5/18/13

Maybe the reason all of the old people are sad and all of the young people are happy is because the young people think they have the world in front of them, and the old people know what's in front of them wasn't the world.

before I fall asleep

Sometimes my mind is racing before I fall asleep.

I lay there thinking about what the world would be like if nobody had eyes. What if we all missed each other’s sneaking sideways glances, or the slap of narrowed suspicion, or the round wide-eyed purity of innocence, or the freezing heat of a lingering stare? What if we could never watch one another, or what if we could never look down with shame or look up with hope or look away with vacancy? 

Seeing is power and knowledge, but only if you know what to look for.

Does this mean that some people who have eyes don’t really see?

a very normal boutique

There’s a boutique about three blocks from my house and every time I go there I almost start crying. I don’t understand this because it’s a very normal boutique, with pretty little things like local bracelets and teal colored scarves and tongue-in-cheek cards that make me laugh out loud. I like to walk around and pretend that I could buy anything I wanted for anybody, I could buy those earrings for my neighbor and those table coasters for my mother and the beautiful clock with the red and gray birds and the sleek metallic numbers for my friend who isn’t my friend anymore. I think about how I would give it to her, maybe I would say, here’s a clock that I bought at a boutique that always makes me almost cry, and I know we aren’t friends anymore but I thought you really might love it. Maybe I would leave it on her doorstep and ring the doorbell and then run, but then I remember that I don’t know where she lives and that I can’t afford that clock and that actually we aren’t even friends anymore.

I think the woman who owns the boutique knows everything, because when I start to blink a lot or wipe my eye she says with the kindest smile I’ve ever seen, is there anything I can help you with? 

corners

It's like love has all of these corners that you are afraid you will get stuck in again. But you're not entirely sure you'll get stuck because you think they're right where they should be, because a square is a square just like water is water.

Of course, that would mean that love has boxed you in.

the day by the lake

It was late in the afternoon, and I could see that she was tired. The lack of sun and the overwhelming blue of the water and the dark gray blue of the sky was making her eyes shine in a lingering, haunting way. I thought she might stop talking, I hoped we would go home. We didn't.

What's the ugliest part about you? she asked. She looked too eager when she said it, and suddenly her eyes danced like this had been the only thing she had ever wanted to ask anybody since she was old enough to know what the word ugly meant, what it really meant. I was silent, and she smirked in a frightening yet dismissive way and then she said, I'm just naturally curious, that's all. 

I didn't know what to say. I rambled a bit about the scar on the right side of my forehead, I said that I didn't believe in God and I told her about the time I got so angry I burned my hand on purpose. She didn't seem interested and so I sighed, exasperated. I really don't know how to answer that, I said. What's the ugliest part about you? 

She looked up quickly and tried to be soft about it but it was a harsh look, too harsh a look for someone as pretty as she was. Now her eyes glowed and with those glowing eyes and a slight smile she painfully whispered, I thought you'd never ask. 

exactly the thing

I turned 22 and I moved somewhere else that I had only visited once. I moved a week after my visit. It seemed like the right thing to do.

I don't mind the cold because it's so warm inside. Inside there are lovely, glowing faces and wet boots at the door and this kind of ongoing lullaby of laughter in the background. Inside there are long sleeves and long stories of a chromatic group of people who started somewhere else and who found themselves moving at 22 without much thought or reason besides that it seemed like the right thing to do.

I don't mind the cold because every day is filled with noses and eyes and mouths I've never seen before, with bustling people I've never met, with quiet places I've never been. And I don't mind the cold because there is always more than just a chill in the air, there's excitement and curiosity and so much fear, and when so much becomes too much I go inside where it's warm and I know with everything in me that moving somewhere without much thought or reason was exactly the thing to do at 22.

20s

So far my twenties feel like I am still a small child running around with adult privileges. At my core there is this girl who, when given the opportunity to stay out all night, does, who continues to truly despise vegetables and beef tartare and foie gras, who gets excited about the endless opportunities that lie within the assorted shelves at a grocery store and who believes in the unfailing good-naturedness of humankind.

The other night when the dishwasher was running and it was cold he asked me if I had just gotten too caught up in it all. Of course I got caught up, I said, I always get caught up, it's what I do. My twenties also come with a sense of predictability that follows me around when I'm walking by an older couple or a construction site. I know what I'm going to do before I even do it, and it goes beyond knowing what side of the road I will walk on or what my ideal lampshade looks like. It means that I know myself, this child self running around a city with barking dogs and bright lights and that I will inevitably, intrinsically and invariably get caught up in it all.