2012 will be the year of the big pearl...

the $2 big pearl. 

happy new year!!

it felt like there was so much to celebrate this holiday season. with my mother's 50th* birthday just days before christmas and an unexpected twist in my schedule that got me home to texas a little while longer than expected, with everyone's health in good stead, and the four of us being together for the first time since last december, it just felt like a really special few days at home.

my brother and i have long since passed the point of needing a lot of gifts under the tree--a point we keep emphasizing to our parents--a point that continuously falls on deaf ears. i began to wonder about this. we don't care about the gifts we'd say again and again. and again and again my mother and father would shake that off. we don't want you stay up all night wrapping and placing packages under the tree. go to bed, we'd continue. it was this year that revealed my parents like doing that stuff. they are the ones who aren't over it. they are the ones who care about the gifts and piling them up under the low-hanging branches of the evergreen. but it's not so much what's in the boxes that they care about--they enjoy the process. so, this year,  in order to make that happen they took to scavenging under all the sinks in our home for long-ago forgotten hair ties and boxes of toothpaste and who-even-knows-what-else. they separated packs of socks and wrapped each pair individually. my brother and i sat through the whole thing bewildered, watching as my mother and father nearly wet their pants from laughing so hard. it was so fun to see the roles reversed. so fun and so strange and so very, very different.

it was a holiday of renegade gifts, really good food (and wine), lots of games, and the people i most love in this world.

all in all, not bad. not bad at all.



*(the number my mother has now decided to go with. so we're gonna give it to her).

it's getting to the time of the year that i'm beginning to ponder new year's resolutions. 

did you know the french don't call it a resolution, but rather a wish?

a wish for the new year. 

i like that. 

(though, if i was to adopt a mantra, it might have to be the one above). 

the avett brothers

via.

ever wonder what we texans do two days before christmas?

well, a holiday beer exchange followed by flip cup and beer pong, of course.













all to be capped off by a late-night-run to taco cabana (we like our mexican food).

decorating the tree...

sometimes unwrapping the ornaments is almost better than unwrapping the gifts on christmas morning.

each has its own story. like books, they are memory made tangible. (thank god ornaments haven't gone electronic (not really) what a loss that would be).

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...

i know people from all over the world sojourn to new york in order to see it during this magical time of the year. and i get it. i do.

but. there's no place like home. you know?

"My darling girl, when are you
going to realize that being normal 
is not necessarily a virtue? It rather
denotes a lack of courage."

Alice Hoffman

okay, i'll go first.

i peeled off the tights in such a hurry. there were holes in the feet and my toes were poking through and i was embarrassed. so i got out of them, fast as could. no show of it, just off.

there was so much i didn't want you to see. because if you saw, well then you'd know everything. and i am nothing if not deeply prideful.

i dreamt a few nights back that i reached for you. we were sitting in a car. a car? headed somewhere. and i reached my arm out to cup the back of your neck--that sacred space between shoulders and tufts of hair. but i couldn't quite reach. you were just past arm's distance.

i did that. i get that. i kept you there. i reached but never let you get closer than the span of my wing. and i would turn over and roll away because i didn't want you to think i needed you. it was casual and i was cool and i was fine, so i responded to everything dismissively and carefully navigated your questions, revealing nothing, all the while keeping to my side of the bed.

because, well, to reveal reveal anything would be to reveal everything. and i was nothing if not afraid.

i know you saw how my cheeks flushed. and watched as i averted my eyes again and again--not wanting you to catch the half-glints of a secret shame. and there were all those terrible jokes i told just to keep the levity?

self-preservation.

to imagine a world in which you might care for me was impossible. it had been so impossible for so long that it was simply a luxury i couldn't afford. the cost would be too much.

so instead i'd keep myself awake at night just to study the outline of your face, the curve of your back, the color of your skin, how you shifted and moved as light angled its way into the room.

the thing is... no one tells you about that moment--that moment well into the night when you get up to use the bathroom and you spend a minute in there--breathing, water on the face, studying yourself in his oversized, knit shirt and then you open the door to return to bed, and yes, he's still there and he's still asleep but his arm is reached out to the empty space where you were just minutes before. and you climb in--and he pulls you in. into him. all without ever really waking.

