Archive for November 2014

Home Archive for November 2014

It’s afternoon and I’m still in pajama pants with a mound of unwashed hair piled sloppily on my head. My glasses are on, though the contacts work better, and I’m curled up ion the chair in the corner of the family room. My mom is in her pajama pants and glasses too. Working on bills and emails for work. Files everywhere, and her phone that won’t stop buzzing. I have my laptop on my lap (I always have a laptop on my lap) and more internet windows open then my computer seems able to handle.

There’s a fire in the fire place (there is always a fire in the fire place) and my mom gets up every ten minutes to poke at it and soak in its warmth. To watch the tendrils of the flame spiral around the logs. It crackles loudly enough that I can hear it over the noises of the television as I watch the reflections on the glass doors.

I’m next to the fish tank. The one my mom got when my brother and I both left for school. It’s big and colorful. Full of fish in neon shades and plants in different hues of green. It bubbles quietly, and I listen to the sounds whenever mom pauses the television to answer her phone. She’s busy, always, and I don’t know how she does it.

My cell phone buzzes urgently on the chair next to me. The screen glows with a name of a friend, and the first few words of a text message I know I should read. I grab the phone and scroll through the words, sending off a quick response. I put the phone back down, farther away this time, so I won’t reach for it again. Unless I have to. Or I just want to, really, it’s right there, and it’s tempting, and….

I get so caught up in the distractions of my life that sometimes I forget the things I’m capable of; the words I can write, the things I can create. With my own two hands and my always over-tired brain, a constantly overheated laptop and a little bit of manic spark.

Writing every day this month has been an exercise in resilience as much as it’s been one in madness. It’s been a nice reminder of what I can do when I take the time and effort. It’s been hard—I haven’t had the proper energy every day, or the proper state of mind to produce good work, consistent work, but sometimes that happens—and putting in the effort to try gives me more of a chance of making something I’m proud of then just staring at blank Word documents for weeks at a time.

They say you never forget how to ride a bike. That when you hoist yourself up and balance on those two wheels that muscle memory just kicks in and you’re off—cruising down streets with the wind in your hair and your feet moving quickly on the peddles, the streets blurring in your peripheral vision. I feel that way about writing sometimes. When I sit myself down in this corner, with the heat of an overworked laptop in my lap, the words seem to flow with a speed and ferocity that I’m proud of.

Andy Dwyer gets it.

When I ended BEDN last year I talked about living my life like a scrapbook—collecting memories and moments, telling stories about who I am. This BEDN hasn’t been like that. This BEDN has been about processing emotions and processing where I am.

It’s not bad, it’s just different. Which I guess is what you can expect from a year of change, of maybe growing up a little. Change is scary, but it’s necessary. It’s what makes the stories happen.

There was a bookstore near my apartment in Chicago that had stacks from floor to ceiling of books that were older then I was. I’m not sure if there was really a system of organization—some hand lettered cardboard signs haphazardly balanced on edges that jutted out in to the tiny aisles. You had to squeeze around corners, and duck under arches and step over stacks. It wasn’t a shopping experience as much as a rugged scavenger hunt.

There was only one employee, as far as I could tell. I never knew his name, and he refused to tell me. He went by Sir and that was fine if not a little strange. He knew where every book in his shop was—he was the owner, not just the man working the register—and he would wave you in the proper direction with an eye-roll and a sigh and a few encouraging words.

There’s a quote from Good Omens, one of my very favorite books, about an angel- Aziraphale- who owns a used book store. “Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours - he was incredibly good at it.” I thought about that quote and that description a lot when I weaved my way through the shop, searching for new things to read.

This wasn’t a store you would go to with a specific book in mind. You’d come with a vague idea—a memoir maybe, or something about Latin American history, and you’d wander until you found what you wanted. And you always found what you wanted. Or, if you didn’t, you found something even better. Because that’s what used bookstores are—treasure troves or strange discoveries, new things to learn and novels to read. Strange places with strange people and weird pricing that doesn’t exactly make sense, or seem to have any basis in actual monetary value. It’s confusing. It’s delightful.

