Confession

I have a few. Well not really confessions, but a few things I'm slightly embarrassed about or think is too funny not to share with the few people who actually read this blog. Or I simply want your opinion. So, in no particular order, here they are:

1. I've been listening to Christmas music for two weeks now. I'm typically a one holiday at a time kind of girl. But for some reason, this year I just can't help myself!

2. Claire and Drew put on a play for me last night. Drew was a bat and Claire was a dragon. I laughed so hard I cried, because Claire's one line was "I am the dreaded dragon. I breath fire! The bat is my only friend left!" And Drew kept whispering it to her over and over from the other side of the room where she made her entrance. And Claire couldn't hear her so she kept saying "What? Drew, I can't hear you!" and ran off stage. Of course you had to be there to see Claire wearing only a hooded dragon costume and underwear, but you get the idea.

3. I'm seeing New Moon tonight. I haven't read the books, but I have a tendency, like many women, to see a movie simply because it stars an attractive man. And Rob Pattenson is undeniably attractive. 

4. Hank, Drew, and Claire love hearing stories about when I was little, back in the olden days before there were cell phones. It forces me to think back on all those silly and embarrassing childhood memories that I'd almost completely forgotten. So earlier this week I told them that I use to be afraid of Santa Claus. They weren't remotely sympathetic when I tried to explain that I didn't like the idea of an old man with a beard coming into my house at night and eating all the milk and cookies, even if his intention was to give me gifts. Every year I crawled into bed with my sister completely terrified. And when our family took pictures with Santa I refused to stand near him at all. The Marriott kids laughed at me for being afraid of someone who is so obviously good and nice. 

5. I've had a reoccurring dream that I have really long hair and it's making me want to grow it out again. But in order to have said long hair, I have to go through the in between awkward phase when I hate my hair everyday. Conundrum.

6. I've had my eye on someone for a while now, and I'm fairly certain he doesn't even know I exist. 

here you can see for miles & miles & miles

On Thursday, October 22, my mom and sister arrived here in New York to spend a long weekend with me. It's been exactly four years since the last time any of my family visited me here. Four years ago I was a terrified, homesick student who didn't know Uptown from Downtown on the subway. I laughed with my mom and Jennifer because their last trip here was mostly spent in my dorm room watching television and cooking dinner. I felt like a tourist as much as they did. I'd moved there 2 months ago and my sister was pregnant. It was a recipe for a stressful trip. I've come a long way since 2005. A long, long way.

I have a life here in New York now. I have favorite places to go and people to see. I have sources of comfort in this city of hustle and bustle. Somehow I have managed to love this urban city with all its beauty and tragedy. Simply put, I am in awe. I took my mom and sister to favorite places like Roebling Tea Room, Grey Dog (where I get lunch on a weekly basis with Katie) and 71 Irving Place (where I spent every weekend studying my senior year of college). We went to the Sunday flea markets which I frequent almost every week, unless there are subway service changes as there have been as of late. We saw Wicked, the "Where the Wild Things Are" exhibit at the Morgan Library, ate at Chelsea Market and Frankies on the Lower East Side, saw the Robert Frank exhibit at the MET, the Pumpkin Festival at Central Park, FAO Swartz to get gifts for Caleb and Seth, and rode the Staten Island Ferry. I introduced them to the Marriott kids and they saw where I go to work everyday. I showed them my life and I showed them New York. I think I wore them out, but we checked off everything on our list except the Brooklyn Bridge.

At the Morgan Library gift shop, I bought a book of poems about New York. I've only read a few, but I enjoyed this one in particular.

