okay.

i have arrived in utah where i will be for the next three months.

right now three months seems like an interminable amount of time to spend in a place where i don't really know anyone. in a room that feels awfully tiny, awfully white, and awfully far from home.

but the mountains are large and green and one feels like they might just reach out their hand and actually touch them.

so i'll let the mountains do their work on me. and i'll be okay.

even if i have to cry a bit along the way.

like yesterday. on the plane. because i don't know that i've ever been so frightened. or felt so far away from what i had once imagined for my life.

or like today. because i miss my parents (and some really darn good tex-mex food).

but parents (and lupe's) will be in texas when i return in september.

and new york will be on the cusp of autumn when i finally make it back.

and who knows where life will be. and that's the exciting part, right?

the tub will wait.

so i got my cry.

on the subway, actually.

i'm starting to think all things in new york eventually come back to the subway.

i was that girl, in the corner, folded in on herself, falling apart.

someone handed me a stack of fast-food napkins, that's how bad it got.

but the tears were sweet and deep and when all was said and done, i stood up, climbed the stairs out of the station, and felt the cool, night air on my freshly-watered face.

tubs

tonight i dreamt of a house.

an old victorian home.

with a four-footed tub on the top floor.

a large white four-footed tub filled with warm, clean water.

in which to dive. to soak. to clean. to cry.

to cry, really.

yes, tonight i dreamt of a large victorian home with a four-footed tub in which to cry.

because i need to cry. but cannot.

i tried.

on the walk home from the subway.

in the cold, wet city air. i tried.

with each return to new york the question of what am i returning to becomes harder to answer.

(certainly not any kind of tub i'd choose to fall apart in).

and the thing is, the silence on the other end of that question is a certain kind of death.

sometimes...

sometimes...my past seems more inviting than my future. because it’s known. what i wouldn’t give to be the eight year old who survived on boxcar children and goldfish, who built forts and gave tea parties, who believed in kissing her bears goodbye each morning. sometimes i wonder if I took a misstep somewhere. and if with that misstep I’m failing my eight-year-old self. i wonder if there’s any going back. 

but then, sometimes...i have brief, fleeting moments of clarity. And I know. i know that the best is yet to come. that my days of forts and tea parties are not over. that love, as i know it, is only the beginning. and that there are no missteps, no wrong turns. that every good day, every bad, every right decision, every wrong, will lead me to exactly where i’m meant to be.

photos via ffffound

and visualize.us

once more.

today i awoke to a miracle.

the city was a revelation.

bathed in green. swathed in new light.

i stood on the corner of 77th and columbus and was lost. i'd gone too far. not far enough. where was i?

i looked up. 77th. columbus. no, this is right. and then i realized:

green. a canopy of green above. and with that, everything looked different. altered. the usual no more.

the city is a brand new playground. these corners and pockets that i know so well have changed and are beckoning me forth to explore. mapped and charted territory in need of new delineations.

suddenly, the usually banal cross town bus trip is like burrowing through the center of the rain forest. it doesn't last too long. but it's a glorious explosion of lushness in the gathered bouquet of skyscrapers and tenements that is new york.

new york is new again. new to me. and i could fall in love once more.

we forget, you know. there are times that our memories trail so close behind--clicking at our heels. and so we forget. trees lose their leaves. and then they find them again. of course. how could i forget this?

barren arms reaching to the sky. and then an answered prayer. blooms and buds. and flowers and leaves. cyclical. life is cyclical. and so the word barren is not right. trees are not barren. they are never without. they are in transition. life takes on new form.

i am not without. i am in transition. and soon a prayer will be answered and i will bloom and open. and i will be the same but altered. and i will get to explore this new me who was here all along. and the cycle will repeat.

the trees sang me a song this morning and my ears are alight with their hum.

I am the Walrus.

Today I took Liam and Bells (my two babysitting charges) to the Natural History Museum.

At one point with my best fish face, I turned to Liam and between fish bubble noises I asked, "What am I Liam? Am I fish?"

He said, "No silly, you're a woman."

There it was. Life's great truth. Delivered by a three year-old.

I think life might be a lot like the 1 train.