The owner of that store was mean. His politics were bad and his attitude was worse, and he would glare at me as I walked in and judge my purchases when he rung me up. It didn’t matter though. I would pass by his cash register perch-- elevated just a touch, so it seemed like he was always looking down at you and on you-- and lose myself in the walls and walls of books waiting to be discovered.

I didn’t live in Chicago very long, and I wasn’t very happy while I was there. But I loved that little shop. It was a good place for me, and I think about it often. I don’t know if it’s still open—small, independent bookstores aren’t exactly the most profitable of all businesses—but I hope it is. I hope it’s there for someone else, the way it was there for me when I was 18 and scared and living in a city I didn’t know, surrounded entirely by strangers.

Books are comforting. Even when they challenge you, books are safe. They’re there when you need them, and they wait for you to come back, and there’s comfort in the way they never really change. The pages might yellow a little, on your favorite paperback. If you drop it the tub the ink will run and the pages will stick together. But you know it’s the same book you curled up with on long and late nights, and that can’t be changed by age or water or stains from dirty fingers.

I’ll find a new bookshop one day. One in New York or one in Maryland, or one somewhere else I end up, somewhere I haven’t discovered yet. It’s shelves will feel like home, and it will let me discover some new, well loved, well-worn pages. Because books are everywhere, and so are the people who care about them. In the little stores and the giant chains, and the libraries right down the block. That’s comforting. That feels good.

My hand prints, the very first ones.

In the month of September, in 1996, my mom covered my hands in neon pink paint and placed them on the walls of the stairs leading down to the basement. Those hand prints are still there, with dozens of others, decorating those walls with memories of friends who’s lives intersected ours, if only for a little bit.

I’m not sure where the idea came from. Maybe mom read something about hand print paintings in a magazine. Maybe the idea was hers’ alone—she is a creative person. But it doesn’t really matter where the concept came from—it’s there now, decorating our walls with color and love.

My whole family’s hand prints are up there. My brother’s from December 1996, when he was just a little more than a year old. Mom and dad too, have their prints up there. In colors they chose, with my mother’s perfect loopy script beneath. Their names. The month. The year.

It’s not something we really do anymore. I suppose it seemed less cool to teenagers to slather their hands in paint as my mother guided their hands, attempting to keep them steady, so the prints wouldn’t smear.

But as we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, the whole family gathered around the table, my youngest cousin pointed out (not for the first time!) that his hand prints never made it on to the walls. He was born a couple years after we stopped forcing friends to leave their marks, and though his brother’s hands were on the walls, his had never made it.

So sometime after we had all eaten much more than people should really eat, and the coffee had brewed and the grandparents were telling stories, my mother took my little cousin’s hand and led him down to the basement to look at colors of paint.

He chose a dark blue, just like his brothers had, and we found a spot for him near where the rest of his family had left their prints 7 or 8 years before. My mom squirted out some paint on to a paper plate, and carefully took a paint brush, and coated his left hand, until it looked properly smurf-like.

She took his paint covered hand and pressed it against the wall. Held it there for a moment, to make sure he didn’t move around and smear the print. She pulled his hand back and he nodded, content with the mark he had left.

They repeated the process, so both his hands were there—left and right—on the wall, along with my parents and his, his brothers, my brother, and me.

Those walls are full of names. Some family. Some old friends. Some neighbors, moved away years ago and mostly forgotten. Most of the names don’t mean that much to me anymore.

But I’m glad my little cousin’s hands are up there now. Blue and bright. His name soon to be under them in that same loopy scrawl. It made him happy. And it makes me happy that he gets to be part of the history of this place. Of the hand prints left behind by people we, at one point, loved. Even if i can't remember their faces, I know all these people were important. And it's nice to have a little of that left behind.

the newest handprints on our walls

My brother and I stand next to each other and silently brush our teeth in tandem. We make eye contact in the mirror as he makes a goofy face, and I try my hardest not to laugh the kind of laugh he wants me to -- the kind where I lose it and spit toothpaste everywhere. I attempt to hold it in as he makes a series of progressively stranger faces.