Whitman in Black by Ted Barrigan

For my sins I live in the city of New York

Whitman's city lived in in Melville's senses, urban

inferno

Where love can stay for only a minute

Then has to go, to get some work done

Here the detective and the small-time criminal are one

& tho the cases get solved the machine continues to run

Big Town will wear you down

But it's only here you can turn around 360 degrees

And everything is clear from here at the center

To every point along the circle of horizon

Here you can see for miles & miles & miles

Be born again daily, die nightly for change of style

Hear clearly here; see with affection; bleakly cultivate

compassion

Whitman's walk unchanged after its fashion

Gradually

I am a dinosaur when it comes to technology. I'm not like my parents in that I am unable to attach pictures to emails or only send text messages in all caps because I can't figure out how to change the setting on my cell phone. But I do seem to only update the few pieces of technology I own when it is absolutely necessary. The computer I am typing on right now I received as a high school graduation gift over four years ago. It survived several viruses and a bath in a bottle of coca cola. My cell phone is a $30 replacement for my old phone which died on me almost two years ago. It's a black flip phone. 'Nuf said when all my friends have iPhones. I have an iTouch which was my last update of technology because the iPod that I also got as a high school graduation gift was replaced 6 times under a Best Buy warranty that finally expired. 

I like to think of myself as adaptable and open to new adventures. But clearly, I don't adapt unless I have to. That's why after posting one tweet I never visited Twitter again because it was too confusing and not like Facebook. 

When I love something I wear it out quickly. Whether it's a favorite song, book, or sweater, I listen, read, or wear it everyday until I find something new to obsess over. Lately it's been "Only with Laughter Can You Win" by Rosie Thomas, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, and a grey sweater jacket I stole from Kristin's closet. These things give me comfort and simple pleasure, like the tree with yellow leaves in the school parking lot across the street. It's beautiful and will change but I will enjoy it until then. 

I've also found enjoyment in little things while at work with the kiddos, mostly all the silly things they say. Some days I get stressed and feel like I have a long list of household chores to do that I forget to just have fun with Hank, Drew, and Claire. Usually by Friday I am burnt out and ready for the weekend. But last night, instead of cleaning up the kitchen right away, I watched Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins with them and prayed with Claire before bed that she wouldn't have nightmares. They helped me pick out a Halloween costume when I couldn't decide between a flapper girl (which they had no idea what that was), Harry Potter, and a disco ball. Claire voted Harry Potter because I could be a boy even though I'm really a girl. Hank voted disco ball because he doesn't like Harry Potter. And Drew voted disco ball because she wanted to help me make a silvery sequined dress. They told me they really wanted me to be Michael Jackson, since I'm related to him ("Having the same last name means you're related, Julie. I'm only 6 and I already know that," Drew) but a disco ball would be a close second. Earlier this week, Drew told me she wished you could throw away conversations, "If I could throw one conversation in the trash it would be Michael Jackson. I wouldn't even put it in the recycling!" 

When I was young
I did it my way
I did it my way and I still do
Held my head up high
Asking God for answers and begging him to tell me what to do

(Play Music by Rosie Thomas)

Inspiration

A few years ago I watched a PBS interview with Sufjan Stevens when he was on his Majesty Snowbird Tour. I probably watched it ten times and would provide the link to said interview now but I am either unable to find it or it was removed from the PBS website. (I'm hoping Katie will read this and provide a link to it in a comment because she was the one who shared it with me) The point is, during part of the interview Sufjan tries to describe his creative process when writing new songs. He says that it isn't something he finds inside himself but something that is revealed to him from an outside source. And he merely gets a small glimpse of it and creates what he sees and hears. 

Recently I've been inspired by beauty in seemingly insignificant experiences. (I'm not trying to compare myself to Sufjan, not at all) But it's like a word dam broke inside me and all I can do is gush liquid language. It's a strange but beautiful waterfall. I'm constantly writing poems inside my head all day long and can't wait to put it down on paper. I haven't felt that way since I was a freshman in high school full of unrequited love and hormones. All of that to say, here is my newest attempt at being poetic:

The Other Sea

 

Where do I begin to unravel the navy

seam in the denim night sky?

That vastly empty openness snatching gazes of “What if?”

(What if aliens disguised as humans try to take over the world?

What if I were a successful failure like Apollo 13?

