Category Archives: Letting Go

March 12, 2013 · 5:55 pm

Always, always, you are wondering, will I see this one again?

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When I graduated from college, there were people who said things that hurt me so.

They never intended to prick me. Their hope was never to harm me with their stacking of words. But me, I’ve always been too sensitive of a soul, skipping the heart-on-sleeve sewing to chuck my heart on the concrete for others like the throwing of candy at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

So when they told me I would be the kind of girl who walked in and out of others’ lives I simply told them no. No, I would be rooted. No, I would stay. And when they told me I would be the kind of girl to never look back at them I told them no. No, I would be turning my head back more than they could count. No, I would be spinning round & round to find them.

 

They were right.

I have become the kind of girl who walks in and out of others’ lives. I am there for moments. I am standing upon a stage and I am delivering some sort of message, mixed and mingled with poetry my Mama raised me on, before I am leaving, unhooking the microphone and walking away. I am finished in twenty minutes. And I am boarding a flight. And I am heading home. And I am going to do it all again next week.

What they never told me—when they said I’d be the girl to swoop in & then out, in & then out—is that I would be the one to hear the door slam the loudest. Always. I would be the one left standing by the door.

 

I’m sitting in a café with a friend, scraping my eggs across a plate because I don’t feel much like eating. And I don’t feel much like talking.

This was the first time that I felt a little broken while my plane was on the runway. This is the first time I have come home feeling a little bit hollow from walking away.

She asks me, “What do you think is the toughest part of your job?” She’s expecting something different than the answer I will give her. She’s expecting me to say finances, or delegation, or knowing what to charge for this or knowing how to balance that. She’s waiting for the nitty gritty details to splurge from my lips.

I say, “The hardest part is leaving.” There is a pregnant pause as I place down my fork and find the place to curl my hands around the coffee mug for comfort. “The hardest part is leaving a place when you only want to stay for a little while longer.”

It’s the thing that people never notice about my job. It’s the thing they never see when the Instagram is filled with travels and the Twitter is stocked up with 140-charactered fragments that tell of a girl living out her dreams. And while I never take my life for granted, it’s the oddest thing in the world to be singled out and set apart for your story. It’s the craziest feeling to spark people and push people with your words and then walk away to do it over again in another space and another place.

 

I crave connection wherever I am but it hurts to get to know the faces because always, always, you are wondering, will I see this one again?

And if the answer is no, if I never see you past the lights shining down on me and the theatre closing in all around my echoing voice, will I know how to let you go? Will I know how to want the very best for you? Will I know how to release this sadness that trembles in my throat at the thought of saying goodbye before there ever was a decent stack of hellos?

There’s a grey I can’t quite understand for moments that don’t last longer than our fingernails. There’s a sadness that thickens when I walk away from a place, or from good people. There is a loneliness only I know that comes from sharing a story to a room packed to the balconies with faces and knowing that not a single one of them can follow where you go.

 

“You can bring home the souvenirs,” I tell her. “But never the people. I think that’s the toughest part.”

And as we sit in silence there is irony dancing in the air as Rihanna’s latest song crawls through the speakers like a slow and mangled lullaby. I feel like crying. I feel like pursing my lips together and curling my hands into fists. I feel raw and sad to be living inside a Tuesday that hasn’t thought to schedule coffee dates with the sunlight all afternoon.

She sings about staying. About wanting someone to stay for reasons she can’t understand.  And for once, I feel like she is singing about something we all know. Her voice is slow. Her melody is lonely.

When she sings it, we all mean it, “I want you to stay.”

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Filed under Letting Go

September 20, 2012 · 6:35 am

The Tale of the Box: For the reader with clipped wings.

“What do you think it is?” he asks the girl and boy crouching on both sides of him as all three dipped their heads lower to the leaves to get a closer look.

“Whatever it is, it looks broken,” the little girl says, poking the metal contraption with a stick.

“A robot?”

“Probably a UFO,” the other boy answers, having remained quiet up until this point.

“It’s a box…” I tell them, coming up behind the Three Young Ones. “Or…at least it was a box.”

I take a knee beside them and pick the ramshackled piece of metal up from the casket of leaves in the ground. Weathered by the storm. Fragile.

I pick it up carefully. As if it were a broken-winged blue bird. Tiny & Delicate; It Used to Sing a Song of Mercy.

“Well that’s pretty boring,” retorts the little girl, standing to place her hands on her hips.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But this box has quite the story behind it,” I tell them. “Maybe you won’t understand it just yet but later in life it will all make sense. 

Come, let’s find a place to sit in the shade and I’ll tell you everything.”

The Tale of the Box.

The Box formed many, many years ago. Long before iPods & iMacs or iHomes & iPads. Long before “i” was anything but a letter, a way to say Me with more assurance.

