THE BEST SORT OF QUESTION.

Sitting in Tom's office yesterday, I ran out of things to say. I had caught him up on the two weeks before. Had filled him in on this guy and that, this work debacle and that--all the many things I can't control, but worry about nonetheless. Small fries, all of it. Mostly small fries.

And so we sat for a moment. Both of us quiet. 

And then Tom took a breath and asked me what I was most proud of—in terms of the last few years, what was the best thing I’d done.

And I smiled. And he smiled. 

Because it was the best sort of a question. 

A question having to do with successes that only he and I really know about.

A question as an acknowledgment of what we'd accomplished. The crossing from one impossible shore to another. A nod to the end of the thing. Which has not yet ended, but which we both now know will. Which we always knew, but now know know in that way that makes it easier to talk about.

It's important to identify what it is you're proud of because it helps establish identity. And if the eating disorder steals identity, which it does, we must then fill it back in.

And so I shared what I thought. And Tom shared what he though. 

And we sat in silence a little while longer.

You know, I'm sad today, I said, my words carving a gentle river in the quiet. On my way here I was feeling angry and then I got on the subway and I took a big breath and I thought, oh, huh, sadness. It’s a sweet sort of sadness—one without a why--one that will pass. I’m proud of that--I’m proud that I know it’ll pass.

And I’m proud of the wreath on my apartment door. Because that wreath hanging there, says something. It speaks to who I am and what I value. It speaks to the very notion of home.

Identity.

I’m proud of this quiet little neighborhood. Proud that the corner nursery turns into a Christmas tree lot the day before Thanksgiving. I’m proud of these things that I have no control over, that have nothing to do with me, but have everything to do with what I want and what I value.

I’m pretty sure life has very much to do with things beyond our control. And very much to do with things not beyond our control. And it has everything to do with the balance we strike between the two. The constant leap after constant leap of faith that we must make. And the bridge we build in the wake of those small and consistent flights.

I’m proud of the things I’ve quietly let go of.  The loves and false notions and truths that became less true over time.

Identity.

I’m proud that who I am now is not who I was before. That I’m not really who anyone--myself least of all--thought I’d turn out to be.

I think pride has much to do with actions aligning with desire. Small actions and small gestures that plant flags in territories we wish to claim.

I’m proud that Tom asked the question. Proud that I had an answer.

Now on to make my morning coffee and begin the day...

miracle of miracles.

disclaimer: if you don't know who ned is, 

chances are you'll want to find out 

before you begin to read this.

look here.

or check my sidebar

for more reading suggestions.

 

the most amazing thing happened today.

i went to my absolute favorite frozen-yogurt place in all of new york city, forty carrots (at bloomingdale's) and ordered up a small coffee-flavored delight.

there are a few things you should know about forty-carrot frozen-yogurt.

1. it's the best.

and

2. a small serving is about the size of a small child's head. 

i took my yogurt to go and, forgoing the cross town subway, walked through the park to columbus circle. 

i diligently finished all of my frozen delight around 59th and 5th. at which point i began to notice an unpleasant after-taste in my mouth.

i walked the rest of the way to the A train while pondering the strange taste.

and this is what i concluded:

the introduction of real food into my life is changing my ability to deal with processed food. 

in other words, all that fruit is screwing with my taste buds.

this is a good thing. i know, i know, it's just hard to take in the moment. it's probably for the best, forty carrots recently stopped offering crushed skors bars as a topping and so my coffee delight was never going to be the same anyway. 

but still. euf. 

there were a few days while in australia where ned took strong hold.

when ned is at his worst it as though i am every so slowly suffocating. or as if i am a tire with a small air leak, but in reverse. 

big events can be hard. a trip to australia. a landmark. by which time you think you'll be at a certain point. that you'll be okay taking a million photos. and then you're not. and this brief-glittering compass that guided your life for the last month dissolves in your hands and you're left with sticky residue of your own disappointment. 

there was one day where stephen's request to photograph me in front of the sydney sky-line resulted in a near-nervous-breakdown. 

and yet for every day on vacation where ned had me fighting for my life there were days where i couldn't believe how absent he was. and the flip-flopping between the two extremes resulted in a wee of a miracle.

i gained perspective.

oh, perspective!

there are certain things i want for my life. things that being thin will be enormously helpful with. and that's a fact. like it or not.

and it's not personal. just...pragmatic. 

does that make sense? 

i haven't seen dr. bob in a little over a month (august was the time to vacation!). but i think when i tell him of this he'll be pleased. he'll tell me this is good because i'm now using a different part of my brain to deal with the situation.  

getting better is a process. the pace of which puts a snail to shame. 

and there are different stages.

stage #450,201: put end to binges:

allowing myself to eat whatever i wanted so as to not trigger any kind of deprivation mechanism. this included many a starbuck's rainbow cookie. which is fine. except that i was eating starbuck's rainbow cookies at the expense of a good wholesome meal. 

so now begins stage #450,246: the quest for 6+ fruits and vegetables a day. and swimming:

it's about health, mental and body. and the knowledge that this will most likely change my body. but it's not about just changing the body. 

with the accumulation of stages and thus ned's continued recession comes the awareness of just how much i have yet to improve upon--things you'd never guess were connected in any way to food. 

