Here's to Act Two; Here's to You

Through the encouragement of a friend, a loyal reader (thank you my dear), I've decided to revisit this picture with a little more text to support the sentiments above. Andy Warhol, whose style I stole, wouldn't approve of the venture though. The man who omitted any sort of direct explanation for his art; he let it rest in ambiguity as the unknown offers itself up to many different interpretations...but somehow, I figure, even if I tell you what I think you can still go on thinking your way too. Alas...

In high school I remember the intensity of the melodramatic yearning. I would write in my journal (journal writing existing for me at this age because NOBODY UNDERSTANDS me) "Please send me someone to love me, someone I can love. I have so much love to give." Dance after dance, date after...actually, there weren't that many dates, I would return the pen to the page and reiterate the same wish.

The summer before senior year of high school I was sent an answer. His name: Patrick. His passions: Notre Dame football and fried chicken (specifically the chicken-fried-chicken at Cracker Barrel). Qualities: Humor and relaxed disposition. Ambitions: History major. Although I wouldn't come to know all this until a while later. What I knew first and foremost was just how absolutely adorable he was.

I remember the first night I met him. Friends of friends, isn't that a well-known story? How we come to be in the right place at the right time, seems to indicate a higher force of some kind, no? There was a bonfire. There were smores. There were good laughs with girls whom I had run cross-country with for three years now and felt were my family. And then, there were boys. Catholic school boys. No more smores. Nervous yet hopeful laughter. And him. Jovial. Comfortable. Someone who seemed to know who he was and where he was going.

If you ask him today, he doesn't remember that night well. But I did. He face, burned in my brain as brightly as the bonfire that warmed us on the chilly June evening. The summer went on, and I continued to think about him and melodramatically write about it in my journal. "Do you think he thinks about me too??"

As August approached and pre-season training started for cross-country, I asked my running family what they *thought* of him. More specifically if he was dating anyone. This line of questioning always causes an eruption as the implications are obvious. "YOU LIKE HIM! YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DATE!" Those girls, committed to making it happen set up a gathering at one of their houses. Patrick had been told in advance about me, a discussion I had okay-ed, but I have feeling my approval wouldn't have mattered. Once these matters fall into the hands of teenage girls, your individual weigh is 0.0. No pull whatsoever. It was reported back to me that Patrick was excited. And if I decided to ask him to our Homecoming dance he would say yes.

Patrick and I spent the evening on the roof of my friend's detached garage, getting to know one another better. Me. Patrick. And the stars. Conversation murmured below us none of which I was aware of or cared about. I sat with my arms linked underneath my knees, nervously avoiding opportunity after opportunity to ask him to the dance. I couldn't do it. We eventually lowered ourselves off that garage...Patrick possibly thinking I had changed my mind. He left to get something from his car and I was packing up to leave. As he was returning to the backyard I was heading towards my car, we gave each other a passing goodnight and then I said, "WAIT!" We turned and I continued, "Would you, by any chance, want to go to my homecoming dance with me?" He said, "I would love to!" I left smiling to the night sky, he allegedly returned to group with a jump and double click of the heels.

As this post is already nearing narrative hell, sorry dear reader(s), I'll simply state that my high school dances were nightmares. Classically horrific tales, that I tell as tales so that I can pretend they didn't happen to me. My senior homecoming with Patrick was by contrast, fairy tale worthy. (Are you gagging yet? No, then let me include that we even danced cheek to cheek. Surely that did it, yes?)

That moment jump started "Act One" -- this is our terminology for the evolution of our relationship. Act one was filled with lots of hormones, repressed fights and our problem-solving skills lacking. We entered into our college careers unfit to conquer the hurdles that a long distance relationship involve. We parted ways. A decision that never felt right for either of us.

Intermission. Grab a Snack. A drink?

Lights flicker.

Back to your seats.

Act two: Patrick is dressed in colonial gear greeting myself and bus load of rowdy eighth graders to our field trip back to the 1800's. We nervously smile at each other - I ask a brilliant question when we visit the printing press, "Is that where hot off the press comes from," a question he dismisses (claims later that was nerves).

We were reconnected. Right place right time --almost makes a full blown believer out of me.

Give something time and it can be something else. While in many ways we are still that same wildly in love couple from our high school years, (the same picture repeated) - we are telling our story this time using different color bricks meaning we have grown up and yet continue to grow with each other. We've learned how to fight effectively: I no longer hang up the phone when I'm upset - he pushes himself to articulate his emotions. We have learned how precious time is because we felt it slip for many of those intermission years. You can change what is going on in the background of our lives, ups and downs, strikes and gutters, yet here we are. Each others constants.

