Post-GO!!

This is exactly what I’ve hoped for – that my words might interest someone. I am deeply appreciative, and deeply insecure, that you’re reading. Go, veritatem dilexi!, for lack of an enthusiasm-inspiring athletic default.

I return to the deep appreciation and insecurity, though, because I am not employed in a soul (or financially)-satisfying job. My nephew Jackson (the doggy I found) is at the ASPCA, where they love people who are gainfully employed. They may perhaps take him from me, because I cannot pay for balls-removal. I would fundraise, but I know my audience.

I would also pay for this myself, but I, who should be the organizer of all everything, am not quite ready for executive directorship of an organization for which I have never worked, apparently.

Bryn Mawr College did not prepare me for this twist.

I notice that even my smartest, most tenacious and connected friends, have not yet found a job that makes use of their brilliance, ambition, or nepotistic promise. (Don’t any of you think I write of a single one of you; we’re all in the same boat, and it is still not sinking). We are expecting that which we will achieve, without recognizing that we have yet to achieve it. Our promise is not so promising, if it is fulfilled by a piece of parchment and four years of sleeplessness.

We are smart. We are experienced. But, we are not that experienced.

Pride and kindness are what we carry, I think; or, at least, these are what my images of you inspire. They are well founded, as my darkest moments have become bright through your encouragement and accomplishments. Our pride is honor, solidarity, and, yes, your brilliance. We’ll get there; part of the brilliance is the knowledge that we cannot quite determine when. We have yet to finish creating “there,” but together, we have molded an idea of where “there” may be. See ya.

Postcards Coming Soon

I moved from New York to New Orleans four days ago. Last week, when I asked my dearest childhood friend if he would miss me, he replied, “Not more than usual; I’m used to your absence, since you’re never here anyway.” He laughed. “So, not really.” Just the response I was hoping for. I deserved it though, I knew, and I pouted through a grin.

I attended college in Philadelphia; I worked for one summer in Ghana, another in Nicaragua, and, one semester I studied in Egypt. I spent many breaks from school in the country and sometimes New Jersey; once I drove down to Texas, made a quick stop in Florida, and arrived in Louisville in the middle of one night in July. I always sent postcards after receiving voicemail messages inquiring whether I was dead or just missing. One friend implied it was all the same to him.

New Yorkers are friends of the most sensitive sort.

I would miss my dear childhood friend, I knew, and many others, as I miss the friends who stayed in Ghana, Philadelphia, Nicaragua, and wherever else. So why would I leave? Why do I constantly live my life with the single constant of inconsistency?

There are so many people and places to know and love, and the one never replaces another. A heart need not pour any contents out to make room for newfound love; like frozen water (the root of life) the heart expands. Before you suggest this metaphor implies I have a cold, cold heart, I ask you to remember the poetic light E.E. Cummings shed on modern science:

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I am filled with wistfulness of the most agreeable sort: I miss you all because I love you, and I carry you with me, always.

Why I Write

When white walls infringe upon a colorful understanding of the world, one cannot help but insert hyphens. This is particularly true if one has a word processor and little else, aside from thoughts and time that have yet to be employed.

Forty words in and I have already lied. I have much else: if I turn my head slightly, I am overwhelmed by batik fabrics in yellow and blue, green-packaged pillows, a red mosaic tray embedded with the unidentifiable flowers I drew in college and nursery school; and more unopened tissue boxes than I can count. I do not yet have a bed, yet I can barely see my bedroom floor. Bulging closets and drawers aside, why is this home so empty?

Perhaps because I brought my “stuff” with me: books, posters, clothing, and keepsakes – but nothing to put them on. Or, rather, nothing that holds them. The white walls beg adornment from the tapestries; but these walls cannot – yet – offer the tapestries more than an empty space that would accept fulfillment from anything willing to cover the void, however transiently. I may put this “stuff” on walls, windows, or railings, but these flat, rented surfaces could never hold the contents of my home.

I arrived in New Orleans two days ago. Yesterday I bought and installed a shower caddy, a shelf, and a bookcase for $25 and three hours, for a total of $25 including opportunity cost. Today, my room seems a more permanent, screwed-in disaster zone.

Why didn’t the “Sex Can Wait” public service announcements ever come at youth from this angle? Is it because – unlike hymens – holes-in-the-wall can be unscrewed?

I can dismantle the shelves, and unscrew the screws, and pshupt the holes in the wall with hole-covering plaster. I can put the “bookcase” in the bathroom and feed the shower caddy to the cats. I can learn that homemaking is not to be taken for granted – and how to cook (or where to order out).

Not all is given; it must be earned. Not by money – well, OK, partially by money – but by time. Little by slowly, now. Down here, we take it easy.