Long before automobiles or poodle skirts or sewing machines. For centuries– stacked upon one another like playing cards– living & breathing beings have stuffed themselves into this very Box.

“But its way too tiny,” the little girl interjects. “I couldn’t even fit my baby brother in that box.”

“You have a very good eye,” I say. “You see, they never got to fitting. Not a single one. They never found an angle to sit within it or a way to be comfortable between its four walls. And if you had asked them, when they were your size and just your age, if they’d ever squeeze into this Box one day, they would have told you ‘No.’ No, no, no.

But they got stuck. Trapped like Rapunzel High Up in Her Tower with Yards & Yards of Unruly Locks.”

“How do you get trapped in a box like that?” asks the little boy with red framed glasses.

“Good question. I can tell you that it happens very slowly at first….

A small pitter patter on the roof of the Box…

Should & Would falling from the sky.

Then louder…

Droplets of Mustn’t & Must

Then more robust…

Hail pellets of Cannot & Never

Then Thicker…

Disbelief. And Give Up Now. And Foolish to Believe You Could Ever Follow Your Heart.

And Heavier…

Why Try? Too. Small. No. Good. Worth. Less.

And before long, a heavy layer of all the reasons why the Box would be the safest & smartest & most logical place to stay poured out and covered the roof. And people stopped trying to break free. Or Break Out. Or Break the Mold. Or break anything but their own heart with the sound of dreaming slamming with the door. 

And they made Less Noise. And tried to take up Less Space. The Box became the very place where people learned to keep themselves holed up so that they never have to grow the Courage It Would Take to crawl out and seize the world by its lovely, lovely love handles.”

“It sounds very scary,” they whisper.“Very scary indeed.”

“Did you ever get stuck in the Box, miss?”

“Me?” I ask. “Well, sad to say it true but yes.”

“How did you break free?” They sat on their hands. They bit their lips. They waited for an answer, a resolution of sorts.

“I suppose I woke up one day and noticed One of Two Things or Two of One Thing:

One) My Spirits were Tattered & Torn but not beyond repair.

They could be fixed with a hammer, a few nails and some care.

Two) My dreams, still strong, had grown tired of me.

They would stand No Longer to not come to be.

They’d pack up their things and turn with a twirl,

hitch hiked the stars until they found a New Girl.

I would have spent a lifetime in that Box, or maybe even two, if I only used the carved windows for “looking purposes” and never decided they’d be my way to crawl from my own doubt and fear.

I could have spent forever with my hand to the thick glass, waiting for the voice webbed in my soul to whisper, “Climb out and join them.”

Climb. Out. And. Join. Them.

“I don’t think I’ll ever want to be stuck in that Box. It looks so tiny and lonely,” says the little girl, cringing.”

“And I hope you never do get stuck in the Box. It won’t ever be much of a home. And it won’t ever make you happy. The longer you get stuck, the harder it will be to break out.

Heavier Rooftops Pile Us In as Life Goes On & On.

So go on playing today, Loving the World through Little Girl & Boy Lenses. But remember this later, if your Little Minds Can Hold It Tight: Those dreams that stir you, the ones you paint on easels today and draw in crayon tomorrow, they are precious. And one day, they will come to you and say, “I want to come true now. I am ready to come true. So now what should we do?”

And that will be the question. The question that will either put you in the Box or Break the Box Right From the Hinges before you ever try to fit a body inside.

Break the hinges from the beginning, you won’t fit inside that box.

Break the hinges from the very start; you were made for things more wonderful than this.

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Filed under Letting Go, Live with intention

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Aside

No girl wants to say, “And then the grey seeped in.”

When you read this, just remember that you are hearing from a girl who believed in a Grey Kind of Love Story far longer than she believed in the exiled Sugarplum who trudged away from the ballet for a career in swapping teeth for silver under pillows near midnight.

This girl, she once prayed for Grey Love Stories the way a little boy prays to catch the soaring leather skin of a Yankee’s homerun hit. White-Knuckled Prayers for Grey Kinds of Love Stories. 

She was a girl who thought that grey was a pretty, little color fitting for a love story. Someone could you love in shades of gray, she said to the No Ones of the night.

She? Well, she once talked for days just to keep from saying the two words that needed her tongue, needed the air outside of her mouth, needed the lobe of a boy who didn’t love her the way they Love One Another Hard in those vampire movies.

…

It’s Over.

Them’s heavy words. Heavy like the bags assembled by the clumsy grocery store clerk who’s prone to packing the gallon of milk with the cans of corn and lentils.

Heavy enough to make you wonder if your tongue can take it.

If your lips might break it.

It’s Over.

Knees shaking against the dashboard, she found the those words somewhere along the rows of houses all drawn on the same architect’s sketch pad.

It’s Over.