his awareness of your absence. no one prepares you for that.

there have been others, of course. other stories. other half-loves. triumphs and tragedies of this fragile heart. and it was early on that i came to accept i'd never tell you--you, the first man i ever loved, those three words: i. and love. and you. my love for you would simply be. it would shift and change and recede. and it would fill me up. and i'd move on. to the next. we all cope. we all adapt and adjust and accept.

but there was this sense, this desperate, ne'r talked of hope that we might cycle back and, then what?

i. and love. and you.

i love the way the avett brothers put it. everything aspires to music, doesn't it. the ands there giving the words room to breath. so very shakespearean.


go ahead, you're almost there. i knew you'd make it eventually.

i just had to share...

because the way he looks at her...

holy hell.

my manhattan: the one downtown with vietnamese food, a soy latte, market shopping, hints of christmas, and yet another coffee (this one to end the day)

all this before a friend's bachelorette party yesterday evening.

(regarding the party: there are no pictures--some things are not to be photographed).

reunion.

on saturday, with  josh, naomi, and little eleanor in town, our group of friends had a college reunion of sorts. and like all reunions there was good food, plenty of laughter, and reminiscing.

but it was more than that.

there was a point when i leaned back in my chair, took note of the surroundings and the stories unfolding and thought, this meal is prayer made manifest. both prayer of the present as well as the future.

i studied the messy table littered with half-eaten food, crumbs that only eleanor could have made, and i sent up a silent plea: let there always be children. let there always be mess. and children's books. let there be plentiful food and drink. fresh flowers on the table. the music of a good joke and the subsequent cascade of laughter. let there be shared looks between old friends and the gentle palm of a hand on the back by someone who's seen you cycle through good, bad and all that is between. let there be love. of friends. of partners. of children. of another memory in the making.





thinking a trip to d.c. might be a good way to kick off the new year. more memories to be made. more stories to be told.

dreaming of a winter wonderland..

it's been so warm in nyc this winter (with the exception of that renegade snowstorm we had at the end of october) that i actually find myself craving the cold and the white--the trademarks of this holiday season.

in place of the real thing (which i'm sure i'll complain about when it actually arrives) i'll settle on these images today.  

what are you doing to get in the holiday spirit?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

the push of prayer

(i'm gonna level with you. i wish i brought my camera with me everywhere. i wish i always had lovely and beautiful and fun pictures to post. i wish i was better at documenting the day to day--more consistent and streamlined in my style. but if i think back to why i began this blog it was to remember. so that five, ten, twenty years from now i might remember the day to day, as well as what was inspiring me at any given point. so today there are no pictures. only the words of a man much wiser than myself that i have returned to again and again since reading them a month ago. if this is no interest to you, then i beg your indulgence, or invite you to skip it all together. because for me...well, i need to post it for myself.)


A Prayer for Pete 
Brian Doyle


The phone rings, it's an old friend, he tells me of another old friend who is dying. Our friend is in his forties, just married, with a little boy, and there's no hope, he'll be dead within a couple of years, and dying too in a most cruel fashion, piece by piece, as his body slowly fails around the bright light of his mind, leaving him trapped in the husk of what had been a wonderfully lithe body.


I try to imagine my friend inside himself, immobile in a dark crumbled castle, his mind racing--and I have to get up and get outside and go for a walk.


So what prayer do I make for Pete? What do I say for his little boy, who will lose his father before he knows him well? What do I say for his wife, who will watch her new husband die a little every day and then be left alone with their son, who has the same thick red hair as his father?


I don't know.


Do I really think that my prayers will save Pete, or cut his pain, or dilute his fear as he sees the darkness descending? Do I really think my prayers will make his wife's agony any less, or reduce the confused sadness of his little boy?


No.


But I mutter prayers anyway, form them in the cave of my mouth and speak them awkwardly into the gray wind, watch as they are instantly shattered and splintered and whipped through the old oak trees and sent headlong into the dark river below, where they seem lost and vanished, empty gestures in a cold land.


