Creature

It was waiting for her this morning on the sidewalk outside her house, cold and quiet. She scooped it up with her hands (despite her mother's warnings in her head) and put it in her purse.

It stayed with her all day. Her fingers brushing against small, stiff wings when she reached for her wallet at the coffee shop. A slight smell of earth and rot following her into the office. Beady, glossy eyes watched her as she walked home.

She put it in a shoebox under her bed, because it had no other place to go. At least here it would have company amongst her books and journals and missing socks. The irony was not lost on her, this act of nurturing a thing long dead.

On the road up north

Nighttime drives and back-up plans in mind: a barn two miles back with the lights on, just in case.

Frozen fog over the lake, postcard mountains, bright yellow leaves.

Abandoned mills with plastic flapping over broken windows, cats curled on stoops.

Girls with names like Bobbi-Jo and Hannah-Dean.

Lunchtime specials on sandwich boards by the road: Trky Sndwch & Soup 2.99. (No diner in sight.)

Aunt and Niece sitting in hallway together, sharing a bag of potato chips and a smoke between classes.

Inns with keys under the mat and letters that say: let yourself in, please help yourself to tea & coffee.

The rapid, without-a-breath sound of French on the radio.

Bits of conversations: Someday we'll get out; Hunting season's about to start; He's quitting school; We could've been something.

Highway signs that flash: Last facility in VT. Canada 20 miles.

Sleepy towns quietly pulsing with heartbeats of untold stories.

what i thought about before bed

circles around new england; dead squirrels curled around orange traffic cones; hot tea spilling on my car floor.

boots and scarves; leaves falling (they're just bones up north now); sun in rain puddles; where are my mittens?

serpentine hallways smelling of popcorn; boys and girls pressed up against each other, sweating between vending machines; notes with scribbled-out hearts on bathroom floors.

handshakes; life stories; business cards exchanges and melancholy goodbyes; it'll be different next time.

donnie darko; i wonder how he's doing; i wonder when the world will end, i wonder if it already has.

men in green coats winking from across the room, breaking eye contact a moment too late; men in brown coats knocking on passenger-side windows, toothless demands.

men with vegetable names; women with sexy accents and five languages.

small bookstores in small towns, my old haunts; return as an adult, the thrill gone, but the floorboards still creak and it all still smells of real books and must.

broken teeth and wrinkles and aching joints and that deep, deep cough.

three halloween costumes, one pumpkin, ten apples.

dyed hair and waxed eyebrows.

one hundred years of solitude and invisible cities.

the words i still haven't written.

95

Pulled onto 95 outside of Boston today and I was the only one on the road. It was one of those rare moments when you're by yourself in a place usually swollen with people and somehow you feel safe. It was a ghost town, and I noticed the trees and pavement and dirt and sky and leaves falling all around and for one moment, it was mine.

Pulled onto 95 outside of Boston today and hit a traffic jam. Red lights for miles, they reminded me of the Lite-Brite my sister and I used to play with. We'd fight over who got to punch the little bulbs through the patterned paper and who got the best designs. But then we'd ignore the patterns anyway and make our own images, hectic and clashing and perfect.

the people sitting beside me at the bookstore

Middle-aged woman, large patchwork bag slung over her shoulder. She smells like baby powder and milk and pulls a homemade muffin from her bag discretely. She sits and eats the muffin, staring vacantly at something above my shoulder, then leaves.

Old man in an oversized dress jacket. He's got a stack of history books piled high around him, like a fortress. He spends his time playing on his phone and calling his grandson, Jim. He wheezes into the phone and asks when he is expected for dinner, he is busy and might not make it.

Mother and son, bickering about how to pay for the damages to his car. Mother thinks he can sell his old guitars on Craigslist, son announces that Craigslist is the biggest scam in the world and only suckers go on it, everyone knows that. Son smells unbathed and mother wears too much perfume. They stay for hours, son watching YouTube on his laptop and mother interrupting to talk about his future, his potential. They leave empty cans and crumpled napkins on table.

Here.

The last time I saw her, she was 16 and had heavy hoop earrings that tugged dangerously on her earlobes when she spoke. She wore tight jeans and high heels in July, down by the waterfront where kids played frisbee and families biked past us, one after another whipping by. She was secretly engaged to a boy in the military; they were going to elope and move into an apartment on the base. She had no idea how beautiful she was.

