Tag Archives: Writing

January 10, 2011 · 16:46

Loquacious outlining…

My mother brought this up the other day.  She said, “Mary, you haven’t been writing lately.”  At first, the response was simple and to the point.  “You’re right.  I just haven’t had anything to say.”  Well, yes, that is the truth, albeit a heavily truncated version of the truth.  After dissecting that statement over the past few days, I believe I have a better, more thought out response to that: I had words to say (and correction: I have been writing…the ever-in-progress-novel).  I just didn’t know if they were relevant.

This brings me to the question of relevance and all that encompasses that.  I don’t know necessarily who is reading this (other than the president of my fan club, my mother) and sometimes, when wondering who your audience is (know your audience), you begin to question the validity of statements and tone.  Well, sorry folks, I’m done questioning.  I don’t know who you are but here we go…yippee.  Hi mom.

So while deconstructing that argument of validity, I began to outline what has been happening since the last post (I am too embarrassed to even check when the last post was, what I do know is that I have skipped every major holiday and avoided them in writing much as I did in ‘real life’).  A debriefing of sorts I suppose shall suffice:

  • I fell into my standard holiday depression.  I am beginning to wonder if depression is something that will continue to plague me as the years progress and hormones continue to spiral out of control.  Dear women on birth control, I commend you.  I almost wrote a piece about that but decided for the male subscribers, that would be a little too much information.  Also, that requires having a partner (even random) to have said ‘meetings’ with and well, BC hasn’t exactly been necessary when your life can easily be lumped into four things: Work.  Sleep.  Eat.  Dog.  If someone ever wanted to case my house, it would take a mere matter of days for them to figure out my schedule.  Moving on…
  • I am in a bit of a bickering match, or lack there of with my best friend right now.  We haven’t spoken in over a week and while we are two very stubborn individuals, my feelings are still gravely hurt and I don’t know how to piece the words together appropriately to tell her how I feel other than to say, you fucking pissed me off.  And never, I repeat NEVER put my dog in his crate again (that’s not what started the argument but it certainly did not help either).
  • I don’t believe in New Year Resolutions as I gather they are most often broken.  I am instead relying on what I now call my New Year Responsibility.  What is that? you ask.  Well, I have not mentioned this as it’s not a very proud conversation but here it is anyway.  I am in a wee bit of debt outside of my student loans.  Put it this way, I spent the early part of my 20s being irresponsible and behind a bottle.  I didn’t exactly pay some medical bills when they were due and well, I want to buy a house at some point in my life.  Insert 2011 and Operation Get Out of Debt (aside from the hellacious student loans).  I am determined, budgeted, and have even acquired a Tri-Met pass.  Farewell car and downtown parking fees.  Hello public transportation and a slowly rising credit score.  I thought getting old was supposed to be fun…
  • My life isn’t where I had expected it to be at 25-almost-26.  I didn’t expect to be married, kids, the white picket fence, but I figured I wouldn’t still be bartending my way through bartending.  I am tired…so tired.  I had to start seeing a chiropractor just to find walking comfortable again.  By the end of this year, I refuse to be bartending.  It’s time to make shit happen in more ways than just the credit score.  This year, I will find a job that doesn’t make we want to pull my hair out.  Hopefully one with a little piece of joy I refer to as health insurance.  Something that makes me come home at the end of the day NOT hating humanity.  I am sick of correcting grammar.  I am sick of booze.  And I don’t even drink the shit.  Maybe I should change the name of 2011 from Operation Get Out of Debt to Operation Make Life Count.  Yes.  That’s the spirit, Burger.
  • I am single.  I don’t know really where to go with that but yup, I still am.  I didn’t think that would change and I have been the last person to act on that.  Maybe that is why I ignore New Years Eve and the debacle that is Amateur Night.  I am almost afraid that I enjoy being alone too much such that I purchased a new TV (hello HD) and now have streaming NetFlix.  Maybe life as a cave woman (in high definition) is the way for me.  Or maybe I should start getting out more.  Please, just please, don’t talk to me on the bus.  I am still from a New England family, a wee bit snobby, and am well-versed in firearms and self-defense.