Pull Over.

Pull over, pull over, pull over.

…

Girl, you got to find the strength to grab the door handle. Girl, you got to stand beside the car and watch him pull away and realize you still got the dignity, the will, the Know How to Know Better. That you deserve that.

Better.

You Deserve Better.

Girl, I know the way you’ll find it hard to Pull Away. From Him. As he pulls you in and tells you, he always did like the smell of the lavender shampoo you used in your hair.

But Grey, if you cannot see her yet, she’s the Maybe’s, the Some Other Time’s, the I Can’t Make It’s, the Promise I’ll Make It Up To You’s.

All clustered into One Grand Excuse for why he never called and why you stood in those heels that gave you blisters far before you ever got to dancing and waited for the car that never came.

It’s like a person who will tell you Every Day that they might think to love you One Day.

And there you’ll go, marching off to join the crows of girls who ache for the One Day. Perched up on the fence for that One Day, as if they were waiting for Elvis to appear from his dressing room.

But you are not a One Day Girl. You are not a Maybe Girl. You are an Every Day Girl and you need to know it so.

…

Girl, keep the grey for the dyed threads of your chunky sweaters. Keep the grey for the furs of the mouse that always grows restless beneath your refrigerator around 10pm. Keep the grey for the days that demand rain boots, but don’t let grey lend you a love story.

Grey just aint a color made for telling love stories. No girl wants to say, “And then the grey seeped in.”

And Girl, if you got to scream, Scream Loud. If you got to cry, Cry Buckets. If you got to run, Try Barefoot. And, if you got to find a way to wash him away, Then Wash. Hard.

You sit in the middle of your bathtub and pour out every squirt of lavender shampoo if you got to.

If you never want to find Another to tangle that scent of you in their fingers, fine. Leave that then. But leave all the same.

Leaving knowing One Day you’ll look up. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But One Day, you’ll look up and it’ll be Yellow. All Kinds of Terra Cotta Gold & Tie Dye. With no trace of grey.

You’ll have left that color for your sweaters. For the days that demand rain boots.

And your love stories, they’ll be Salmon Pink. Candy Apple Red. All sorts of Deep Magenta tangled with hints of Navajo White.

5 Comments

December 27, 2011 · 8:11 am
October 18, 2011 · 8:07 am

And I am sorry, like Africa. Sorry like Montreal.

“No man is ever gonna chase you through an airport,” my mother told me on my 25th birthday.

At the time, it was 25 years that I’d managed to live just fine without you.

“He might wish he could chase you through an airport, you are certainly pretty enough for that. But he won’t dare stand at Gate 16 and lose all his manhood for a girl who’d never stay.”

Little girls learn to suck and swallow their mothers’ words like throat lozenges. You should probably know now, I gritted my teeth into those very words nearly every night of knowing you, wondering in the dark when you’d turn to leave. Turn and slam the door and leave me breathing or maybe some kind of breathless on the other side, saying, “That door has never quite sounded this way before.” Never so hollow. Never so cold.

But my mother was right, because of who I am and what I won’t sacrifice, I’ll be the kind of girl who has to stand at Gate 16, staring down at her shoes, asking a part of her heart if it will still remain when the plane’s wheels kiss Beijing’s runway.

That part of her heart that’s sitting in a window seat right now. Ordering a glass of wine to take the edge off. Inserting ear plugs. Left. Then. Right. That part of her heart that is already learning that holding on was a foolish thought to begin with. That part of her heart that is reversing steps and spelling words backwards: oG reH teL reH TsuJ

I’m about 600 yards away from you right now.

A few gates.

Two security guards.

A couple of steps.

And a long aisle away from you.

It’s not really romantic. I didn’t expect to catch you at the last moment. You are so prompt, so timely, that you make these kinds of “don’t go, hurdling over suitcases in an effort to get to you before the gate closes” kind of scenes impossible.

But I am here, 600 yards away from you. Feeling like I’ve already placed a couple countries between us. Uruguays of Unsaid Words. Senegals of Stupid Fights. Mexicos of Mixed Emotions. Koreas & Chinas & Japans of Where the Heck Did I Go So Wrong?

And I am sorry. Like Africa. Sorry like Montreal. Sorry as the whole Indian Ocean, bloated after swallowing the Pacific for a midnight snack.

Sorry because I don’t need you. I really don’t. And the last thing I want to tell you is that I need you. And so I’ll tell you that I don’t. I. Don’t. Need. You. 

Stop, please stop.

Stop and decide to stop right there. Go back on me like a road map that one gave you a hidden turn. Read me one more time; find me in the lines one last time. Find that I don’t mean it, under the apostrophe like rocks in the garden. Climb to the top of the “d” and jump down to the “y,” to see the strength it’s taking me to Slip from my Pride like a Silk Dress and stand Needing before you.

