“We saw a Tumbleweed. People seemed nice in Albuequerque.”

We are laying in different beds in the same cheap motel room. One of us is crying but I’m not sure either of us is really sad. We are just together in this moment and this is what truth tends to look like— “one entity divided in two, melodrama– taking shit too seriously, nothing but laughing and crying.” In some way, this is what it always looked like. In some way, this is what I have been missing. In some way, this is right where I belong. In some other ways, this is somewhere I don’t know how to be anymore. And that’s okay. It really is.

Just shy of three weeks ago, I picked up Bryan Bramlett at the BART station in Fremont, California. We stopped by a grocery store and then ate quinoa salad in the parking lot by a small tree. It was sunny and hot outside and the sky was that particular blue that looks like promise, like hope. That night, we didn’t make it out of California. We took our time and over the next few days, made our way along the southern route of the United States back to Georgia.

Over the course of those five days, everything about my life shifted while everything stayed exactly the same. Unlike the trip toward California, I drove most of the way. I didn’t have trouble staying awake. I didn’t feel like I was running away from anything. I didn’t feel like I was losing anything. I just felt this sense of clockwork and peace, even with the funky cloud above my head that has been following me around for a long while now. I just felt sure I was doing the right thing, whatever that means. Bryan and I ate good food in Oklahoma, talked about God while the sun was setting across the top of Texas, got real confrontational along the highway in the middle of absolutely nowhereseville, listened to old mixes we’d made for each other when we were in a different place, and I thought about every thing I might have just given up back in California, all of the sun and lack of bugs and my girls and all of the beauty of what lives there, all of the things that have been my life for three years. And I thought about how even thinking about those things, nothing would change how I felt about what I needed to do right now, how I just needed to be back in Georgia for no good reason doing not too much of anything important to anyone else. If we are quiet, we always know exactly what we need. I have told so many people so many things about why I left or why I came back but the truth is I still am not sure what the ‘why’ of it is, only that the incessant beating in my heart told me again just to “go” and the way it directed me was where I never really left. I don’t know why I went to California or what is going to happen now that I am back here. I’m not certain where I will go next, only that I am sure I am better for going and also better for coming back. I am happy and sad and hopeful and still working off some lingering depression, and that is the most I could ever ask for. I am not anxious. I am not worried. I’m not scared or confused. Just letting things feel how they feel and doing my best to just be.

People close to me have always made me expect big things from myself, by the way they tell me I am destined for something great or like I am capable of something really important. I am not sure if that is actually true but I think I have always lived my life like it would be some day. I think even if I never find out what that great thing is, or if I never find out whether or not I am capable of creating great change, I will always be able to look at my life and say I tried. I could not ask more of myself than that.

Since being back in Georgia, I have spent at least three hours every Monday walking around malls with my dad, Paul. We talk, and he makes weird comments to strangers. We wander up and down aisles and buy almost nothing. The rest of the week is running around, being Santa’s helper, hugging my mom as many times as I see her, listening to my older sister’s completely infectious laugh, catch up with my friends, listen to the crappy music on Atlanta radio, listen to people tell me about their jobs or girlfriends or problems or praises, and fall asleep on the couch like I always have. I play with my cat and I take wrong turns and I enjoy my life. If nothing else, for now, I have that.

 

A huge credit to my dear friend Bryan. I am grateful for our many journeys together and for all the beautiful music inside of you that you have shared with me. I know I would not have felt so much security during this transition without support from you. From the A to the Bay, forever love.

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A Life Internal

“No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.”

About a month ago, I started writing this entry as defense: I realized that most people in my life emote based on external situations or conversations, “actual things happening,” and I realize my emotions are generally born within and not always (almost never really) based in the external world. What is happening is happening is how I usually see it, and although I always voice an opinion, I see the world in constant flux and I know things are moving forward all the time, so I tend not to trip too hard on that which is unimportant. But at that point a month ago, I was going through something very hard within myself and although I can’t exclude the external from my experience (as everything is all the same anyway- boundaries are just illusions to help us navigate reason, thought, feeling, etc.), I know what I was feeling was something innately bore within me. That hard sadness within is inclusive of my essence. I had a coworker ask me what was going on because I’m also not good at hiding my emotions and I felt so defensive that something had to be “going on” when my experience had never been relevant really. I guess that is maybe the whole point. But I’ll see if I can explain.

At the end of the day, it has never been my life that was hard, or the people in my life cruel, or the temperatures too cold or the world too harsh or any of any of any of it. I love the world, dearly. And in my experience, the world has always been good to me. But there are days when I wake up and feel an actual fear of waking up. If you have ever experienced depression, this is probably a familiar feeling for you. My conflict is that positive relationship with the world confuses my experience of depression and anxiety, as those seem to come from a natural instinct within me that says my mental state is shifting into darkness. I feel this is the meeting in me of my parents in some ways – my dad always starkly aware of the pain the human brain causes itself (internal) and my mom constantly a bubble of positive energy for the love of the world without any regard to self (external). This is not to suggest my dad is a sad guy or that my mom is necessarily a happy person, but that their approaches to the world shaped my understanding of who I am and how I grew. I draw my energy from the external, but feel exclusively from within without much regard to how I should be feeling based on how things are outside of me.

