Everything Is So Much

Dreaming by David et Myrtille

This is not a real post. Rather, this is as disjointed and unfocused as my general thought process has been lately... so at least it's accurate?

10 points/observations/odds and bodkins of the last few weeks as my life is gradually turned on its head:

1. Our apartment is empty save for the boxes and last-minute items for packing cluttering the corners. The walls look bleak without my canvases, our collection of streetlight-stolen concert posters, the Haitian, papier-mache-with-pages-from-old-newspapers-in-French taxidermy giraffe head. We've sold, donated, or given away most of our belongings, and our few remaining pieces of furniture have been promised to friends. Most days, I feel good about our progress and our contained chaos, and I can keep my emotions at bay. Most nights, however, I feel overwhelmed and my emotions sweep back in with the evening clouds. I expect this cycle to continue with greater intensity in the coming weeks.

2. To provide a bit of distraction during the more tedious tasks, I watched both White Christmas and Holiday Inn for the first time (thanks to Stacy for the recommendation years ago). I enjoyed both, but I think Holiday Inn was my favorite of the Bing Crosby-fests (barring the atrociously racist black-face routine commemorating Lincoln's Birthday. Yikes, you guys).

3. Speaking of Christmas movies, Adam and I will continue our tradition of watching our perennial contradictory favorites, Elf and Bad Santa. Unfortunately, we won't be able to spend Christmas proper with each other this year, so we'll be having our 4th annual Elf/Bad Santa Christmas tonight with the only officially appropriate pairings: cookies and candy with Elf and whiskey with Bad Santa. Obviously.

4. Against the odds of the holiday season and moving stress, I'm finally developing a 6-pack. Well, right now, it's the top 2 with the middle 2 about half-defined, but I'll take it. We'll see how long it sticks around with all the empty Christmas calories destined for a home in my thighs (see #3).

5. While alone in the kitchen, I was curious to see if I could fit inside the box in which our suitcases were shipped. I climbed in and curled up, and the results were twofold: (1) Yes, I could totally fit, and (2) I am a child.

6. All I will say about Newtown is what I said on Facebook, without mention of sociopolitical policy issues: We can't do this. I cannot bear the trend of waking up to news of such baffling, senseless violence every few weeks. The emptiness of devastation, the fruitless attempts to comprehend the incomprehensible, the dread and rage and sadness all waging a renewed war in my stomach - I can't accept this. I'm so sorry, Newtown. I'm so sorry, children.

7. I truly love my usual process of making/purchasing thoughtful gifts for my family and friends, but this year simply hasn't allowed it for a number of reasons. However, I was able to at least frame up a few little pieces for my mom and brother and sister-in-law. I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out, and I'm especially tickled about the idea that sprang to mind for my brother and sister-in-law in Long Beach, CA (that's a peek at it below, with the west coast making up the left outline of the heart). Not gonna lie, I think it's pretty damn clever, and I'm going to be smug about it. So there.

8. Last Friday, I donated blood - something I do as frequently as I can (every 56 days) - and as of that donation, I have given 2 GALLONS of blood to the Puget Sound Blood Center, contributing to hospitals all over the Seattle metropolitan area. I'm proud to be able to do this small thing, literally giving of myself to help others in such a uniquely intimate, human way. After all: give blood, get a cookie! What I'd really love to do is join the national bone marrow registry - I've been wanting to for years - so when I get back from Korea, that's one of the first things I'll be doing.

9. Roasted cauliflower with curry powder for dinner. Do it. Your mouth and belly will high-five each other.

10. As Joy the Baker said, the best way to describe these days and the ones ahead is, "Everything is so much." But as she also said, it helps to think of newness as to distract ourselves from the temporary shortcomings of nowness. I can't help but take this advice and see it as the wisdom it is in times like these. So in the breathlessness of Now, let's refocus on the coming new, shall we? Beyond Now, in the coming new year, lie infinite new adventures, new loves, new losses, new everything. What is Now but groundwork for the road ahead? Celebrate the Now - especially this time of year - and with it, celebrate the Nows that were and will be. They're fleeting, and they're all we've got.

Remember, Remember

A lot has happened over the last few weeks, though you wouldn't know it from all this radio silence. I can assure you that for all the stillness here, there has been a riot of noise in my head, not to mention on a grander scale: plans made and changed, then changed again, pumpkin cookies baked and eaten (and eaten and eaten - for breakfast, even, on lucky unhealthy days), a quiet but appropriately-absurd Halloween. There was the small thing of my birthday on (remember, remember) the fifth of November, but the real celebration came on its heels with the excitement and relief of the president's historic re-election. Dozens of decisions were finalized, with the snowy fields of paperwork to show for it. Adam and I toasted the anniversary of our trip to Belize with the last of the Belizean rum we smuggled back, complete with Mexican coke. I couldn't catch my breath for a month when a cold decided to make itself at home in my chest, then get comfortable enough to invite a sinus infection to the party - this made me a downright joy to be around for weeks while the singing required by my job became a cruelty (both for my voice and those poor, poor children). The colors that I coughed up rivaled those in the trees this time of year.