So there it is.  I’m sure somewhere hidden in that loquacious outline is a sense of relevance with all of you.  Or maybe a simple conversation starter.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I have a tendency to be redundant.  You heard (or read) me whine for over a year about a broken heart.  I am kind of in that “now what?” section of life when that heart is no longer broken, doesn’t belong to anyone, and though I may suffer from bouts of depression and significant solitude, I am happy.  I don’t know how to write when I am happy.  And I don’t want to write on a consistent basis when all I am writing about is the same thing, just reworked and reworded.  So I guess, Happy New Year.  Skordo says woof and Olive, well, she says meow and just peed on my bathmat.  Great.  At least she is consistent.
Wow.  I missed this…

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September 17, 2010 · 14:37

The lost August…

If given the opportunity to look back and reconsider the moves, Berlin, random places of employment, and buying a dog, I wonder what I would have changed.  A conversation over lunch today with a dear friend of mine made me question if this has all been moving full circle, or have I spent the past two years waiting for light at the end of the tunnel.  That light is quickly approaching and finally, for the first time in two years, I know without any uncertainty of heart, I am doing the right thing.

Would I have moved to Florida if I had known I would turn around and drive right back in 11 months?  Probably not.  Was it worth it?  Well, the monetary aspect – not so much, but the benefit of moving far outweighed the financial clinch it slightly strangled me with.  Did I need to spend a year living in humidity to realize Oregon is perfect?  Nope.  Absolutely not.  But did I go because something here was hindering any sense of progress and sheepishly, like a child, did I run home to my mother?  Yes.  Yes I did.  Was that right?  Not for all 24-year-old women, but for this one it was necessary.

Then comes the question of Berlin.  It’s hard to give any fair assessment of what happened now as I am still living with a sense of confusion.  I know what happened, I know where things took a turn for an unreasonable amount of frustration and pain.  But if I could go back and change the one thing that set us into distance and strangers, would I?  Was that broken heart a risk worth taking?  Or was I simply a fragile heart traveling naively into territory that was not mine to walk in?  Albeit a brief moment of belonging, did that moment overshadow a year of my life?  To answer those questions sequentially, it probably looks something like this: no, yes, yes, and yes.  Maybe Berlin was strictly there to be my muse.  And I think that’s where I have kept him.

There was a month of absence from writing that I’m sure was noticed.  Over lunch, that absence was discussed, though the conversation had been had during that month, it furthered over gyros.  Why didn’t I write?  Here is your answer: I sunk into a depression that was so foreign to me, to even begin to explain it would only increase a level of frustration and make it even more real.  I tried to hide it, hide myself, and I am pretty sure I hardly left my apartment for four weeks.  Was it necessary?  Yes.  And finally when I came out of my coma, though into a brighter and louder world than I had remembered, it was better.  I was simply scared and I had nothing to be afraid of.  I was afraid of sharing it with anyone and kept it my own secret.  My world suddenly struck a daemon that was meant to be handled quietly and alone.  Mission accomplished.

Then comes the light at the end of the tunnel.  A month ago, I was miserable.  I knew what I wanted and it was a matter of finding that one thing, that one person willing to take a chance and give me the opportunity I had so desired.  Well, it happened.  Light is near.  Come January, my world will be a very different place.  However unusual and foreign it will be to me, I will remind myself of the lost August and what failed to happen then.  And if ever presented with a lost month again, I will not allow for it to stifle the one thing that keeps me.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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June 12, 2010 · 21:44

Static interference…

Home.  In Oregon.  Again.  Let’s see if I can start this over.

I could sit here and write the emotions of the drive, the feelings and tears I shed when my heavily caffeinated body crossed the Oregon border, and the cursing words out of my mouth when I arrived in Portland, smack in the middle of rush hour.  I won’t though.  Briefly, I will give you a recap of the last week and a half of my life:

Tuesday June 1:  Pulled over by a state trooper 20 miles into Oregon.  I am (and I quote) charming.  Arrived in Portland.  Flipped the bird to a few drivers then realized this is not South Florida.  Note to self: must be nice again.  I’M HOME!!!  It’s cold…

Wednesday:  I’M HOME!!!  It’s cold…

Thursday:  I’M HOME!!!  I’m still cold…

Friday:  I’M HOME!!!  It’s cold and raining…

Saturday:  I’M HOME!!!  Where are my movers?  I want my socks.

