Leaving

Having a hard time leaving again. I woke up too early, just now. I woke up because I had received an important email in my dream. In the real world I grappled for my phone but nothing interesting was there besides a silverfish on the windowsill, which I squished with a CVS receipt.

I'm having a hard time even believing I am leaving tomorrow morning. My flight is at 6:22, so I suppose I should leave here at 4 AM. It will feel like a dream too. It's only six weeks back on the ship and then three more weeks in Maine--infinitely easier to live, to navigate, to talk to people. I wasn't even ready to end my contract last month. More to write, more to love about my castmates, maybe even a few more nights in the dark belly of the boat. But it's still hard now.

Tuesday morning Puhg and I meant to find some unique exercise because I am tired of Jillian Michaels and my gym membership is frozen. We found a basketball court nearby! By there was also a park. And the park had mini golf! And suddenly we're playing mini-golf in the middle of the week together and eating yogurt and watching The Affair and ticket stubs and photos and stickers are all over the living room. When I describe my days they are so wonderfully blob-glamourous.

Like yesterday I listened to This American Life on a walk to Lake Michigan. I read. I laid on the couch and ate cookies leftover from a board game night. I met a friend for lemonade and gossip. I got a mani/pedi. I worked on a creative project at SC. The first planning meeting of a show I am writing this fall with my director. At home, Puhg and I watch the new OJ documentary (so much OJ, 2016) and drink root beer floats. I scrapbook on the ground. We watch Scream, make some jokes, fall asleep fast. While watching the scary TV show I say it feels truly like summer and I'm a kid. I'm living a dream--or maybe five dreams on top of each other--and I am beyond fortunate, so I barely have a right to mourn anything ever, but today it's just feeling hard to leave.

Back Pocket

Everyone knows there are things money can't buy,
but there are also things success can't give you.
There's always the back pocket plan.

Friends since 1999.

Since the Days Are Few

Since the days are few
and far
between
when you can actually turn off
the yakking, the grinding, the lurching,
the smacking, the shooting, the blistering,
the shrieking, the shrinking, the gasping,
the gossiping, the hurting, the whining,
the sinking, the soaking,
when you actually do,
actually do think
with some foreign sincerity
"Things are very good,"
grasp onto the line,
be hooked by it,
take the bite,
lose your cheek meat in the metal,
bleed--fine--
before you're yanked out of the water,
before you're hanging in the sky,
gills dry, unable to breathe.

Moss: Part II

Muggy run Friday. We may as well have been inside the old sneakers we wore. "I'm going to go down and splash some water on my face," Bisque says about two miles in. Good idea. There's a lake right there! Who knew!

So we hop down the concrete steps to the waves lapping some rocks. I see the rocks are moss, so I bend down where I am am splash myself the best I can. But, before I can say, "Wait, don't--" Bisque is stepping onto a big mossy slab. In one second I panic. There are so many options--yelp, lunge and try to catch him, close my eyes...I gasp as his feet fly from under him and he lands square on his back halfway submerged in the water. I frantically garble, "Where is your phone*! Talk it out of your pocket!" Phone was safe despite every other part of his shorts and tee being drenched somehow. He was fine. he carefully stepped back onto dry land. We walked the rest of the way home since he was sogging. Sore neck for a couple days, but it was no big deal.

I've been thinking about that moment. What if I had flailed and tried to scoop him up as he fell? Surely my quicker response time could have saved him the womp. But then I think of the logistics, and even if I COULD have reached out, might I have kinda nicked his head causing it to eventually hit much harder on the stone? It could have all cracked open right there. In this case, my best intended action may have been murder.

*It says a lot about the importance of technology in society that the first thing I asked about was his replaceable cell. Bisque later mentioned casual fun is not as fun anymore because of cell phones. On our walk home I mentioned it was right of passage to be pushed into Peppermint's swimming pool with your clothes on in middle school. No more of that with iPhones in pockets!

