nightmares and rubix cubes

for no reason, I had one of the gnarliest, worst nightmares last night.

It felt like I'd been asleep all night by the time 1:36 rolled around, at which point I looked at the clock, forced myself back to sleep, and immediately dreamed that I was walking in an unfamiliar neighborhood, standing on raised patches of dirt in strangers' back yards trying to find enough cell coverage to call home, and ended up being kidnapped by two Clockwork-Orange-esque thugs with oversized basketball jerseys, ominiously black and red backwards baseball caps, and a small arsenal of construction site tools. We were in an abandoned (but too-well-lit) building and they forced me into a corner while they picked up a faceless body and proceeded to kill the person in front of me. I was scratching at the floor and wall trying to get away, desperate to get out but convinced that there was no chance at escaping. As soon as their backs were turned I started scuttling away, crab or spider style, facing them but walking on the palms of my hands.

They turned and smiled. I started to make some primal, fear-soaked whimper, and the bigger of the two thugs-- in a white jersey, oversized Nikes with no laces, and colorless, greasy hair-- picked up some kind of mechanical, bright yellow tool that was like a corkscrew but with a huge spike in it instead of a spiral screw. He shrugged and the other thug told me that I was just making it harder for myself.
Still scrabbling away on the slick tile with my palms starting to slide out from under me, I summoned as much energy as I could to keep moving, and the thugs began effortlessly throwing the spiked corkscrews in my direction. The first one went straight through the top of my foot, clanging hard as it hit the floor, and as I screamed and my elbows buckled underneath me, I had a sudden anxiety-stricken emotion of feeling like a Christ impersonator as I waited to die, pinned to the floor.

I woke up unable to get a single deep breath in, and I couldn't make out any objects clearly in my dark room. I tried curling up but my legs were still wobbly and adrenaline-filled from the dream. As I tried to get my bearings and breathe in the darkness, Tom rolled over in his sleep, tucked his right arm across my body and mumbled softly but clearly-- "hi. I love you." before dozing back to sleep.

Probably one of the top 10 best moments I've had in 27 years on this planet.

Hours later, stuck at a desk with a computer full of puzzle-linked assignments that feel like a giant Rubix Cube that I haven't figured out yet... I can look out my window lost in thought, waiting for the skies to open up with fat, slushy snowflakes, feeling bolstered and wordlessly grateful for the small and incredibly valuable moments that the last 10 months have offered.

And sometimes, that's all a girl needs to get her head back into the Cube.

unexpected inspirations

note to self, go here often and be totally delighted frequently...
http://www.williamhundley.com/index.php?/projects/entoptic-phenomena/

There's a first for everything...

I'm lying in (Tom's) bed after midnight on Friday... I've been home with the dogs since about 3:30, which has been nice, but the epic and exquisitely quiet evening has consisted only of the sounds of my fingers on the keyboard, the scritch of my nails on the dogs' sleek coats, an episode of an old Gilmore Girls turned down very low, and now some kind of oddly comforting periodic clicking noise coming from a lamp in Tom's room.

Fridays are braindead days and I should know better than listen to my thoughts, but in such a long, quiet period of thinking tonight, where I've seen almost no one other than my co-workers and the pooches except for Kelly when she stopped by to get Emma earlier... it's hard not to listen too much. And my head is so scrambled and upside down.

I foolishly thought that the review might be the climax of my week, since they can be intense and sometimes draining, and occasionally they can even (momentarily, but brutally) seem to ruin the very, very hard work of almost a year's worth of effort on a project that people... specific people... tell you (on a whim) (a whim! based on what they had for lunch, and what the person next to them just said... literally...A WHIM!... how curious) to change everything, just because that's how they feel and that's what would sound important if they said it.

I was really cringing in preparation for the review, but confident in my work and my team, and I've done so many of these now that I know how to make the best that I can out of the criticism, which is good... and hell, sometimes you luck out and get criticism that's super constructive, that gets your wheels turning and makes you feel like this product is going to be truly solid, with the whole company backing it. And wheee!