Sunday:  Moving company gets an earful.  I try and to no avail.  Must allocate a raincoat.

Monday:  Holy shit, I live here.  I need a job…

Tuesday:  This futon is killing my back.

Wednesday:  Must.  Find.  Employment.

Thursday:  Moving company finally makes contact (a further post will describe in great detail my contempt towards this company and the scathing complaint the South Florida Better Business Bureau will be receiving).  Saturday or Sunday.  No more camping with internet, electricity, and my (lifesaving) landlord’s microwave and dishes.

Friday:  Still raining in Oregon…packed wrong clothes.  I must have been more of a Floridian than I thought.  Employment?  Please?

So that’s it in a nutshell.  Here I am, writing on the floor of my apartment, Skordo asleep on the murderous futon (at least someone enjoys it), and Olive perched on the window sill behind me.  There is a lone lamp on the floor.  A bookshelf to my left with not a single book but a candle, Buddha statue, and my other laptop.  The walls are blank but they are mine.  Tomorrow, this place will be a nightmare of liquor boxes.  I will sleep on a bed again – my bed.  My books will make their way back to shelves that I will yet again put back together.  Lamps will be placed on tables and my savior – my landlord – will have his dishes, spare microwave, and blanket returned to him.  But Saturday?  Where did Saturday go?  Still in it, and I wanted more than a nutshell of Jack Frost description.

I went home today.  Yeah, I know…I am home, but not home home.  As I found myself wide awake at 5 this morning, walking Skordo against the brisk Oregon morning chill, I decided I needed to get out of town for a day.  I packed him in the car, locked the cat in the bathroom (even though I hate the futon, I still have to sleep on it tonight and sure don’t want to sleep on cat piss.  Again), and began to drive south.  As I crossed the bridge into Corvallis, a flood of old memories hit me like a force of bricks.  I didn’t cry, but I did choke back a lump.  I don’t know what this move or past year has done to me but for some reason, I will cry now.  The secret is out – I have a heart.

I drove the streets I learned to drive on, passed the school where I had my first kiss, had coffee with my surrogate family, and finally made my way to the house of the man that raised me.  I was in need of something familiar today.  He gave that to me.  Simply put, this is the best man in the world.

As we sat in his backyard, our dogs chasing each other until they were panting in the wading pool, I realized this was the right decision.  I knew the simplicity of excitement could overbear the clear and present path and maybe have interfered with the difference of right and wrong.  Not now though.  Not this move.  Not this time.  This was finally right.  At last.  As much static plagued my life in Portland the first time, it won’t be a cause of disruption or interference this time.  I’m home and this is mine.  I am alone for the first time in over two years and it is strange but this solitude is welcoming.  There is an air of simplicity right now in that I have nothing here other than this room of random stuff and my animals.  There is a vacancy in my heart where once love stood so proud.  It’s strange the reflection between heart and walls now.  I may very well miss these blank walls come tomorrow…but I won’t leave them blank.

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May 7, 2010 · 08:55

Words of fiction…

It is down to the wire and I don’t have the motivation to even write about it, let alone start packing.  This is going to be easier than the last as the liquor boxes are still right where I left them, untouched, and carrying the treasures I have not seen since home.  Unpacking in Oregon will be something like Christmas morning.  Or bewilderment.  I know this to be certain:  I have too many books.

OK, so to start the process of leaving…not just packing, reorganizing, purging old clothing (I am looking at dresses, pants, and shirts and playing the what was I thinking game), but also saying goodbye to the people who have made my days here spotted with joy.  I know I touched on this subject a year ago when I left Portland and to be honest, I don’t have the heart or strength right now to go back and reread what my thoughts were on the subject.  This is already breaking my heart.  I don’t want to relive a year ago again.  Not when I am facing a new battle to head West.

The decision has been made though.  I had been on that fence trying to figure what to do.  Maybe I live everyday with Bill Burger in my head haunting my thoughts with what to do about Mary? and this move has certainly proven that.  Where there is a part of me – an oddly shaped section of my heart and the hopeful romantic – that wants to stay, there is also a massive part of my soul that feels the magnetic fields of Oregon pulling me back.  I don’t think that force ever turned off.