And I couldn't be luckier. Here's to him. (And to you, for reading!)

xxoo

Beginnings are always good places to start. I can hear Julie Andrews belting so from the mountains of my childhood. As a six year old, I was fascinated with the liveliness of all of those children and the drama of their lives: beloved mother dies, Fraulein Maria becomes the next best thing, proven prominently by vocals of the captain sweetly serenading his children with the tune of "Adelweiss." It was one of my first (recalled) images of searching and yearning for more, one of my first visuals of a surrogate. The movie seemed to answer my question of whether or not success down this avenue was possible, promising and fulfilling.



Cut Scene.

Enter Reality.

Role Film.

"I'm defeated lying there on my new twin sized bed. With a single pillow underneath my single head."

They say a lot of things:

1. They say you shouldn't wear white after labor day.

2. They say that those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

3. They say that time heals everything.

4. They say that it is better to have love and lost then not to have loved at all.

5. They say that you should write what you know.

Here's what I know. I know that none of the above is certain. I'm actually not convinced any of it is.

1.) As for the white after labor day... It may just be my mother who is still the sole person perpetuating this phrase. My sisters and I learned to be wary of her word choice rather early on in life. While running around the gym for a warm-up in 7th grade P.E. class, my sister's scrunchy came loose. The annoyance of her hair slapping her in the face urged her to scream out, "Ugh! My hairpiece!" Surely having survived middle school you know that it takes less than a series of milliseconds for just about any utterance, event, moment, to be distorted, fabricated and then shared by all. My poor sister and her middle school balding rumors.

I remember making a little vocabulary chart in one of my puffy heart-covered diaries:

mom's word ------- actual word
hair piece ------- scrunchy
boom-box ------- radio
cream rinse ------- conditioner
thongs ------- flip flops
do-hickies ------- just about anything

So I vote that you wear the hell out of that white, no matter what the day.

2.) As for the second...They also say it takes one to know one. Yeah. No shit. Why do you think I know where to aim the stone? And you know what, if I could, I'd throw one at my own house too. Sometimes it just feels good to throw the goddamn stone.

3.) Number three and four are personal favorites. In my corner, time isn't really doing much for me, which is what brings my fingers to the keys.

4.) With each letter I can feel the weight of that love that is no longer and the weight of the wonder if it ever was at all. I'm reminded of one of my all time favorite poems by Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art."

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Bishop knew that when time couldn't keep up its end of the bargain there was always writing. "Write it!" she screams at me. So here I am. It's not as if my story is something new, something you haven't heard before. But it is mine. And maybe, if my words can find your mind, perhaps even your hearts, you can be the they who say, it will be okay. Because let's face it, they always say, it will all be okay (or at least one illusive morning it will appear that way).

5.) Here's what I know to be true...people will disappoint you for a multitude of reasons. But instead of picking up stones, or waiting for the healing hands of time or even weighing whether or not the love was better had and lost then never at all...write it!

write it!

Write it!

Write it!

the family that becomes our blood

Today is the day when two become one
so they say
as they may
But he and she live above the clichés
Seamlessly
Side by side

He says
“My better three quarters”
She smiles
revealing the mirrored truth

Together they are more than one
forever better; forever fitted

She says
“let’s travel the world”
He smiles
Vowing a shared compass

Together they are the world
Forged landscapes; finding dreams

He and she stare at the same sky
Knowing their mirrored compass will
always answer.

I do.
I will.
Forever.

mindless movement

kept her from the cracks

the hands moved to her beat

each stomp a word

each word a scream

but all good things

must

break

and

fall

all good things

seemed destined

for the cracks.

I had lunch with a good friend weeks ago and what she meant as somewhat of a passing comment ended up burying itself inside my skin and has burned there ever since. She looked through me as if she had just turned the key to my core and said, "You're not as together as I thought you were... You always seem so confident." These words were uttered in the tone of someone commenting on the dry humid weather we were enduring, except it isn't the atmosphere in question...it's my character.

together.
confident.
seem.

These words swam around each other and messed with my psyche, striking me inarticulate. At that moment the waitress came with our drinks and the conversation naturally moved, but I didn't. Which no doubt proves her point, I'm certainly not together and am still forever working on the confidence card. And to be honest, I'm somewhat surprised to have ever given that impression in the first place.

My heart travels to the shakers of the facade and finds fear. I fear that they'll always leave, because they always do. I fear my worth because of the need to look elsewhere for its confirmation. I fear truth because despite mutual commitment there are always borders and limits. I fear imitation because of habit.