I don’t deserve it. I know. I shouldn’t have you. I get it. I’m barely breathing here. It’s scary. I’d like to walk away. “Like to” is a keyword. I’ll let you down? Probably. You’ll do the same? Surely. But I am better with you. I actually believe that. Better needing you.

And I am standing here. 600      yards     away    from     you.

I didn’t get to chase you through the airport. No hurdling the suitcases to grasp you.  But I’d be willing… for the first time, I Am Willing. If you’ll have me.

 

5 Comments

Filed under Creative Fiction, Girl meets Boy, Letting Go, Staying

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September 29, 2011 · 7:09 am

I guess I wouldn’t need a God if I knew how to be strong when the radio comes on.

She let me go.

Turned up the volume of the stereo when she saw the first traces of salt begin scraping down my cheeks.

She asked no questions.

She already knew: Some Wednesdays are made for bowing down to the Waterworks. Welling up. Washing outward.

Some Wednesdays were made for all the “W” Words Welding together to Whisper in your ear the Very Verbs to obey that day: Whimper. Wail. Wallow. Welp.

Some Wednesdays were made for Washing Away like the stains in silk blouses the moment you hear Adele, her alto voice bellowing through the radio. She’s practically Warning you with each strike of a chord, “The next chorus will get those eye sockets of yours good.”

I cried for a solid 3 minutes and 46 seconds yesterday. It may have been longer. May have been shorter. Led by Lyrics to a Desperate Point of needing to let it all out, screaming at the sadness, “You can’t stay here no more.”

The Whole time I stared directly ahead of me at the Windshield Wipers sloshing. Back & Forth. Back & Forth.

And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t thinking about the pain or the memories that will become of all this in the next few weeks, I was simply Wondering why something as small as a few Words can be so capable of pinning my spirit to the ground like the three-time Winner in the championship Wrestling match, collapsing me into a sobbing mess. Why, oh why, cant I just Hold It All Together? God, please. I need to be strong today.

I guess I wouldn’t need a God if I knew how to be strong when the radio comes on and pain folds out into my lap like a Geisha’s fan.

You and I, We wouldn’t need much of anything. No friends to Whisper full with our secrets. No mystery “Somebody” to explore over coffee dates and Walks in the Park. None of that. None of that “human stuff” if we could Live this Strange Thing on our own.

So I take the fact that I can fall & fold over a few lines of a song–“I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue. I’d go crawling down the avenue“– as a sign that I am Helpless. Hopeless. In need of a hero on a daily basis. Without that, I’ll make it about 5 steps out the door before I spill my coffee, forget my computer in the back seat of the car, take the wrong train or miss the shuttle. I’ll last fifteen minutes, one tragic turn of events, one bout of bad news before I admit it: I am nothing by myself. Nothing without conversation. Without prayer. Without knowing that when I cry, really bawl my eyes out, I am not alone.

So tell me that you ache too. I need to know you are searching. I have to, have to, have to believe that the second I fall and stumble and find difficulty in understanding this World and How She Operates that you’ll be coming around the corner, and you’ll be shuffling me to a place where we can turn our heads upward. And you’ll tell me in so many syllables, or no words at all, that you’ve been here before. And that Human Hands are Worthless if not knit by Something Bigger that sees us hurting and weakened by the shortness of this life. 

And that there is no route but that it gets easier. Eventually. Eventually. And if it doesn’t get easier that the grip of your hand will only get tighter. Only Get Tighter When I Start to Slip.

I have to know that at the end of the day, in a Life that won’t ever promise you a Tomorrow like it gave you a Yesterday, that at least I won’t have to cry alone. That Windshield Wipers can Swing & Swing. The rain can fall down and blur the headlights. But that you’ll just sit beside me. Turn up the stereo. Ask no questions for that 3 minutes and 46 seconds.  Just Let Me Wash It All Away.

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Filed under Letting Go, The Tough Stuff, Tragedy

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September 5, 2011 · 7:55 pm

Darling, you are not another to me: received your questions, please see answers attached.

Q1: Will the world stop turning?

A1: Absolutely not.

In fact, I think she might spin even quicker with one less name to weigh down a diary at night.

She’d command the Sun to rise up as always, leading & guiding us reckless children throughout the day, letting the Stars take a shift in teaching us how to dream at night.

There’d still be Places to Go and New Faces to Learn. Memorize Them until they fall into some kind of “Familiar” in the Accordion File Folders of the Soul.

No, no, the world would still find reason to turn, even without you.

Q2: Will you still have reason to live?

A2: Reason to live? Well no… Because, well, what is living anyway besides standing here with lungs that operate and a heart that beats so unreliably?

Living is for the boring creatures who think breathing is the kind of thing you scratch off the to-do list each day.