I think it’s those moments I love the most. The kind they can’t be replicated on a phone call while he walks to class, during a mid-afternoon skype date. I’m glad we get to share them again, even if it’s only for a couple days.

It’s Thanksgiving today and if you take the horrible history out of the picture I like the idea of taking a day to talk about gratefulness, hang out with the people you love, and eat a disgusting amount of mashed potatoes.

So here’s what I’m thankful for.

My mother also knows
what she is thankful for.

I’m thankful for this weird family get to spend this week with. For the late night talks with my brother and the horrible jokes from my mom and dad. The new knitted hat my grandma made me, and laughing as my nana tries to balance spoons on her nose. The cousins who I haven’t seen in months, and who at this point are almost terrifyingly tall—at least to me, at 4’10”, who still remembers when they were each born. The aunts and uncles who fill our house with laughter.

I’m thankful for the warm blankets on my bed, and the mountain of pillows I get to collapse on at night. I’m thankful for a good place to sleep, and a place to feel comfortable.

I’m thankful for stupid jokes and endless laughter. Horrible puns and quick one liners. Humor, and giggles and the people who crack me up, and make me laugh so hard that it’s physically painful. The kind of hurt that I don’t mind.

I’m thankful every time I log on to my computer, to messages from the friends who I never get to see. I’m thankful for “how are you doing?” emails and “I miss you!” texts and “here’s what’s happening in my life” phone calls. I’m thankful for the people who I love and who love me back, even when we can’t see each other face to face.

I’m thankful for the internet—for the way to connects people, and the way it lets me learn. For the blog I can publish and the videos I can watch, and all of the interesting articles I can read. For e-books and twitter and being able to make the gigantic world just a little bit smaller.

I’m thankful for the luck I have in life. To have a good, loving family. To have good food on the table, and warm clothing to wear. I have safety and reassurance that I’m going to, in the grand scheme of things be ok. I’m thankful for the privileges I have, and the people who help me realize those privileges, and work alongside of me to make things better, to create change.

I’m thankful for everyone who reads the things I write and encourages me to write more. Who edits my essays and proofreads my papers and comments on the work I’ve done. I’m thankful for the stories and blog posts and articles I get to read. I’m thankful for words, in a way that I don’t quite have to words to express.

Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll. I hope yours is filled with as much goodness as mine.

There’s a thick wooden shelf over the fireplace in the living room covered with photographs of moments that I don’t remember. A few I wasn’t alive for, but some I’m in—smiling brightly, wild-haired and wild-eyed. It’s strange to think how many memories this house holds for me; the slumber parties and family meals, movie nights and homework sessions.

I don’t get to come here often anymore. It’s not far away, but sometimes even that 3 hour train ride can seem insurmountable. I have a life somewhere else now; not all I want yet, but enough that I can’t just take off on a whim, even when I want nothing more than to eat my mother’s home-made Santa-Fe chicken and watch West Wing on the couch with my dad.

These days my family moves in circles around each other. Our orbits intersect every few months. Before yesterday, I hadn’t seen my younger brother in 6 months. The four of us – 5 if you include the dog, and my brother and father certainly do -- haven’t all been together since before summer even started. I like when we all get to be in the same place, to share a few short days, a few short moments.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I’m home through the weekend, but I’m not sure when I’ll be here next. I’m working over Christmas, and the whole movies and Chinese food routine doesn’t need to be confined to December 25^th. It’s strange to think of home as a place that I come to visit for a couple of days at a time, but I guess that’s what getting older means. Having new homes, new places I need to be.

Tomorrow I’ll sit around the table with my brother and parents, my grandmothers and cousins and uncles and aunts. My Nana will balance spoons on her nose, and the boys will sneak away to play video games. We will eat a lot (of course) and laugh even more, and my mom will tell stories about moments I was there for but much too young to remember.