The meeting was alright. Not my worst, maybe not my best, but it didn't end in despair and I felt like if I somehow added more coffee the next few weeks and found an extra 8 hrs to sleep at some point, I might find the cunning resources to sneak the things in that truly need to happen without causing a ruckus.

Everyone who thinks they've got it made, take two steps forward! Not so fast, Jane Kathryn...

Ironically, after mentally preparing myself for the meeting on Weds, it was a spontaneous, casual and brief meeting on Thursday that ruined everything. A quick word with the boss about something that's been causing huge anxiety and frustration for me since I've worked with him, but said completely kindly and briefly and putting every "I" statement to use to simply say that our communication might be improved if we could both do one thing, and because speaking in company meetings is something that can be nerve-wracking for me, this would greatly improve my work environment.

I would've had a more favorable discussion if I'd told Napoleon that he was a nice guy, but I wasn't sure that a short man would be capable of suiting my needs.


The next 5 hours of my life were quite honestly 5 hours that I might remember until I'm an old lady. The way my boss descended into a defensive, insecure, blisteringly sarcastic, angry, hot mess was like watching something on a nature program where you hold the remote control in mid air, incapable of changing the channel due to the profoundly awkward, yet primal, situation that's unfolding around the watering hole. Not with the mighty lions fighting for the lioness, but in this case, one of the bizarre, scraggly, hyena-esque animals that has to wait until one of the lions has been fed before he can try to get his chance to drink, and then his display of alpha behavior is so grossly exaggerated and inappropriate that you wonder how he lived long enough to become an adult.

This all sounds cruel and exaggerated, but I want to REMEMBER, not guess, years from now, that I am looking my future self in the face and saying... remember the meetings this man dragged you through in his office a few years ago and tore you down as a person-- not an employee-- but as a person, to temper his sniveling fits? Remember when he put his finger in your cheek and called you an arrogant bitch in his fury that someone had just told him to fire someone (me) that he didn't want to fire because he had absolutely no reason to? Well you're THAT MAD about this one too, future self, and in fact you're probably MORE mad if that's possible in any way, shape or form because this time, you're already onto this guy and you aren't shocked that he'd act this way.

And this time, because you're desensitized to it, you can sit back and watch as his hands begin to shake, how his Adam's apple fights against the new shirt-collar that's under the new sweater-vest and how some of the gel or oil or whatever's in his hair has created a spot on the collar of his shirt back by the nape of his neck. This time, you can completely observe without the blind shock of having someone unexpectedly cross every professional and social boundary by flipping out at you for no reason and continue in such an exaggerated and heated display that even trying to retell an abbreviated version of the story to someone later will require at least 15-20 minutes. At LEAST.

Oh, this man. This little insecure dweeb of a man who has clawed his way to the top and battled with those who have also clawed their way to the top, and now-- even more significant than the man who sat next to me yelling 3 years ago-- he has no one more powerful than him, so he feels even more entitled to say things behind closed doors that are in No. Way. appropriate for work, or friendships or family relationships or any other kind of human interaction. It's just crazy, is what it is. Someone at work recently described him as a maniac, and they're right. He's a tightly wound, Napoleonic, egotistical, trembling little wombat of a man, and he is in charge of my company.

And god damnit. I'm tired of bullies.

The Sound and the Fury of this epic battle with this little cave guano was some kind of significant breaking point for me. When he jumped out of his little CEO rolling chair yelling at me about something so ABSURDLY untrue and unfair and downright cruel, I felt a physical cracking sensation of all of my patience and frustration and intentional self-distraction just snap somewhere deep in my spine. I had a sudden vision of my entire back being constructed of straw, and all of the vertical pieces that were bound along my spine, the strongest of the straw, gave way and released a thousand dry molecules of dust and straw residue and anger into the air.

I walked out of his office with a trembling but fiercely contained demeanor-- so tight-lipped that air could not pass through-- I let him play whatever game he was playing, but I know that he saw the blood boiling in my veins, the fierce and unapologetic anger in my eyes, and he must've seen the deep red lines that formed from my neck all the way across my chest. I dont' think I've ever flushed that deep red before and I can't believe that he-- and that meaningless day of all things-- were the culprits for anger that physical and intense.