But I’d find reasons to wake up and place two feet down on the floor. If that’s what you are asking? Reason to walk outside and greet the people at the bakery, secretly imagining myself with all the pastry makers laughing, saying over breakfast croissants, “We found reason to get up today!”

I’d find the same old reasons to greet the doorman and say please when asking for the morning paper. I’d find reason to still stop and watch the street performers, wishing I could follow them when they close up their guitar cases at the end of a day. Watch them purchase pears & tobacco from the coins they get as gratitude for making angels come out the trees in Central Park. It takes a special kind of person to lure the angels out in Central Park. A special pair of lips, blessed to blow the heck out of a music note.

I can surely assure you, I’d still have reason to live, even without you.

Q3: Will you find another?

A3: Another? Another? An. Other? Oh absolutely. In no time. An. Other. On the street corner. An. Other. In the market.

Darling, you are not another to me.

If it were possible, I’d surely take the “O” and the “N” and the “E” from within that faceless word.

ONE.

That is what I think when your name comes up in conversation and I am suddenly stumbling over envy because someone had the chance to bring you up first.

One. None like you. Singular. Like the plural ran away, as street children run from the cops, the second you scrawled my first piece of homework at the top of a blank composition notebook.

We had August.

That’s what I always think. August: a month where I didn’t memorize a single vocabulary word. Though my mother hired you for that. But I memorized the Grooves in your Grin. The Lull in your Walk. The Way your Eyes Stayed on Me, Hours After Parting. They stayed like sweet cherry stains on my fingertips.

Yes, yes, I’d uncover One Million Others… but never the One that was You from that very first day.

Will the world still turn?

Will I still find reason to live?

Will I find another?

You’ve asked me three good questions. I think I’ve answered them well. Now answer me my one before you slip to the door with your suitcase packed tight:

Did staying ever cross your mind? 

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July 11, 2011 · 7:48 pm

A Pep Talk for Losers.

I became a loser at the age of nineteen in a 1999 forest green CRV.

It’s almost crazy to know that with just the slamming of a car door you could lose the one who knew all your pet peeves and favorite song lyrics. That was the last they’d ever know of you, just those moments before the slam.

For a moment I prayed the door might never slam. And then I prayed for the resolve to know the truth: there was no other way.

It was after I reversed down the steep driveway that I noticed the two yellow lines on the roadside for the first time and the fact they did not touch. Same direction but separate in their getting there.

I’ve never admitted it but I sat in the middle of the road that night and put my hand between the two yellow lines, as if to forge a bridge between them. As if I knew those two yellow lines needed a bridge.

So you lost, I’d say to the girl sitting in the roadside with her head hung in her lap and her tiny hand placed between painted yellow lines. You lost. You lost. You lost. You lost. You lost.

But you know what, the world is still turning and some might even argue that its spinning faster than ever before. And if you just turned the corners of your lips upward a nudge then you’d still have a brilliant smile to show for yourself. And I am willing to bet that if you just tilted your head a bit, that strand of hair would fall between your nose and your eye and give someone reason to call you beautiful from nearly two miles away.

This kind of Losing can happen when you give someone your Time & Stories & Deep Seated Fears. They suddenly become a Singular, the Plural scattering away like teenagers running from the cops. Like a pack of boys sweating through their dress shirts as they skirt to the outsides of the dance floor while you stand in the middle. Hair curled. Palms on a plum purple dress. All the symptoms of a Taylor Swift ballad running through body. Everyone else falls away for a boy in a grey tie and clean khaki pants.

And Singular is more dangerous than Plural, little girl. You have many more chances to lose a Single thing. You’ll miss a Single thing much more.  

That’s the risk that sits at the table when Two Messy Souls learn to lean on one another and put love into action. After those first touches, losing will always be a haunter. A ghoulish, ghost. A sugar-induced child with a sheet over his head, two holes cut out for eyes, eventually ringing your doorbell to collect his candy.

So you are a loser, little girl. A loser. You might not know it now, but one day it will be lovely. Lovely because you’ll have learned how to find again.

You’re looking at me crazy as if I don’t know what the days ahead will be like.

Oh, I’ll warn you, there will be days where you’ll wake up, put on your shoes, and walk outside, fearing that the whole world can see a crater sitting in the middle of you. As if they are all just shaking their heads and thinking to themselves, something perfect used to fit right there.

And there might be days where you stay crumpled up in the sheets because you really just want to roll over and find a Familiar Head of Tossled Hair on the pillow beside you, not the foggy remains of a dream that you only want to share with that same Familiar Head of Tossled Hair.

I can promise it gets easier, the world eventually stops parading around you wearing memories of the Two of You like chunky costume jewelry.

