without shedding too much of their bulk, I see a coniferous tree and it always brings a smile to me. I read once, "The world's tallest, largest, thickest and oldest living things are all conifers."

She had been sleeping next to me in my bed, having abandoned her room to our new roommate, she was unwilling to live here another year, and what I saw in that tree, more than the gracious regard for my love of conifers was the ever present sting of her leaving me. To have a physical reminder to connect to her leaving, a three foot albatross, an anchor to remind me constantly of her absence, that was what I saw when the paper fell away from those thin spindly branches, reaching out to the sides as if trying to touch us, the tops of them a round cluster of new growth, a burst of fireworks, a head of unruly hair.

She didn't understand my disappointment. I think only now, that the year comes to a close, that the distance has kept us apart, that I haven't been able to see her, that she hasn't been able to see me, maybe now she understands the disappointment that cored me that day.

Like anyone who spent even a small bit of time with her, I was in love with her, fascinated by the lilt in her voice, the way she would hum through the house, her thorough way of doing everything, the dense forests of her stories, the laughter and spontaneity she exuded, the quiet solitude she savored, the curls of her hair, everything I knew about her I adored.

The day I watched her pack her car outside my window, tempted to depart with her, to abandon all of my life and sit next to her on the drive and be swallowed up in her car with all her stuff up to the ceiling, and knowing I couldn't, it was embarrassing later, how much I loved her, but that day I just didn't want to lose the one person I never had to explain myself to, and even when I clarified myself out of habit, she knew me already, because she knew herself and we were so similar.

The conifer didn't fit in my room. I spent the day she left rearranging and then sitting with it, and then trying another spot, and another until I realized with some dismay that it didn't belong in there. I breathed a sigh of relief. To not wake up every morning with that reminder of her in my view, perhaps it was better. So I found an unoccupied corner in the apartment, near a window and I began to take on the burden of caring for the plant that was a constant reminder of her and her absence.

I gave it ornaments for Christmas. I found these tiny adorable ceramic birds she would have loved, they were too heavy for the delicate branches and made them sink from the weight, and tiny silver balls, and it was our Christmas tree. And then the winter passed, and it resumed its spot near the window. Caring for the tree was harder than I imagined, as I had experienced before, the seemingly hearty conifer species is actually a fickle houseplant, probably preferring to be out-of-doors and able to feel the air through its spiraling bristles, to feel the weak warmth of the winter sun on its branches, to have the humidity of fog and clouds and snow to soak up moisture through its green leaves.

It floundered for a while under my care, under what I suppose I should call negligence, for it required a daily spray of water on its branches, and a frequent filling of water in the rock bed underfoot. I spend too much time away from home, and too many mornings dashing late to work and too many nights crawling with exhaustion into bed to care for such a needy plant. My other houseplants are heartier and can stand to be dry for some time, but not this one.

Slowly, one by one, each stalk lost the brilliant green glow that brought reluctant smiles to my face and it became a thing of concern for me, I spent more time spraying it, diligently making time for it each morning, pouring water into the tray of rocks underneath it, stroking the arms flat against my palms, sometimes pricked by the stiffening needles, which left my skin itchy from the toxins conifers deliver from its resin.

It wasn't until almost summer though that it seemed evident, that the supple needles began to stiffen, the branches that had been reaching out atrophied, shrinking from long lean arms into mounded humps, just as the love between us shriveled, where I felt neglected and disowned, forgotten for others, and thirsty for her.

It didn't help that it sat in the vicinity of the cold dead thing that occupies my apartment, that overwhelming stench of dying and decomposition, her blank face, those dead glazed eyes, which drives me into hiding every time I realize that the light is on, that my open door acts as an invitation for the addled and heavy droning conversations in which she would desperately like me to approve of all that she does and I cannot, because I cannot lie, so I hide behind my closed door and hope that she will ignore me; I left the plant she gave me amidst that, and it is no surprise to me that the life drained out of it, just as mine continues to drain out of me.