I will share something with you that I thought I needed to keep to myself.  The day I began driving, I left in the morning with such great anticipation and excitement.  I knew there to be a huge world waiting for me and I wanted to conquer it.  Three hours into my drive, I was still on I-84, driving along the Columbia River, and I thought to myself can it get anymore beautiful than this? Well, I was right.  It doesn’t.  As I continued to drive east, the scenery kept changing from beautiful to bland.  The last time I saw true beauty in green was somewhere in Kentucky heading south; the foothills of some range forcing my brakes to work again.  I remember almost staying there because it reminded me of home but I kept going.  I had a mission at mind and I wouldn’t allow myself to fail.  Yet.

But I didn’t fail.  Where once I had been lost and confused, I am not so much anymore.  There will continue to be a perpetual level of confusion, certainly of heart, but I know where I am now and that driving west in a month is what I need – what I want.  I set out to do something and I did it.  I am repeating my traditions, yes, but maybe this is all part of the story.  Maybe I am living out the ending to the book rather than simply writing words of fiction.

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April 10, 2010 · 13:53

Just speak…

Do you ever find yourself without anything to say?  When the words are almost at the tip of your tongue then they cannot escape into the sentences you so longed to say?  When if anything, you wanted to scream them at the top of your lungs in the middle of a crowd, only to find yourself silenced by fear, judgment, or the worst – yourself.  Well, I lost my words.  I couldn’t scream.  I couldn’t write.  I couldn’t even talk.  I think I found my words again.

Berlin came creeping in again.  Now before you roll your eyes and say “Oh, not this again”, rest your weary eyes and read me out on this one –  I win.  I finally have conquered this.  In some strange version of technological, love-ninja, warfare, he found me again.  But that was all – he just found me.  He didn’t get to me.  My heart didn’t skip a beat.  My palms weren’t sweating.  My world did not suddenly stop and revert back to my strange Oregon standstill that had so plagued my first months here.  Everything kept moving…I kept moving.  For the first time, I can finally say (and believe myself when I say it) I am over it, him…all of it.  I slightly feel like I conquered the world, or maybe just my little world.  Either way, I did something right by moving here.

Back to the words though.  My best friend and I have long talked about starting a blog together.  We finally came to an agreement last week with another girl that we are going to do it.  Tomorrow, I will begin construction on the new blog and the three of us will be up and running with love, relationships, and everything I have lived in fear of saying on here.  A, this is where questions are not asked and some strange semblance of anonymity can be achieved.

But the words, Mary!  The words!  I have been sitting on something now that I wanted to say and I haven’t been able to muster the strength to say it.  Maybe strength isn’t the right word, maybe it’s courage.  I have felt them begin to pour out, yet there is some bizarre membrane encompassing them; a censor, if you will.  I ask you friends, when do you finally say the words?  When do you release all guardianship of yourself and just say it, just let it out?  Even if it is just to hear the words come out of your own mouth, when is it the appropriate time to say them, anything, whatever they may be?

I will keep you posted on the word jail-break, my friends, and also the latest addition to the blog community.

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn’t mean
You’re not just telling stories

There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There’s a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
There’s no one but you standing

Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between

There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

Tracy Chapman – Telling Stories

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March 9, 2010 · 09:08

Bullets for A…

My morning so far has consisted of coffee, dog food, dog crap, and dog blood.  I love Skordo, I really do, but he has been a bit of a handful this morning.  Allow me to elaborate:  we are running our same route that we always do every morning.  He stops to do his business and my iPod (always on shuffle mode when running) turns to the perfect song at the perfect moment.  For all that are not familiar with Alkaline Trio Radio, I recommend you take a listen and you too will laugh just as audibly as I did on a very busy road while scooping up dog shit.  It was perfect, minus the dog shit in a bag.  After we arrived home, I noticed scattered blood spots on the white tile in the shape of paw prints.  Needless to say, somewhere on the 100ft. of gravel that we ran on, the boy must have cut his paw and he was now attempting to recreate Hansel and Gretel with bloody paw prints.  I found him, cleaned up the blood, and am now enjoying coffee #2.  Skordo, you are a pain at times.

That paragraph has virtually no consequence over the remainder of this post but I felt the need to share it anyway.