One day these moments will be memories too. I’ll look back on my visits home when I was in my 20’s. Scared and unsure and figuring my life out. Taking comfort here, for a few days at a time. . Days where I got to curl up under the blankets and listen to my family move around me, my laptop on my lap and my fingers on the keys.

I think – I hope -- I’ll look back on these days fondly. One day these new, present, memories will be on the mantle. My hair is longer now, but no less wild. I never learned how to properly disguise the manic spark behind my eyes. The photographs I’ll look at in another decade might be one’s I’ve taken, but they might be ones I’m smiling in.

This is how it goes.

You’re 12 years old and sitting in the corner of a 6^th grade classroom next to that freaky skeleton your teacher keeps putting clothing on. You’re in Science class, learning about periodic elements or relativity or animal kingdoms, but you haven’t been paying attention. You’ve got a spiral bound notebook open in front of you, but instead of taking notes you’re writing elaborate stories about dragons and princesses, inspired by the book you had been reading inside of your desk during math class. Every third word is spelled wrong and the margins are covered in doodles of hearts and stars. Your teacher calls on you to answer a question you never even heard him ask. You shrug your shoulders and promise to pay closer attention. You never do.

You’re 18 and in an empty Red Line subway car early enough in the morning that most of the commuters haven’t even started to brew their first cups of coffee. The sun is slowly rising and you’re slowly waking up. You spread out over the seats, taking up more space then you need, and watch the tops of apartment buildings fly by, precariously close to the elevated tracks. You’ve got your cell phone in your hand and you type and retype the same 5 sentences over and over again. . You want to make them perfect.

You’re 21 and sitting in a friend’s apartment, using his laptop to tap out your thoughts before they disappear. Your laptop is broken—it’s always broken—and you just have one more line, guys! Or just a couple more words, promise! before someone closes the top of the computer and forces you to interact with the world outside of Microsoft Word. It’s not that you don’t want to be social, you do, it’s just that sometimes the sentences sound so right in your head that you feel like if you don’t get it down you’re going to burst—explode in a whirlwind of metaphors and phrasing—a firework show made from thesaurus pages and dictionary definitions.

You’re 16 and you’re in the bedroom with your music turned high. Something angsty, probably, something that isn’t meant to be blasted, but you crank it up anyway because you feel mean and defiant. You write so hard that your pen rips the pages of your black and white notebooks, your knuckles turning white from the strength of your grip. What you’re mad about isn’t important, really. Just the rage that you feel and the strength with which you feel it. The words spill out of you—out of your heart and out of your hands—in to the notebooks you keep in your desk, in your bookcase, in your backpack, in your locker and anywhere else you spend energy and time.

You’re 20 and in an airport where the wi-fi is free and the voice over the loudspeaker is slow and warm, in that perfectly cozy Midwestern way. Your backpack is on the ground and you are curled up in a fake leather armchair that seems out of place in a building so utilitarian. There’s a TV on, showing news headlines and news anchors with immaculate clothing and hair so shiny that it almost seems fake. They laugh at their own jokes, and the weather man draws arrows on the map—connecting the lines between the place where you sit and the place where you are headed. There’s a laptop on your lap—there’s always a laptop on your lap—and you slowly type out how it feels to come and to go, to leave and to arrive.

You’re four and learning to make letters for the first time. You trace the lines on your worksheets, so proud of the shapes that form. Soon those letters will be words, those words sentences, and those sentences stories. You’re learning how to put your life down on paper.

You’re 22 and in a weird place in your life. Not a lot is making sense, and everything feels like it’s changing. The view out your window is different every time you take a look, and you aren’t really sure who your best friend is. You have a shelf of notebooks on your desk, and a handful of folders on your laptop, dedicated to the things you commit to memory. The stories about middle school, and the night you had this week. The stuff you tell your parents and the things they could never hear. You’ve written all of it.