People are always asking ‘why’ we are upset. And I’m not sure if I am the only one or if it’s just not as normal for other people as it is for me to cry in public, but I don’t always have an answer. Sometimes there is a weight within me that draws slow tears. I’m not doing anything. I’m not anywhere specific. All of the things that have happened in my life have lead up to this moment, but it is instinctual- I’m crying just because it is within me to cry. I’m terrified, and it’s not of the world. Most of the times I have ‘not’ done something in my life was based on this weight— I can barely lift myself out of bed sometimes, hardly can imagine pretending that I’m enough of a person to do this great thing. It’s not that the world has ever once told me I wasn’t good enough— the people in my life have generally been colored of the extraordinary and encouraging and I just never had that on my own. I never knew how to listen to the world telling me all of the good things within me because I have a brain full of self-definitions.

And here we are again maybe at misunderstanding. The darkness was never something I hated. In fact, I love my blues. I love what they are inside me and that this moment is always impenetrable by the external. That no happy or good thing can understand it. It’s nice to have a secret, I guess. There is an insane joy within me paired with that darkness that I value as much and it is my secret too. It’s the way I am, these two in constant conversation, “pools of sorrow, waves of joy,” all of the insanity bubbling within me is what pours out and makes me the person you see. It’s just not always a person I know how to share.

There’s some kind of judgment that happens when this is your nature, though. That you just are sad, or you just are happy, or you just are whatever you are.  If people ask, know that you don’t always have to have an answer. It’s okay. Sometimes people just feel the way the feel. Sometimes it’s a lack of awareness, sometimes it’s hormonal, sometimes it just is. Sometimes it isn’t.

I’ve never had an easy time answering when people asked me ‘why’ I was upset, crying, etc. I just did those things. I just had those feelings. Sometimes I feel because of _________. Sometimes I cry because ____ said _______. But often, I am crying because my insides overflow and reach out into the external. But I just question, ‘why’ is it so important anyway? When I am crying, sometimes I wish somebody would just sit with me, and not ask me anything, not try to hug me super tight or kiss me or talk with me, but just let me be who I am in front of them. That’s all I’m asking for. I think that’s all any of us are asking for, no matter what stuff our tears are made from.

The next time you’re crying, instead of asking yourself why, look in the mirror. Investigate the way your eyes probably change colors, the way your nose wrinkles like the way your grandma’s always did, how your cheeks get hot. Look at that person and see if you are okay with it. See if you can look at that person in the mirror and not feel pity or curiosity, but acceptance. The most important thing sometimes is just to be wholly aware of who you are in the moment of those tears coming down your face and other times the most important thing is just to know you’re crying. Okay.

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How I Deal with Growing Explodey

“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.”
-Henry Miller

( It becomes relevant – I promise. )

What I like best about the world is all of it, or most of it at least. I love remembering (in this moment) that my kindergarten best friend had a playground behind her house and how her sister would read us the “wayside school” book series while we wore parts of princess costumes. I love the sound of my cat snoring and purring and the way she is unaffectionate until bedtime, when she reaches out for me with her small paw, just to make sure i’m within reach. I’m grateful for the way it never rains here, grateful for the way people always love to come through, grateful that I am not where I started even when that is exactly what it looks like.

Two years ago between May and June somewhere I moved to sunny San Jose and began a different kind of life than I anticipated for myself. I say this but, the truth is, I’m not sure that I’ve ever expected anything of myself— or my life, or my future. I always just followed my instincts, worked hard, hoped desperately for the best and things have worked out in remarkable ways and I think much of it due to that comedic approach to the world, problems, challenges. A lot changed then because I stopped being responsible only for myself and became responsible for this whole entire team at my job. I have bosses. I have bills. I have a mean cat. But at the end of each day, I still answer only to myself, my own moral code, my own truth. I ask myself how I treated people, how I responded to any moments of darkness, who I behaved as. I sleep easy at night.

Whether your personal truth involves a figure of divinity or is just a human you or is the set of rules your parents have given you, that’s your call. I’m just here to say that if it isn’t authentic, raw, real, true to you as it gets, then it means nothing in this world. You have only yourself to offer — your gifts, words, character, promises, radiance, brilliance, undying music within. Why be given your truth if you aren’t gonna spit it? I had a friend say to me yesterday, “yeah, it’s a cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason.” Not speaking in the moment to what I’m talking about, she was talking to me now in the future, all tumbling together in the Here.