Often too crowded. Sometimes too slow. Most of the time you're in transition between one platform and the next. Too often you just want to get to where you're going. And then just when you think darkness is the only thing you'll ever know, you reach Dyckman street and the sun comes pouring in. 

And for all you non-New Yorkers out there, the 1 train is part of our undeground subway system. It runs from South Ferry (the low end of the island) all the way up to the Bronx. And it happens to be my most often used and most convenient mode of transportation. Dyckman Street is way up there in the Bronx just south of 210 and the train ends at 245h street.

Musings, ramblings...Or what you will.

It's a perfect Saturday morning in the city. Quiet. Cool. Slightly overcast. My laundry is tucked away in one of the many washing machines two doors down and a hint of breeze is slipping in through the top of my window. 

When I was little I played make-believe more than most children do. I carried out the humble manifestations of my dreams and idyllic ideas long after most girls had become boy-obsessed. When I was tiny I played wedding make-believe. And god bless my mother as she was always in search of the perfect underslip that would easily turn into the perfect wedding dress (I guess I envisioned separates?). I played house, most especially whenever my father brought home flowers, for they brought out any domestic goddess tendencies that now lay dormant. I had my own little Fischer Price kitchen in the pantry and I would piddle away the time answering the yellow telephone and taking things in and out of the stove. God, I still remember the curve of the plastic and glamor of it all. The first two jobs I ever aspired to were those of cheerleader and flight attendant. Think about it, a young girl's first two job choices: flight attendant, chearleader...yes, clearly feminism was alive and well. Not to worry, in time I dreamt of becoming a pediatrician or the first female President of the United States. But when I really think about it, from a very young age, I wanted nothing more than to live in Manhattan, all by my lonesome, and live the life of  a sophisticated, hard-working, single gal. I didn't dream about marriage or even men. I dreamt about the life I could build by myself, so that when I did meet the man of my dreams I would be ready for him.

At school, for four years, all I ever heard was, if you can get through this, you can get through anything--that our schedule would be harder than anything we'd ever come up against. Well, let me tell you...no one, absolutely no one, prepared me for this. Working a myriad of jobs (while constantly seeking to expand the circle of employment), auditioning, taking class to make you a better artist because really you're working to become a better person, keeping up with friends and family, and oh yeah...trying to keep my head above the rip-roaring currents that constantly threaten--that's hard. It's so hard. Remember, a while back when I said that I wish it could be just a little bit easier? I still hope for that, but now I'm not just hoping--I'm working towards it, on a daily basis. It's so hard...and right now, I wouldn't have it any other way. 

I was so taken by CJane's post where she wrote that Christian spoke of literally feeling the prayers working on him. The idea of that humbles me in every possible way--the idea that prayer is not a thought, but an actual action, an energy that moves through the world healing. Well, I'm starting to believe that prayers coupled with the million daily miracles that keep life moving forward can actually change us--heal us, alter our physical make-up. My day requires alot of travel time. Busses, subways, foot traffic. And well, I can feel those hour long subway rides working on me. Those cross town bus trips shaping something new and different. The very ebb and flow of the city is moving over and through me, carving a new outlook, eroding doubts, dislodging fear. Something much greater than me is healing me, making me whole again. Two days ago, walking in Brooklyn before class, I realized that right now, at this very moment, I am living the life I envisioned for myself as a child. I am beholden to no one but myself. I am working as hard as I can, but as of yet, my life is completely anonymous. My life is my own. The other day, when I claimed those words as my new working mantra, I had not a clue as to how truly fitting and potent they could be, because there is a freedom in that anonymity like nothing I've ever before experienced. And yet, even that statement my life is my own, is somehow false. My life belongs to something much greater, much larger than me. I don't know where my religion stands right now (I'm working on it) but I do know that a higher power is working on me. So my life in many ways, is not my own at all. And I'm so glad it's this hard. Because I'm not alone. And I know that five years from now, I'm going to look back on this period as pure, unadulterated bliss. And in those five years as success gradually takes on new forms and different names, each period will be just as miraculous as the last. Now that I am aware of the joy inherent to any present moment, it will just keep coming, so that each new period of my life will be just as important and joyous as the last. Different in form, but similar in spirit. 

And thank God for that.