To have failed at keeping that plant alive is not truly a failure. It has been a year and finally I gave up that it will return from its dried out state, brought it to the alley and hoped someone who feels a great love for plants might give it a home, or that it will help the garbage in the dump breakdown better, be put to some use rather than wasting away in my apartment, which pains me so.

There are still reminders of her in my space, the magazines that are timeless, the poetry book I need to send her, the cassette she sent me that I still haven't listened to because I'm afraid it will re-ignite that steady flame she fostered in me, which I let die out and find the glumness of my days only a fair price to pay in exchange for the joyful gladness her presence gave me.

Maybe when I have nothing left to remember her by, maybe then I can open that time capsule from her and hear the words she recorded for me and know that love again.

the curly mane is coming back

It's been so long since I had them that people don't even remember them. I thought they were memorable, they seemed to be so big and took up so much space. I mean, sometimes, it felt like my curls wore me.

When I cut them, they weren't too long, but I didn't want them anymore. The curls required a lot of work and get this: they still didn't look good. I had to use a smelly stupid icky hair product and my closet is full of the rejected gels and potions that never tamed my hair the way I'd hoped. I then forced myself follow an elaborate overnight scheme (suffice it to say there was a lot of thought put into those curls and the hair in general) that still resulted in what I derisively called "clown hair," "the mop," and "cousin it."

I charmed the babies with the hair. They loved playing peek a boo in that mane, in my arms, their faces buried so close to mine, but lost in my hair. Otherwise, it was a tool of defense; it cloaked me from prying eyes.

When I sat there, in front of her, she teasingly suggesting that she could do a makeover hairstyle for me, that she could give me a haircut that was drastically different, I had no hesitation in saying, yes, chop it off. No one understands except those who have reached a point of no return with their hair (she cut hers off in desperation, those long blonde locks and her shorn head a stunning sight, to learn her anew, a face, details, her body no longer the ultimate silhouette of womanhood and beauty; another had hers taken by accident and it also brought her into focus, a dazzling wit, a sparkling conversationalist, a brain of such staggering depth, intelligence and a moral compass so pure, I trust her judgment above all; and me, nothing could be worse than being shorn so short as a boy in fourth grade when I was already such a struggling wobbling mess of a person.). I was tired of it, it was too much to deal with. So I promised I wouldn't cry to assure her suddenly doubting mask and she tore into my hair, and in the end I had something even more startling, a hairstyle that did not match me even more than that big poufy hair. It wasn't a bad haircut, you see, it was just not the right haircut for my wardrobe, my job or my life.

She took all the curls, cut my hair into a bob and straightened what was left. My hair touched the edges of my cheeks and for the first time in a long time, my neck was open to the world, she cut the curls all the way to the roots and left jagged sharp bristles behind.

I don't think I went through the same sharpening upon having new hair. I had had haircuts before that didn't suit me, but this one was so well styled that no matter how easy it would have been for me to muss it up, I couldn't. It actually was easier than the curls, I learned slowly and with a yawning surprise. I didn't need any products. I ironed my hair with a flat iron to make it straight. My somewhat chiding inner environmentalist lectured, Sure the energy from the flat iron was a part of my footprint, but as least the physical by-product of using electricity compared to the "recycled" bottles was lower. It may not have suited me across the board, but it definitely looked good on me.

For the first year of the two years of pretending to have straight hair, I allowed my hair to be cut short and the curls at the nape of my neck removed. The second year I grew bored of the hair, spurned by photos of me wearing what looked like a wig but was in fact my own hair and began the tedious process of letting my hair grow out.

After a year of growing and one setback haircut in that time (she didn't listen to just a trim and took about five inches off. I had to start all over) the curls are slowly crawling out of my scalp, they wrestle each other at night and when I look in the mirror in the morning I don't see what I used to see (the bad things), I see the hair that is mine that I am scared to wear outside.