What if all this really was created, on purpose?)

But tonight, tonight where smug city lights outshine faraway fireballs

instead of resenting the gnarled noise of New York polluting night air

I make a wish on man made machine stars.

Blinking white

Blinking green

Blinking red

I stare, stare, stare at firefly lights ablaze

This city sky is a concert of skyscraper antennas

lightbulbed windows and

airplanes connecting distant dots—

the anthropomorphic wish ship of the other sea—

a shooting star full of weary businessmen, dumb tourists, and Skymag

Isn’t wishing upon a real star as satisfying as the possibility

that I know a man on that plane?

There is a one in eight million chance that my childhood friend,

my professor, my future lover is dashing and splashing the dark

with blinking white and constant red light.

I blink and think my God, I wonder what we look like from up there?

A distant horizon shouts holiness and humanity:

the lover with the fate

the celestial with the organic

the eternal with the temporal

the beauty with the tragedy

the created with the creation

Officially

Soup night at the Walkers means it is officially fall. The cooler weather makes jackets, boots, dark nail polish, and scarves a necessity. And of course, soup for dinner is legitimate.

Sometimes, you get exactly what you want

Swimming Pool of Marbles

I was worried we were on the verge of the second Great Depression.

“We own our house, right?” I asked my dad in panicked voice

because my roommate told me everything would be okay,

IF you owned your house.

“No, hun-knee, weyare steel making payments on it.”

 

My family has lived at 5 Misty Court for thirty years.

That’s why five is my favorite number.

That house is home base, my objective correlative, my constant.

 

I know it like a lover.

 

The grey side paneling, busted doorbell and glass shattered

by a softball I swung at and made contact for the first time.

I wept as white paint dried erasing years of measurements

stacked up like used textbooks.

 

I know the map of the creaky floorboards from sneaking in past curfew,

determined my parents wouldn’t find out, but they always asked.

I couldn’t lie ever since I threw that browned apple over the fence

And you spanked me for saying I ate it, core and all.

 

That doesn’t sound like a bad idea now—to consume something whole,

seeds and all—planting a life force in your belly.

 

Please, don’t ever move. I can’t afford to buy that house from you.

There are too many memories—a swimming pool full of marbles:

 

Of water balloon fights, running through sprinklers,

shooting fireworks off the back deck and exploding G. I. Joes

with firecrackers

 

Of charting undiscovered territory beyond my backyard

and walking through sewage pipes because I liked the dark

and hearing my own voice echo back

 

Of  playing truth or dare and kissing a boy for the first time

and feeling so guilty that I cried innocence into my pillow

and begged my mom not to tell dad

 

Of our house getting struck by lightning after Christmas,

all new electronic toys fried and nightmares of outlets

 

Of playing detective in my dad’s sport coat

and watching my neighbor cry after she found her mom in the tub,

Bathed in her own blood

 

Of going to the park after dark to see a boy

who pushed me so fast on the merry go round that I felt tipsy

until my dad spotted me with his headlights and made me go home

 

Of being on the swim team before I was old enough

And finding my dad’s rifle in the closet while playing hide and go seek

 

Of kissing my first boyfriend in his car parked outside my house,

Of crying my eyes dry when he left for college.

 

Of my brother’s friend sleeping in my bed and feeling deceptive

because I had a secret.

Of watching my brother cry because his best friend died in his sleep

 

Of being angry at my dad because he gave me Sense and Sensibility

for my birthday and I didn’t even like Jane Austen

 

Of my sister’s baby falling down the stairs

 

Of holding my mom’s hand at the kitchen table after the doctor called

saying she had cancer in her bone.

Of telling her I’d never leave her again.

Of my mom telling me she never wanted to hold me back.

Of sleeping in her bed that night and confessing we’d never been so scared.

 

All the tears, all the shouts, all the meals, all the goodbyes

This is one lover I will never release.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

You will be missed, but we'll be here waiting when you get back. Know that you are loved dearly from New York