vacation so close i can nearly taste it.

i hear it's snowing in park city right now? or it has been?

few things have the ability to make me so happy.

with a ski vacation just two weeks away, my skin is literally itching to get to the slopes.

(and the snow, the glorious snow).

my manhattan (the one in which after a good long while i finally pulled out my camera again).

whoa boy. it's been a while, since i've done this, no? good news is, part of the reason i've not had much time for this corner of the internet has much to do with getting to know new york all the more.

a place to go forward from.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      my bed is unmade. the laundry is piled high in the corner. i've had more to drink in the last few weeks than i have in the last few years (keep in mind, that's not saying much, i'm not really a drinker. but still.). i raced through all of season two of downton abbey because pbs is only meant to have it online for like ten days more--most of that racing was done in the wee hours of the morning after long nights and longer days. i had my tarot cards read nearly a week ago and i keep thinking about it, which, as it turns out, was the one thing i was warned against--over-thinking (me, an over-thinker? nah). i cracked my iPhone two days ago, was nearly attacked on the subway (wrong place, wrong time. not to worry that'll be a story i'll give more detail when time allows), was half-jokingly proposed marriage to (i half-jokingly accepted), and when forced to answer, listed utah as my happy place (a park city ski vacation is just around the corner. but is there snow out there?).

 i didn't know i'd fall so desperately in love with being busy--didn't know i wouldn't mind having no time to myself in the morning, no time to leisurely enjoy my latte or read a book or sit down and put pen to paper. didn't know i wouldn't mind forfeiting certain things in exchange for others. didn't know i wouldn't mind leaving the house in the morning only to return eighteen hours later--too much of that spent on the subway. always too much on the subway. it's a whole different thing when you're busy with things that mean just a bit more.

i have friends who are doing exceptional things. tv shows and broadway productions and major motion pictures. friends who are getting engaged, married, having children. and so it may not seem like much, a tiny little play in a scrappy downtown theatre space. but after four years of not acting, well, it may not be a lot. but it's something.

tuesday tune.

there's something about this song....can't take it off of repeat.

 happy tuesday (here's to hoping you didn't oversleep, like me).

these are the ways you love yourself. (to forgive).

forgive yourself the nights you climb into bed full-face of makeup, too tired to take it off. forgive yourself the days when one latte is not enough, when the two major food groups are coffee and sugar. forgive yourself that one night when at two am you woke to use the bathroom and inhaled an entire chocolate bar instead. forgive the time spent with a man you now have not one nice thing to say about. and forgive just how long it took to get over him. he was not good and not kind and he is not your fault. keep some secrets closer. forgive yourself for actually loving the gentle curve of your hips. and to hell with a society which suggests you might not or should not. they herald your womanhood, the man you marry will lose himself in them, they will hoist groceries and children. they are sturdy--anchoring you firmly to this earth. forgive the nights you cannot sleep--sadness or some unnamed force pressing heavy on your chest. forgive the mistakes of the last several years. so you made them. okay. enough. move on. the mistakes and the fault-lines, they are the foundation. forgive yourself that you did not choose an easier path. and forgive yourself the sadness you caused those around you. the broken-promises and cutting words and the things left unsaid. fear was large and biting. forgive the anger you feel. feel it and then look again with kinder eyes. forgive yourself for not handling it all better, for feeling like you let others down. the path is not done, the road is not finished, why are you trying so hard to rush the whole thing? celebrate the fact that your story has some major departures. go ahead and use that expensive serum that promises to diminish those fine lines. protect and preserve your skin. but when the day does come when forehead creases no longer fade into the background, give thanks. humanity made visible! you will be loved all the more for this. you will love yourself all the more for this.  and please, for the love of all that is good and holy forgive yourself for loving a man who cannot love you back. love him anyway. send that love into the world and let it fill you up. the only way to know the story is to go out and and write it. live your way into it. ferociously. begin to live and work and fight and love with an unparalleled ferocity. let fear dictate nothing. unfurl your chest, you have all the armor you'll ever need. see with wide eyes and don't forget to laugh.

week: oh hell, i've lost count, i don't even know anymore.