A wild tumble of big loose curls that do not allow for timidity, hiding or shielding me from the world. To wear those curls, my real hair, I would have to learn how to look past the stares again. So I began to tell them, as a warning about the curls. They scoffed and swore no memory of the mass that only two years prior had begun to feel like it was alive and growing and gaining on me and I needed to exorcise it. I told them that I was ready to have curly hair again, outside in public (I have been practicing at home with the curls, feeling them, pulling them into ponytails and shaping them into giant curls tumbled into pastries at the nape of my neck; my curls have a tendency to hold any shape under little coercion it is thick, rope like, there is a lot of it, it feels like a blanket across my arm.).

Somehow, it seems strange to say that accepting my curls, letting go of what anyone else thinks or wondering what they think behind those blank dead staring eyes, rather than getting my hair cut to remove the veil, I need to accept my hair, curly gray and wild to return to my natural womanhood, to allow the beauty I have been hiding these past two years (from that shock and so many other things); she will emerge, and then I will be truly sharpened into who I am and have always been.

pitcher

The words have been stuck in my fingers for months and I don't know how to get them out. I feel like my explanations are long-winded and whiny, so I abandon them after hearing jeering voices in my ears (somehow, even though he was once my most ardent supporter of my writing, he has the king's chair in my mental court; his voice is loudest above the rest).

So instead of trying to explain and present it all perfectly I am just going to tip the pitcher over. It is full of words and every drop forced more of it to seep out of the edges and go to waste. So let's waste it all.

There is a tug between what is good and bad in my life and strangely enough it exists in each object or person.

The pitcher is trying to hold the words in...I've erased my last three attempts at sentences, but I have to push it out, I need to say it...

This year has been a shitty mess and a lovely diaster.

There is no one reason for it, I am the only commonality and I feel like I change every day, pulled by the tides, set adrift at sea. I want so much but I toss my desires away like petals; they are white and float on the black surface of the deepened ocean like snowflakes, and I realize that letting go of everything I've ever had is the only way to get somewhere new.

She left me before the winter settled into the city and that was the beginning of the algidity, of the bone chilling cold that I could not shake off. She gave me so much warmth and fuel, I felt like I had never been more alive and more aware and more turned up than that. And it was so easy. The ease we shared was joyful and I was tickled by pleasure and thrilled by being known, fully known and appreciated by another human being. I ache for her presence, for her words, for her meandering verbal forests. Not a day goes by that some detail of her does not jar my whole life into a screeching halt, and then there is a sadness in remembering that she is gone.

The winter furthered my rigidness. Gone were my walks, my explorations of the park, the ambling outside just to be outside.

And then there was them, the vast array of failures and disappointments that should no longer bother me, but I still attempt to delineate the threads of what made those loves so painful, usually coming to the conclusion that it is a puzzle I can never solve.

I tried to lose myself in someone else, but naturally that only provides so fleeting an antidote. He tolerated me; in many ways he gave me things that will take a long time to unravel. His presence in my life is an enigma, one that I try hard not to destroy with words or thoughts or questions. He makes me feel not like a girl, a figure, an object, but like a woman. Strangely, I have never felt this way with any of them. I often wonder how cruel it was of the universe to deliver me a very beautiful person trapped under a mountain of insecurity and self-doubt, much as I used to be, and not have him be enough for me and not be able to be the one to save him.

And now, the Spring has finally arrived, and I am startled, absolutely startled by how enamored I am by every breath of life I encounter, each unfurling bunch of leaves on a branch, the growth of those leaves day by day, the vast array of colors they present as the air oxidizes their newness.

I don't know if it is the end of Winter or my new neighborhood, a rather quiet set of streets with the park outside my window, a vast array of landscaping that pleases my eye the way it never has before.

our park

The leaves from the willow trees have covered the dying grass like a blanket. They've been cemented there by snow and ice. They are long and taper at both ends, yellowing, brownish, finger-like. Occasionally there is a slender branch tossed by the wind, stripped of leaves, but lying on top of them because it doesn't know how not to hold the leaves.