i have to listen better. 

and learn to speak eloquently (and unemotionally) in difficult situations. 

and by golly, i need to practice flirting!

but i'm so proud of myself. 

i flew across the world. 

by myself. 

and arranged for the travel visa. 

by myself. 

i repainted my entire apartment when it would have been much easier to fall apart. 

i got the bed bug covers on my mattress by myself (and that, i must say is quite difficult to do). 

i stood-up for myself.

and admitted when i was wrong.

i've taken initiative at work. 

i put on a bathing suit four days last week and walked from the locker room to the pool sans t-shirt, towel, or any form of cover-up. 

there are a hundred other things that i can't even remember. little things. things other people do without giving it a second though. 

in some ways it all boils down to this:

i'm learning to navigate this life without ned there to make all my decisions for me. and that my friends is a miracle of no small size. 

in fact, i'm quite sure it's of gargantuan proportions. 

after school. (after juilliard).

i remember at the age of nineteen sitting on the weathered red chairs in the lobby of juilliard when a dear friend in his fourth and final year took a breath, appraised the chair, appraised me and said: it's going to be strange not coming here every day. i'm not sure how i'll do it.


no one tells you how hard the time just after college is. no one prepares you for it.

for the countless hours you traverse the city taking more classes, meeting more people, working never-ending jobs to pay the never-ending bills, all the while wondering what possessed you to get a bachelor of fine arts in the first place? for those nights you find yourself on the bathroom floor because really that red wine did not go down well or really that guy was so-not-the-one, but this feeling, well--goodness, it sure does feel like a broken heart.

(or the nights, like tonight, you find yourself sitting propped against the toilet because the bathroom is the only place you can connect to the internet).

but then again, no one prepares you for how it's better than all that's come before. how it's richer and fuller.

for that first phone call from a girlfriend to tell you she's pregnant--for how much fun it is to watch these people you love marry and grow families. and how you get to choose--yes, choose!--who you surround yourself with. who you love. who you laugh with. who you call in the middle of the night--from the bathroom floor--when that old sadness creeps in.

and no one says how there's nothing so much like love in this life. love of a child. of a friend. love of all those small things that amount to a life.

and lord help me, if there's anything i've learned from naomi over the years, it's how to love the small things.

the thing is, watching as she and josh parent eleanor--as they give selflessly of themselves, i have a feeling that in the coming years i'm going to get a good schooling on the big things, as well.



dear naomi, josh, and little miss e: thank you for a wonderful weekend, your wonderful friendship, and the love you so freely give.




(plus, it's so fun to hang out with people that lug their camera everywhere and take just as many photos as i do {most people don't get it}).

thanks-giving, indeed. for this, i give thanks.

it happened two days ago. the day before thanksgiving. a preparatory miracle, for the holiday.

i awoke and i knew. immediately, i knew. before my swollen feet had even hit the cool, creaking floor, i knew. it had passed, lifted, moved on.

or perhaps it had simply moved through.

this bout of blue was done.

it sounds so naive, doesn't it? so simple? you wake one day and it's no more. but that's how it was. that's how it is.

an energetic shift, a tilt. like moving your weight from your heels to the balls of your feet.

what struck me this go round--in the immediacy of the lifting fog--was the absence of fear that colored the last three months. that was the difference.

i awoke without fear. the kind that presses in on your chest, makes breathing difficult--a low grade panic you learn to deal with, resign yourself to.

but upon waking two mornings ago, i felt fearless, unafraid, filled by such faith. faith that all will work itself out. that i will find meaning, find purpose, fulfill a calling, be filled with such love as is written and talked about and dreamt of.

and in the presence of such faith, the other things fade. it's not that they disappear or have no place, but the focus shifts and they recede, find their proper place. it is the turn of the lens and the subsequent clarity.

order restored.

and the return of words. suddenly the delicious, glorious onslaught of words! welcome back, old friends. welcome home. 


i can't tell you for sure what caused the shift. whether it was the fresh flowers i bought this week, or the new haircut. i don't know if it was the popcorn and small glass of white wine i had the night before last at one in the morning after returning home from work.

maybe it was the moment a month ago when i literally felt God unfurl himself within my chest. great flaps of wings spanning the width of my shoulders.

the week in texas helped, i'm sure. walks on the bayou. walking, moving, energizing the body.

maybe it was the necklace that's meant to symbolize open-heartedness that sits flush against my chest. or the men's gingham shirt that i got from the gap and makes me feel sexy in a way few dresses ever have.

maybe it was the consistent and constant love of those who so kindly support me.

i don't know which of the small things did it, which of any of the things i've done day after day over the last three months caused the shift. perhaps it was the accumulation of all of them.

it's alchemy. magic. or just a moving through.

the trick is not forcing the shift. it's preparing for it. being ready so that you can catch it as it rushes past you. and then holding on as it takes off. a willingness to go along for the ride.

does any of this make sense?

hmm. maybe it doesn't need to. maybe some things are best left in that realm of half-sense, half-absolute-miracle.

on Body Image--and why I write about it.

It's National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 24-March 2). Because of that, there's some great literature on the internet this week, including this piece by Kate Fridkis which I read on Huff Post Women this morning and inspired me to write what follows...