Stood beside her in a coffee shop today, 200 miles from the waterfront where we last spoke. She is unmarried, and living in the town I left a year ago. She wraps herself in trendy oversized sweaters and sings in the choir at her local church. She still wears those big hoop earrings, but they don't pull on her earlobes like they used to. She is still beautiful, and she still doesn't know it.

Funny how we both found our way here, so far from home, she said. I was surprised by the thought of finding my way here, and wondered if I'd found anything at all.

The last time I saw her, the sun had just come out after three days of rain. It was summer in our city, the lake was wild before dark, and we both knew exactly where we wanted to be.

on the morning drive, every day

Boy in purple denim, riding his scooter to school. Swerves on and off the sidewalk; never looks for cars; never zips his backpack. Pencils and papers float behind him.

Long white fence, flowers of every color reaching high and in every direction. She thinks they're Cosmos, he thinks they're wildflowers, the tallest weeds.

Child's car seat, abandoned. Moss growing in the seat, seatbelt rusting, tipped over and irrelevant now.

free flowers before closing, if you don't mind daisies mixed with roses.

it starts raining, that warm summer kind. so you stand under a tree. talks of lucid dreams and ethics in board games. they want a donation, take two worn dollars from your pocket. they'll play bluegrass all night if you can find them a bowl. stemless wineglass, overpriced art, a bartender that winks at you.

they've got gardens growing in pots on their porch, their kitchen floor, their bathtub. basil and cilantro and tomatoes, life in five-gallon buckets.

positive thoughts, she says, positive thoughts. dreams of meditation and uninterrupted sleep. the river looks beautiful from here, open the windows and don't forget to feel it. lightning strikes the porch but it's okay because it makes it all feel surreal. like you're in a story that you know will end well.

on a walk one night before the rain

books are in the back, coffee up front. you walk in empty, you leave full. you walk in heavy, you leave light. eternal return. you look for glimpses of what you’ve been waiting for, but it’s never there when you expect it.

three men straddle the brick wall by the library. six-pack of woodchuck divided evenly, side by side. shooting the shit. they contemplate their day and their women and their existence between cigarettes and catcalls. someday they’ll figure it all out, but not tonight.

an old woman presses her nose against the glass, vintage dresses in a shop window. when she closes her eyes she can taste yesterday. a little girl, crawling on her hands and knees looking for her chalk balloons on the sidewalk. thought they would be there forever, but they must've flown away. you be yesterday, i'll be forever. you be chalk, i'll be fading fabric. we are the same, we are flying away.

five mailboxes all in a row, 1-2-3-4-5. a-b-c-d-e. roundabouts, one ways, dead ends. you’ll find me after the cemetery, after the train tracks, before the river. phantom pianos and lightning striking the porch, just to make sure you're awake.

gutted building, broken windows, first floor rented out for real cheap. it took so many years to get here, this used to be a mill, you know. now it’s for ghosts and beggars and it's just where you want to be.

bakery

Did you walk by my apartment? she asks. I heard you through my window. Were you going to The Church?

No, I say.

I'm on the top floor, above the bakery. I thought I heard you. I thought I heard your voice. She sounds fragile now, after all these years.

It must be nice, I say. Living above a bakery.

It makes life too sweet, everything seems to be covered in sugar now. Everything. My fingers, my chairs, my thoughts. She coughs on the other end.

It was nice talking to you, I say.

Let me know if you ever do go. To The Church. We can steal cakes from the dumpster behind my apartment. So let me know.

I will, I say.

spirit and guts

You meet these people with fantastic lives. They've motorbiked across America, they've volunteered in third-world counties, they've bicycled up and down mountains. They've lived in a thousand cities and seen a thousand wonderful things and have a thousand more dreams.

They're the ones who've got spirit and guts. They jump headfirst and hope for the best. It's all faith and freedom and insatiable desire.

And you, you freeze at the smallest notions of nostalgia. You've got one of those lives crammed with people you care about and causes to fight for. You think, I've got too many reasons to stay and only one reason to jump.

