Day 41

I am dissolving, into the ink-drawn vision of a woman, the kind who is disappearing behind her hair and turning away from you toward a future unknown.

I can't pull myself away from art today, and I am hungry for meaning. Every time I see an over-easy egg, I think of the Counting Crows.

How do we know if the choices we're making are taking us toward or away from our dreams? My ma asked if I was making progress in the resolution of my marriage today. I laughed and told her that it's tough to know what progress is when you don't know where you want to go.

It's possible that my I've made complete insanity out of my life. I've called a hiatus on one of the key relationships that kept me from utter disaster post marriage. I've developed friendships I never expected. I've created this strange space of truth that, contrary to expectations, makes each of us sad, though I feel, too, as if the rains have finally come. I've friends who I love (and who love me) with a fierceness I can't comprehend. I've seen beauty and joy in the smallest of moments. I've experienced rage and hatred so strong they unravel me. I've felt a passion I thought I'd lost. I've rekindled the spark in my soul that moves me on, faster and wilder, toward a future that may not exist, but that I reach for with an aching desire.

Day 38

Going Down Rough

I want to carve the truths of my being on my skin, to create in reality the cartography M. Ondaatje writes about so beautifully. I want to be permanently scarred by the stories that created me. To remind me when I am lost and confused and alone and terrified of all the places I've been, of the ones who have loved me and left, the ones who have stayed, and of the millions of empty inches waiting for their story to be told.

It is not the same skin here today that lived and breathed the stories of yesteryears and this skin now is just a fleeting moment before the future. These cells will dissolve away into dust and memory. If I do not record my history on my body, how will I ever remember the truth?

Day 18

"Maybe that's all family really is...A group of people that miss the same imaginary place." -Garden State

Sometimes the scariest place to be is the one you know you can't leave until you make it through all the pain and fear and sorrow. It's worse when you think you've dealt with all of it, and then it comes back, full-tilt to overwhelm you again. I'm trying to breathe through these days, but I am lonely for something I don't know what is and hungry to be on my own again.

I want to move east, east, east until I can't any longer, until I have crossed oceans and seas and returned to myself, renewed and different. I miss Philadelphia like an aching in my heart. Small pieces of song--trumpets blaring--or images--the fence slowly drying from morning rain and the vines creeping through--dissolve me. I would give anything for a rainstorm to soak this valley, to clean the air and wash away all of our mistakes. I run as though I can leave behind all the things I've tired of.

The Mountain Goats, newly discovered, play on repeat, and I can almost not help but to sob. My breath escapes me in tiny gasps, like the reverse of love. And that's the trick, isn't it? All of the best bits, by flipside, are the worst and so on, so it goes. There is huge comfort in having someone who knows all the best and worst pieces of you and loves you anyway. But in being known, we lose all the surprise and beauty and newness of someone. How do we choose between all these multitudes of futures? How do we decide to take the good and the bad and survive all of it together?

When I was young, I used to dream of a lover, a man I didn't know whose face I never quite saw. He had black hair and was stunning. I have not thought of this dream in decades, but I wonder now: who is he?

Day 15

Sometimes, the best we can do is terrible. We create a giant mess of broken pieces and bad decisions and wrong turns. And yet...we are left with nothing but to get up the next day and try again. And again and again and again until something, somewhere, eventually clicks.

I wonder if this is all we are seeking: that beautiful moment of clarity and "rightness" when things click and we see suddenly that we are not all entirely wrong choices. That sometimes all of the wrong choices and mistakes add up to something amazing. And sometimes, they don't. Sometimes wrong choices are simply wrong, bad, horrible decisions that lead us nowhere except away from what we want. Or away from what we think we want. Or into the deep abyss that is all we believe we deserve.

It is here that I find myself tonight, facing off against a wall of bad decisions and heartbreak and a loss of direction. Here's hoping that the stars shine brightly on my path and that the way becomes clear again. That in the morning, when I try to do my best, I might actually succeed, if just for an hour, a moment.