I write about body image because "How can I know what I think until I see what I say."*

I write about body image because I hardly ever feel beautiful, but know that I am. 

I write about body image because beauty is an alienating thing--a terribly lonely thing--belonging not to the the person in possession of it, but to all those with the eyes to behold it.  

I write about body image because at the age of nineteen, heartbroken and homesick and absolutely out-of-my-depth, I learned what a calorie was. 

And I followed a false god home. 

I write about body image because it took five minutes in front of a mirror to reshape how I perceived my own body. Not thin, fat. 

Fat, now. 

I write about body image because the body is flesh and bones and tangible in a way that everything else is not. 

I write about body image because it's easier to think a man doesn't like me because-of-what-I-look-like than to hang in the gray space of the-infinite-uknonwn. But why, why doesn't he like me?

And I'm not good at the gray space.

I write about body image because body-image sometimes seems like a life-raft worth clinging to in the choppy waters of this impossible sea we call life.

It isn't.

I write about body image because for many, many years when I would feel too much, I would eat too much, just to sleep, a little. And then, to feel nothing, if only for a moment.

I write about body image because some days it is absolutely unbearable to live in my skin. And I think I cannot endure this sensation a moment longer. And I know it has nothing do with my physical body...yet it feels like it does. 

I write about body image because for a long time it was easier to hate my thighs and my hips than admit I really did not like myself.

I write about body image because it is the prism through which we, as women, see and talk about the world.

We talk about wanting to look this way or that way, when (I'm convinced), what we really want is love and acceptance and life-alteringly-good-things. (And appearance, for the most part, does not alter one's life--not in the big ways we always imagine it might. This, I know from experience).

I write about body image because it is the code by which we discuss things so large they scare us to say aloud.

I say I'm fat when what I really mean is I'm sad. And I berate the size of my thighs because that is easier than admitting I am untethered and adrift and totally lost at this point in my life--that notion is too big and too true and will surely make others uncomfortable, so I make it small...so small that it is about the size of my waist and the color of my hair and the awkward arrangement of moles on the left side of my face. 

I write about body image because before I can tell you just-why-it-is-I-really-don't-care-for-a-particular-woman (and sometimes, I really don't) I can say no less than five judgmental and evaluative things about what-she-looks-like. (Think about it, I bet you can do this too).

I find this both appalling and fascinating.

I write about body image because it shouldn't be a thing, but it is a thing, and more than that.. it points to THE-THINGS!(all the big and significant things that life is really and actually about and therefore difficult to break down into small, manageable pieces).

I write about body image because my eating disorder wasn't about what I looked like, even if for years I thought that it was. And so body image isn't really about what we look like, even if we continue to cling to the notion that it is.

I write about body image because I'm so much better now and so much happier and I still have a nearly impossible time having my photo taken...and what the hell, you know?

*E.M. Forster said this. And he's the coolest. 

twitter.

pinterest.

instagram.

almost every post i've ever written

about my struggle with an

eating disorder can be found

here.

and my most recent one...on the inevitable end of the thing. 

more than a fort.

I came to visit one night. To make sure I could live here. We had drinks, my friend and I. And talked about life now, a year after school.

And then I took the red-line subway home, to my little pocket on the Upper West Side. I climbed into my too-small bed, in my too-small bedroom—my too small bedroom without a door--and I cried.

I cried for the all the things I imagined I was losing. I cried for failed expectations and the perpetual push away of that line—that demarcation of success.

And then I woke the next morning, washed away exhaustion and disappointment, and set about busying myself with all the tasks a move demands:

Telling the roommate. Letter of notice. Cleaning. Packing. Painting (oh the painting). To take the bed or not? Change of address. Weaning the wardrobe. Trips to Goodwill. Cajoling friends into helping with the actual move.

And all the while I was afraid. You see, I’d lived on the Upper West Side for five years. Two years in a dorm at 66^th street, followed by two different apartments at 104^th, and finished by my near-year stint at 80^th. A forty block radius, in which I conducted my life. A forty block radius in which I attempted to become an adult. And yet here I was hurtling myself a hundred blocks north of my-so-called-home.

It was a product of funds. Of not having enough to live in such a “prime” location. It was capitulation, this move.

And yet I found that as I ticked away all those tedious tasks, I began ticking away other things--things I’ve long talked about but never acted on.

I bought a bike. And went in search of the perfect swimming pool. I found it at 145^th and Riverside—I’m going tomorrow for the first time. I began to keep track of expenses and I (wait for it) did my taxes. And this idea of growing up, becoming an adult was suddenly an appealing notion. For the first time in my life (truly, the first time) it seemed thrilling, actually.

And so this move became about more than necessary funds, or the lack thereof. It was not capitulation, but decision. A choice. A change. An opportunity.

I spent the summer after my sophomore year of high school in Manhattan. Five weeks. I took the bus in every morning and walked thirteen blocks south to 27^th street. And the city revealed itself to me and I to it. And I fell in love with mutual revelation.

I have spent five years trying to rediscover that love, or to recreate it.

Washington Heights is the most topographically diverse area in all of Manhattan.

It is.