I walked out of his office silent and proud, and I walked straight to my desk with hands shaking so badly that it hurt to try to steady them by my sides. I drove home, the longest drive I've had in a long time, and as soon as my key turned in the doorknob I fell apart-- the straw broke down my sternum, across my ribs, it broke in my arms and in my pelvis and in the tops of my legs, and I fell into my mattress with more weight than I've felt in years. I cried and seethed and lay there, totally dead weight, for almost 10 minutes... feeling like I had so much anger that I didn't even know how to physically get it out. Crying wasn't doing anything, and there wasn't anything I could've done to stop those sobs from leaving my chest.

I even called my parents. My mom had helped me think of positive ways to talk to him, and so at least she knew what I was talking about and how absurdly inappropriate he had been, considering the small thing I'd said to him. My father answered the phone by telling me he was about to complete the matter of his will and testament, and how complicated things were going to be with his Name, capital N, for me, and god forbid if something happened to me and if I don't have kids, there's nowhere for his legacy to go.
Oh god. Poor dad, poor dad with his innocent sentence and the gurgled sobs he was greeted with in response.

The typical situation here would be for my dad to try to say something supportive but to obviously be surprised and a little freaked out to talk to me... and end up saying something along the lines of me obviously not doing something well enough in this situation. But he didn't. He softly asked what was wrong and, for maybe the first time ever, I was able to say it so perfectly:
"I'm being bullied at work, dad. Intensely bullied, by two people, every day. And I'm fucking sick and tired of it and I just wanted to call you."

I don't know what he said, but it was soft and gentle and unbelievably supportive. He knew instantly what I was talking about and didn't ask any more questions. He knew exactly how I felt and although his anger probably matched mine-- I get my insanely protective gene from someone-- he just was THERE for me. And with everything dad and I have gone through with his health and job stress in the past two years, and the demise of every conversation we've tried to have, it was the most perfect moment I've had with my dad in a long, long time. 24 hrs later, I still feel totally calmed and empowered and comforted by that one moment I had with my dad.

The amazing thing was that I was able to return to work-- bloodshot eyes and a blotchy face, but to the best of my ability-- within 30 minutes of leaving InJoy's parking lot. So given labor laws, those 30 minutes counted as my 2 paid fifteen minute breaks, and I got to add that time to my timesheet as "general time." TAKE THAT, corporate America! I just had a life moment on YOUR clock! haha. suckers.

Last night, the dogs slept for the first time, and even when Peter called from Chicago in the pouring rain after midnight, I was able to groggily have a conversation with him about 5 songs, and missing Tom, and my asshole boss, and the guinea pigs that I literally almost called the cops about because I thought they were a burglar breaking into the house. Fell back asleep, dreamed flat dreams, and woke up at 7 feeling exhausted but totally free and bolstered. Free that I was truly so much better than the creep who abused his power to make me feel small. Free from needing validation and authoritative figures to like me, like the old me would've needed (the old, 3 years ago me). Free from worrying about where my life was going right this second, and free from the daily heart-twisting worry that my relationship with my parents is stressing me out because it's too entangled with hurt and snippiness and miscommunication.

I felt amazing.
I went upstairs and danced with all 3 of the hounds in the kitchen in my pajamas, hair sticking up everywhere, a huge smile on my face and the calmest feeling in my body.

As with anything... a burst of joy, a hot shower, several whiskey drinks in a row... the extremely warm embers can often cool quickly, and returning to work and The Troll and even more lectures and tedious, achingly tedious tasks ahead of me wasn't a total joy. I rode the wave until tonight, when reality started settling back in and I realized that I do... very truly... very hold-myself-accountable this time... need a new job, because I'm extremely unhappy at my current one. And I'm really, really sick and tired of being unhappy.
So Friday night was spent on the couch trying to do freelance work, but mostly sitting in complete silence looking at the dogs, being lost in extremely deep thought, facebook chatting about work and then with Meghan in Chicago, where it's pouring rain, where Tom and Peter and my Peter and Melissa and Beth and Dave and Kerry and Anna and many more of my dear people are being drenched in endless rain.

