fall and winter projects

It's raining today but when I started this post a week ago it was unseasonably sunny and warm.

Summer used to be my favorite season and before I moved north I dreaded the cold.

But soon fall became transfigured for me; I discovered a love of fresh, chilly air. Fall became associated with soft sweater tights, scarves knitted by friends, pretty hats, football games, caramel apples, hot chocolate, cuddling, blankets, and being cozy. Opportunities to open myself up to the possibility of different kinds of warmth.

But. I still dread the short days. When the sun sets early, my heart sinks with it. The day is over too soon. I go into hibernation.

But. Maybe this is an opportunity to transfigure darkness and shorter days. To open myself up to the possibility of experiencing different kinds of light. So maybe instead of resisting and dreading and kicking my feet about the winter I will use this time to refigure the winter sun, to find new things to love in dark evenings and short days.

i hate the psychiatrist

It's like going to a doctor and describing your symptoms except where your symptoms are all your most closely guarded and emotionally painful personal things summed up in a ten minute questionnaire. But it is ok because I watched this video like seven times on the way home, took a xanax, and completely forgot how to care about the fact that I have never met a psychiatrist with any kind of bedside manner, at least not one who has had any openings on short notice. I wish that Jason Seigl was my best friend though.

it takes an ocean not to break

untitled

When my dad was little the flap of tissue under his tongue was overgrown so that until it was discovered and corrected his speech was "messed up."

During that time apparently his dad constantly told him that he was a "retard" and would get in screaming fights with my grandmother about how she "gave him a retarded child."

I only learned this a couple years ago when I happened to be presenting at a conference near where my paternal aunt lives. I was able to spend an afternoon with her, and this was the first time I'd had an opportunity to spend time with her one on one as an adult. In this afternoon I really got to see the breadth of my aunt's strength, generosity, openness, and love. And I also learned a lot about my family.

When my aunt told me that story I vaguely remembered my dad once telling me about the thing with his tongue. And then I remembered that he did once ask me if the tissue under my tongue was ok and let me know that if it got messed up we would know what the problem was because he'd already been through it and it could easily be fixed.

The home where I spent the first seven years of my life was unsafe. When my parents were married my dad was volatile and unpredictable. But my dad always, always told me that I was smart and could do anything I wanted to. He started teaching me to read before I could even form full sentences. He bought me paints and sketchbooks when I wanted to be an artist. He wanted to, but couldn't, buy me a laptop when I wanted to be a writer. He wanted so much for me to believe in Santa Claus when I didn't. He made sure that I did not have an overgrown flap of tissue under my tongue.

My dad did not want me to be trapped in a life where I was unhappy. He has spent his life building houses and he does not love it. But he sometimes took my brother and me to construction sites to see the wooden outline of houses he was building, houses with open skies like the one my mom and stepdad would later buy. He has spent his life building magic houses that he will never live in.

I haven't maintained consistent contact with my dad in awhile, and I told my partner yesterday that it's hard because I've blocked so much of it that I can't imagine my dad hitting my mom or throwing plates against the dining room wall. The few times that I have seen my dad over the past ten years or so he seems increasingly numb, withdrawn, and isolated. My partner has only met my dad once; a few years ago we met him for lunch at a Wendy's. My partner puts it best when he says that he cannot imagine my dad doing those things either, because he has only ever known my dad as a shell of a person.

I wish he could have known him.

the view from home

This picture was taken from my parents' front yard, looking out. My old bedroom looks out this way, from the second floor.

I remember standing on the floor of my old room when it was not yet a room. When it was plywood and empty framing and open sky. There were no other houses yet around, just empty streets and lots for sale. That was a magic time.

I was in high school when this house was built. And I recognize now more than then just how lucky we were to have the resources to build a house like this, in a brand new, "safe" neighborhood. But I also see now how lucky we were to have parents who took my brother and stepsisters and me along to look at houses, who involved us in the process, who took our input seriously, who gave us some agency in shaping this new house, who used those resources to give each of us a space of our own.

When I moved to New City for graduate school five years ago, I did not want to live torn between spaces, between homes. But this is part of venturing out and exploring and creating new spaces and new homes, right?

I feel pulled toward (old) home more and more lately. I miss my brother and my mom. Maybe even my stepdad and stepsisters. I spent three weeks there over the summer, and it has never been harder to leave than it was when I had to say goodbye to my brother again just one week after he lost his best friend. I know there is not much I can do for him there, but it is hard not to be in physical space with them right now.

It is not just that. I feel the urge to pick up and leave. To romanticize home state skies, and to forget that all those rooms have roofs on them now.

I have been picking at my cuticles, not breathing well, and I have been spending time thinking about once kindred spirits with whom I know I can only ever have relationships that are destructive. Willing them to think of me, willing the universe to put us in each others' paths again. I just don't know how to stop feeling sad sometimes about all the loss that is inevitable, all the paths not taken or closed, everything necessary to creating spaces for new experiences, new skies, new joys.