Before I moved up here I would throw this fact around, using it as currency—one of many justifications I employed to convince others that I was in fact excited to make the move uptown. I don’t tell people this anymore, I don’t need to, I don’t need to justify anything. But because we’re all friends, I’ll tell you...two blocks north of me is a park where back in day, good ol’ George Washington set up fort with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Mmmmm…I hate to brag, doesn't that history just turn you on?

And the street I live on is hilly. It bends to kiss the Hudson river. The George Washington Bridge stands guard against the skyline. It is strong and constant. The bakery across the street sells a roll that reminds me of my two week stint in Cuernavaca—we’d walk into a panaderia with two dollars in our pocket and walk out with two brown paper bags of bread—it was a happy time when one survived on bread and milk alone.

I can always find a seat on the A train. And the apartment gets light. And I have a door!

The grocery store on 187^th is small and clean and wide with inviting aisles. It carries pumpking flax and ciao bella gelato. I could marry the grocery store! There are no crowds to fight, no throngs to move against. Fairway was always an experiment in tolerance and agility.

I love the relative calm here. The near silence. I love the ubiquity of bikes. Yes, the ubiquity of bikes! What a satisfying statement! And more than anything I love that it feels small and lush. It is a neighborhood. And I have found my Manhattan and mutual revelation is once more mine to unfold.

I loved Australia. The whole experience was divine. And yet there was no better feeling than climbing into a yellow taxi after a 20 hour sojourn, asking the driver to take me home, and for the first time in five years of Manhattan living, believing in the power of that word. Home.

I am home. And life is good.

i read this and sobbed--the kind of good, big, open tears that unfurl the chest.

so if you read only one thing today, let it be this--
please, God, let it be this:

{i'm posting it in full here, but please, take note: THESE WORDS ARE NOT MINE. the original can be found here}.

Dear Sugar,

I read your column religiously. I’m 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early 40s. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?

Love,
Seeking Wisdom

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Yours,
Sugar

you don't have a career. you have a life.
acceptance is a small, quiet room. 
what you resolve will need to be resolved again. 

the kiss in doorway--that's where i began to really lose it. from there it was all downhill. or up, maybe. this piece will be bookmarked in my tab bar till the end of time.

on beauty.

i have this really tenuous relationship with beauty.

in that, most of the time, i feel anything but.

put me next to a beautiful woman and immediately i feel dwarfed her. an impostor.

and yet, as a woman, what i look like is one of the ways in which i define myself.

we all do--it's cultural and biological and darwinian and the full implications so far surpass my understanding it's unnerving.

i was having a heart to heart with my brother recently and we were talking about a particular woman we both know and he said to me, yeah, the average guy is gonna find her more attractive.

oh. huh. hmmm. i responded, lips pursed.

usually my brother gets away with saying things like this because he's honest and direct and there's nothing calculated about what comes out of his mouth. but this one stung a bit. it hit the achilles heel that is beauty--the thing we all care about but pretend not too for fear of appearing vain.

i'm sure there are those out there who would say, no, no, not me, i don't care about my appearance or what i look like or being thought beautiful--and maybe that woman does exist. but my guess is there is a spectrum of caring and we all fall somewhere on it. and if you think you don't then i'd call your attention to the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep's character absolutely schools Anne Hathaway about her blue sweater. remember that one? oh, it's so good. well this issue is kind of like that one. i'd too would like to place no value on what i look like, but society tells me i should--i must.

my brother, sensing he had hit upon a tricky subject, attempted damage control: look, your hair is in a messy bun at the back of your neck, you have glasses on and no makeup. when a man sees a group of women his eyes gravitate toward the shiny object. and well, the other girl's hair had volume. and volume in the hair, that's a shiny object.

he had a point.

i had to admit, he had a point.


is it because she’s thinner than me? i pushed.

no. we [men] don’t usually notice that. (which is so true and why can't i remember that?).

this issue of not as attractive stuck with me. maybe it was the week or the summer heat or some sort of passing funk, but on that particular day the thought crawled under my skin and stuck.

and then there came a day came not long after that i survived simply by filling my pockets with australian red licorice and pulling out small pieces at necessary moments. and at some point, sitting on the floor, a red nub between my fingers, i thought, i bet that girl--that more-beautiful-girl—would never fill her pockets with licorice. and this is not to say this makes me better. or worse. but different. and my particular brand of different—my licorice-filled-pockets is something i quite like about myself.

in fact, i dare say it’s something that makes me beautiful. not upon first glance. and not physically. and maybe not to the average man.  but given enough time and enough perspective it provides a sort of depth to the image.

and then there’s the question of the average man--of what that means--and when have i ever been interested in what the average man thinks? when have i ever been most attracted to the most typically good-looking-guy? so why should i want that the guy i end up with to think me the most typically good-looking woman?

don’t get me wrong, i have been blessed to know and care about some damn fine looking men. but i doubt the average woman would pick them out of a lineup.

i guess that’s the real worry, right—that if the man i care about (or the men i’ve cared about) was to happen upon a table with me and this other woman, he (or they) might be more drawn to her?

ay, there’s the rub--that’s what got under my skin!

average man be damned, i was scared of a hypothetical that would probably, most likely, never happen and even if it did, might very well work in my favor! ah, the gymnastics of the mind!