I'm doing something I've never done before-- I'm being pathetic and sleeping with one of Tom's shirts. I'm extremely lonely tonight without him and being in his home without him makes it even worse. I'm so sad for him that today must've been sad and difficult and scary, if it's anything like what I've experienced in the past when losing a family member. My heart hurts for him and yet his voice was so warm and sincere and quiet on the phone the couple times he called, he really has a beautiful way of describing things concisely. A skill that I lack, to say the least, and yet another crossword puzzle moment of 'wait, why are you with ME, again?'

God, I'm feeling lost, though. Freaked out that my life needs to change or I may not be able to shirk off the deeply anxious feelings that have been following me like a swarm of bees.

This shirt smells like him and it made me tear up when I saw it because even his shirt looks like him... it's like it maintained the lines of his shoulders even when it's folded up. So I'll be creepy and sleep with his shirt tonight and wait it out, just a few more days before I'll (hopefully) feel more energized and be laughing off the Incident and be inspired to find more beauty and less mirth in my daily activities.

It WAS amazing to find these beauties as I was crawling into bed. I guess the photographer has people curl up in fabric and just leap. They *really* speak to me... I mean, they completely fit in some part of my brain that wants to be amazed and delighted and not even think-- just feel this blobby but ethereal whomp of color and motion and total stillness.

AUUUUUGHHHHHHH, she screamed into the unnamed void... AUUUUUUUUGHHHH...yelled the dust speck.

I need to find a way to be creative with my current life. I will not make it if I don't. I cannot exist on this earth without having an outlet to be creative and academic and witty and without-all-the-answers on a very deep level.


I just want to express myself like this so badly...

I'm so glad to have found these. They are the most lovely thing to look at while curled in a blanket at the end of an extremely trying week...

I will accept my lack of and currently frustrated relationship with words tonight, and instead I will illustrate about a thousand thoughts and emotions that are pouring through my veins with this, which sums it up effortlessly and beautifully and so deeply that if I had any tears left, I might spare one just for this:

basset madness

This is what I'm going to do when the weekend hits.

This is also my current view...

Babysitting the Bassets at the Glenn's house for a few days while they have to take an unexpected road trip to Chicago.

The past couple of days have been pretty nuts, and I'm trying to convince three crazyass hounds that things are NOT nuts so they stop chewing each other's faces for a few minutes... poor girls. They must be wondering what in the fresh hell the weird blond lady is doing here, with circles under her eyes, hair sticking out of a bun in all directions, red suitcase, a bag full of soup and cereal, and clunky clogs.

This week, it's been one odd thing after another. Yesterday, things started falling apart... cartoon stars of zinging pains started shooting from my middle, it started to hurt every time I swallowed in that weird, pre-strep throat kind of way, weirdness started building up at work and I couldn't stay alert for all the tea in china. Canceled plans with Tom, took myself home, put my pajamas on, tucked myself in with food and a vague fantasy of sleeping until next week. Then the call from Tom that his family needed to leave town, and then a pathetic, fumbling attempt to get myself up and together and somehow helpful and on the road. By the time I got back to my apartment, I discovered that 3 of my 4 stovetop burners weren't working, the leak in the sink's faucet had grown, and my refrigerator was making the exact noise that a refrigerator's final chills might sound.

Things just feel out of place this week. Today was the Huge Video Review day... when every boss and their boss's boss sits around the conference table and opens notebooks and writes down everything they can find wrong with the rough cut of the video. It was also the day that, while trying to get stuff together to wear for Huge Video Review day and then a few days of throwing the tennis ball around for the hounds, I went to war *again* with my doctor... I went to refill my every-single-day prescription, the one she just filled for me... after trying to kill me with some kind of daily misery-maker plus hallucinogenic that she thought I'd enjoy for a few months... and the pharmacy informed me that I had no refills left. Um, excuse me? I just started this.
Called my doctor's office and was informed that she (and her entire staff) were out of town, and no one was on call. Except for a doctor who would only be called if I was lying in the street, in the words of the answering service lady-- "bleeding to death".
So back to the pharmacy I went. Where I had to talk to a pharmacist and then the Top Pharmacist who both told me that I was just shit out of luck, sorry, their hands were tied.

