after sarah
red tank tops (and color-coordinated undergarments)
unexpected naps
sunshine
pirate islands
swanky dinner reservations
fun with smoothies
soft grey jackets
unread magazines
mix cds
out-of-town
Month: September 2004
tell me
how i’ve missed you lately
and the way we would speak
and all that we wouldn’t say
— iron & wine, “bird stealing bread”
I can’t believe it’s almost been a month. How much stronger I am now than I ever anticipated. How my life has changed in unexpected ways. How there are still things that stab right to the core of me – like Elliot Smith’s “Angels” or any of Damien Rice or reading on a marquee the name of a movie we saw or wanted to see together. I haven’t cried over him since Saturday, but every day this is with me in subtler ways. I don’t know – I just don’t know what to say.
a perfect moment
It’s late on a Friday night, and nine people are standing on a tiny cement porch, holding a honey cake with five candles. Mark is across the street in his car, and at the top of our poorly-coordinated lungs we sing “Happy Birthday to you!” as he honks his horn in response. The girls blow out the candles before he can get out of his car, and there is honey cake, vanilla ice cream, and apples and honey for all. Happy Birthday, and Happy Rosh Hashanah.
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
— Mary Oliver
Consciousness
One of the things I love most about starting a new job or being in a new place is the awareness of my body orienting itself to a new space. I love that at the coffeeshop I know what is within arm’s reach of the espresso machine, and that I always reach for the large lids even though I know I can’t get them. I love that the small fridge is just about the length of my leg, and that I can hold it open with my up-turned toes or my inner thigh. I love learning the places where I can stretch – the racks above the door at just the right height for my shoulders, bracing my feet on the sink supports and leaning waaaay back to stretch out my lower back. I love knowing which doors will close with the bump of my hip, and which will take a kick (as the middle drawer of the black cabinets did).
It’s so cliche to say that doing yoga is a centering exercise – that it allows you to concentrate on your body, on the movement of your muscles, and on your breathing at the exclusion of everything else – but it’s so true. For a long time my awareness of my body has been defined by the way my body intertwined with my lover’s – but moving through the poses, feeling the pull in the back of my thighs, feeling the ache in my arms – I am learning my body again, on its own, divorced from the act of love, or these other defining spaces. It’s pretty incredible.
Tonight I’m too tired to talk about big things. On my lunch break in the sunshine I walked to Strawberry Fields and had a half-sandwich and a blackberry soda. I finished early, and spent half an hour just wandering around, enjoying being outside, sneezing from my seasonal allergies. At work we’re training a new boy, who spent ten minutes explaining his tattoos, all various symbols of/for peace, tolerance, democracy, and diversity. He works for an agency that helps student environmental activist groups organize and network with other such groups. Last night after a giant laundromat trip Sarah and I had dinner on the patio at Guido’s. It was nice to just sit downtown and watch the regulars walk by on their way to Aroma (including the guy with the shark!) and not have to worry about running inside to make their drinks. Tonight I’m too tired to hurt, and I’m too tired to be sad. Sooner or later the physical exhaustion had to catch up with me. Despite all the shit, I mainly just miss him.
latterdaybohemian 