but i was nonetheless intrigued by this idea of men and shiny objects and their propensity to reach for them. and so i did a little research—which means i asked tom (tom being the most level-headed man i know). and as he explained it, how we as women care for our appearance—the lipstick we apply, the volume we so generously add to our hair, the clothes we choose—this sends a signal to men: ready, willing, and available (for procreation--i told you it was evolutionary). these shiny objects are how we get a man’s attention. but not how we keep it.

we keep it with licorice in our pockets and funny jokes and our brand of wit. we keep it with the things that make us beautiful but have nothing to do with what we look like or how we dress or how poofy our hair is.

i did this play reading a few weeks ago that dealt with the idea of women and beauty and what a complicated issue it is--the expectations made of and on a beautiful woman and the danger of identifying too closely with what we look like.

a play reading is one of the ways in which a playwright is able to work on a new play--iron out kinks and identify holes and get it to a place where it's finished. and so some of the audience feedback was that the contemporary woman in the show--her obsession with what she looked like and her fear of losing her beauty was too small, too unimportant to be dramatized in a play.

but i said to jessica (the playwright): i don't think it is a small problem. it is a question of worth--of a woman's worth. and is there anything larger than that? of am i worthy of love? of courage? of motherhood?--those are big, big questions.

the thing is, beauty is the language in which we speak. we wonder if we are beautiful enough, which is really a question of are we worth enough? but we have been trained and conditioned to think of that in terms of what we look like. we insult other people by saying well she's a cow which while she may very well be fat, what has that to do with anything? what we mean is she's a bitch, but we say she's fat, as if fat explains the bitchiness--as if fat is the insult or even the real problem. when really, no, she's just a bitch (because let's be honest, some people are).

this is all to say, i as much as anyone enjoy dressing up and taking care of my skin and applying makeup--these things send signals about how much i value myself. and that's important. but how much i value myself isn't dependent on these things.

i like licorice and will keep it in my pockets if the mood strikes. i've got a really strong arm and can throw a baseball pretty damn far. i make a mean morning latte and can shimmy a night away with the best of them (maybe not as well, but i'll try nonetheless). these things give me worth. these things add meaning and value to my life. these are the things that when i step out of the shower and look at myself--no makeup in sight, no voluminous hair--i not only think i am beautiful, i feel beautiful.

You, instead.

For you,


This used to be easier, didn't it? I think it used to be easier. I'm pretty sure it was once-upon-a-time a little less hard.

I'm tired. I'm tired in that way that settles around the eyes and reveals just a little too much, a little too soon. Tired in that way that lacks imagination--that can't imagine anything changing, ever.

I've grown into my adult face. At some point between the majority of twenty-six and the last few months I got my adult face. I almost didn't notice, it's a really subtle change. My cheeks are so full (and yes,  I'm sure as I age I'll be ever-more-grateful for just how big they are) but they are ever-so-slightly-less-big, ever-so-slightly-less-full. The outline of my face is a little bit leaner, a little bit harder.

I went out with some girlfriends recently and we had one of those New York nights that's governed by nothing more than the overriding principle of what-the-hell. And so when two Croatian "aesthetic" surgeons (specializing in rhinoplasty) sat down next to us, we let them. And when they toppled a single glass of wine with little left, we allowed them to buy three more. And when they guessed our ages (accurately) I then demanded to know just how it was they knew I was two years older. And the one said, The lines on either side of your mouth are deeper.

He might have used more clinical, professional (accurate) terms, but I knew what he meant.

It became one of the jokes of the weekend--me and my deepening smile lines.

It did used to be easier.

I've run out of things to say. Or maybe just the courage to say them. Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe it's that I've forgotten what it felt like to do this--to write, to imagine, to leap into a future without small and unkind people saying small and unkind things--not the doctor, but the people who come and read these words and think me so terrible because of them.

I know this feeling will pass. And I know I'll get my courage back. And I know I'll figure out how to care a little less about the small cruelties of others. But today I do. And today it's hard.

The thing is, I like my deepening smile lines. I like my older, now adult face. And so maybe it does get harder, and maybe am I little more tired, but maybe those things are just products of reaching in the direction of the life I want.

Of which you are a part.

So forget the small and unkind and cruel naysayers, I'll take you instead.





Yours

on heartache.

I remember walking around the Met as things with the-last-man-I-really-cared-about were unraveling. Surrounded my such immense history and such immeasurable beauty and there was but one thought:

There is a great, gaping hole in the middle of my chest. 

Someone asked me about heartbreak recently--about how to get over it? And it's not the first time someone has asked this question so I started thinking about it and found I couldn't stop. I thought about it on the subway and in the shower and at work. And I thought about it as I listened to Elliot Smith.

I'm damaged bad at best.

Five words in a song. Five small and true words.

I am in a debt to Elliot Smith for those five words and that perfect truth.

I'm damaged bad at best.

I think about those words now as I meet men for the first time. First dates in which we sit at a bar and sip wine and I wonder just how quickly they will see my sadness.

I wear it differently now than I did at eighteen or twenty-five or any of the years between. I'm more comfortable with it--more at ease with the notion that it's an accumulation of all the lives before this one. It is my history and my inheritance. It is the truest part of who I am. And the most terrifying--I imagine to others looking in, it is the most terrifying.