The ground crunches under my feet, and the park, my park, our park has undergone a drastic change from when I first encountered it with her, lying in the chaotic grass of summer and looking up into the sky at the stars. The prairie we watched change and grow is flattened, with signs posted detailing it's imminent burning. To imagine that it might someday be a razed, singed, blackened scab on the ground and in six months be full and lush and tower over me is incredible. The trees we watched change are barren now, and all the cement those leaves obscured make the park seem smaller now, less of an oasis.

What catches my eyes the most are the baseball diamonds, like an ice-skating rink, the street lamps cast long gold garland across its mirrored surface and at night, they look like silver circles. I remember how we used to race across them to chase the fog, finding that it could only be seen from far away, and discovering that the sandy surface was soft, like walking on sponges and now it is covered with a disc of ice that I skate on in my sneakers.

To say that I miss her is far too simple. Every single day I think of her, every single day I am disappointed by someone and I know in that instant, had she been there, her appreciation of my observations, my thoughts, my words would have been paramount and the person I am with cannot ever compare to her. In a way, it's worse that I knew her, because it hurts that much more that I don't know her anymore. It makes everything unbearable again. To be known, to be appreciated, to be loved, she gave me that so freely that I felt as happy as I have ever been in my life. I only hope I was able to return that gift to her.

Today was the first day since she has been gone that I traipsed through our park and it was the most I have missed her since her departure, the most angry I have been that she left (even though I do sincerely wish her well and hope she finds what she is looking for, but still angry in a selfish way) and the most sadness that my friend is gone.

swallowed whole

When I was living alone, I was desperately lonely. Now that I have roommates I am desperate to be alone. It's not just that though, it's a seemingly unending demand on my time, a whirl of Things To Do starting with work and ending with sleep. I am experiencing a toxic overload and I am suffocating under the weight of it all.

It began innocently enough when my days off began to dwindle. I was experiencing two days off a week, a first in my working career, a novelty. I spent one of the days off doing the things you do on your day off, laundry, grocery shopping, maybe some tedious personal grooming. The other day off I spent in a totally frivolous manner, perhaps an afternoon reading a book, or wandering around the park or spending time with a friend. Life was good. I smiled for no good reason.

When my jobs demanded I work another day, I relented with good cheer, certain that having at least one day off was enough, since I had been enjoying myself so much.

Then I got a cold, which happened sometime around Labor Day, and typical of me, I ignored the thing until it knocked me into submission and I missed nearly two weeks of work. Since then, playing the game of getting back to normal, both physically, mentally and work wise has just about ground me down to numbness.

Now I can't remember the last day I had off, I haven't been doing my writing or any of the things that bring me joy, reading, knitting, making things, even having fun with my friends...it's like the only thing I do day in and day out is work and then I go home and sometimes I have the most fun I've ever had in my life with my roommate and now good friend, the sort of friend who I will always be able to resume where we left off, no matter how much time has passed between us. The thing is, I need some time to recharge, to unfurl the stress of the day and I don't get to do that if I'm doing disco lights in the stairwell, giggling over music or enjoying being playful with someone just for the sake of fun.

This weekend and the next will be full of good times; a grown up pizza party at Siena, Gary's studio walk; halloween, Jessica's going away party. I don't have to work as much next week and I'm planning on taking a couple days off to catch up and climb out of the quicksand. There are letters to write, a dinner to make, the book to read, phone calls to make, a haircut to have, a knitting project to finish and at the end of it all, my sanity to reclaim.

the land and its lies

It has been way too long.

Here goes nothing:

I am fine. Nothing is wrong here. It is the strangest sense of clarity I have ever purported to have. Sometimes it even sits with me for days and days. The urgency I once had; gone. The guilt over not doing everything I ought to be doing; gone. The sadness I felt for time passed and lost; also gone. It is strange. I have reached some sort of mega zenith in which I know that exactly where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be. I know that all the things I have surrounding me are things I want nearby. I know that everything my thoughts turn to is good.