The Last Chicago Weekend

Every tree screams orange and the couples are OUT on the Lake path. I'm running. Frisbees fly, boats wade happily. "The last weekend," everything sings. My credit card is in my sports bra for the spinach I will pick up on my way home. The streets are packed in daytime ways--strollers and pedal pushers, candy corn icicle lights, the pop-up farmers market. I chose a patch of kale and a sweet potato for Bisque. A gust of wind takes the tiny yellows by surprise and they gust into the sky like confetti. Windows open. Fire and maple. I buy one signed copy of Lena Dunham's book, digest one ghost sugar cookie, trot the square with my sister the birthday girl. Today we sat in the woody loft with her laptop and laughed the afternoon away trying to compartmentalizations our relationship and selves as if we had been comissioned to. My theatre company opened its show. My new friend Marble hugged me greedily, my new team won the Sunday night jam in the land of Poe birds. It is time to be, but we know it's change. We move forward. We crinkle up and turn brown in the gutter.

Cheecahgo

It's been just over a month since I returned from the land of cacti, and I must admit, I really do believe Chicago is the best city in the country. For a little sunbug like me, it's still not MY place because omg winter. But in general...I truly don't know how you could argue.

1. Dopest skyline. I took this for granted growing up. I had heard of other cities and I assumed they were all like mine. But every time I go to a new place my question is frequently, "Where's downtown?" Chicago's heart is prominent and breathtaking.

2. It's a city and people act like it, and also crime, but in general it's not dog-eat-dog. Chicago is known for it's bang in creative work environments and generally helpful city employees, yo.

3. Culture not to be topped. Art Institute, Science and Industry, Field Museum. Okay. Bias here. Obvs NY is giving it a run for its money. But would you rather have the sparkle of Broadway or the development of Steppenwolf? You know? It's a different vibe.

4. Similarly, comedy. This is the comedy capitol of the world. So. Whattup.

5. Lake Michigan. Honestly, it's as majestic as the ocean with no sharks or salt. Plus it's PART of the city. You're got gonna walk on the beach in the middle of your LA day. But here. Yup. Go for it.

6. Pizza.

7. Get going. Middle of the country. Go anywhere! All destinations are basically the same. Inside the city, best public transit IMO.

8. Is cool enough to have tourists and tourist destinations but not too cool that everyone you meet is a transplant. There's a way of life here actually largely informed by our creature comforts. I am the way I am not parallel to the fact that hot dogs are a diet staple and the huge population of Irish Catholics mean constant wakes and parties to soften them, I'm who I am because of it.

I'm writing this in Millenium Park, waiting to meet a friend. A jazz band is playing, a traffic cop's whistle compliments the tunes, the fountain spits.

Shots Shots ShotsShotsShotsShots (Everybody!)

I heard someone die on Sunday. My mom and I were in the living room of her condo on the south side watching The Artist (which I had never seen and enjoyed, A-) when we heard gunshots.

"Hmm." I said.

"Fireworks?" She asked. We kept watching the black and white actors.Then sirens a bit later. Out the window eight cop cars. We peered out but nothing was happening presently.

Anyway, in the morning the front desk guy explained it was the head of one group and his brother. They were both shot by someone yet to be caught. We say "group" here because no one likes to live in gangland (although if you live in Chicago, you do).

I had done sprints at the exact spot of killing that morning and did them again Monday. And yesterday. People power walk and bike on by. There's clover and Alice Sr and I even jumped in Lake Michigan. From the still glassy water I could see the white brick where it went down.

I don't feel particularly unsafe as a non-member of any groups. But the couple blocks from the bus to the door at midnight I don't prefer. There's just a bed of fear we all have to lie in. And that makes me really mad, actually.

No guns. No guns. No guns please. I cannot die from a stray knife wound. But bullets fly. And having my own would not save me.