But only from the outside. Only when not understood. Because for me it is a sadness that simply is--that is so telling of what it is to be human and alive in this world.

But sometimes it is more immediate, closer to the surface.

And I'm okay with that. It's an altogether not-so-bad feeling, sadness.

I'm far less comfortable with the sense that every time I turn around I'm face-planting into a brick wall--that's a sensation far less bearable. And I keep wondering when this phase of my life in which I go out with girlfriends and end up crying as I attempt to explain that just-as-soon-as-I-think-I've-turned-a-corner-I'm-face-first-in-brick will end.

I'll take the sadness. It's the frustration and sense of failure and the nagging notion that I'll never be enough that I find altogether less than pleasurable--the math of too much somehow adding up to not enough. Too emotional, too honest, too demanding, too picky, too much of too many things. Altogether, not enough. Somehow, still, not enough

My mother said something recently that I can't stop thinking about. With great love she said, You're afraid that everyone will figure out you're a fraud. You're afraid that everyone who comes here to read these words--all the kind people with kind things to say, will somehow figure out that you are not worthy of what they say. And that's on you.

When what I'm really afraid of is that I am something that can only be loved in the dark--hidden and away. That to love me would be a shameful thing.

And what a terrible truth to hold.

That is part the-story-I-tell-myself-now and part the-story-told-to-me-by-every-man-I've-ever-cared-for. And it is the inheritance of the-next-man-who-undoes-me. That's the worst of it--that it is someone else's inheritance.

I'm damaged bad at best.


Just the other night there was a guy and he wasn't terribly kind and he delivered dig after dig and after a few minutes I realized he was flirting. Low on patience I turned to him and let him have it. And he, through slurred words born of early morning hours and too much booze and quite a bit of hurt said, I've been burned pretty bad--I've been hurt so badly by women. As though that was both explanation and reparation. And I looked right at him and said, You think you're the only person who's ever been hurt? You think you're standing here talking to a woman who hasn't felt that same sort of pain? I wasn't really insulted until just now, until this moment. So please, go ahead, let me have it, tell me your story because I can match you pace for pace on this one. I can match you with the half-lies and small cruelties and broken promises of all the men before you. I can match you with each and every man who's shown me just how easily that wedding band slips off. 

We're damaged bad at best.

I've never once said anything honest and true to a man I've cared for. I lost years of my life to loving a man and the closest I got to telling him was with seven words: I think you're a pretty fine guy.  Seven words when I only needed three. And a bit of courage.

But I am not a courageous person. And I'm damaged bad at best.

And I get to a point on those first dates when I think please don't let this man tell me I'm beautiful. Please don't let him reach for my knee. Please, please don't let his hand touch my hand because palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--and hell, it really is my favorite part. Because should those things happen I'll begin to worry that he'll stumble upon that one thing that makes me unlovable. That one thing that I can't name and can't see and can't place, but I'm sure is there.

But there is a truth greater than the one I now comprehend.

There will be a person that will see the sadness right away and will know it's not so bad. There will be a person who will touch my knee and my hand, who will trace the outline of my curves and connect-the-dots of my moles and he will come up for air and say, I can't find it. That thing you're convinced that'll make me run--I can't find it. 

I am worthy of love. As is the boy who flirted so unkindly and fears he is not. We are all damaged bad at best. And we are all still worthy.

I don't know how we get over heartache, only that we do.

And the best and worst and truest and saddest thing that no one ever really talks about--there's always someone else. There will always be someone else--even if the best love we've ever known somehow, in some way--inexplicably falls apart.

The heart goes in search of love. Always it does. Even--and most especially--when we don't want it to. The heart never breaks--we call it heartache and heartbreak, but it is not the heart that is damaged. It is always new and unscarred and perfect and we wrap it in memories that are broken and fragmented and cutting and we confuse that with a damaged center from which to love.

And the war is a silent one. Fought on the home front. Between a heart that propels us forward and a body that doesn't think it'll survive another hurt.

There is no roadmap. Of when to fight. And when not to. Of when to look like a fool for love. And when you just look like a fool. No clear marker of the moment a love begins. Or when it doesn't.

I don't know how to get over heartache other than to really feel it--and let it run its course. We don't get to hurry it along.

And I certainly don't think it gets easier--only harder. Each one worse than that before. Which is one of life's small cruelties. The movement of each man from a maybe to a no has taken something from me. Has cut a path wide and deep through my core. Has added something to that wellspring of sadness.

But getting over it. Or not. Well, that's not the point. Continuing on, that is the point. Investing in one's worth. Believing in the face of overwhelming doubt. Radical hope--that is the point. Because that is what it is to be human. Because the heart is the human story and that. is. the. point.

this life, already wasted and still strewn with miracles. Small words that I read on one of the subway banners not too long ago--part of a poem by Mary Ruefle. Small and perfect words that emptied my body of all its air.

Already wasted and still strewn with miracles. Damaged bad at best and still worthy of love.

Better for the damage and the waste and all that damn sadness.

We love because we are human and it's the closest we get to divinity. And heartache or heartbreak or whatever you want to call it is part of that story. So we get over it by getting out of the way. And letting life happen. And acting courageously even when it's not in our nature.