i just know that someday i'll look back on this last month, hard as it's been, as a formative moment in my life. as a time when i began to love the city as i once imagined i might. when things though small and new felt vibrant and important. when happiness grew and deepened even as i spent nearly every long subway ride taking deep breaths and fighting back tears. it's two in the morning now and i can't sleep because i'm mourning the last six years of my life. does that sound ridiculous? there's just this sense that that chapter is closing. and i should be down on my knees giving thanks for that and i am, dear heaven above, i am. it was an impossible time. and i would never go back--could never go back. and i've been coming out of it for a good long while now and i just... holy hell, there are no words for this. and even if there were, perhaps they are not mine. too sacred to share, somehow. i can't say that this next chapter will be any easier. and i sure as heck don't know what it holds, everything still feels murky and dark and totally unknown, but suddenly there is a forward motion that wasn't there before. and the only way to move on is to let go of what was. and while it was awful and terrible and i'm certainly not proud of the person i was for such a good chunk of that time, it was still formative and important. and so even as i celebrate the future, i must mourn what was. two truths, one in each hand. happy and sad. past and future. a balancing act of the two. (have i mentioned i'm a libra?).

decide what to be and go be it. * 




*the avett brothers (of course).

"Time is tricky. You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don't go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day or an hour, or half a second, when so much happens, it's almost like you are born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet."

E.R. Frank

music for your morning.

a boy in a bar recently told me the type of music i love means i got a little texas left in me yet. i fell in love with him for that alone. ask me about the time i drew the lone star state's shape on the palm of a man's hand. i was explaining the panhandle and the gulf. his hand in mind was heaven. 

funny that it's only just now after nearly eight years in this city,  that i'm coming to learn about and love the low-country gal upon which the rest of me is built. 

look again, looks deceive, i'm a little bit earthy and a little bit wild. 

i digress...to the music: 

(just for kicks, an added {kickass} bonus)...

dinner.

i had an almond-milk-latte for dinner, tonight. well, that and a large chocolate-chip cookie from the baked-goods section of whole foods. i mean, okay so it was vegan and surely that counts for something?  but in terms of sugar...loaded and isn't that the front i'm trying to cut back on?

funny thing is, i was actually quite hungry--the kind of odd sits-under-your-ribs-painful kind of hunger. but nothing spoke to me. i circled the salad bar, weight the couscous versus quinoa versus my usual go-to of crispy falafel bites. even wandered over to the pizzas.

not one thing appealed.

well, one thing: sugar.

it was stress. the stress called out for it. and for something warm to hold between the hands. the fact that i could dip the cookie into the warm drink? icing on the cake, icing on the cake.

it was my second latte of the day.

the first was mid-afternoon. an attempt to combat a cloying exhaustion. the second, proverbial icing for the stress sugar in cookie form.

forgive yourself this dinner. forgive yourself this moment. those were my thoughts standing in the middle of whole foods, readying to head downtown for the first rehearsal in the actual space.

and you know what? i did. immediately i did. i granted myself forgiveness. and few things have felt better.

after all, i had spent my day making pretty good choices (raw savory coconut rounds and all). and given that i wasn't holding a box of entemenan's pop-ems, i figured this choice wasn't all that bad. could be worse.

balance and moderation. and forgiveness.

linking up and such.

the above illustration is by Faye West. how gorgeous is her artwork? (her blog).

a brilliant article on chris brown and the message the media (or is the music industry? or maybe, both?) is sending to women by touting him as some sort of comeback-kid. (kudos to Zooey Deschanel and all the women of Hello Giggles for posting such exemplary content).

i really am half-in-love with this woman. and all the way there full-on-smitten with her words. in fact i'm thinking of taking her on as my life-coach, if she'll have me, of course.

as a firm believer that healthy eating is in large part experimentation--trial and error--figuring out what works now and why, i'm really thinking of giving this woman's i quit sugar program a go.  (i already bought and am loving her ebook). there is startling new stuff coming out suggesting that sugar is a toxin that must be regulated like alcohol and other drugs. i tend to trust this science more than others because no one really has any money to gain by advocating we drastically cut back on sugar. (think an end to processed foods as we know them, oh the money that would cost the country! but oh the boon to the quality of life!).

a little video for the play i'm in which opens on thursday (euf). {and yes, the bags under my eyes were less than ideal, but i was about three weeks into a crippling cold when that video was shot. my vanity request that you keep that in mind}.

i bought this print today. and am waiting for this one in the mail. i expect my next apartment will be filled mostly by books and framed words.

as for music i'm working on putting together a playlist, but for now, i'm stuck on this avett brother's tune (heaven help me, i'd like to make love inside that harmony) and this dawes anthem (on a separate but somehow related note, i'm thinking of finding myself a mountain man. plain shirts, rough hands and all).


and now for a little business: when there is time and i return to this corner of the internet i plan on writing about (1) food and my continuously changing relationship to it. (2) acting and why i stepped away from it and how i now regard the medium. and (3) what i did during the Super Bowl.