I miss a lot of things. I miss my father tremendously. I haven't spoken to him in some time and I find there is no better reason than I simply lack the time I would like to give him. I cannot seem to muster it up in some chunk enough to supply him my absolute attention (which is want I want to give him) and so I keep saying, tomorrow, next week, next month; and I think of him in the way that someone tries to see stars, that seeing them seems to rest on so many things coinciding on one perfect point, by following the routines, and I have lost that routine.

I never expected my routines to be so disrupted by my moving in with people. I've lived with people before and treated those people as if they revolved around me, as if they were mere entities in my way, obstacles, mosquitos. I would like to pretend it has nothing to do with moving, but it is apparent, if you look back, that my life has not been quite the same since I obliged myself to moving in with them.

And oddly, I love it. I love them. I love the feeling she gives me. She as a friend is like having a twin sister, someone who knows you and your movements and their meanings so completely and finds them so enjoyable because they are the same. And then there is him, who I've inherited, who I cannot imagine never having known, the absolute best person I have yet to meet, for all of his giddy statements bring me joy, all of our interactions make me smile. I love the appreciation they give me. I have never had people in my life I so fully enjoyed who so fully enjoyed me that it is almost tiring, the being with them, because I don't want to stop, I get exhausted. And generally, this involves nothing more than their presence. I languish in their words, in their laughs, in their company like a contented cat, fattened with cream and tuna. For the first time in my life, I understand a love given entirely from friendship. They make my heart happy.

I miss my writing. Around the time I moved, my writing partner disappeared into other projects on a temporary basis that has turned nearly permanent. I remember our meetings in past tense and it troubles me briefly until I am whisked away into the throes of pleasure (the summer, the activities, the food, the conversations, the smiles). I remember how for almost three months, we met three times a week (or attempted to), that in one of those months I completed a short story, a solid, well written piece of my novel and I remember how alive I felt. Even though Iowa had turned me down, I would not stop writing. I existed like a well run machine for those three months, churning day after day, each day of the week already known to me through the handshake of routine.

I went to the bar more then. It was part of my routine, part of my emotional rut, that I had nothing better to do and nowhere better to go than there. And maybe I needed to go there, to fuel myself, or find myself, or something. And he was there, the magnetic disk and I kept going there trying to find the answer and once I found it, I found I could not keep going there because I hadn't realized it before but I was embarrassing myself. I saw it the last time I was there when I approached him and everyone else's eyes met and lowered in embarrassment for me. There was a moment of tension, they quieted to hear what I had to say and resumed talking when it was obvious I wasn't professing my love for him. I can't deny their concern, but I still shudder over that moment.

And yet, we had so many good times; argued over a point in the sky (venus? no, jupiter), I gave him my favorite book with all the earnestness and delight of a child and he accepted it with the same pleasure, we ran into each other one especially warm day when I was wearing my cute summer dress and he was wearing a hangover and the displeasure of being punished for being late, when his eyes lifted at the sound of my voice, the excitement on his face was undeniable, he reached over to me and kissed my cheek and hugged me, bringing me close to him, feeling my back, and I know it was just a habit, but it was one that righted his demeanor instantly. Or the time he realized I'd been smoking again, his face mocking and skewed with fake shock as he pointed it out. Or that he still remembered all the things he told me that night, but carefully avoided the most important thing (that he still wanted to be my friend). It is all nothing and will never be anything more than a confusing series of circumstances; a mystery never solved.

I miss men. I didn't realize it until I recently hugged my friend, a well made man (who only loves men). He has a bulkiness and heavy strength I forgot. I generally feel so big and huge, but next to him, I am soft, frail and malleable. Having moved, I have a bed now, whereas before I slept on the floor; now--and again--I sleep with pillows next to me, to simulate the body that I'm so used to being next to. Before it was him (the love of my lifetime) that I missed, now I recognize that it is just the form and the warmth and the support of a body next to me that I long for. I don't know why I haven't had any men in my life in the last year. I think I am just beginning to get over the shock of what happened with him, but I still think I carry a sign around that may as well be visible and shouting out loudly GET AWAY FROM ME. Based on my results I can only guess that's what the sign says.