You always have.

You always will.

It was 2012 and we were sitting in a pagoda at camp. It was late, I think, because that’s when we had free time. I was with a few friends, and we weren’t talking about much of anything, because we were tired from the long day in the middle of the long summer. We were hungry. And someone mentioned pizza.

I don’t know how the phrase “In Search of Pizza” entered the conversation, but it did, and it was very suddenly stuck in all our heads in that weird way phrases sometimes can be. They work their way in to your mind and won’t let go until you force them out on to paper.

Somehow, we decided we were going to each write a story. The story could be about whatever we wanted. There was no length requirement either. The only rule was that it had to be titled “In Search of Pizza.”

Summer time promises are hard to keep, and I think my friend Brandon was the only one who ended up sending his out, but my version, in all it’s horrible dialogued and over adjectived glory has been saved on my google drive for years.

So I thought I’d share a bit of it. This is the beginning. It’s long—much too long. I was just beginning to really write, and my style was only starting to form, though my flair for the verbose is very clear.

Try not to laugh too much:

“The searching is a metaphor, numbnuts”

“A metaphor for what?”

“It doesn’t matter. Metaphors are important.”

“No one cares about metaphors, fartface”

“Tell that to Moby Dick!”

“What the fuck kind of name is Moby Dick?”

Kate sighed to herself as she continued to wipe down the counter of Lombardi’s, the local pizza joint where she worked after school. The two boys continued arguing as Kate tried her hardest to drown them out. Listening to the middle schoolers talk made Kate feel oddly nostalgic. It’s not that she missed middle school. No one misses middle school. Kids who are in the hospital sick for months at a time missing class don’t miss middle school.

She was disrupted from her thoughts by the jingling of the chimes over the shop doors. In walked a man that Kate would recognize anywhere.

“Chip, I haven’t seen you around here in ages.”

“That’s cause I haven’t been around in ages, Kate, darling.” Replied the old man, as he took a seat at the counter directly across from where Kate had been dusting. He wrinkled his nose as he grabbed a menu from the rack on the wall.

“You know why this menu never changes, Kate? Cause there is no need to mess with perfection.” he sighed, peacefully as he leafed through the pages.

Chip hadn’t been to Lombardi’s in a very long time. Or, at least, what seemed like a very long time to the teenager working behind the counter. Time is relative, and her really long time was no time at all to the older man. A quarter of Kate’s life was probably not even 1/8th of Chips. Probably. Kate needed to take in to account her horrible math skills and lack of knowledge of Chip’s real age.

“So, where you been old man?” Kate asked as she began to make Chip’s pizza.

“Well first off, young lady, I haven’t even placed my order…”

“Stop pretending like you are debating. I know what you are ordering. You know what you are ordering. Let’s not play this game.” She paused as Chip laughed. It was a nice laugh. Low and deep and comforting in the same way it’s comforting to hear a song you loved as a kid or a story your parents read you when you were little. “One old-fashioned, extra cheese coming right up.”

Making pizzas was almost therapeutic for Kate. The motions came so routine. Knead the dough. Spread the sauce. Sprinkle the cheese. Her movements had almost an air of elegance, they were so practiced. Chip watched her move, as he continued to thumb through the menu.

“Some things don’t need to change. Why would they? I’ve spent a lot of time searching for the best piece of pie in this city, but I always end up back here. You don’t try to make it too complicated. Simple is good. Simple is easy. Simple is cheese, and crust and sauce and just the right amount of grease. And simple is perfect for me.” He sighed contently as Kate put the pizza in to the oven.

She turned back to face him as she wiped the crumbs from her hands.

“Sometimes I think you talk just to talk.”

“Girl, you know that’s true.”

They were jolted back to reality by the sound of the jukebox in the corner of the restaurant. “I’ve got sunshine…. on a cloudy day” crooned The Temptations.