I do not like crying in public.
I do not like Big Video Review Day.

0-2 today.

The dogs are chewing on each other's faces. The guinea pigs are making some kind of unearthly robotic chugging noise as they hide in their home, eating the carrots I left for them. The snake is halfway into his hideyhole in his tank, and the turtle is presumably underground in the back yard, enjoying a long winter's sleep.
I'm missing the boy fiercely, and anxious for the week to end, but there's something nice in being able to at least take care of someone's pets when they need a hand. And it's nice to pat a whimpering furball and look down into those huge brown eyes and feel needed, too.

Time to tuck myself in.

where turtles sleep,
she sleeps

edge hill

today's been a whale of a day.

countless little things have been building up until last Sunday, when I felt like someone added a tiny green pickup stick on top of the pile that made the entire structure fall-- count the sticks still touching at the end and subtract them from your score...

I know, firmly, that things will get better. And I keep reminding myself, over and over, of how good so many things are, and how I just need to keep a clear vision of that and hold onto it as I weather the things that have me twisted and knotted and worried and awake at night.

Sometimes though, even when you are very grateful for the things that you hold dear and fiercely optimistic for the things that are about to come, the presence of anxiety is very real, very physical, very relentless, and sometimes even scary. Always frustrating...and entirely draining.

There were times in the past when I struggled with these things; times and events that I try to not think about, but sometimes there's something powerful in remembering them...

tonight I had to wait a long time before I felt enough like myself to go to bed. I felt so relieved to feel "normal" and cheerful again after a long day, just excited to make myself as cozy as possible in bed and drift off. But as soon I got in bed, I was whomped with high-octane feelings and a blur of thoughts all over again, erasing the peaceful and Jane-like mood that I'd just entered the tree bed with.

It brings up cringe-worthy but very personal memories from the first few months I'd moved back to CO, when things were so intense and out of my control that I would bottle everything up until close to midnight-- the only time I was alone each day-- and then the emotions would rise to the surface, no matter how hard I fought it. Every day, month after month, midnight would be this oddly cathartic and deeply rattling experience, like the tide going out in my heart, revealing all the secrets buried in the sand below.

The memory of those nights literally makes me ache just thinking about them-- it feels like I want to go back in time and protect my old self from that experience. But it also makes me think about my limits, and accept the fact that regardless of whether I like it or not, my body has a very intense reaction to the internalization of stress. I think I've been trying to 'train' for this the past several years... trying to toughen myself up, increasing my tolerance to stress internalization the way an athlete tries to systematically raise their pain threshold. But tonight as I curled up in my tree bed and felt the immediate, visceral and involuntary pangs of stress release, I realized that I need to accept myself for needing outlets for frustration and stress and sadness and chaos. I need to be ok with the fact that if something's bothering me, I need to talk about it or write it out... I can't run it off or eat it away or tamp it down with a Mary Poppins & Bert-worthy chimney sweeping brush. I've been denying this for years, and my body's been fighting it very hard.

Ok. Ok, brain. Ok, clenched teeth and aching shoulder muscles. Ok, nervous stomach. I'm listening. I'm sorry.

Step 1: deep, deep breaths.
Step 2: Put on a song from Peter-- Edge Hill by Groove Armada-- and repeat over and over and over and over
Step 3: Wabash long-sleeve t-shirt that dad gave me
Step 4: gentle, non-directed inner monologue
Step 5: continue playing Edge hill until inner monologue leaves
Step 6: very quiet, mumbled, reassuring thoughts to self about what tomorrow will bring
Step 7: Curl deeper into the covers so the tide can return, bringing warmer waters. And whales.