I could tell you, though I know you would not agree, that you’ll thank the Good Lord one day for making you a loser. For bringing you to your knees and breaking your heart.

You know, I have to believe we were made to be losers. We were made to lose: friends, lovers, ourselves. Not always, but sometimes.

Because, like I said before, with Losing always comes the Finding. Finding that you couldn’t fix it. Finding that you tried. Finding the Goodness where you thought only Bitter lived. Finding you are better as the hours pass by.

Finding you won’t ever let it get this far again, finding you are happy to start over and uncover the passion and mystery waiting for you in the folds of your surroundings.

Finding that Hansel and Gretel, they were smart to leave breadcrumbs. To retrace the places they had been if only to get back to a place called home.

Finding that two yellow lines painted on a roadside don’t cross paths for a reason. Maybe we’ll never know the reason but does it really even matter? Though they never touch, the two lines always seem to be getting exactly where they need to be.

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Filed under Letting Go, Loneliness, The Tough Stuff

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June 15, 2011 · 2:33 pm

Your arms will drool for the archaic days when they were the most valued props in the telling of a story.

You can’t, you whisper silently to yourself as the good news echoes over the phone.  You can tell by the pace in his voice that he jumped up and down a few times before calling you. That he asked the clock on the wall to stick out its hands so that he could overwhelm the next few hours with celebration.

You cannot just slither through the telephone wires, like the black hole water slides of childhood, to splash and land on the other side of the phone. To wrap your arms so tightly around his torso and squeeze him in a way that would cause anthropologists from far off places to tilt their heads and scribble furiously into their notepads:  This must be how natives to this land show pride to one another. With the wrapping of their arms around each another. And holding on tight. As if they won’t ever let go.

There’s nothing you can do, you think. You think it quietly. Even in your own head. The words form quietly and then lie down to play Jan Brady to his Marsha news.

Hush, you tell your arms as they sulk on both sides of you. Go easy on them; there’s been less and less holding these days and they simply don’t understand. And it’s quite difficult to explain to your own two arms that another pair of arms, with less freckles cascading their front sides, are surely there with him now. To celebrate. And jump up and down. And squeeze him tight.

“It’s just not you today,” you’ll need to tell them. “It’s just not you two.”

But we want it to be us, the lanky entities will cry. Raising up like branches into the sky.

And then you’ll be forced to tell your own Two Arms the story that all Sets of Arms need to hear as they grow older & longer: The Story of How We Held Each Other Less

You can tell them it all began with your mother, or maybe a teacher. Someone, somewhere in the pot holder stitching of your story line infused two deep pearly trinkets of wisdom into your soul: One) To stop at nothing when make your dreams come true. Two) To make friends along the way.

We little dreamers get in good, good trouble over those two trinkets.

We dream Fantastic Dreams and venture off to the crooks of this World that will Bring Them True. We resolve to stay far away from the spaces and places that will swallow our dreams up, leaving them Unfinished or Unraveled or Uninvited. And we take solace under the trees of the places where dreams come, Not Easily. Not Free. But True.

And we meet Awe-Inspiring Individuals. Who hold us for pockets of time. And then vow to hold us longer in cubby holes of the heart. For all the little dreamers know that to stay in one place for a long while is a deep rarity. And to always stay together, Arms Linked, is bound to happen less and less in a world that begs for us to make adventures from its soil.  

Or maybe you’ll tell those gangly arms of yours of the days where women cooked a steady broth upon a stove top of rocks and thickets and the men set out to hunt before the sun came up from behind the yawning hills. Those were the days when people stayed together. They never wandered off too far. And if they were nomads, they ventured in a group still. Rarely the individual. Rarely the one.

They were one another’s greatest gifts, sitting beside the fire at night telling stories. Their hands swaying in the darkness, shadowy characters prancing upon surfaces lit up by the flames. They shared almost everything, from stories and heartache to food and chores.

Your arms will drool for the archaic days when they were the most valued props in the telling of a story. Not a text. Not a picture from a camera phone. Not a semi colon slammed next to parenthesis to symbolize a wink.  

We’ve come a long way. You can tell your arms that.

A long, long way.

For now, our iPads light the night. And our iPods flush the day with sound. And our iPhones keep us in record touch with one another and so, with every loved one at our fingertips, we venture out into the world, the little “i”s that we are, looking to make something out of our place in this world.

All because someone pushed us to go forth and light our dreams on fire, as big and thick as the sky-climbing bonfires that our ancestors lit to huddle close beside for warmth.

But you tell those arms of yours that this story is not a tragedy, nor is it horror, for it is a great, great blessing to pick up and go walking in the world with the support of others by your side.

Virtual, maybe, but we said from the days when we first learned to walk that we would travel and learn and discover and seek. That we would make a life from postcards and foods we’ve tried, roles we’ve played and hands we’ve shook.