Every Friday night, my mother and I have ‘date night’.  It is the only night we have off together every week and we usually go to our favorite sushi restaurant and follow it with Borders/movie or watch a movie at home.  We skipped the Borders/movie and chose to watch a movie at home instead.  Over dinner though, she asked me a question that I knew I would have trouble answering immediately.  A, here are your answers:

“Mary, what have you learned from moving here?”  (to avoid very long paragraphs, enjoy the bullets)

  • I am shockingly content being alone.  While I know many of my posts leading up to The Move were about my quest for solitude, simplicity, and calm, I could never have understood what I was getting myself into until I actually did it.  And it was awkward…at first.  I have found that as I drift to sleep at 10pm, I awake refreshed, comfortable, and though not taking part in the normal scene of my age group, I am able to find an awareness of self that I would not have had if I hadn’t imposed this need for solitude.  To be quite honest, there is a sizable level of complication missing from my life and I am OK with that.
  • I have found that my love for music dives deeper than the sheer enjoyment of sound.  It is an absolute need in my life.  Every moment seems to have a song attached to it and maybe it’s just me constructing a twisted, self-fulfilling soundtrack for my life, but I need those words, those rhymes, and those notes.  I remember driving across the country unable to listen to certain music (my favorite, my blood, my passion) because his name was attached with such force of memory to those words.  I now find myself listening to those very songs again with only a smile for having known such a feeling, and even more of one knowing they are my songs again, not his.
  • I look at myself differently in the mirror now.  I had a boss once that said women don’t know who they are until they turn 27.  Well, though I am nearing 25 (in three weeks…insert panic and mild excitement at the ability to rent a car in all 50 states), I feel I am on the way there.  If I had stayed, I would have stayed in a strange bout of unrequited love with someone that would have only hindered any level of progress I could have made.  I am not 100% yet of who I am, but I certainly know myself better than I did nine months ago.  And that checklist of requirements for a future partner has only grown, but is now omitting details that I once carried with such weight and absolute desire.
  • My overall view of what I want in life, that whole “what do you want to be when you grow up?” question has not really shifted, but certain parts I have removed.  My answer was always to be happy.  That was it.  But I assumed that happiness would involve a partner, a great job, a child, etc.  I may have said this before but as the years continue on and I see my high school friends get married and have children, while I look at their lives in happiness, I don’t envy them.  I am elated that I am not married right now and in an effort of honesty, I don’t see myself having children.  Ever.  Maybe in 10 years I might bite my tongue at that comment but it’s not something I want badly enough and I don’t think I am the right woman for the job.  My mother was and is (she is incredible), and I could never compete with that.

There are many other things that I have gathered since moving here, but I’ll save them for another time.  There is one other thing though…I know I moved here to move to Key West and to be alone on my island with my dog and cat.  Well, I thought I needed that island to find the simplicity and calm I was looking for.  I didn’t think I could find it here, in this strange part of South Florida, living with my mother.  The truth though, I did find it and I know now how to create that image wherever the animals and I may end up.  And in an effort of honesty, I did find my island, it just took me a few months to realize (and a few trips to Google Maps) where I was for the community that I work on, Deerfield Beach, is very much so an island.  After careful consideration, maybe that image of perfection isn’t quite as cookie cutter as you once believed it to be.  I didn’t make it to the island I thought I needed to be on but I did get to one, and I made it mine.

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February 14, 2010 · 19:41

At last…

So I went away.  I will spare a verbose preface as well, there is not much of one.  I needed to.  I was scared.  Why?  Here it goes…

I was told by someone, someone very close to me, to be careful not to share my soul.  This person, now as the full extent of the conversation has been had, has made clear what the intention behind that statement was.  It was not to deter any further words but to make clear of the warning hidden in the fiction between most words, sentences, and pages.  “Mary, I don’t want you to give too much to someone just for them to take it away.  I guess what I am trying to say is that when you write, you give that person, that love, power – you are giving it back to him.”

In later parts of this conversation, it became clear that this person may very well be afraid to share the inner most parts of her own heart with another, whereas I have given my heart and maybe a bit too much of my soul, to the mind, eyes, and thoughts of those close in both proximity and thought, but also complete strangers.  My friends, whether I know you or not, I am not afraid anymore.  Call this my vision of reckless abandon.  Call this my bungee jump, skydive, roller coaster, or commitment to the word yes.  I gave my word almost a year ago to myself that I would write, that I would continue writing, and that I would not stop until the words in my head went away.  I’m not done yet, and I don’t think I will be for a long time.