I think more of us than would like to admit wrestle with what we want for ourselves and what the world expects of us. I’m here to tell you, even in your moments of weakness, that what the world expects of you is meaningless. What you are great at should not be the only thing that defines you— unless you want it to. It’s all whatever you want. It’s all whatever is already burning within you. It is your essence. It is who you are. What you want for yourself is almost as meaningless I think because you are essentially bound to this — there is a purpose, divine and telling of a life worth speaking of. Recently, I’ve been facing this quarter-life crisis, feeling so overwhelmed with whether or not I was doing the “right thing,” whatever that means, when I realized it’s all within me. I already know. I feel it in my heart everyday who I am and how is that not enough to know exactly what I’m doing? Just feel who you are, know that that person is so gifted, know that that person is insanely important— not a cog in a machine but an unrepeatable essence of humanity and the cosmos themselves.

I don’t know. That seems like it should be enough.

Anyway, I hope that if you are reading this that you have people in your life who allow you to process big lifey feelings with them, and that you’re not alone, and that people you know are as good to you when you feel explodey as the people in my life have been with me whilst going through this. The world is big. But it’s not ever going to big bigger than what you are capable of, what you are meant for, who you are. I just hope for you that when you get lost, you know for yourself what you want to do about it, and that you have people in your life to let you feel it out your way.

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Joni Mitchell and the Art of Saving Sad Girls

My home’s mailbox is mostly always full, usually overflowing with coupon packets and credit card bills to people who’ve long since moved out, packages from important techie companies for my photographer roommate, new movies for Paul to watch, etc. My own receiving of mail has dwindled dramatically since I became a terrible penpal in the last 1-2 years. So, my obsession with checking the mail  has faded. But today there was a huge brown package poking out of the mailbox and it was for me — a book I’d preordered off Amazon months and months ago. Finally, for me.

gathered light – the poetry of joni mitchell’s songs

If you know me in real life, you probably know that Joni Mitchell is the greatest love of my life. This book is her songs in plain print and interpreted through different poets and writers, acquaintances of Joni’s, etc. I, of course, ordered this book long before I knew what it was actually about or what was written in it, who would write in it— none of that mattered. But tonight, as I’m scanning the pages with tired eyes, I see an essay from my very most all-time favorite female poet-poet, Kim Addonizio. I am captured. I am alive. I am remembering. Everything is back with me, even these things I have forgotten, the ways I have changed. It’s not a bad thing. That’s just where she takes me, being in this book talking about my Joni.

“That is: tell the truth about life.”

Directly referencing the tattoo scripted on my Libra ex-boyfriend’s chest in this essay, I am taken back to this wild little girl I remember myself being. I was flushing raspberry sherbet down the toilet in my college dorm building, singing “Paperweight” in a starlit hammock on a hot Georgia night, scrawling poetry in notebooks on the small hills of the quad. Those lines, only joy and Joni now, memory and happiness and nothing but nice things to say in regards to a nice person. I am crossing the country again with my Cancer ex-boyfriend “traveling, traveling, traveling. Lookin’ for something, what can it be?” — remembering the roads and how all of her sweet songs were singing through my blood hot like a good joke, hot like the way it feels when you know there’s a good thing that of course will be gone in good time, making meaning of the small things and finding ourselves in one another. Moving here to be with you and an inch closer to Kim Addonizio herself, just to be in her energy, just to see that she was a real person, to see if I was. I’m with my Gemini lover posted up against tree limbs in the safest city in America and that summer everything was the smell of donuts and the unimaginable. There was always love— and Joni Mitchell. Her record of my life, her albums the soundtrack to the woman I would become, her songs some of the first I remember loving, feeling myself to, knowing what it meant to be this person, in this skin, this little girl, a writer.  I know this is all a cloud, but the connections I am reading feel like fresh air and I feel like the past two weeks of my full on emotional/professional/mental breakdown are clearing up and this seemed like a sign, even if I know I bought the book, I just can’t believe things mean nothing. Things move too fast to mean nothing. You know?

Always a compulsion for me, writing was never a joy. But I remember listening to Joni Mitchell made me understand what writing could mean, how it could translate into empathy, how it could help make somebody else brave. Put your whole entire self into a song and somebody else will sing it, wish they wrote it, quote the lyrics in love notes or to their closest friends. Not quite sure if I have found those “gorgeous wings” just yet, I am still trying, I am still learning to fly, I am still writing. Just in case.

the last time that i saw richard

“For me, Joan Baez was Joan Baez. Bob Dylan was Dylan, but Joni Mitchell was always Joni. When I was seventeen, she was the angel in my ear. ‘You’re in my blood like holy wine…. I am on a lonely road and I am traveling.’ She knew me before I knew myself; it was that personal. And it still is.”

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