But then one day you realize that everything you're staying for, everyone you're staying for, doesn't wait for you. Everything moves on without you and hardly anyone looks back. But that's how you get those guts. It's where that spirit comes from.

Things left in the hallway outside my neighbor's door

- The stem of a rose. First it was green and strong, recently clipped. Now it has rolled in between the carpet and the baseboard, gray and forgotten.

- An earring, tiny blue charm. Maybe slipped off in a rush to work or the bedroom. Not pretty enough to miss, or to even notice on the floor.

- A Q-Tip, yellowed and pulling apart like milkweed.

Stagnant

There's a woman peeing on your bed. Legs spread wide, dress bunched in her fists, urine trailing down her leg and she's spraying like a cat. She looks at you, and you look at her,

and you're both wondering how it came to this.

React

"Given the news in the last 24 hours, I'd like to encourage anyone celebrating to check themselves. Celebrate the end of one era of American fear. Don't celebrate the death of one human being. Rejoicing in death was his way. Peace, all." - CDS

My thoughts exactly, but not my words. Words from a wise friend.

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Words not spoken for this occasion specifically, but meant for times like this.

(Part II) The things left behind

Or maybe it's a way to be remembered.

My close friend's friend/roommate died in a car accident last week. My friend is Wonder Woman, the way she's flying around, re-stitching their lives. The phone calls, the errands, the trips to the PD, the morgue, the arrangements, the things left behind. Cracking pass-codes and throwing away secrets found in pockets and drawers. Cleaning out the fridge and sorting shoes and jeans and underwear. IDing the body. Saving voicemails and texts, indefinitely.

To me it all feels like the tornadoes in North Carolina. Swept up in something I had never really equated with reality. (It wasn't until I felt the air and saw the sky and the news and the damage that it really hit me that tornadoes aren't just in The Wizard of Oz.) I've been to funerals, for young people and old people, for distant friends and close family, but somehow this is different. This wasn't from illness or drugs or old age. It was circumstance, timing. Technically, I'm hardly affected by this at all, I am just an observer. But, like most people, I'm shaken up. I'm suddenly finding meaning in cliches: forever young, untimely death, awful tragedy.

And I wonder about the things I'll leave behind. Shelves packed with book sale victories and tokens from national parks. Hard drives with half-finished stories and thousands of pictures. Stacks of unmarked burned CDs, colored discs for every mood. Favorite movies, home videos, video projects. Socks with holes in them, piles of worn-in flip flops. Clean and unwashed lingerie. A Facebook page, a couple e-mail accounts forever collecting junk mail, this blog.

I wonder how to go about losing people. And how to differentiate memories from things left behind.

(Part I) Why I write this blog

To write a successful blog you are supposed to:

network
find a niche
update regularly
appeal to your audience
teach people something
etc. etc. etc.

I don't do any of those things.

Breadcrumbs

They're moving to Indianapolis, Ashville, Austin, New York City, Providence. They're jumping from the ground and drifting in the wind, floating, floating, until they land home.

They don't know what home looks like, but they know what it is not: It is not drafty houses and belligerent in-laws, it is not crumbling apartments and groups of trendy teenagers, it is not yellow grass and tall, looming ex-boyfriends.

I want to believe they will look back on this place fondly.

I wonder if I will always be longing for someone or something. Anywhere I am, I think of the places I am not. I want to split myself into a dozen pieces. I find the most mundane things nostalgic. I think melancholy is one of my favorite emotions. (Not to be it, but to feel it.)

I picked up my feet and got swept away, to the east. I think most of my breadcrumbs have disappeared.

exercise in silence

First day of April, and it's cold outside. Rain that leaves you damp all day, wind that slips in under the door and bites your ankles.

I wait for the days I can open the windows and breathe life into this place again, let flowers crop up in the carpet and have bees buzz in my ears while I make dinner. Feel renewed, alive, awake.

But I don't mind these days, the winter ones. I become the things around me, the old yellow chair and the antique table with the dents and scratches. These nights, wrapped in blankets and tucking my legs under me, I am comfortable being quiet and alone.

3.20.11

Remembered the moon. Just three of us, telling stories, holding big wine glasses with both hands. It was supposed to be the biggest, the brightest, the closest we would ever see our whole lives. Ran outside to catch it. First morning of spring. Stood by the river barefoot, wondered what it felt like to be up there, all alone.