Did they have any weight as they flew?


I don't know?


But I believe with all my heart that they mattered because I was moved to make them. I believe that the mysterious sudden impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use for prayer are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy, and that arguing about where prayers go, and who sorts the mail, and what unimaginable senses hear us is foolish.


It's the urge that matters--the sudden Save us that rises against horror, the silent Thank you for joy. The children are safe, and we sit stunned and grateful by the side of the road; the children are murdered, every boy and girl in the whole village, and we sit stunned and desperate, and bow our heads, and whisper for their souls and our sins.


So a prayer for my friend Pete, in gathering darkness, and a prayer for us all, that we be brave enough to pray, for it is an act of love, and love is why we are here. 

words and time and...

it wasn't the symmetry of the number that appealed to her, or the aesthetics of the even.

six years.

that was the time she associated with being unwell. six years. a time when life was somehow not her own. when she was less than. six years. that was all. and yet it felt like it was all there ever was and all there had ever been and all there would ever be: a lifetime. the whole of her lifetime.


seven years.

the amount of time she had known him and... well...

he knows. he must know. surely, he must know.

she expected it to pass. the feeling. she expected it to pass. everyone told her it would. and she had been so young when they first met and there was so much life to unfold and so surely this, this...thing would pass.

but it lived there. in the deepest part, in the braided ligaments of her core, and so she came to accept that it might never. it would shift and change, but remain.


that moment moment there, on the couch, him commenting on the black tights, it was a marker of time, for her. that he didn't know. he couldn't possibly have known that that, more than the lines now ringing his eyes or the new gray hairs (both things she found endlessly appealing), more than her fuller hips and forehead creases, that comment, was a marker of time.

because he wasn't there for those six years. and thank god for that. she wasn't either.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



god, words fail. they just aren't enough.

if i could find them, if i could find the right ones, i'd ask you to place you hand there again, between curve of knee and hem and let it live there for as long as we both could bear. i'd tell you that of course i see you. and the image is so clear, despite present circumstances or recent history. i don't know the whole of the story but i see you and i...well, you must know, surely you must.


i'm a girl that's only ever seen the pieces. the bits and the pieces. but with you it came all at once in a startling clarity. and so i'm mostly unafraid. i, who fear all, is mostly unafraid where you are concerned. unafraid of all that's come before or of all the time and land and life yet to traverse.

and i don't know what's to come. or of how much we'll traverse alone. or if we'll take any of it together.

but perhaps it doesn't have to be so hard.

there are those words. and they are so comforting. so full of... but i don't know if they are yours. and the strange, strangling doubt takes hold.

because you know that these are mine. i give them freely. well, mostly. but, without a doubt, you know they are mine. the question must then be, are they for you?


yes, yes, of course, yes. you must know that.

and so i want nothing so much as to ask, who? who wrote them? because there is the suspicion and the hope and the endless, endless doubt.

but somehow that questions seems unfair. or too soon. or simply past the point.

and i am at a loss...

dear husband-to-be,

i think i want to name our first child phinneus. (given it's a boy, of course).

i re-read a separate peace last spring and now the notion is not to be dislodged.

think of it: we'll call him finny when he's little, finn as he grows older and self-conscious of youth.

and the name'll serve as a compass of sorts. a benchmark, a weight tying him to fealty and courage and the pursuit of joy.

i don't know why it's been on my mind as of late. but now it's written down so i can stop worrying about trying to remember or the encroaching curtain of forgetfulness.

take this for what you will.


love, love,

yours. ever yours.

i'm in the sharing mood today. and i can't think of something better or more important than what follows...

my dear friend laura emailed this to me sunday morning. in some ways it took my breath away because i realize i too play into the female stereotypes--i am just as much to blame for perpetuating the notion that women are "crazy"--not because i am or how i act, but by paying lip-service to that notion. 