“I had forgotten we even had a jukebox” laughed Kate. “No one uses that old thing anymore. I’m surprised those kids could even find a song they recognized”

“Stop pretending like you are so old and wise, girl. You’ve got what? Six years on them? Six years is nothing! Six years isn’t even enough time to perfect a pizza recipe. Trust me. I know. I get to say that right? That’s a privilege that comes with being an old guy.” Chip held Kate’s gaze. “Old people don’t get many privileges. I’m gonna claim the ones I got.”

Kate was used to Chip’s rants, but not so used to him talking about his age. The fact that Chip was firmly over the hill was not a secret—but it wasn’t discussed. There was no need to discuss such obvious and depressing things.

She turned to look at the man. True, his hair was very much gone and he had some liver spots decorating the area of his neck, but he was active and vivacious and the opposite of everything Kate had ever been told about old age.

Chip’s age may have showed itself physically, but that wasn’t what Kate saw when she looked at him. She saw the man who had helped her with her History homework freshmen year, as he ate pizza and she refilled soda glasses. She saw the man who took pictures of her and her date as she left for the senior prom. He hadn’t known much about working the camera, and each picture had a tiny bit of thumb in the upper right corner. She still smiled when she looked at them.

“Chip, old man,” Kate said with a smile “You still haven’t told me where you’ve been. I feel like I haven’t seen you around here in forever.” Kate had worked at Lombardi’s for a long time. Depending on your point of view, it was to her benefit or disadvantage that the fact that her parents owned the shop meant they didn’t so much have to abide by child labor laws when it came to their child. Kate would give you a different opinion on this fact depending on the day.

“I’ve been all over, girl. Some good places, some bad places. But none of them have pizza as good as the pizza right here.” He sighed, content, as he bit in to one of the slices that Kate had placed in front of him. The cheese strung between his lips and the slice as he chewed, content.

“The fun thing about getting old is that no one cares what you do anymore. I can sit at every counter in every pizza store in this weird little town and sit down and order a slice. Once a day, twice a day. No one cares. Being old means I can go a little crazy.”

Kate loved listening to Chip talk. She liked the way he pronounced his O’s and the way that his pitch went up dramatically when he got excited. She liked that he had lots to say, and that he could just keep talking and she could just keep listening.

“I’ve been on an adventure, girl, a grand little adventure. I’m not saying I’m gonna be the star of some action movie. I’m no Harrison Ford, but my adventures are weird and wonderful and just what I need. I’m an old man, gotta get my adventuring in when I still can. Old man adventures aren’t as fun as young man adventures, but they sure are more fun than dead man adventures.”

“My adventure, like all good things in life, comes back to pizza. You can be just about anywhere and find pizza. I like that kind of consistency, it’s comforting.

If I close my eyes I can’t really tell I’m moving. The tracks are smooth, here at least, and the noise of the train in motion is mostly a gentle hum, easily overpowered by the chit-chat of commuters around me. The New York-DC train on a Sunday night is a special thing—a strange mix of business people headed between offices and tourists headed between metropolitan adventures. I’m moving between homes- between lives that feel increasingly separate, in a way that feels scary and exciting.

It was light out when I entered Penn station—late afternoon, after almost 6 hours spent at synagogue, a lot even for me, teaching and learning. My third graders have learned almost half the alef-bet by now. They recognize words in our prayer books, and it makes me smile when I listen to them attempt to sound them out, syllable by syllable. A bit at a time. My 7^th graders brought their parents to school today. We talked, as a grade, about gimulut chasidem, acts of love and kindness. I got to watch the loud boys who always sit up front quietly watch their fathers read torah. I got to watch the shy girls take the microphone and share their thoughts. I got to listen to my kids tell me about the mitzvah projects they are doing to celebrate their b’nai mitzvot. I’ve only known them for a few months, and I only get to see them once a week, but I felt proud. I like to watch them learn, even more so when they don’t realize that they are.