I have missed you.

I have missed words.

I have missed hiding behind my laptop staring at this annoying text box.

I found myself somewhere in these words.  I found that as the great words of others bounced through my head, that this was not all fiction in the space between (Tracy Chapman…my present soul) – this was me, this is me.  If this is what it takes to find empowerment, in whatever capacity that may be, I will continue on and persevere with my once shaky view of commitment.

I’m not so scared anymore.  Maybe it took a broken heart to truly realize that I am more than what I allowed myself to be.  Maybe it was hiding in dark rooms, away from computers to realize just what it is that is the absolute embodiment of my soul.  Maybe it took just one side glance in the mirror to remind myself of what I have so painfully adhered to my ribcage: …find truth in words, in rhymes, in notes…I never forget.  I was never even distracted.  I was simply lost.  Not anymore.

Welcome home.

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January 19, 2010 · 09:47

A healthy understanding…

Yesterday the unthinkable (almost) happened.  My computer crashed.  The good computer.  The one with my book.  The hard drive that has lugged around my vibrancy, my soul, my ever being for the past two years.  Friends, a friendly word of reminder so those do not end up in a frenzied, panic mode such as I did yesterday:  back up.  Daily.  For the record, the book is backed up, but I was sitting in fear for hours that maybe I did not back up properly and as I have no printed copies of the book such far (correction:  I do now…), I was crying (yes, crying) in fear that she was gone forever.  How do you even begin to start over?

While scans and such were running yesterday to salvage the computer in question, I began to read.  For the first part of said reading, I was unable to focus, but after a while, I realized that if the book was gone, I was going to have to start over and like much of my reading, it is all research.  I then came to the conclusion that if I had to re-write, I would.  And I would make it better.

My mother and I often shop the Costco book section.  I generally grab ‘airplane’ books from their book department and I was true to form last week.  I grabbed a book that was a quintessential love story/murder mystery.  This time, I was pleasantly surprised.  This book hit me.  I got it.  The characters felt as though they were mine, my friends, myself, and I knew exactly where I was.  Does this happen to you?  All murders aside, I felt I was reading a little piece of myself.  I stayed up until 1Am finishing the book.  I can’t remember the last time I did that…

After the unthinkable happened and the book, my book, was salvaged, I set the book down and returned to my pages (yes, it was a late night…).  I wrote with such force that slightly escaped me over the past month or so.  I felt inspired (less the murder part), I felt alive again.  It is such sweet irony when someone else can force the feeling of love out of you, but I found it leaving my mind, my fingers furiously typing, and suddenly there they were –  the words I had missed for so long, appearing on the screen.  Love:  I may not know you in my bones, but I felt we had a healthy understanding yesterday.

As I sat alone in my dark room, the once so suffocating voice of solitude did not feel quite so stifling.  It was the most fulfilling moment I have come across in weeks and I found myself smiling amidst the clock bearing 4AM and sleeping dog at my feet.  I wrote the end of the book last night.  I gave words of closure – a plea if you will – but finally, there is a semblance of completion.  It’s not done yet, as I still have a bulk of the ‘middle’ to finish, but my final thoughts, the last words I so struggled with, are there.  They are finally out.  It’s as though this solitude that I spent months in Oregon begging for has at last paid off.  I complained, I bitched like a teenager when I first arrived in Florida about being alone.  Not today though.  This was why I needed to distance myself from my great state, the irrevocable heartbreak, and any other means to distract the words.  And in that bittersweet moment, I felt at home.

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

E.E. Cummings

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January 3, 2010 · 20:56

Some form of resolve…

I don’t believe in resolutions.  At one point in my life, the beginning of a new year carried a bit more significance than it does now.  Alas, I no longer resolve to much as January approaches.  I just continue on…maybe everyday is just a slight effort to do something a little bit better than the day before.  Maybe not.  Oh maybe, how I have missed you so.