The random texter turned out to be the singer. I knew it was all along, but there was some part of me that doubted just for doubting's sake. He wanted to continue in the manner in which he'd been going, where he'd invite me to be a part of his life every three weeks or a month or so and leave the lapses in between us empty of explanations. He wanted me to be someone he could dump and pick up whenever he felt like it, but I didn't want that. So we have sorted that out, shared the necessary pieces of the puzzles that we mixed up and I have moved on. I am not interested in wasting any more time, at least not wasteful wastes of time. If we spent two weeks together only to have him depart, that would be one thing, but I won't sit for three weeks waiting.

the drunken ambusher returned to my scope for a brief moment in which I was able to fervently recapture the depth of my joy and passion for him, but it was still not enough for him and once again we are strangers. It is good to see that we still have something, that there is something between us that always been there and I think will always be there.

It is also good to see that I no longer prattle on and on about what could be when I very well know there is nothing. I spent a week wearing that old behavior (having a crush on someone, anyone, having someone to gush about, having a permanent grin on my face because all I need is a man to make me happy). And then I got rid of it. Let it go. I haven't thought about him in two weeks and today I was at work and it was the first time he crossed my mind and I was so proud of myself. I really am learning what aspects of my behavior are useful and harmful and unnecessary. My brain has a lot of idle power and it gets wasted on these ridiculous prospects (who might be better prospects if only one key, but unchangeable, element was in place).

I long to be in love again, to have that joy, that pleasure, but I understand now that it was sometimes contrived before and this time I don't want to settle for anyone less than worthy of my company. So if that means I will be single for five more years before I meet someone who is capable of meeting me eye to eye physically, emotionally and intellectually, I will savor those five years or however long it may be.

I miss my family. It is strange, but the summer months mean that I don't see them as much, for the family get-togethers are thanksgiving, christmas and easter. I generally don't see my mother very often, or my brothers, or his children. I sometimes have contact with them, but not often. I got to see my brother's family at the birthday party for his daughters and it was a delight as always, but it feels so far away now, that Sunday just six weeks ago, with the pool in the backyard, the kids running around, the presents, the pinatas, the drawings with chalk on the cement.

I've started thinking about if that will ever be my life, having kids, making parties for them, kissing their heads when they fall, and wondering if I've used up my time taking care of other people's children, if I've missed my chance, if it's too late for me. I suppose there's no way of knowing that until it is certain that I cannot have children, but some part of me doesn't seem too concerned about the absence of children from my life. I have seen so many children take their first step, say their first word, and even had one child give me the tenderest most absolute love I have ever received from a child.

Mostly, I think I am sitting at a point in my life where I don't know what's next. I have always known, or had an idea, or wanted something, and now, I have this vastness ahead of me and opportunities worth accepting, but I don't know what's next for me. I think this is what's given me the sense of peace and lack of struggle, because if you want to get away from something you have to have somewhere in mind that you're headed. It's not enough to want freedom, it must exist somewhere.

I know that I have an immense freedom in a lot of ways, because I am single and childless and without debt. I am still at the mercy of my routines and my cost of living and until there is a release in that, I will not feel free.

p.s. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but given that all I've offered here for the last month is a couple entries and a bunch of pictures, I hope they were at least worth a hundred words. When I don't write or can't write here, I try, for the very smallest effort, to communicate through pictures and let you know that I am okay, if quiet.

seriously, where does the time go?

I look up at the calendar and August is nearly gone. I know I have had days that were chock full, either of work or fun, and I look around the table and their smiling faces bring a smile to my face. It has been a long time since I was able to just succumb to pleasure, to have it waiting and at the ready for me, and to have it be an offering I wanted to partake of, to share, to have.

I worry though, that my fun is taking over, that there's no time for me, that my writing is suffering (I haven't met with my partners in over two months), that I am losing myself in pleasure.

So for the first time in a while, rather than worry that my absences here mean I am spiralling down into darkness, it is a sign that I have been happily soaking up the joy around me.