You tell those arms of yours how very brave they are, for travelling with you on a journey where there wouldn’t always be a body to clutch. Where sometimes they would be alone and wanting. Lost and fearing. Itching, itching, itching for a familiar pair of arms to entangle with them. You thank those arms of yours for being so willing to reach out a stranger and make them a friend or reach out to a body, just a plain old body, enough times to make them a Somebody. Who cheers for you. And prays for you. Even miles, and phone calls, and tweets apart.

And it meant leaving sometime all along, and learning to miss while being apart. And it would also mean that sometimes we’d just have to hope that another set of arms would be there, on the other side of the phone where your best friend jigs under the southern sun, to hold his torso and squeeze him tight. And relay your pride from half a world away.

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February 6, 2011 · 8:34 pm

I’ll make believe that I would rather attend ten thousand coffee dates instead of ever folding for the one who memorizes my order: Grande Skim Misto with a Shake of Cinnamon.

I expected to walk away from that day with Two Elbows caked in the sheer leftovers of salt water, Two Feet covered in a thick layer of sand, and Two Eyes quite ready to lock up their doors and close for the night.

Instead, I walked away with a handful of rocks and what is surely the best lesson I have learned on “Holding On & Letting Go,” taught to me by a four-year-old geologist in a frilly red Dora bikini.

She and I had been walking down the endless stretch of beach for hours. Long enough for a sunburn to begin teasing the backs of both our necks.

Her Tiny Hand found a suitable hiding spot within mine; her fingers stealthily hidden within the folds of the embrace.

“This one, this one,” she squealed, breaking away to pick up yet another Ordinary Rock. She placed it amongst a collection of similar Sand Stranded Siblings, now piled into the fold of her Beach Diva Satchel, newly converted from my grey tank top.

“Audrey….” I hesitated, the load starting to weigh me down. We now “owned” practically every rock on the beach.

“Wait, wait. I know,” she said, putting her hands out in front me.  “Sit here.” She motioned to the grounding, sitting first, and then proceeded to instruct me in dumping out the pile of rocks onto the sand.

There we sat for fifteen minutes picking and choosing our rocks.

Bringing some home.

Leaving some behind.

This one but not that one.

That one but not this one.

A process intricate enough to compare with the patterns of Marc Jacob as he picks a final line-up for his runway shows during Fashion Week in Paris.

Remarkable. Scientific. Intentional.

It is when I watch a girl—one who has only played on this earth for a little more than a thousand days—bury rocks in the sand as if they she were tucking each of God’s children into bed that I realize that life is a delicate, delicate thing. That letting go is essential. That holding on is sometimes worse. That picking between the two is hard. And I choose to type “hard” instead of “arduous” or “troublesome” because it is only four letters. And four letters is simple. And keeping the adjective simple is a way to underskirt all the complications that really come with the acts of Letting Go & Holding On.

I would adore the chance to kid myself, to make myself believe that mastering the art of efficient emailing and text messaging will enable me to hold every single person I have ever met in the palm of my hand; a way to possibly hold onto a person forever just by dropping a line every once in a while. I’ll make believe that I would rather attend ten thousand coffee dates instead of ever folding for the one who memorizes my order: Grande Skim Misto with a Shake of Cinnamon.

Satchel Every Human Being That Crosses My Path.

I could squeeze close friends into side flaps, lovers into secret compartments, strangers into the netted pockets made for water bottles.

But I tend to believe it would get Too Heavy. Too Full. Too Much. And I would then need to unload; find ways to spare my heart from splitting into 5,000 Too Tiny Pieces in order to give Big Chunks to the people who really deserve them.

Big Chunks (noun) (plural): stories; childhood memories; unflattering bad habits (i.e. snapping chewing gum); thoughts on food; dreams; life longings; quirky cravings, see: ‘peanut butter at midnight’ and ‘falafel on a Sunday morning’; ambitions; doubts; secrets; secrets intertwined with vulnerability; secrets intertwined with shame; best jokes; baggage; insecurities; etc.

Big Chunks. Jeepers. That’s absolutely petrifying.

But in a world where we a) wonder so much b) do so much c) cry so much d) talk so much e) live so much d) fear so much, it is only sane to allow a certain few to read us & hold us like paperback novels. Read all the parts of what often looks like a misshapen story.

And then take us in regardless…

After that long day. After that hard winter.

These are the people who value the ways in which we make room for them and they, in turn, scoop us up into their satchel and choose to never let us down. They are the ones who become our Rocks. Our Support. Our Reason to Wake Up, Stretch, Send a Prayer Upward for them and Then Walk Forward because of them.

Delicate, I say.

Beautiful, I believe.

Risky, of course.

Heart Breaking? In some ways.

But Only in the Best Way.