While my voice has returned and our president has thankfully done the same, I still can't catch my breath. Life is stumbling forward in running shoes tied a little too hastily as I try to keep pace. It's more than the usual first stirrings of holiday frenzy; in fact, any thoughts I've cast toward Thanksgiving or Christmas have been infrequent, and distracted at best. There is something bigger on my horizon than stuffing or sleigh bells (although don't get me wrong, stuffing is way too important to be ignored - it can't be ignored). Some of you already know or have an inkling, but until a few more formalities are taken care of, I can't officially announce it here just yet. But almost. We'll know for sure by the end of next week, I think. And then I'll shout it into the great wide interwebs with a mighty exhale and - hopefully - a rush of calm before the promised commotion in mind and matter.

While this horizon-lurker preoccupies my mind every minute of every day (and night), I need to remember to focus on the immediate, the Now - not only on the quickening footsteps of the future. Remember, remember to be present. Remember to stare at the rain and think, or stare without thinking - that's perfectly alright, too, and probably better for my mental health every once in a while. Notice the small signs of life despite the overwhelming movements of heavier cogs and be thankful for them: my breath in the air, brief clouds marking time with my pulse and offering proof that I've got plenty of heartbeats left in me when it doesn't necessarily feel like it. String lights in the trees at night, something that will always make the cold of winter feel a little more magical. The usual Americana-laced nostalgia around Christmastime that makes me sad, but keeps me mindful. Kisses on my cat's nose and feeling his comforting weight settling on my abdomen in the middle of the night. Listening to music that makes me feel infinite, especially when I'm feeling limited. Rarefied meals with family, chats with friends, coffee in the mornings with Adam, and quiet walks alone through fog-pillowed parks. These are just as important as what's coming, and just as worthy of memory and time.

Today, I remember that the boulders fill the eye, but the pebbles fill the path.


PS. Next Wednesday is my first Blogiversary! It's crazy to think how quickly a year has passed, and oh, how so much has changed. I'll be sure to post something Blogiversary-worthy and wear some fancy shoes.

So come dance this silence down through the morning

It's a gray afternoon.

I suppose it's been a gray afternoon for days, but that's winter in Seattle - a few months full of sleepy sighs as clouds blur into skyline, and bleary eyes whenever the sun pokes its head out from under the covers for a few hazy minutes before burrowing away again.

I'm feeling pretty gray myself today, a little fuzzy around the edges. It's Christmas time, and while I always tend to get a little sad around the holidays - blame nostalgia, the slowness of limbs and thinking in the cold, the seeming hourlessness of the days as the year ends and plenty of time to reflect on life and the ending of things - I usually get with the spirit of things. But I'm just not feeling it this year, and that saddens me even more. Normally, I dig under the bed for the box of lights and ornaments within the first few days of December, giddy to sprinkle a bit of Christmas around the windows and bring home the smallest fir tree I can find to fill the apartment with it's wintry perfume. This year, it took me until yesterday to dig and sprinkle, and I had to drag my butt to do it.

Maybe some switch went off with turning 25. That sense of innocence is so pervasive during the holidays - I know its there because I've felt it before - but what I feel more acutely right now is its absence, like a tangible loss. I'm not a child anymore by anyone's standards (the exception being if they see my behavior when at Disneyland), and that stings a bit. But really, this is nothing new, not to me or to pretty much anyone old enough to notice such things. Maybe reading some Salinger would be soothing if only to commiserate, but maybe I should just suck it up. Maybe I should take down one of the stockings hung with care on the bookshelf (I don't have a chimney, and besides, the bookshelf fits us better if we're using symbols here), place it on my foot, and give myself a Christmas kick in the butt. (Side note: I've said "butt" twice, three if you count just now, and it makes me giggle - maybe I'm still a child after all. Butt butt butt.)

I have my health, my friends, my family. My boyfriend is made of magic and my cat loves my lap. My apartment, finally dressed in its Christmas best, is mad cute. I'm writing again. And drawing! (Get ready for some hilarious canvas-based presents, buddies.) If I get sad sometimes, that's okay, because it leaves my silliness and my love for all of these things intact. And when I stand in the kitchen doorway framed by Christmas lights, I can't help but feel a little glow.

So if today's a bit gray - well, gray is my favorite color, anyway.