I miss this, and the thoughts that get emptied out, but one of the benefits of spending time solely with people who bring joy is I have nothing to ruminate over and no puzzlements to work out. And, when those moments do occur (seeing him in the street, getting a text from noel, finding pictures of him with her) they weigh nothing against that joy.

and there I was

Lying in the grass, under the willow tree in the park across the street, with my friend and new roommate, but not with her, just lying there, looking up at the branches and leaves and sky and they way they intersected and how the wind moved them, and how birds cut across them and there was a butterfly too. The ground underneath me was at first a slab that felt hard and angry, but I softened into it, or it softened for me and as the time passed, I felt the nuances, my head was cradled by a dip in the earth that was so slight, but it fit the back of my cranium perfectly, as if it was made for me. My hips relaxed, I put my arms at my side and let my ankles roll out. Corpse pose in yoga, they call it. I laid there and just felt it all.

The sounds came in bursts, shouts from the kickball games nearby, people walking the paths, birds chirping, sirens wailing, mixed with the distant hum of constant traffic and the snore of airplanes. Eventually I let them wash over me until all I heard were the birds.

When I got up, my back felt moist, as if the ground and my body had been sweating against each other, and it felt good. I peeled leaves off of my legs and looked back at the grass I had trampled, seeing my figure like a pencil drawing you do as a kid, a traced outline of my body in the ground. Tomorrow it will be gone, the grass recovered, the earth hard again.

As if that wasn't enough, we decided to wander through two patches of prairie grasses and "natural" parts of the park, which have narrow paths worn into them. We pointed out flowers, felt the leaves of plants (one plant felt like velvet on the underside only), and watched bees float around. We guessed at plants and compared growth charts (some sunflowers already had heavy heads hung low, while others had giant leafy stalks with tiny concentric rows of the sunflower's hair huddled in the middle).

I would maybe not do these things on my own, but it is nice to know that I can be easily compelled into such behavior.

the general store:

It is already home and I am already immensely happier in so many ways, though disappointed in some overshadowing ways (and really, is that a surprise) but I'd rather shine my light on the better side, that it is already home, that I have already had great good times with her, my new roommate who I should have roomed with long ago; and it is only been a week. She is a glow and I am a moth. I fit in here, I like it here, I am happy here. This makes sense. The last place did not make sense. I don't miss being there at all, there is no confusion over which bus to take, and it is good.

I experienced this weekend, a moment of satisfaction, which was explained as drunkenness--but I wasn't drunk, I was happy. That's how rare it is that I'm happy. The fireworks were plentiful, my friends were there, and I was glad. I didn't care about where I had to be and how I had to get there, for at least a little bit.

All this weekend I had to resist him and it felt easy, really, I was just across the street from him, the magnetic disc, and I noticed and walked away, and then, of course, it was arranged in a way I could never plan well enough, by coincidence, by the magnestism, boom, we crashed and there was nothing we could do differently and no pulling away that would work, everyone fell away until there was just us and when will he go away? Just leave. The sting of his earnest conversation, the politeness, the wretched sense of fakery, I hate hate hate it and him. Even more I hate that I get caught in his pull, but this time, this time I managed to walk away and it was the most natural part of the exchange for me..

And then there was today, having had yesterday, trying to prove that I didn't care, but it was all I could do not to look up at every figure that neared, every face that passed, and it was never his. And when it was, it was a cheerful, polite hello with nothing else, because I was in a spot that forced him to be distant, and I was there on purpose. When I left, I didn't say goodbye and I felt his eyes on me, burying themselves into my back and I dared myself not to look back and then I promised myself never to go in there again. It is a promise I will break because I have broken it before.

Even though I worked all weekend it felt like a vacation, because things were slow at work, because I wasn't at home, because I am putting off the important parts for now.

I feel the draw to things I cannot control, and I am more okay with it than I have ever been, though now I am putting the leash on that one area I let run rampant and no longer actively pursue and just a couple weeks in, with the whirlwind of Other Things to Do, men remain a mysterious enigma I worry I will never figure out, but I feel no dire sense of panic from this.