That's what I got. That's all I got.

snow and a word.

i look around me and i see where friends have paired off. long relationships, some leading to marriage. children entering the fray. successes becoming more frequent, more exciting.

and i feel...less than.

so much less than.

i'm twenty-six trying to find an apartment to live alone in for the first time in my life. less than.

a set of keys. belonging to me. to use when walking through a door, into a space, that will be mine. for a time. no one's mess but my own, no one else's nutella on the shelf tempting me, a culture for living that i dictate. no shuffle-step around other people's values or wants and needs. no toilet seat left up. no wondering which of the many shampoo bottles is mine, or which head of lettuce is mine, or how the electric bill got so high. less unknown. more comfort.

but still. less than. 

no committed relationship. no dream job. still the nagging question of what-the-hell-am-i-doing-with-my-life. 

last night i snuck away from a table of my dearest friends to use the bathroom. and as i stood there, letting the water wash over my hands, taking long and deep breaths, there came a thought: it will come in an avalanche. it'll come with such force and ferocity that you best get your survival kit ready. 

sometimes life is like that. isn't it? even the success has the potential to knock your legs out from under you and send you tumbling down the mountain.

faith.

imagination.

i can't imagine it getting better. i can't imagine feeling a love returned. or working and making money at the very things i've wanted all my life to do. i can't imagine a family in front of me. or an apartment i'll share with people i'd trek to the ends of the earth for. i suppose as you get older life gives you evidence that these things happen and that patience and small, slow steps do pay off. but in the blindness of youth i am thrashing.

i'm still just trying to find my word.

remember that great passage in eat, pray, love?

"Every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever the majority thought might be--that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there."

i had to go back to the book to look up what new york's word was. i knew it began with the letter a, but i kept coming back to greed. so avarice, then? it's actually achievement. which i think i can get behind. but in the heart of the city i think that achievement is laced on every level with a hefty dose of avarice, and that stops me short in my tracks.

there is a moment when you realize everything you ever wanted is nothing you want now. less than.

which is not entirely true, of course, you want much of the same things, but holy hell if it hasn't shifted and changed and totally turned on its head.

i don't like manhattan. i really don't. i don't like that the amount of advertisements i see in any given day is more than some people see in their life. i don't like the hustle and bustle and fast-paced rushing to some place else. always some place else. i don't like the only way to get to the A train from where i now live is to walk past a corner of men who make me feel small by the way their eyes follow and peel. and so okay, it's cultural, maybe. but why does their culture get to supersede mine? and why is new york small enough that you always run into people you don't want to see, but big enough that even when you walk several blocks out of your way you never see the people you most want to.

there are parts of this city that i adore. the west village, bits of the lower east side, tribeca right up against the water there--but these are the parts are less densely populated. where life moves with more ease. they are the corners and cracks where achievement is laced with something altogether else: peace, family, and a thing i've yet to name--something centered and whole. these, of course, are the parts of the city that i can't afford. and so the achievement i need now is laced with the need for money.

money. less than. 


it'll come in an avalanche. 


it just feels so darn far away. and my faith in that future, in that hefty proclamation wanes.

i want to be more than. or just enough. i want to make those i love proud, i want to live in a place where the word is my own. balance. i'm pretty sure my word is balance. ironic, since i'm a libra.

time to make it snow.

what i know at 27.

these are things that i know to be true for myself, at this moment in time: 


never accept advice where love or matters of the heart are concerned.


all thoughts and feelings and beliefs are subject to change given the right experience.


sometimes you have to graciously and gracefully relinquish your grip.


don't berate the character of a man to make a girl feel better. it'll only make the girl feel worse.


the F train is far superior to the A.


i love Brooklyn just about as much as everyone thinks i can't possibly. which is to say, a lot.


loneliness is character building. it is also a bitch.


there is nothing interesting or noteworthy (or worth anything at all) about the notion of cool. cool and fine and totally okay is where the coward lives.


it is totally acceptable to wear your sunglasses on the subway if you are crying. otherwise, no.


no woman should ever stand in front of a man and ask him to lover her. literally or metaphorically. the man worth having will love you long before the question even crosses your mind.


love or happiness or in-the-mood is not a place that you get to and then live there happily ever after. these things are moving, movable places with shifting terrains that demand constant navigation with new eyes and courageous hearts.


nothing offers more protection than honesty, even if in the moment few things feel more vulnerable.


i have always learned best by making the worst sort of mistakes.


falling in love with a lot of the wrong guys is par for the course. this is not everyone's story, of course. but if it's yours, that's okay.


sometimes the blues really is just a slight breeze and then sometimes it is a motherfucking freight train barreling straight through.


every woman (and man) should have a really good therapist and a hairstylist who tells the truth.


we suffer small deaths as we age: the feeling you get as a child the night before your birthday. or on christmas morning. the wonder and sense that the world is different--and you in that world are different too. but the wonderful thing--the thing no one talks about--is that you find these feelings elsewhere in unexpected ways. christmas morning becomes a man--becomes his hand on the small of your back.


everyone has a ground zero. a phone call that splits the before and after. a moment that lives like a sinkhole and around which we then narrowly navigate all that follows. we are not alone in our suffering.


humility is damn appealing. and a man who offers his seat to a pregnant woman or an older woman or a man with a cane is damn sexy. you can't ever go wrong with flowers. and few things are more attractive than someone who pays for the dinner bill long after the first date.

attraction and expectation.