I am just as indecisive in 2010 as I was in 2009.  So far, I have not worn color (largely in part due to my indecisive nature – I cannot decide on a color so I don’t wear anything other than black, white, and whatever those two can create).  I have consumed more coffee in three days than most people do in a week.  I (for a brief moment) considered retiring from bartending to pursue a say, cleaner job after coming home from work wearing Bloody Mary mix.  I had a moment where I wondered if staying in Florida wasn’t such a bad idea…then today happened and I was reminded that much of what occurs here does not occur in Oregon.  OK, maybe it does, but I haven’t run into such bizarre behaviors out of grown men in Oregon as I do here.  Words of wisdom (for those that need a refresher course in how to not be a jerk), please do not tell your bartender (or server or any female in which you do not know her last name) that she looks four months pregnant.  This will not end well.  And it’s rude.  My breakfast was delicious, thanks for asking.

Back to the task at hand though after that tangent of a rant.  I feel much better having that off my chest.  I used to make resolutions.  I remember in high school, I resolved to not salt my food.  Yes, I know it sounds silly but allow me to make this blissfully clear:  I love salt.  I put salt on just about everything.  Needless to say, salt and I were separated for about six months until the shaker found its happy way back into my right hand.  We have been attached ever since.  Failed resolution #1.  There were a couple scattered January 1 that I threw away packs of cigarettes, swearing that I would never buy another.  I would make it until January 2 at 6pm.  Terrible.  This list could keep going, but I will avoid the gory details of my indecisive nature and not continue to bore you all with my inability to make commitments (or break-up with my favorite food adornment).  It’s understood:  my level of follow-through has never been on the impressive side.

This is a far stretch from a resolution.  I just want to try to be better, in whatever capacity that is.  As my friend told me:  Mary, stop whining.  I want to stop.  I get it, far more than I should.  Now I just need to apply it and actually follow through.  I am not getting any younger, I need to do something productive (other than my book which is going quite well…yay) and not continue to waste time.  I don’t feel like I am in a race against this clock of sorts, I just don’t really want to miss anything either.  I needed my ocean today…

And you wait, await the one thing
that will infinitely increase your life;
the gigantic, the stupendous,
the awakening of stories,
depths turned rounded toward you.

The volumes in brown and gold
flicker dimly on the bookshelves;
and you think of lands travel through,
of paintings, of the garments
of women found and lost.

And then all at once you know: that was it.
You rise, and there stands before you
the fear and prayer and shape
of a vanished year.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

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December 31, 2009 · 17:04

Bring on 2010…

This break was necessary.  I could apologize for this absence, but I believe it would not be entirely critical to use the word sorry.  I’m not.  I needed this.  I flat out needed a break.

I have tried to gather my thoughts over the past few weeks.  In between family members gathering at my mother’s house, work, caring for the menagerie, and gorging myself with holiday food (I have successfully gained five pounds…and every ounce of chocolate has been so worth it), I have not been able to find the words.  They somehow managed to escape me amidst the chaos.  So here we go, the last words for the year…

I could spend this time reflecting over the last year in some sort of format, but I believe we have covered enough.  You have all spent quite a year with me and to create a recapitulation of sorts seems slightly unnecessary and redundant.  Instead, I am going to take a different route.  Off we go into 2010 my friends.  I am going to embrace this.

I guess you could say I am ready for this year to be over.  Even more so, I am ready for the next to begin.  I have much to look forward to: the upcoming birthday (the big 25…let the anxiety begin), the soon to be loss of the holiday weight, embarking on a new journey back to Oregon (this Oregon girl needs to move home), the next six months with my mother, school (I have no great words surrounding this topic as I am not that motivated…if anything, my description is simply this: meh), enjoying the last months of palm trees, sun, and heat, and last but not least, the first year where I live a life that finally begins to feel that of an adult.

I no longer am feeling quite like Wendy (Peter Pan reference, folks).  Florida has been a humbling experience of Neverland.  I say humbling as I took much of life prior to The Great Move for granted.  I have this conversation often as I did – I took Oregon and everything encompassed by her for granted.  Never again though.  And hopefully I will be able to find my way back home and if Oregon ends up as my Neverland again, at least I am home…

Let the adventure begin, again.  I hope the new year finds you all with great joy and happiness.  I will embrace the passing year knowing that much was gained from my crazy year.  This new year is the end of a bizarre roller coaster in my life…yes, this is now the downhill slope.  Call me superstitious, but I think I prefer even numbered years.  Happy New Years, my friends!

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