actually i can answer that last one now: i went to target. yes, you heard that right. super bowl sunday found me at a target in the bronx. i always go somewhere that is usually crowded in an uncomfortable way, because when the super bowl is on that all changes. whole foods and fairway (both grocery stores here in new york) are other favorites for that one night. 

i also plan on getting back to posting photos and sharing the ins-and-outs of life here on the island.

i thank you all (you readers, you) for your continued support and encouragement and patience with me as i give the blog a little less time while pursuing other passions.

xo
meg

a sunday lover.

there comes a point every night when i crawl or hoist myself into bed and in the space between bended knees and face flat into the pillow that i give thanks for the comfort of a bed that is all my own.

for anyone who has ever shared a bed--be it a single night or several years--with someone who's not quite right, you know the joy that sleeping alone can bring. the not-quite-right provides a perspective like no other. a glorious thing that perspective is.

someone recently asked me if i mind being single? what a silly question. well, i haven't yet met someone who makes me wanna to give up my current Facebook status, so no. i don't mind it. not at all. i'm pretty sure that i wasn't so snide when responding to him, but he was angling, and i was side-stepping. (and just in case you didn't know, i'm not the girl that feels the need to list any sort of Facebook relationship status at all. so there). and why does blogger keep capitalizing Facebook for me? maybe i want a lowercase f...

damn, this was meant to be a poetic and lovely post about sundays and the space between and the yearning for a companion.

let me try again:

i don't mind this single life.

not usually.

but sundays are different. sundays i feel the absence upon waking. it is on sundays that i long for a brunch companion. or someone to help me with the new york time's puzzle. someone for whom to make an extra bit of coffee. someone to fall back into bed around noon with.

a sunday someone.




one of my girlfriends recently said she was in search of a part-time lover.

i'll take one just for sundays, please.

saturday morning.

snow. freshly brewed coffee with almond milk. a lit candle. knee socks (polka-dotted). windows ever-so-slightly-open. just enough time to give the apartment a really good clean. and some damn fine music.

perfection in the small pocket of respite that this morning affords.

some words of wisdom.

you want to know what i hate? big-sloppy-mouthed-cheek kisses that leave the recipient wiping the side of their face. falling asleep with one boot still on because the zipper got stuck and at one in the morning there isn't the energy or will to get it undone. dreaming about said boot all night. not having enough time. feeling snowed in (metaphorically, not literally--literally, i could do with a little more snow).

i might come back into my skin sometime around the beginning of march (might).

so for today, because i myself need some words of inspiration, do please indulge me as i share just that:

forgive me for not linking these better than to say that all can be found here.

and you can follow me on pinterest here. 

in inches.

i ran down the hill toward home.

home for now.

the air was cool, bordering on blistery, but certainly not becoming of february.

my feet throbbed and i wondered why i had chosen to wear my blue-suede-pumps to work--where was the sense in that?

it was close to two, middle of the night, exhaustion creeping in that uncomfortable way around the back of the head.

this is your becoming, this is your becoming, i repeated, calling forth the wisdom of my elders and betters.

i could make a list of everything that's upsetting me. and in three months time most of the issues will have passed or receded or proved blessings. i know this. there is comfort in this.

and yet, three years ago i might have said the same, but there are still those few, same uncomfortable, unanswered questions. the same unanswered love, the same unfulfilled home in this city.

this is your becoming.

it can change in a new york minute. that's what they say. but it's been eight years now and any good changes have been a fight. slow and painstaking and absolutely measured in inches--won in inches and years. nothing resembling a minute.

this is your becoming.

you see, most days i feel like i'm banging my head against the same damn walls and lord i need a good cry, but hell if it'll come.

this is your becoming.

just one good thing, i think. one good, unexpected little miracle. let it surprise me.

that's all i want.

i sit with that wish. for a good long while i let it take up just enough space, careful it doesn't consume.

and then, just the other day, while listening to the avett brothers and paging through a script on the long, unforgiving train to the outer-fringes of brooklyn, there is a thought:

you are the miracle.

this is my becoming.

i am the miracle. my very existence. the breath that rises and falls. the little rebel heart that continues to pump blood, continues to fall in love even when i can't see the sense, or summon the strength. the will to be better, to be more, to see wider and love more freely, i. am. the miracle.

the rest will come. because i exist and i want and i'm willing to fight--even in inches. each day is more, even when it feels little and ugly--the day is more. the inches will add up, the inches will accumulate.

this is my becoming.
i am the miracle.