I'm 25 years old. And if you were to ask another good friend of mine, that's not old enough, nor do I have the status (like one of a first lady per say) to have any reason to write about my life or my thoughts. This opinion is probably largely due to the fact that the blog/memoir writing process reads as a service more for the self than the audience which can alienate people who rightly feel they deserve more. After all, they are giving their time and energy. They are engaging just to be treated like a brick wall.

Listen up wall. I'm talking to with you.

Faking confidence is worse than not having any; to be vulnerable is courageous. I'm embarrassed that it took a mediocre movie (ahem: Eat pray Love) to encourage the contemplation.

Here's to burning words
to open cores

to feeling the fear and doing it, being it, loving it, overcoming it anyway.

life is like a box of chocolates

I had a history professor who once voiced his opinion on the great American drama, “Forrest Gump” by saying, “I liked the movie just fine, but what I don’t understand is why Hanks had to have a mental handicap?” The professor expanded on his frustration noting that if one of the purposes of the movie is to convey American history, through an American’s perspective, why that voice? What larger commentary is at play?

His questions popped into my head as I watched segments of the film the other night as it was on TV and as absolutely nothing else was on TV. And I mean nothing. I’m not much of a TV-watcher, so I realize that this lens is limited; however, I was left flipping between the movie and “America’s got talent.” Oddly enough, both shows could work their way into a hearty discussion concerning media commentary on all things American, that is, if I were ever to encounter that professor again, and he would remember me, and remember the comments, and perhaps also have an affection for lattes. Until then…

YES DRILL SERGEANT screams from my set. And like so many of the scenes from this movie, the Vietnam ones have stuck with me. Whenever the film is referenced my mind jumps to and from a variety of moments and dialogue, though invariably, Forrest's service to the military is forefront. I don’t know why. I’ve never been particularly passionate about war. I’m rather sure that had I been born in another generation I would be bra-less, in a tie-dye dress, ferociously smoking and wildly dancing to “I am the walrus” ultimately filled with a higher purpose of preaching peace and love.

Yet it's 2010, and I adore my undergarments (though play "I am the walrus" and I can't say there wouldn't be dancing). I re-watch with heroic admiration as Forrest pulls his rank out of the flaming bushes and bramble and runs them to “safety” yet where they will suffer in complete agony (I still groan and throw my body at the sight of the soldier’s skin flapped up over his face, where it looks like a phony Mrs. Doubtfire mask, except this guy can’t call up his gay brother to make him a new one. The left side of my face burns in sympathy pains.) When Forrest goes back into the danger zone for his fifth or sixth time, hoping to discover his shrimp-talking-friend-Bubba, he happens to stumble upon frantic, dire, dying, Lt. Dan.

Even though the images of explosions, injured men and the very last conversation Forrest has with Bubba were retained in my memory, I sheepishly admit that I had forgotten a very important subplot that negates a major relationship within the film: Lt. Dan’s legacy. His father’s and his father's father, and his father's father's father…you get it…had died in every American War. It was Lt. Dan's destiny to die under the American air raid that Forrest subsequently saves him from.

Being saved from your destiny is a complicated notion. And when I wonder whether or not it was the "right" thing, for Forrest to save Lt. Dan, it all comes down to the way you look at it. His road to recovery afterward was anything but pretty; however he marries at the end and is able to benefit from improving technology that provides him with metal legs and thus the return of some normalcy. At that point, does Lt. Dan consider himself saved, or does he still feel robbed?

Most would argue that there isn’t any use in entertaining these dialogues, especially as we relate them to real life, questioning what we did or what we should have done, said or should have said, etc. and how it would have all turned out differently had we...etc. Most would argue that whatever is done is done and all you have is the present…so move on.

What happens though when you don't have a present to move on to? Recently I've lost a relationship in my life. It's a complicated one. And while I watched this film, and listened to the cries of Lt. Dan, I wondered, from her perspective, what did she think we were "supposed to be." You could say that Lt. Dan and Forrest Gump have vastly different perspectives on life at the beginning of their relationship. Overtime, Lt. Dan seems to do more of the conforming, he isn't as angry or intense and he seems to appreciate the life that he has, even though it's not the one that he thought he would have.

I wonder, I hope, I even sometimes pray to a god I'm not sure exists, that she might one day change the way she feels. That even though it didn't all happen like perhaps we thought it would, there would still be something there worth valuing.

Until then...you never know what you're going to get.