Just Before Our Love Got Lost You Said…

I am as constant as a northern star.

I am reluctant to end my vacation, as I sit here in the Portland Jetport waiting for a delayed flight to New York City. I am struck by how healing and beautiful the past five days have been in Maine, from the second I touched down in Portland to walking on the sand at Acadia National Park and feeling shell, life and salt between my toes, connecting and disconnecting simultaneously from the space I take up in the world.

Maine is a place where I can think. I remember days in college when I would stay with the C-J family by Messalonskee Lake, and I would shoot hoops in the driveway, or sit out in the sun, cross-legged on the deck, just to feel the quiet. Coming back to Maine on this trip brought back those feelings of thoughtfulness in silence. We sat out on the deck in the dark, putting our thumbs up against the sky looking for star clusters in the clouds, listening for zombies in the woods. And then there was the sharing of new experiences, like popping touch-me-not pods after a family lobster dinner, table tricks and blueberry pie. There was much lazing, and the languid dangling of feet over canoe edges, into warm lake water. We rescued waterlogged blueberries and melted chocolate covered almonds by throwing them in the freezer.

I’m so glad I made the trip to Maine, and got to see some of my favorite people. The long weekend was incredibly nourishing for the soul, and I’m reminded about how large the universe is, and how important it is to grasp an open perspective on life instead of getting caught up with the details that sometimes don’t really matter.

It’s okay to breathe deep.

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid

Comrade Has To Wonder…

… Was it ever worth the effort?

Could it be that happiness is exhausting?

For the past two weeks I’ve been riding on a high, a rush of loving my life as it is right now, and I think I’ve just experienced the physical crash and exhaustion that comes with having one’s eyes open and bright, and one’s bushy tail wagging uncontrollably. Earlier this evening I’d decided to take a short nap before going out to dance or party with P. or T. but the nap lasted a little longer than expected, and when I woke up, I was still drenched in my fatigue. I called off my (wild?) evening plans, checked my email, and now here I am writing and eating soup.

I know that to be young, at least relatively so in New York City years, and to be living in this city means that one’s social calendar needs to be constantly packed – You don’t have an excuse. You’re supposed to be young, sexy, fabulous, popular and all manner of things that the movies tell you about being in your 20s in the city that never sleeps. You’re supposed to be dancing, partying, drinking or getting wild and crazy so you have stories to tell, or stories to sell to the movies that tell everyone else what they’re supposed to be doing in their 20s in the city that never sleeps.

But I’ve been an introvert most of my life. If I’d gone to high school in this country, I probably would have been the freak girl with the goth nail polish and bad skin that ate at the lunch table alone. I’ve had crazy drama-filled nights of no sleep and substance abuse, although most people probably won’t believe it, but as I get relatively older in non-New York City years, those things don’t excite me, or make me laugh as hard or smile as much anymore. Am I turning into a humorless ice queen? Or just stupidly getting older before my time? Am I still, essentially, the freak girl eating at the lunch table alone?

I feel these days it’s important to focus on the small things in my life. The little bits of happy that coalesce into a big cloud of happy. Things like a pretty synth sequence in a song, finding the right brush pens at the art store, a well-drawn black line – straight or curved, a compliment received about one’s smile, sunshine after 6pm, birds in the sky, fish swimming in clean fishbowls, the rickety sound of a bike chain, little secrets like wearing your favorite underpants or brushing your teeth in the wrong direction. I recognize this might be childlike and inappropriate for my age, and I do feel a certain amount of guilt about not being more conscious, on a daily basis, about the world’s pain and suffering the way I used to when I was still in school. Another post for another time? Perhaps.

I think I understand my exhaustion a little more now. I think maybe I’m capturing too much, trying to process too much in each day as I subconsciously roll through uncovering the universe in every little sound or sight or footstep. Beauty is overwhelming. Optimism as a perspective is tiring.

But I feel like I’d rather be tired, than feeling like I have to do what the movies tell me I should be living. Yes, deep down inside, maybe I’m still the freak girl eating at the lunch table alone.

Look me in the eyes
And the skeptic in me dies
The skeptic is a fool
We are exceptions to the rule…
… And if you’re ever less than certain
I will be your iron curtain
I will be your Berlin Wall
And I will never fall.