*What is it about whales?
There are few things on this earth that make me question my religious choices more than whales. They are the epitome of spirituality and awe for me... something so massive and graceful and profound, and they share the same planet as we do. It makes the hairs raise on my arms. I'm dumbstruck every time I see a whale... I want to pull on the person's sleeve who's standing next to me, like a small child.
Look!
That exists!

Last week, when Jessie was visiting, we went to Lucille's for breakfast on a rainy Monday morning, and we were seated just a few tables over from Lamont...
my childhood hero.
It was a delicious but a non-translatable experience, reveling in the delight of my own inside joke...
every "magic does exist" tagline from every G-rated movie from the past 20 years wouldn't even do it justice.
It was a very sweet moment in a worried, busy time.

Memories of Lamont and whales.
To the sounds of Edge Hill.
The things that need to be remembered when things stop making sense.
The things to let go to.

♥

relentless heat

I don't understand why I've never dabbled in crossword puzzles.

For some reason, they were a part of the paper I just never really noticed-- I'm not used to interacting with my newspaper, I just read it. Part of me associates them with opening the on-flight magazine during a long trip and having someone else's asinine guesses written in pen, bleeding through the article I'm trying to read and crowding my mind with germaphobic, claustrophobic ick.

I've only even picked up a crossword puzzle a couple of times, but overall I felt disconnected and a little confused at the whole thing, so I've never really committed. On Sunday, Tom met me at the coffee shop after I'd done 90 mins or so of freelance work, and he showed me how to do a puzzle. The NYT Sunday crossword puzzle, that is, in pen. My whole life, I've wanted to be with someone whose mind works that logically and quickly-- who devours the challenge in a quiet and deliberate manner. But it illuminated one of my girlish insecurities-- why would someone who does the Sunday puzzle that well choose to be with someone who struggles with visual gaps? Who hasn't practiced puzzles EVER, even though word play and trivia and clever games are among her favorite things? Should I be worried that he's with someone who takes twice as long to process some clues, and takes twice as long cheering when she gets a correct answer as he does?

Sundays have become crossword puzzles deep down in my bones... even sitting in the coffee shop and letting the Chai buzz fill my brain, there was an odd fidgety nervousness that likes to arrive around 3pm on Sundays. It manifested into a very strange and over-thinking night's sleep... I went to bed around 11:30, slept hard and overheated, and awoke ready to fiercely beat my recent arrival of Monday-anxious dips... I went to the bathroom to wash my face, pull my hair into a bun, and do an Annette Benning pep-talk, real estate agent style. I will sell this house today! Something was off. I went to the living room to turn the heat off, even though it will continue to pour heat directly into my bed all night if it's set to "OFF, DAMNIT" on the thermostat. The living room was blacker than a black steer's tuckus on a moonless prairie night.

I opened the door to my room, bobby pin between my teeth, left hand clutching a mound of twisted hair on top of my head.
3:00. AM. I'd had a whole night's sleep and peptalk in 4 hours and my body just wasn't in the mood to deal with my brain any more.

It was one of those days... I plowed through a morning's worth of work, sent a concerned email, mentally tried to remove the pestering pop-up voices of things that are too much for me to handle right now, and got up to put toast in the toaster for a small hummus & turkey sandwich. 20 minutes later, I returned to my desk while regretting the decision to eat an apple on an anxious stomach, and discovered that a leak had sprung in the ceiling. Right. Above. My. Head.

Papers splattered, computer splattered, coaster that Vicki made for me out of my first award-winning video splattered, speakers, purse, cell phone, lamp, desk phone, markers-- all splattered in ice that was melting through the insulation and tiles above my brand new desk.
Apparently it leaks so much that the fix-it guy in our department hadn't even replaced the rotted tiles above my desk. "What's the point? They're just going to get soaked again. You'd think I would've mentioned it to you, huh?" He laughed.

I leaned against the wall, finishing off the rest of my honeycrisp apple, watching the people in the office next to mine as they leaned against the wall and gawked at me, apple in hand, standing behind a mountain of plastic that I'd swaddled my electronics in.
I was ready for the day-- it was just 3am. And flooded.

