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29 June 2006 : linked.
so much has happened in the last eight weeks to change my perspective on what amounts to - everything. a quiet newborn baby made me cry hidden tears, remembering how joyful it is just knowing that you are alive. a trip to australia made me question the strength of my convictions, my understanding of natural selection, and fall in love with some pretty amazing people. an evening with a taciturn, sunburnt cowboy clued me in about my own sense of sexuality and loaded me down with questions about who i am and what i truly want. an afternoon spent climbing over rocks and the bones of someone else's ancestors reminded me that the sun rises and sets everywhere just the same, and i should consider myself lucky to be counted among those who have seen it.
most elemental is that i finally remembered what that feeling is, that indistinct breathless feeling that comes over me for a time nearly every day. i am grateful to be alive and living. i catch my breath because i realize at the end of the day, i have two working feet and a heart that keeps beating, and no one has the right to ask for more.
what remains after all this goodness is the pervasive sense of moving on that has smothered this life like an extra blanket. i am aware that this chapter is coming to a close. i have, honestly, things to which i am looking eagerly forward - my thesis work, graduation, a career. and things to dread, like leaving this place and these people around whom this life is built. necessity i understand. goodbye i do not. and i can feel it coming. i hope its another mistaken assumption.
so i work, and i wait. i worry about money and avoid the basement, i wear my routines like a cloak that protects me from the cold wind of uncertainty.
and i let every moment be, without rush or force. smoke a cigarette to calm me and feel the assurance of my own smooth skin covering my own strong bones that are held together with tough flesh.
flesh that wears, but never tears.
posted by lindsay at 23:18 :: 0 comments
22 June 2006 : things to steal
cigarettes
matches
postcards
wineglasses
song lyrics
cheat codes
gimmicks
hearts
posted by lindsay at 02:34 :: 5 comments
19 June 2006 : beyond far.
how can a life be explained?
a man is sitting across the table from a girl and he wants to know what she does. he has no basis for comparison and will only know her for a few hours total.
its hard anyway, for her to concentrate on anything but the scar across his cheek and the way he keeps looking at her every time he stands up to get a beer.
she tries, knowing he will not understand - he has told her about sweeping desert plains, cattle ranches, truck stops and unfathomable animals and sand in his teeth. this she understands in a plaintive longing sort of way - she's wanted that life more than once, wanted the sunburnt muscle ache blinding white of it. but this is what she has struggled with for the last however long of her life - what it means, how it reeks of complacency and entitlement, unearned privilege and laziness.
she stumbles, the words tumbling out too quickly and in improper order - it is not the alcohol (she could handle twice as much without blinking) but from the shock of discovering her inability to describe.
that life is so graceful. so elegantly simple. how could she tell him that hers exceeds the rest for reasons like these: the blue tint of the air outside the front porch in the early morning, the mingled taste of white wine and laughter, the complete confidence in those people who surround her, the sound of her own voice over a microphone.
i play tennis sometimes, she tells him hesitantly and he chuckles, lighting a cigarette. take the dog for walks, watch television. he expects more; to him she looks new and exotic and she has to do more than this. but its the background that matters, the soundtrack. the tinkling of windchimes and the howling of wind against window in the dark of early morning.
is that it? she holds his gaze steady as he waits for an answer, but all she can do is put her chin on her hand, her elbow on the table. when he smiles, the light catches that scar on his face and makes it glow.
finally she shrugs, she says, i live with my friends. they're around all the time. i spend hours at school and at work and then i come home and every moment is exciting, even though we don't do anything. we sit on the porch and drink coffee in the morning.
he finishes off his beer and she has nothing left to say; they have so little in common. if he kisses her, though, he'll probably be able to taste - just a bit - that grace and that elegance, the feeling of weathered wood floors under bare feet.
he never kisses her.
she's realized it doesn't matter.
