For K (I fear the loss of)

I'm a teacher. Audience of three, you know this. And so for part of my spring break I digested some adolescent literature -- I have to be that literary bridge, stories that venture from my hands to the students. One of the books was a delectable and quite witty tale entitled, Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer. This book had some of the most noble characters I have come to know. Certainly Good people to pass a few hours with. To give you a taste, one of the main characters, G.T. Stoop, is the proud owner of a fabulous diner in rural Mulhoney Wisconsin. While fighting for his life as he battles leukemia, G.T. also fights for the town that he has lived in his whole life and deeply loves. He learned about the corrupt mayor that has served their town for years and wants more for his beloved neighbors and friends. So he decides to run. As you read, you imagine how absolutely easy it would be to become wrapped up in the messiness of politics. To lose yourself in the rhetoric. To fight so hard that you compromise some of your morals as you do so.

Not G.T. Nope. He remains throughout the entire novel, through and through one of the finest men I have known. To quote, "You want to know why to vote for a man who's fighting for his life? Because no one understands how sweet life can be, how blessed every minute is, how important it is to say and do what's right while you've got the time, more than one person who's living with a short wick." Who wouldn't want to know this guy? It's lines like this that run rampant throughout the text that make the reader reflective on their own lives: How can I be living it better?

In always yearning to be a better person, I'm often reminded of a quote that one of my friends chooses as what I perceive is her life motto: "I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all." -Leo Rosten

I think G.T. would agree with this quote and I think it helps put matters in perspective. If I want to be the best version of myself, if I want to be the most useful, the most compassionate, I have to let go. I have to forgive myself. I need to not let my self worth rest in the acceptance of one person. As the cursor blinks at me, it seems to say...you have filled in the blank Carolyn. Now actually feel it. You write, let go; now go and do it.

To matter. To count. To stand. To be the difference that makes a difference. I'm grateful to all the G.T.'s in my life and in the world that do well to remind us what it's all really about.

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.