Sat with a family by the beach, wrapped up in hats and scarves and mittens. Full up on kale soup and fireside conversations. The moon rose up from behind the cliffs, we listened to waves, breathed in the coldest air. First night of spring. Stood with crowds of moon-watchers, wondered what it felt like to be up there, always whole but always changing.

Reflections on tragedy

Never thought an earthquake all the way across the world could shake me up so bad. I was quietly obsessed for hours, until I knew he was okay. I was relieved, then felt bad for feeling relieved. 10,000 people the world just swallowed up. I sat in a cafe that afternoon, watching everyone bustle around me, wondering what used to make me feel so invincible, so untouchable.

Staying in a city this week, nights in hotel rooms, mornings in traffic. I'm already used to sirens and shouting; how quickly I've grown deaf. You know one of my biggest fears? Genovese Syndrome. Not being a victim, but being indifferent, cold. I used to think the word "pacifist" was "passivist." I never could tell if it had a negative or positive connotation.

Called 9-1-1 the other night when I saw a car flipped upside-down on the side of the highway. Black ice and sleet, late night on I89. I couldn't pull over, or I'd go off the road too. But I wanted to feel like I could help something, change a tragedy just a little bit. The operator on the other end of the line thanked me, said they didn't know.

Another piece of unexpected wisdom

"The world is too fragile for people to be untrue."

I took this picture in New Orleans four months before Katrina. Unapologetic, full of life and history and pain and love. It's like seeing a lost friend again. I hope to know myself as well as I did back then, someday.

Writers

I'm going to sit down with a girl today who wants to be a writer. Actually, she says she already is a writer and no one, no person, no piece of paper can tell her otherwise. Some people would call her naive, and maybe she is. It is my job to ask her question after question and determine if she is, in fact, a "writer."

But I've never believed that you can do that. Look at a handful of papers, stitch together a couple conversations, and place someone in a category. What a limited existence that would be.

I was at a bar one night and sat with a woman who, according to her various degrees, is a writer. She teaches classes and has traveled the world and has been divorced several times. She spoke of the world as if she had seen it all and nothing was capable of shocking her anymore.

We all know there's supposed to be a beginning and an end. I hope that until the very end, I am open to possibilities and I always hold onto that passion that is mistaken for naiveté.

Pumpkins and Oak Trees

Someone threw a pumpkin from the third floor and it landed in the snow outside our window. I wonder if whoever threw it was aiming for the river. It's rotten, and the black seeds and insides are all over the snow. I heard it thud to the ground while I was alone in our apartment, reading a new book and drinking tea. It was the kind of moment you think can’t be interrupted because it’s so peaceful and lovely, but then somehow it is.

I stood by the window a long time, looking at the exploded, frozen pumpkin. I thought of when I was a kid, taking my nighttime bath, moving back and forth in the tub so tidal waves crashed over my head. I had short hair then, short and wild. I was rinsing the shampoo from my eyes and suddenly there was this boom. The water in the tub rippled around me and the walls shook. I got up, naked, from the lukewarm water and looked out the window. All I could see were branches and leaves, like a forest had grown around and into our house.

The oak tree from our yard had fallen in the high winds, smashing right through the side of our house. Until my dad came home with friends and chainsaws, I thought we were going to live inside that big tree forever.

I don’t think this pumpkin in the snow will be cleared. Whoever threw it never wanted to see it again. I could move it myself, but I’ll watch it freeze, unfreeze, rot, become part of the soil, and maybe pray (hopelessly, childishly) for a pumpkin patch in the fall.

One January

750.
Seven-hundred and fifty words a week, something to look forward to. A voice, a letter, a memory, to remind me. New books in the mail, open them at work because it's too exciting to wait. Look at the cover, feel the pages, get used to the weight because it'll become a part of me soon enough.

091512.
She wants a cherry blossom wedding, and we scroll through endless images of delicate little flowers. Strands, branches, buds, petals. We're excited like we're little kids and I hope that everyone feels like this, as often as possible.