On these days I wonder if one can use kindness as a defense mechanism. And does this make it a lie? An unkindness? An inherently selfish move that couldn't possibly be kind?

I cough up the ashes of a broken heart and wonder if taking up smoking would have been easier.

Day 4

Brewforia may be my home away from home. And...okay! I am discovering awesome people and new potential and that we are all terrified of the same things. Each and every one of us. We're just trying to find our ways in the is big wide scary world, with no real direction and hoping that a misstep doesn't cost us too much. It is a crazed, blessed, magic place we live.

Day 3

Surviving on beer, hope, and this wildly undeserved love

I am always amazed at how we come to love a person or family. What small bits and pieces over the months or years of our relationships add up the this compassion and faith and hope in and for that other person? How is it that I can be so blessed with so many who love me and want good things for me?

A dear friend recently told me that to know me is to be blessed by brilliance and compassion and that anyone who is not blinded by it is unworthy. How have I come by so much good and wonder and beauty? Why is it that I should be so lucky? Sometimes I think half of my heartbreak is caused simply by the number of people who hold me so highly in their regard, who would and can do everything within their power to help me through this. My life, even in these darkest of moments, is truly charmed.

Day 2

Of late, the success of my life can be measured quantitatively. The quality of a day is almost entirely inversely proportional to the quantity of Xanax consumed during said day. By that relationship, today was one half. It was not an emotionally successful day, nor was it emotionally satisfying. It was draining and tear-filled and exhausting.

The said, the work is still rewarding, and that part of the day was rather pleasant. There was a long block of boredom, and I worry what I will do with myself during these stretches in the future. Having no internet access is bothersome in moments of boredom, but perhaps soon we will have bookmobile projects on which to spend our time.

I am sorrowful at the close of today, and I am finding it difficult to work up the strength for another day tomorrow. I must not avoid exercising tomorrow morning, as I think that might be the only thing that will keep me sane, and by evening, my heart is too heavy to jog, much less do actual exercise.

I do have a beautiful quartet of roses waiting for me in the morning, though. They are my favorite, the ones I think of as French antique, a beautiful butter shade streaking into sunrise hues at the top. I hold onto the little things, believing that enough tiny moments of joy can tip the scales on a whole lifetime.

An acquaintance recently told me that he believes moments of deja vu are signs that our life is progressing along as it should, that we were meant to be on that exact path at that exact moment and we made it. I find this to be a deeply comforting thought, though I don't recall the last time I experienced deja vu. Perhaps it is time I find my way back to the right path.

Day 1

A day that begins with dancing cannot be an entirely bad day.

My first day aboard the “bookmobus” was pure joy. There is so much room for experimentation and collaboration. I'm sure I missed some of the harder pieces today, but I feel I have fallen into a place that fits. A friend recently told me that she felt all good things were coming to me. She couldn't say why or what made her think that, considering current circumstances, simply that she believed it. And while I did not doubt her at the time, today is the first day that I felt it. I felt the goodness washing over me in waves, unrelenting and with no end in sight.

I awoke in a new bed, a bed with freshly replaced sheets, in a room of black and white and branches. And everything in the room that was mine, was mine. Not shared. Not borrowed to be returned. Simply mine.

There was a fridge stocked with food, enough for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Coffee from my old home. Friendly furry faces surrounding me.

A hot shower.

The beauty of a day where I rose early enough to go jogging, to try on more than one outfit, and to feel attractive. For the first time in months, the day was not determined before I woke up. I had all the options in the world, and it was my choice alone what to do with them.

I am grateful to have slipped into this moment of grace and wonder. I could not have asked for a better gift, and I will do everything in my power to remain a faithful and just steward of it. May I learn to give back so that others may receive as I have; may I learn to relinquish fear to a great hope and trust that this day will unfold only as it should; may I learn to love as fiercely and truly as I have been loved.