posted by lindsay at 08:06 :: 2 comments
so much has happened in the last eight weeks to change my perspective on what amounts to - everything. a quiet newborn baby made me cry hidden tears, remembering how joyful it is just knowing that you are alive. a trip to australia made me question the strength of my convictions, my understanding of natural selection, and fall in love with some pretty amazing people. an evening with a taciturn, sunburnt cowboy clued me in about my own sense of sexuality and loaded me down with questions about who i am and what i truly want. an afternoon spent climbing over rocks and the bones of someone else's ancestors reminded me that the sun rises and sets everywhere just the same, and i should consider myself lucky to be counted among those who have seen it.
most elemental is that i finally remembered what that feeling is, that indistinct breathless feeling that comes over me for a time nearly every day. i am grateful to be alive and living. i catch my breath because i realize at the end of the day, i have two working feet and a heart that keeps beating, and no one has the right to ask for more.
what remains after all this goodness is the pervasive sense of moving on that has smothered this life like an extra blanket. i am aware that this chapter is coming to a close. i have, honestly, things to which i am looking eagerly forward - my thesis work, graduation, a career. and things to dread, like leaving this place and these people around whom this life is built. necessity i understand. goodbye i do not. and i can feel it coming. i hope its another mistaken assumption.
so i work, and i wait. i worry about money and avoid the basement, i wear my routines like a cloak that protects me from the cold wind of uncertainty.
and i let every moment be, without rush or force. smoke a cigarette to calm me and feel the assurance of my own smooth skin covering my own strong bones that are held together with tough flesh.
flesh that wears, but never tears.
Labels: Australia, Two steps forward
posted by lindsay at 23:18 :: 0 comments
22 June 2006 : things to steal
cigarettes
matches
postcards
wineglasses
song lyrics
cheat codes
gimmicks
hearts
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 02:34 :: 5 comments
19 June 2006 : beyond far.
how can a life be explained?
a man is sitting across the table from a girl and he wants to know what she does. he has no basis for comparison and will only know her for a few hours total.
its hard anyway, for her to concentrate on anything but the scar across his cheek and the way he keeps looking at her every time he stands up to get a beer.
she tries, knowing he will not understand - he has told her about sweeping desert plains, cattle ranches, truck stops and unfathomable animals and sand in his teeth. this she understands in a plaintive longing sort of way - she's wanted that life more than once, wanted the sunburnt muscle ache blinding white of it. but this is what she has struggled with for the last however long of her life - what it means, how it reeks of complacency and entitlement, unearned privilege and laziness.
she stumbles, the words tumbling out too quickly and in improper order - it is not the alcohol (she could handle twice as much without blinking) but from the shock of discovering her inability to describe.
that life is so graceful. so elegantly simple. how could she tell him that hers exceeds the rest for reasons like these: the blue tint of the air outside the front porch in the early morning, the mingled taste of white wine and laughter, the complete confidence in those people who surround her, the sound of her own voice over a microphone.
i play tennis sometimes, she tells him hesitantly and he chuckles, lighting a cigarette. take the dog for walks, watch television. he expects more; to him she looks new and exotic and she has to do more than this. but its the background that matters, the soundtrack. the tinkling of windchimes and the howling of wind against window in the dark of early morning.
is that it? she holds his gaze steady as he waits for an answer, but all she can do is put her chin on her hand, her elbow on the table. when he smiles, the light catches that scar on his face and makes it glow.
finally she shrugs, she says, i live with my friends. they're around all the time. i spend hours at school and at work and then i come home and every moment is exciting, even though we don't do anything. we sit on the porch and drink coffee in the morning.
he finishes off his beer and she has nothing left to say; they have so little in common. if he kisses her, though, he'll probably be able to taste - just a bit - that grace and that elegance, the feeling of weathered wood floors under bare feet.
he never kisses her.
she's realized it doesn't matter.
Labels: Australia
posted by lindsay at 08:06 :: 2 comments