4.
I take out our new wine glasses for the first time, a gift from a Vermont friend, and they're lovely. We've got candles lit and our New Hampshire friends are telling stories. The wine glass in my hand has a fingerprint melted into it. Whoever made this glass left a part of themselves for me to find.

28-21.
He write me messages and we talk through the game silently supporting the unpopular team. He's in Japan and I'm in New England and sometimes it's nice to feel like you've got someone on your side. Sometimes I'm not as resistant to the progressively consuming technology when it means I can reach all the way across the world.

Snowed in

Song for a cold night. House buried in snow. Hot cocoa with Bailey's in hand. Reading by the fire. Bliss.

Words that feel like secrets

Firecracker told me that "aletheia" means truth in Greek, but not truth as we know it. It is, instead, the deliberate uncovering of omissions. Discovering the things we hide. I love words that feel like secrets.

Sometimes, I imagine myself overgrown. Roots and veins crawling out of me, blooming from the top of my head and out of my ears and mouth, attaching to buildings and trees and the sun and the moon. I wonder if anyone notices as I walk around in a tangle of overgrown thoughts.

This feeling isn't snobbery or boredom like I used to think it was. There are just so many ideas and dreams that I've left unexplored, and they've learned to move on without me. They're still connected, even though they won't wait around for me anymore. I can tug them back down, like holding onto the string of a balloon that's trying to fly away, when I'm ready.

Sirens

Cold & Snow

He grew up in Guadalajara, but he loves the cold. He loves ice skating in Fenway Park, watching the ball drop in Times Square, walking around the Nuit blanche a Montreal. He wraps himself in long, hand-knit scarves and drinks black coffee hot and steaming while his friends talk of cruises and travel agents. He thinks of the sun and he is warm. He thinks of the snow and he his home.

quellazaire

I remember the neighborhood, a quiet little roundabout city. I remember the man in the red house. Tall, handsome, friendly. Blonde wife, two kids, Golden Retriever. 9 to 5. Blue Subaru. I always liked running into him as we got into our cars in the morning: he'd flash this smile and his face would stay with me all day.

I remember getting back to the house late one night and seeing the man sitting on the stoop in his garage. It was summer and I was feeling invincible. He wore a pink nightgown, black stilettos, and was smoking a cigarette from a long plastic holder (a quellazaire, my friend told me to call it, quellazaire.) The look on his face: defeated, solemn, melancholic. But he shot me that smile again and waved with his smoking hand before crossing his legs and looking down at the floor.

It's bullshit, my friend told me. He's just trying to mix up an otherwise monotonous existence.

But I gave up the search for ingenuity a long time ago. You never can tell, not really. Everyone has a story.

mill thoughts

Bookworm: "It was one of those nights, the kind you don't want to forget."
Sunshine: "Will you?"
Bookworm: "Maybe, eventually. I wish you could've come."
Sunshine: "Me, too."

inside

Almost-empty parking lot outside an almost-adandoned building. Step out of the car, cold air hits us, remember: it's getting colder, clearer from here.

Broken, old lift elevator. Spiral staircase wide and forgiving. Reminiscent of one time in Europe.

Dim lights, antiques, canvases, peeling ceiling, warped floorboards. Authentic paint stains on the floor, the wall.

Smells of pine, musty furniture, fire smoke, cigarette smoke, oil paint.

Big bottles of red wine, brown bottles of beer, two wine glasses that have traveled all over and have not broken yet.

He wears a purple flannel shirt and girls watch him intently. He wears it before, after, and while it is trendy. One of the reasons to admire him, to love him.

Would he be able to move his fingers up and down, keep time with his foot, sing up to the ceiling, if he was carrying all the love I've got? We do not live for each other, like they do in stories, and that makes me happy. There is so much love, so much life, to share.

Lights on, new faces, calloused fingers, empty stage. Feel different, renewed, a little drunk, a little dizzy. Pepto Bismol-pink door. We compartmentalize things. Music. Art. Love. Words. A shade of pink in an otherwise dark oil-painted room.

Try to use the elevator, even though it is broken. Run, for fun, down the spiral staircase. Help carry keyboard stands and guitars out into the cold air, only getting colder. But I like it. I wouldn't be here if I didn't.

