To Land Where?:

I thought this picture was funny--me within me. But then I looked at it longer and I realized it explains how I feel. Me looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself for forever, for infinity. Am I supposed to stay in the dessert? Am I meant to keep searching for happiness here or am I meant to land some place far away? I always had these dreams of living in great cities. I saw a psychic and she didn't help me, she told me I wasn't meant to live around others but rather in nature. Is that true? If I sit in the bathtub for a million years will the answer come to me?

An Open Love Letter to My Mother:

If I were fluent in fifty languages, I would still be lacking in words to describe how wonderful my mother is. This one is for you mamma.


Dear Miss,

 The phrase I dreaded hearing most growing up was we’ll see. Can I have this? Can I do that? Can we go here? Can she come over? Can I stay up late? So many questions would run through my little brain and the answer was always the same, we’ll see. That one tiny contraction contained everything in the world-- promise, hope, fear, longing, expectation, denial, anger, patience. We’ll see meant I never knew what would happen, something good or something bad or nothing at all. I was on the edge of my seat for 18 years. Back then I thought you used we’ll see as a shield or a stick, something to keep my constant nagging at bay. Back then we’ll see was this elusive answer that hung in the air and kept me guessing. Back then I hated we’ll see.

I have never been a patient person and waiting to see if something would pan out in my favor felt like you were asking me to paint a house and watch it dry or count the sand in an hour glass grain by grain. It felt impossible. I was stubborn, and feisty, and I pushed for answers, pushed for everything. At my best I was always pining for something and at my worst I was a child mule refusing to budge and demanding a “yes” even if the answer was “no.”

But somehow over the years I grew up, and I went from 6 to 26. And somehow over the years I began to see that you weren’t using we’ll see as a shield but rather as a tool. You were a crafty little mother teaching me patience all along. Sometimes life punches you in the stomach, it knocks the wind right out of your lungs. It makes your heart hard and your head hurt. During these times when I feel like I can’t breathe I think to myself, “what would my mother do?” and the same answer comes to me every time, just like when I was little—to be patient, to wait and see.

 You’ve taught me to let the universe unfold in front of my eyes, to let things happen as they will, to allow the beauty and the anticipation of we’ll see to linger.

I love you Miss

 xoxo

One Should Always Indulge:

Life should be lived in moderation. A little good, a little bad. Except where wine and laughs are concerned, then one should always indulge.

When I am a Mom:

That sentence is funny to write, when I am a mom. It's funny to use the word when and not if. It's funny because when I was 19 and taking a women's literature class I thought I didn't want children. I thought having babies meant that you didn't love yourself and you didn't love adventure. I remember that professor, Judy I think was her name, she would stand in front of all of us with her Indian jewelry and deep red hair, she would always start a sentence with a finger over her lip and the other hand clutching a strand of hair away from her face, just holding it there out to the side like some sort of nervous habit. Don't all women want a room of one's own? What do you think the author is trying to convey with that wording? Women end sentences with a question mark because they are scared to make declarative statements. I thought she was stunning, old and stunning. I think she had children though.

Somehow I went from wanting a room of my own like Virginia Woolf to a room for babies. What is that called, a nursery? That sounds so old fashioned, a nursery. Not now of course, right this minute I want a room dedicated to winter boots. But someday I'll want a room for babies.

I was hiking South Mountain this afternoon and as I was climbing down I saw this dumpy looking kid off to the side of the trail. He had a tear stained face and he was yelling to his mom for her to come back. He said, "something startled me again." I don't know what could have scared him, an empty water bottle, a butterfly? I didn't, but I wanted to punch him in the stomach hard. I wanted to give him something to be startled about. In that instant I knew exactly the kind of mom I want to be someday. I want to raise kids who are not startled, I want to raise kids who will try squid but also like their chocolate milk. When I am a mom I hope I remember that pudgy boy on the mountain and encourage my kids to keep going, even when something startles them.

Movie Review: The Loneliest Planet

It's not often that I write about a book or movie. I would rather wax poetic for hours with a friend in person about my favorite author or why a certain sentence sounds so pretty. When it comes to movies I'm no good at judging anything--mostly because I like it all. I like to be entertained. I like to cry, I like to laugh, I like to sit in the dark and just take it all in. As I'm sitting here I honestly cannot think of one movie that I hate. I don't love them all, but I certainly don't dislike them either. Paramount should pay me to write movie reviews, they would all contain flowery language and praise for mildly engaging dialogue or pithy scenery.

One of the only things I've ever written about a book can be seen here.

I did take myself to the movies last night to see something I had been dying to catch for a while; The Loneliest Planet starring Gael Garcia Bernal. It looked so intriguing, a couple traveling through the mountains of Georgia, backpacking really, and discovering dark things about their relationship that would have remained dormant had the stresses of travel not unearthed them. [Edit: Also I would watch Gael Garcia Bernal in a brown paper bag, swoon]. So the movie itself was not great--but as you know I didn't hate it. Less for the acting and more for the actual story, it got me thinking. Thinking about travel and about varying personalities and about why when we see new places does it bring out the worst in us sometimes. Why do we let a missed train or an underwhelming dinner or heavy luggage turn us into characters we don't recognize? Is it because each in our own way, in our own minds, we have some mental prediction of the way a situation is meant to play out, and when the universe intervenes and our plans are foiled we become resentful? Is travel just a tiny microcosm of real life? We each have an idea of the path we are supposed to be on, and when that path becomes crooked or rocky that idea vanishes, it blows away with the wind and we become angry.

I am certainly guilty of feisty behavior, stubborn behavior. What I've learned recently though, is that if you are patient and you stop trying to control a situation or enforce pre-conceived stipulations, the universe will give you exactly what you need at exactly the right time.

The Desert is a Charming Place:

Desert, deserted landscape

my sanctuary, my prison,

my house within

the confines of the valley walls,

the space between the molecules

of dust and sand; dry land.

The place where a bloom

is new and rare like a love

out of reach,

reaching within, keeping you in,

inside the petal, inside the forever.

Wild Geese

I keep this poem on my refrigerator door because sometimes when you are having a bad day, it is nice to be reminded that you do not have to walk on your knees and you do not have to repent--you merely need to let the soft animal of your body love what it wants to.

 

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~