A MESSAGE TO WOMEN FROM A MAN: YOU ARE NOT "CRAZY"

Yahsar Ali

"You're so sensitive. You're so emotional. You're defensive. You're overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You're crazy! I was just joking, don't you have a sense of humor? You're so dramatic. Just get over it already!

Sound familiar?

If you're a woman, it probably does.

Do you ever hear any of these comments from your spouse, partner, boss, friends, colleagues, or relatives after you have expressed frustration, sadness, or anger about something they have done or said?

When someone says these things to you, it's not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling -- that's inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, "Calm down, you're overreacting," after you just addressed someone else's bad behavior, is emotional manipulation, pure and simple.

And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It's patently false and unfair.

I think it's time to separate inconsiderate behavior from emotional manipulation, and we need to use a word not found in our normal vocabulary.

I want to introduce a helpful term to identify these reactions: gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a term often used by mental health professionals (I am not one) to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they're crazy.

The term comes from the 1944 MGM film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Bergman's husband in the film, played by Charles Boyer, wants to get his hands on her jewelry. He realizes he can accomplish this by having her certified as insane and hauled off to a mental institution. To pull of this task, he intentionally sets the gaslights in their home to flicker off and on, and every time Bergman's character reacts to it, he tells her she's just seeing things. In this setting, a gaslighter is someone who presents false information to alter the victim's perception of him or herself.

Today, when the term is referenced, it's usually because the perpetrator says things like, "You're so stupid," or "No one will ever want you," to the victim. This is an intentional, pre-meditated form of gaslighting, much like the actions of Charles Boyer's character in Gaslight, where he strategically plots to confuse Ingrid Bergman's character into believing herself unhinged.

The form of gaslighting I'm addressing is not always pre-mediated or intentional, which makes it worse, because it means all of us, especially women, have dealt with it at one time or another.

Those who engage in gaslighting create a reaction -- whether it's anger, frustration, sadness -- in the person they are dealing with. Then, when that person reacts, the gaslighter makes them feel uncomfortable and insecure by behaving as if their feelings aren't rational or normal.

My friend Anna (all names changed to protect privacy) is married to a man who feels it necessary to make random and unprompted comments about her weight. Whenever she gets upset or frustrated with his insensitive comments, he responds in the same, defeating way, "You're so sensitive. I'm just joking."

My friend Abbie works for a man who finds a way, almost daily, to unnecessarily shoot down her performance and her work product. Comments like, "Can't you do something right?" or "Why did I hire you?" are regular occurrences for her. Her boss has no problem firing people (he does it regularly), so you wouldn't know from these comments that Abbie has worked for him for six years. But every time she stands up for herself and says, "It doesn't help me when you say these things," she gets the same reaction: "Relax; you're overreacting."

Abbie thinks her boss is just being a jerk in these moments, but the truth is, he is making those comments to manipulate her into thinking her reactions are out of whack. And it's exactly that kind manipulation that has left her feeling guilty about being sensitive, and as a result, she has not left her job.

But gaslighting can be as simple as someone smiling and saying something like, "You're so sensitive," to somebody else. Such a comment may seem innocuous enough, but in that moment, the speaker is making a judgment about how someone else should feel.

While dealing with gaslighting isn't a universal truth for women, we all certainly know plenty of women who encounter it at work, home, or in personal relationships.

And the act of gaslighting does not simply affect women who are not quite sure of themselves. Even vocal, confident, assertive women are vulnerable to gaslighting.

Why?

Because women bare the brunt of our neurosis. It is much easier for us to place our emotional burdens on the shoulders of our wives, our female friends, our girlfriends, our female employees, our female colleagues, than for us to impose them on the shoulders of men.

It's a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. We continue to burden women because they don't refuse our burdens as easily. It's the ultimate cowardice.

Whether gaslighting is conscious or not, it produces the same result: It renders some women emotionally mute.

These women aren't able to clearly express to their spouses that what is said or done to them is hurtful. They can't tell their boss that his behavior is disrespectful and prevents them from doing their best work. They can't tell their parents that, when they are being critical, they are doing more harm than good.