I always wanted to be Harriet the Spy

“Don't you want to be a writer, Sport? Gee, your father could even help you.”
Sport almost collapsed at the sink.
“Are you kidding? You know I want to be a ball player. And if I'm not a good ball player, I'll tell you something, I'm going to be a C.P.A.”
“What's that?”
“You don't know what a C.P.A. is?” Sport screeched.
“No," said Harriet. She never minded admitting she didn't know something. “So what,” she thought; “I could always learn.”

[Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, 1964]

Private Lawns

Angus & Julia Stone <3

Old home, new life; New home, old life

Driving by

I’ve been driving by our old house a lot lately. Work takes me south, sometimes to Boston, sometimes to the Cape, sometimes even farther. But I usually find myself driving past Haverhill on 495 and, without thinking, pulling off the exit. After weeks and days and hours of exploring new places and sleeping in an apartment I still haven’t settled into, it is nice to feel comfortable. Even if it is just for a moment, sitting on the porch reading a book, locked out and watching my old neighbors walk by.

Explorer

I have a strange sense of familiarity when I see signs for the surrounding towns: Methuen, Salem, Plaistow, Lawrence, Lowell. The funny thing is, I hardly spent time in those cities when I lived nearby. Now that I live an hour away, I explore them. I try to pick out the good things in each place, try to see what makes people want to live there. I still haven’t figured out why these invisible town lines dictate different cultures, different ways of life, but they do. I'm determined to not isolate myself: I don't want to see the same side of every city. I know there’s more than coffee shops and arguing couples and trash buildup and art walks.

Catching the train

When I fall asleep late at night in my new bedroom, I can hear the train whistling somewhere far away. There’s something inexplicably compelling about trains, something beautiful and melancholy. I could hear the train from Haverhill, too. I remember discovering the train tracks behind the cemetery with my cousin. It was like we had stumbled upon this long-forgotten secret. The tracks ran along the river and we walked on them for a couple miles. It was just a day in September, back when he was secretly planning on running away to Argentina and I was secretly missing him already.

Intimacy

I wake up to the sound of neighbors all around me. Quiet, private sounds: water running, breakfast-making, good mornings and good byes. Waking up in Haverhill was different. The dog across the street was chained up outside and would howl without fail every morning. Our bed was up against this beautiful window alcove and we’d leave the windows open on warm nights. In the morning the air would be perfect. The room would be dark except for the glow coming in under the closet door. There was a small window in there, I’m not sure why, but it guaranteed us a little bit of light, always.

Ghosts & possibilites

I thought it was weird when my family took pictures of my grandmother in her casket after the wake. After we broke the receiving line, after they turned off the music and dimmed the lights, my aunts and cousins snuck up to the altar and snapped a couple photos. She hasn’t looked this good in a long time, they said. I disagreed, because I was 19 and still trying to figure out where social norms and familial norms intersected. But the truth was, Grandma hadn’t looked like herself in years: she had looked like Diabetes; Cancer; Alzheimer’s; Emphysema. She’d been sick a long time. But the point was, in the end, in that casket, she wasn’t sick anymore.

Walking around the house (it used to be our house) feels like looking at those pictures of grandma. It’s familiar, and in an intangible way it’s still mine, but it’s different now. It’s a skeleton of a home and its emptiness is full of possibility. I feel nostalgic and eerie. Not like I’m trespassing, but like I’m the ghost that haunts the place now.

The first morning

Woke up at 5 am and watched the sun rise for the first day in my life without her.

The first morning in 90 years without a fern.

Multi-grain bagels and mugs of coffee that I still find hard to stomach. Usually it is tea for breakfast.

Boston in the morning; gossiping girls to my left and an old man on a cell phone to my right.

Home is green mountains, home is across the lake, home is how many folding chairs you can fit into a hospital room.

I'm in New England, but not the New England I am from. This is a different New England: faster, louder, cruder, bigger.

I live here now, drive here, sleep here, walk here, fit in here, but I still hold on to the sweet, kind, and good.

And here it is warm inside, autumn-cold outside.

Scarecrows with child smiles erected in a cemetery for Halloween.

Giant green and orange pumpkins in row along the side of the highway.

It really is a beautiful day to be alive.

... drive steadily forever

Not a huge Miranda July fan, but this movie has some great moments.