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November 2, 2010 · 6:09 pm

Eat, Pray but please don’t Leave: The “Stuff” we don’t talk about enough.

“I need a piece of paper,” she says, picking up the bag at her feet to take out a pencil. I watch her rummage and cannot help but think of the stranger who rummaged through the same bag, probably in a similar fashion, just a few hours before.

She plucks a few moments of silence from the 5a.m. hour, scribbles on the paper, and looks up once or twice. Calculating Math Equations Within the Air.

“It is just accessories,” she murmurs. “It is all just accessories. It can all be replaced.”

I could very easily take right now to rant about how I don’t understand why bad things must happen to good people. I could stand atop my blogging platform to yell at the unidentifiable person(s) of the Bronx who smashed in my good friend’s car window and robbed her during the night just a few days ago. People who took the night’s quiet as a green light to pillage through the belongings of a girl who was mid-move from New York City back to Pennsylvania, only to pack up and move to Italy in just four days.

I could very easily articulate how it felt to walk Libby down the stairs at 5a.m. and notice a pile of stuff sitting restlessly outside of her car. To make a silent prayer with pursed lips that there was not shattered glass, a broken window, and a great deal of her things taken from inside the car.

I could say all of this, but I would rather just dwell on her two perfect sets of five words.

1)It 2) is 3)all 4)just 5)accessories.

1)It 2)can 3)all 4)be 5)replaced.

Libby taught me something two days ago at a time in the morning where I could easily swear it was far too early to learn any kind of lesson. The accessories– the computers, the cell phones, the hard drives– are all replaceable. There will always be another computer to have, another blog to build or another upgrade to await. But People are entirely different. We cannot easily replace distinct laughs. Thoughtful conversations. Whirlwinds of memories.

If anyone has taught me this best, it is Libby.

A girl with a camera. A girl who defines the New York City Artist. An Ambitious Go-Getter Who Gets Life & Its People & Who Has Beautiful Visions To Dress This World In Something More Beautiful.

I have only known her for two months but it will be a very long time before I soon forget our coffee dates scattered throughout the city. The way she knows every fact about this Big City, every secret that sits in the pockets of the five boroughs. The ways she listens to a rant or a rave or a praise and she believes in you no matter what.

She will board a plan for Italy in three days and she will pursue the country in search of good Capucchinos & Inspiring People. Eating Life As If It Were Delectable Gelati. And I will continue to walk around her City, the one she made her own, counting the ways in which I cannot replace her.

She is the kind of person that makes you wish you could take all of New York City, all of its great people and great sights, and pack it all into a snow globe. Because I want her to take NYC to Italy. But she doesn’t need a snow globe. It is just another thing to fall under the category of Stuff.

If I am falling so gracefully into any lesson this year, it is this one: I don’t need “Stuff.” Stuff won’t hold my hand & Stuff won’t push me to be wonderful in this world. Stuff is great, don’t get me wrong, but is it not the “be all, end all” I once thought it to be.

I have realized this year how many times in the past I have used the ability to buy something as a coping mechanism, as a way to deal with sadness or forget loneliness. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. New Shoes. Pretty Bows. Unnecessary Trinkets from Target.All to forget the fact that I was dealing with unkempt emotions.

It is not so easy to do when your budget is 25 dollars each week.

Welcome to forced conversations. Welcome to “I have no choice to call you right now or spill out my heart over a cup of coffee because quite frankly, this year is hard and sometimes feel like I don’t know how to cope.”

Welcome to “It was so much easier when I could cope by way of Forever 21.”

But also, welcome to Growth. To Baby Steps. To realizing that a person is not great because of the Stuff they carry but rather the Stuff they hold within. The Stuff they give out on a daily basis, in the form of good advice, support and ears that perk to listen.

And this is the kind of Stuff we want more of. The Kind Of Stuff We Should Practice Fostering. By being good to people, speaking kindly, daring people to run with their visions and crazy ideas. By showing up at their door with a coffee in hand. Or forcing them to sit down at a table and talk until it feels better.

Some pawn shop in the Bronx is sitting with more stuff today. But it is just stuff. And whoever buys it will know it too, it is just stuff. It is not a spirit or a dream, a vision or a good heart. It is just cold, hard and plastic with a dollar sign plastered on the front.

Find the good stuff today, the stuff worthy of filling your soul with. The good conversations. The good revelations. The good people. The good ideas. The good for the world.The good in other people.The Good Stuff.

I know Libby is more than likely reading this, nodding to every word that I am typing, she knows Good Stuff. Trust me, she knows the definition of Good Stuff. Where it Sits. How it Evolves.

And this is the kind of good we need all around us, not in our hands or plugged into our ears, but in the words that we speak and the intentions that we keep. In the ways we count our blessings & every single person that we count.

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