When these women receive any sort of push back to their reactions, they often brush it off by saying, "Forget it, it's okay."

That "forget it" isn't just about dismissing a thought, it is about self-dismissal. It's heartbreaking.

No wonder some women are unconsciously passive aggressive when expressing anger, sadness, or frustration. For years, they have been subjected to so much gaslighting that they can no longer express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them.

They say, "I'm sorry," before giving their opinion. In an email or text message, they place a smiley face next to a serious question or concern, thereby reducing the impact of having to express their true feelings.

You know how it looks: "You're late :)"

These are the same women who stay in relationships they don't belong in, who don't follow their dreams, who withdraw from the kind of life they want to live.

Since I have embarked on this feminist self-exploration in my life and in the lives of the women I know, this concept of women as "crazy" has really emerged as a major issue in society at large and an equally major frustration for the women in my life, in general.

From the way women are portrayed on reality shows, to how we condition boys and girls to see women, we have come to accept the idea that women are unbalanced, irrational individuals, especially in times of anger and frustration.

Just the other day, on a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a flight attendant who had come to recognize me from my many trips asked me what I did for a living. When I told her that I write mainly about women, she immediately laughed and asked, "Oh, about how crazy we are?"

Her gut reaction to my work made me really depressed. While she made her response in jest, her question nonetheless makes visible a pattern of sexist commentary that travels through all facets of society on how men view women, which also greatly impacts how women may view themselves.

As far as I am concerned, the epidemic of gaslighting is part of the struggle against the obstacles of inequality that women constantly face. Acts of gaslighting steal their most powerful tool: their voice. This is something we do to women every day, in many different ways.

I don't think this idea that women are "crazy," is based in some sort of massive conspiracy. Rather, I believe it's connected to the slow and steady drumbeat of women being undermined and dismissed, on a daily basis. And gaslighting is one of many reasons why we are dealing with this public construction of women as "crazy."

I recognize that I've been guilty of gaslighting my women friends in the past (but never my male friends--surprise, surprise). It's shameful, but I'm glad I realized that I did it on occasion and put a stop to it.

While I take total responsibility for my actions, I do believe that I, along with many men, am a byproduct of our conditioning. It's about the general insight our conditioning gives us into admitting fault and exposing any emotion.

When we are discouraged in our youth and early adulthood from expressing emotion, it causes many of us to remain steadfast in our refusal to express regret when we see someone in pain from our actions.

When I was writing this piece, I was reminded of one of my favorite Gloria Steinem quotes, "The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn."

So for many of us, it's first about unlearning how to flicker those gaslights and learning how to acknowledge and understand the feelings, opinions, and positions of the women in our lives.

But isn't the issue of gaslighting ultimately about whether we are conditioned to believe that women's opinions don't hold as much weight as ours? That what women have to say, what they feel, isn't quite as legitimate?"

see original article here. 

i just couldn't resist... it's so darn sweet.

an older gentleman recently said to me,

you're too tall. but other than that you're delightful. 

well, sir, did you ever consider you're too short?

and yes, i am delightful, thank you.

words and time.

words were dangerous around him.
because they were so few and they meant so much.

he placed his open palm above my knee but below the hem of my dress, let it live there for a moment, feeling the shape of my thigh through my thick, black stockings.

i like you in tights, he said.

oh god. time. awareness. the awareness of time.
i took a quick, sharp inhale.

how is it possible he knew me before i wore little more than tights with skirts or dresses or ill-fitting sweaters--anything oversized to cover a ballooning body in the throws of a disease? how is it possible?

six years.

seven.
eight.
four.
years and years and years.
two months.

time. countless breaths marking time.

and he was there before. but not during. not really. and so much has changed and passed and morphed. and for each of the worlds i've traveled through, he's traversed his own.

and we know a little.
but not so much, not enough

and we don't use our words terribly well. we talk in the space of silence. willing nearly impossible interpretations.

and there's been so much time. but not enough, really. not enough.

but he knows me. words or not. six years or not. seven, eight, four, years and years and years, two months, or not. he knows me.

more time.

my manhattan: the late night edition.