Sitting in Court Street Grocers today, a turkey club the size of my face on the table before me, I kicked Kim under the table.

Kim and I have the same taste in men.

Taste: a personal preference or liking.

She looked up from her sandwich to me to then where my eyes were glued. He was tall with dark hair and a full salt and pepper beard.

We've gotten good at alerting one another when we find a man attractive. Gentle nods of the head, not so subtle elbows into ribs, and from there the two of us mostly just stare.

There are subtle discrepancies here and there--where she loves an Italian, I'll lean toward the Spaniard, but often we find ourselves stealing glances in the same direction and groaning as two grown women sometimes do when reduced to little more than hormones and awe by a good looking man.

When the full-bearded-man with his rolled jeans and broad shoulders finally left our viewing area leaving us to the sandwiches at hand, I asked Kim, Do you ever think we've had that effect on a man?

Attraction: the act or capability of attracting // the gravitational force exerted by one body on another. 

On the subway tonight I began to think about attraction--about what it is I'm most attracted to and if that thing--that unnamable thing can in fact be named and conjured and spoken aloud.

And then I began to think about how if I attempted to write (or okay, let's call a spade a spade, blog) about attraction than Anonymous would be sure to skewer me because heaven forbid a woman knows what she wants--physically or otherwise. So we can then add knowing-what-we-want to the list of things women are not encouraged to do, which I'm pretty sure also includes aging-gracefully and the-right-to-vote (which this last one I thought we took care of in 1920 but I came across a tweet today which led to a blog and apparently it's a thing again) and can we then take a minute to talk about how it's women that are holding each other back? How each and every last one of us does not proudly admit to being a feminist is simply beyond me. I am a feminist. This does not mean I burn bras. This does not mean I hate men. This means I think women have a voice and an unparalleled strength and a unique set of gifts. Women have birthed empires. And if you try to use religion on me and start talking about your god versus my god and how it's the Lord's will that women submit to a male authority then I will simply lose my shit. I mean, I will. I will lose my shit right here, right now, right over all that's to follow. Because the whole your god, my god thing is enough to make me end the conversation right then and there--it's entitled and possessive and wholly small in a way that seems so very against the spirit of things.

Hmmm. Okay. So... I seem to have gotten off topic.

Derailed: to have left the rails. 

Attraction.

I went on a date with a guy recently. A lovely guy. Charming and kind. A guy that my girlfriends were convinced would surprise me and sweep me off my feet in a slow moving kind of way. But a guy that I knew after the first date was not the guy for me.

But why everyone asked. And I groped in that language-less land.

Because. Because, because. Because I just know. 

But how do you know?

To Tom I said, because I didn't feel safe and protected with him. And Tom, bless him, knowing when to press and when to simply listen, said, if he wasn't able to convey that within the first date then he probably wouldn't have ever. 

Which is not to say that he was a man who could not convey that for many another woman--he most certainly was and will--of that I am sure.

Feeling: an awareness or impression. 

Sitting next to him at the bar I was aware of his body. Of how I felt it no further than an inch beyond him. And how there have been men in my life I've felt the force and wind of from across the room. Their scope penetrating me in an altogether different way. Attraction. A meeting of small force fields. Some aware of others, some not. Some compatible, some not.

I struggled for weeks to tell him why we weren't a match. And in the end I was not terribly honest and not terribly courageous and I became a very small and ugly version of myself as I tried to push him away.

There just wasn't a spark, Tom said a few days after my fumbled attempt. Where you with that word when I needed it? I replied.

Spark: a quality or feeling with latent potential; a seed or germ.

Spark. It is either there. Or it isn't.

I want to feel enveloped by a man. I want to feel absolutely challenged. Valued for my size and femininity and flagrant feminism. And yes, I want him to have moved past the roommate-stage of life, the constantly-high-stage of life, the video-games-till-two-in-the-morning-every.single.night. stage of life. I want a real, gown-up Man--the capital M kind of man. And I will not apologize for that. I want a man prepared for a life with someone else. Prepared to fight and compromise and sweat till the sun does rise. I want him to know his worth and respect me for mine. And you know what? At twenty-seven I feel like these are things I have the right to want, and to say I want. Because I'm coming to the table as a more fully formed person. Because I grew up by myself, without a partner. Because I've been on a lot of bad dates and gone out with a lot of wrong men and moved past the sort of heartbreak that threatens a forever-sort-of-haunt. And so yes, I have certain expectations of myself at this age and of a partner at this age. Moving forward I have certain expectations. To not have them would be immature and irresponsible.

I might fall in love with a man who is none of the things I say I want. Who is so very much not what I ever expected. But I'm more skeptical of this now, as I age and know myself better. Details may change--where he's from and what he does and if he actually has that much coveted salt and pepper beard--but the core of a man who knows himself is a constant sort of thing.

This desire for a man and the specifics of this desire--of two people meeting and jointing together in a union where neither person loses himself in the other--well it feels like the best sort of attraction.

A feminist's dream.