I'm so glad that Tom showed me the art of puzzling. It was just what I needed last night when I got home, and tonight when I came home from work and destroyed what should've been a really nice dinner. I was so tired that I imagined cutting the chicken. I actually imagined it. In reality, I dumped the entire thawed breast in the pan and didn't realize my blunder until halfway through cooking it.

If I'm tired and flustered enough that a chicken breast looks like diced chicken, I need ... a padded room? A deep breath. A little more sunlight, a little less office lighting.

Something I'm prone to (not proud of, but prone to) is worrying when a moment, a day, a weekend-- anything relevant-- feels too special. I worry that if I let my guard down and get drunk on the delirious wonderfulness of whatever's happening, that I will somehow cast a curse and elsewhere, disaster will strike.
I'd be less prone to this if it was less persistent.
But that romantic and schedule-free bliss of a weekend with someone you love can so suddenly transform into a serious and sobering distance when something significant goes wrong. The care-free Friday night eating sweet potato french fries can somehow add even more snow to the deck above your office, resulting in a cascade of freezing water onto your head and belongings come Monday morning.

Untrue. Unfair. Glass-half-empty, and I know it.
I'm utterly out of juice, and it makes the highs feel even more intoxicating and the lows feel even more emotionally draining. There are rare times when I call my mom for help, when I've run so low on reserve battery power that I need someone to go to, and for some odd and endearing reason-- those SOS phone calls are just never really registered. She'll be cooking or looking out the window at a bird or watching baseball or thinking about something else, and I'll get some distracted "mm-hmms" and "oh! well that's too bad," in the most chipper register imaginable.

It's frustrating because sometimes I actually really want help-- I want to arrive at her door 30 minutes later looking bedraggled and lost, and have her help me unpack the bags under my eyes. But in some ways, it's sweet... it's sweet because it almost seems like she's so entrenched in her Mom world that she just doesn't have much to say when I confess being overwhelmed, and it's sweet because it reminds me of the many times that we've had the same exchange... I say I'm in over my head; she nods and stirs the chili she's making and says "well anyway... you should sleep and tomorrow I'm going to the bank, and then the..." and melts into mom chatter.

Her advice to me is always this: "get some sleep." That's about it.
I found myself saying the same to the one I love tonight. I was at a loss for words and the cotton between my ears is making every single thought not only obscured, but also delayed. I wanted to say so many things, but they all sounded like Latin (16 across and 10 down) ... and sleep was the only thing I could pinpoint as a viable helpful suggestion.

In some ways, it's such a pathetically unimportant thing to think or do.
But in others, I'm finding, it means so, so much to sleep.

I learned today that it's likely that the fetus has REM sleep in the womb... dreaming, presumably, of simply the muted sounds, lights and physical touch they're experiencing at that stage of development. If we dream before we learn to eat, breathe or cry, that seems like a pretty profound part of our lives. And if we can surrender the anxiety or joy or chaos enough to really sleep, to wrap ourselves in quilts and darkness and-- if we're lucky-- the arms of someone we love, and really let go, I think there's something profound in that kind of healing sleep. Whether we're exhausted or exhilarated, we catch up and find balance during the night. We wear ourselves out by getting up at 3, or indulge ourselves by getting up at 10. We ride the crest of waves that sweep us into the Proustian tide of sleep, and self, and whatever happens in our brains that makes sleep and imagination an essential part of living...

I can tell without even having read my last entry that this is probably exactly what I was babbling about in the last post. A forlorn, scattered, overly-anxious, sleep and dream-obsessed stream of words that leads to nowhere but the ocean.

Oh well. SOMEDAY, I will know which words to say, and I will say them at the appropriate time in the best way possible to the person who needs to hear them.
When that day comes, there will be champagne and joy and many, many lists that I will get to write out of giddy delirium.

by the light of the red star lamp

the red star-shaped paper lantern ...
it was so, so pretty in the window of that little paper shop in Santa Fe.