I walked the 11 bocks home in silence. No music, no phone calls, just the thoughts inside my head. I watched businessmen in suits powerwalk down the streets, too important to slow, even for a minute. I watched couples stroll casually, holding hands with smiles. There were babies in strollers and old men with dogs. Messengers on bikes, and taxis speeding past. I walked calmly, not quickly, not not slowly either. I made my way home.

I packed my bags and washed the dishes. Closed up my laptop and let my phone charge a little. I cleaned the floors and found my things. I locked the door behind me.

The cab ride was fine, in the way that cab rides in New York almost always are. Stop and go, much too suddenly. Weaving in and out between lines with no thought to safety or traffic laws. Somehow things like basic driving skills don’t matter in a city where driving down a road feels more like trying to settle down a Tetris piece.

Penn station is there, like it always is, large and imposing, and much less frightening then it used to be. Everything feels like that now—still too big, still too much—but not as scary as it used to be. Not even close.

So I’m on the train now. My phone and my laptop connect to the wi-fi on amtrack automatically now, and I can’t help but to think of how right that that feels. I’m in motion. I’m in transit. Not just physically--as I watch as the cities blur by and the conductor walks down the aisle punching tickets—but through my life. I’m between jobs and between stages. Between feeling bad and feeling kind of ok. Between feeling new and feeling settled and feeling maybe just a little bit comfortable.

I’m maybe half an hour out of New York. About 3 hours away from Maryland. From the train station where my little brother will be waiting. I can’t wait to see him.

If I close my eyes, I can’t really tell that I’m moving, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know. I don’t need to view out the window or the vibrations under my feet to know that things are changing. I know it. And it’s scary, but I’m less scared then I used to be. And that’s a start. It’s a start and a step—a step in the direction I want to be moving.

The train moves quickly. It covers land quicker than a car, and way quicker than I could on my feet.

I’m excited to arrive.

My apartment, like most apartments in Manhattan faces out on to a wall of other apartments. With so many buildings and so many people on this relatively small island, it makes sense that sometimes the city feels a little cramped—even when I’m sitting in my own living room.

From my window I can see other windows—hundreds of them really, but a couple dozen very well. There are four or five that I can see straight in, and it almost feels like they’re my next door neighbors- even though we’re separated by 200 feet, 6 stories up in the air.

I can see their couches and televisions. See blurred colors on their screens and bodies moving—moving through their daily lives. I wonder if they see me; sitting on my couch with books spread out around me. Slowly walking in circles around my living room.

There’s a strange duality in this city full of people. It feels so big, but at the same time so small. I am isolated but surrounded by humans. I am crowded but also alone.

I wonder how many of the people I see through the windows feel that too.

I like to imagine these people’s lives. Imagine their stories. Imagine what is going on within the little window viewpoints I have into their days. I think that’s a thing that writers do (I feel weird about calling myself a writer-- it feels like a title I don’t deserve—but that’s a story for another blog post) they imagine things and people and situations. They rearrange the world outside their head into a different, inner playground, where they can control the pieces and move along the plots.

Maybe it’s a little crazy, creating fiction from the things that I see, but I never really claimed that I was all that sane. Isn’t that where inspiration comes from, though? From looking at our lives, at the cities and people and craziness around us and thinking “Yeah… this is good, but I could do it better. With dragons! And knights! And epic romance! And magic spells!”

Stories are just daydreams put on paper, so I might as well write mine down.

I’m just left of center in a six train car heading uptown that’s crowded enough that the bodies around me are keeping me more upright more than squeezing on to a handrail ever could. I’m wearing my headphones- some early 90’s relics I found buried in a backpack pocket that hadn’t been cleaned out in a few too many years. I have the music turned up loud. Loud enough that I can’t hear the words of the people around me even as I watch their lips move. Loud enough that it’s all I have to think about.

I close my eyes. Confident in the fact that I’m six subway stops from home. The train rocks back and forth beneath my feet. Not quite gently, but in a way that still feels soothing.

There isn’t much music I have saved on my phone. This whole commuting-by-public-transit-in-a-major-city thing is kind of new to me. A couple Regina Spektor songs. Some mix cd’s I made for myself and a few more sent to me by friends. Every single Laura Marling song, and of course—of course—The Wombats. I’ve written a time or five about my love affair with their song ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’ but it bears repeating—that songs means so much to me. I could listen to it forever (or you know, on repeat for literally weeks at a time…) and never get tired of it.

I’ve got the kind of anxiety where going places can be so overwhelming that I just stop doing anything together. The people, the crowds, the noise—I get a sensory overload and break down. So I’ve been doing a horrible job of exploring New York. A terrible job, really. I know that there is so much to see and discover in this city—and I haven’t really taken advantage of much of it at all.

So this week I did something big.

I bought a concert ticket. Well, I bought two, actually. But even if I can’t find a friend to go with me I’m going to see The Wombats play in January. I’m going to head to Brooklyn on a Monday night, and brave the crowds and the noise. I’m going to scream along to ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’ when they play it live. I’m going to let myself feel all of my emotions in that moment. The love, the fear, the pure adrenaline.

It might not seem like much. It’s something people do all the time. But I’m scared. And I’m excited.

And I’m so happy.

There is a toothbrush hanging on the wall of the bathroom that my brother and I share back home that is probably about 4 feet long. The bristles are as big as my head, and the point on the bottom—I think it’s supposed to be a tooth pick?—is a muted orange in the shape of a Hershey’s kiss.

Daniel's bib says "future democrat"
because of course it does.

There is a table between the couch and the window in the office, between the two little nooks that shoot off on either side. On top of it there are pictures of my brother and I at various ages in our lives. In braces and glasses and middle school uniforms. With stages of haircuts, and bad teenage acne. There are weird small pots on the table too, maybe 4 or 5 of them. Art class experiments that should have been thrown out half a dozen years ago, but our parents held on to in fits of sentimentality and pride.

There is a bookcase in the family room that reaches almost all the way to the ceiling. It’s stuffed to the brim with anything and everything. Menorahs and candlestick holders, board games and high school yearbooks. Photographs of cousins and senior pictures of my brother and I, big enough that they are almost true to size.

Is this not in every kitchen?

On the counter on the kitchen there is a pan full of frogs. It’s a sculpture, but it takes a moment to be sure that my family hasn’t fried some amphibians for fun. It came from my grandmother, I think, but it’s been in our kitchen for as long as I can remember—scaring friends who come to visit and making me laugh every morning, when it’s early and I’m still not quite awake.

There is a lamp in the front hall that looks like a pop art painting of a TV. It’s purple and yellow and you can turn it on with a click. The antenna is black and a few inches high. It might be my mother’s favorite object in the house, and it brings a spot of color to the warmth.

Chalk boards with
family nicknames

There is a chalk board that hangs near the kitchen table that my mother writes messages on. The message changes depending on what’s going on in our lives. It’s said “Welcome home Jordan!” a handful of times and “Welcome home Daniel!” a few as well. “I love my children” has shown up once or twice, and “I hate bears!” was there for a month or so when my brother was off hiking for a summer. “I love vodka” has made an appearance as well. My family has varied interests.

There is a line of bottles on a window sill right near the chalk board. They’re covered in designs and dates of important events. There are coke bottles from presidential inaugurations and from Olympic ceremonies. I don’t know how they came to be in our house, but the collection has grown over the years. The glass bottles catch the light from the window and shine in patterns on the wooden floor.

I miss the little things about home. How comfortable it feels. How I know every little nook and cranny. I get to go back there in six days. See my parents. Pet my dog. Catch up with my little brother, who I haven’t seen since May and who I miss an obscene amount.

It’s almost Thanksgiving now. I’m thinking about it now, as pull together lesson plans and clean the apartment that doesn’t really feel like home. I’m thankful I have somewhere, somewhere good, to go home to. A good place full of weird objects and weirder people. I love them all.