I just didn't realize how RED it was going to be. I feel like I should charge my neighbors just for seeing it through the top of my blinds in the evening. It's very... Amsterdam in here.

Trying to unwind from a couple weeks of failing to unwind...

The sound of the heat kicking on.
The comforting feel of my enormous hooded Hamilton sweatshirt.
The smell of sheets tumbling in the dryer and the heating kicking on after many months of being still.
The strange sensation of a crick in my neck... the kind you wake up with and can't turn your head to the right all day.
The clock, reading 11:54pm, reminding me that I was absolutely required to be asleep at 10:30.
The odd pinch of a headache I've had for more than 1 week. Continuously. Some weird kind of diagonal sinus-pain headache that intensifies if I sit, stand, sleep, focus, speak, or pay bills.
The smell of peppermint from the vitamin gluttony I sprayed in my hair.
The unusual feeling of socks after months and months of sun-exposed feet.
The warm promise of cool-weather layers in fall.
The glare of a laptop stirring subconsciously reluctant internal monologues about not wanting to look into the glare of a desktop all day every day for the next few days.
The message I haven't listened to yet from Peter, left on my phone while I drove through country roads in cold weather, scanning the roads for dark raccoon burglars.

The ache of having to be patient when things are not on your terms, and not in your control, and continue being patient, day in and day out. The silent reminders to myself that positivity needs to flow through my veins until I'm so steeped in hope and gentle reassurance and, what my mother would call "self-soothing"-- that my blood will be replaced with unicorn sparkles. It's so odd to feel so firmly confident and positive, and at the same time, with equal intensity, feel anxious questioning nudges and frustration and confusion.

I am feeling very bedraggled and very worn thin, but underneath that I also feel immensely light. Somehow, I'm managing to take a little more on each day... the cliched "juggling act" comes to mind, but it is like juggling... job 1, job 1, job 1, job 1 & 2; job 1 & 2; job 1 & watch a movie with Tom & call landlady; job 1 & laundry & job 2 & getting that big email written...

The balls fall. BALLS. But there's no use crying over spilled beanbags, and I have a nest egg to protect and benefits to keep and people I love to see and a weary self who-- at some point-- will cash in those accumulating days off and just read until my eyes cross and then stand in a hot shower until my heating bill skyrockets and then Tom will come over to have a glass of red wine and he'll call me Liz Lemon while the squirrels throw seed pods at me from the top of the tree outside my apartment. And that makes all the early mornings and the humiliating mistakes at work and the weary Tuesday nights on the couch and the evening & weekend jobs worth it.

Julia Child was not an advocate of the Blood Type diet or the South Beach diet or the Caveman Diet. She deeply believed in "all things in moderation," even though she endearingly and eccentrically was known to give in to bliss and the sinful, life-spinning effects of red wine and chocolate and cream and romantic dinner company. I live in the lean, Pilates and rock climbing Muesli land of diets and self-discipline, but at heart I am a Julia girl. I work very, very hard for moderation, but many times I divulge in weary nothingness from the comforts of my couch and a quilt; I give in to chocolate and loud laughter at my office when I should be printing scripts; I lie awake thinking on Saturday mornings for a long time when I could be cleaning or working, but instead doing nothing at all, feeling protected by a warm and supremely comforting arm that's slung across both of my arms, occasionally twitching from REM sleep.

This is one of my biggest life goals. That even when I feel worn as thin as my aging black low-tops, staying up until 12:30 on a Tuesday when the alarm's set for 6:30, that underneath the weariness and nerves is still a sense of stoic lightness... that 'unbearable lightness of being' that so perfectly titles what life truly feels like.

Faith comes in all forms-- and for me, when things are confusing or rocky, it is the unbearable lightness of being that helps me find strength in unusual places.

For now, it's just the unbearable lightness of the red star lamp. Over my bed. Which I should've been in hours ago. Which I will turn on again tomorrow night, after another day that might feel endlessly long, but all in all, will turn out just fine.

To sleep, perchance to dream
ay, there's the rub
for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil
must give us pause; there's the respect
that makes calamity of so long life

...
thus conscience does make cowards of us all