Maybe guns will always exist, but come on, make them harder to buy. Scarier to own. More expensive. Tax the heck out of them. We don't need them. And generation by generation we can sort some of these issues out. Slavery was really important to us at one point, but when it was time for that to end, if was time for that to end. Don't be the jerk who was like, "We've already built our whole culture around having slaves! Whoopsy can't change it now!"

Down the Line

Sunset last night. Lake Michigan.

I. We should be healthy not just to be healthy but because our health affects our feelings and our feelings empower or disable our actions. Our actions are our relationships with others, our world.

II. A camper shared this with me: Think beautiful thoughts and you will choose beautiful actions. Beautiful actions make a beautiful life.

Happy Working Song

My sister told me my blog has been too sad. Well, toot. But okay. Some great things about summer camp:

Storm cloud. July 2013. Michigan.

Running the long, quiet road of antique farms just off camp property Monday. Only two girls signed up for an afternoon four-miler. Track stars of course. They smoked me. It was very windy.

My first period Musical Theatre girls kicking their feet to "Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile."

Playing Mafia (I actually love Mafia. Like, a lot. I wish it were still acceptable to casually mention it be played at parties now that I am an adult. Sigh.) in the lake on a very wavy day. Hopping the white caps during accusations.

My campers at the breakfast table every morning. One brings yogurts for all. Another carried cups of water by the bunch. That one always asks for a bowl of Golden Grahams. There is a subtle game of who will get a bagel first--thus becoming the table toaster slave.

And on your lovely woody banks,
we dream beneath the shade,
and offer up again our thanks,
your memories ne'er will fade.

Sweet Lord

I am exhausted.

My co-worker Kath & moi on Lake Michigan.


Do you suppose that I would come runnin'?

Blue Bow

The counselor staff gift in 2010 was a stationary set. We--Cocoa, KWall, and I--made them with care using rubber stamps and thick white paper. We stacked the little piles and wrapped them with blue bows.

The staff wore the bows all summer. I liked the robin's egg hue. I liked the length around my braids. I tied it around my pony tail last Monday morning. I was nostalgic for camp. The July dawns on the lake are mimetic of these February desert mornings. Sometimes at night when I close my eyes I imagine the view from Council Fire, the lighthouse in the distance, the smell of pine.

I saw bell hooks speak last Monday. (More on that in the future.) I felt rejuvenated after the talk. Ready to move. I hopped on my bicycle and scooted home. It was windy, but I was defiant. I arrived home to a stack of mail. I scurried up to my room, turned on the lamp, pulled up the covers. I reached back to run the bow between the valley of my thumb and pointer.

It was gone. It had flown away in the wind.

Maybe it is in a bird nest, or a river, or stranger's shoelace.

Reflect

Sunset last Friday. The Slice.

I was alone
when I ran the five-mile loop through woods that the boy counselors do the last morning of Pre-Camp.
The dirt flew up in my face. It wasn't that hard.

The sunset appeared twice--
once in the sky,
once at my feet.
The same. It's not that hard.

We arrived at Sunday Night Cookout in matching t-shirts. Swarms of children flooded down the hill before we could peak it. They yelled our names and hugged us.

These are just a few memories of the past
week that will hold me steady this
next week as my sister and I make our way west,
I find a place to live,
she gets on a plane,
and I am alone.

Once in the sky.
Once at my feet.

Loving My Sister

after a hike--MI, 2010

Me: Plus, I am thinking about auditioning for a play. You could too--Children's Hour in Clayton. Rehearsals Mon, Tues, Thurs nights.

Pookie: The potential for one of us having to confess gay love for the other has convinced me that we should not both audition for Children’s Hour.

This is a chain we'll never break.
Do I dream? I'm awake.

Water

Lake Michigan with all her moods and Slou

I never drink bottled water. It's lame. It's the fastest and most expensive energy-suck I can think of that virtually everyone can quit.

However, after running a 5K last week I was dizzy dizzy dizzy dizzy dizzy, so I drank one. How do we feel about this exception? I've done runs before and declined the free water--to make a point. (I just know my sister is out there reading this smacking her forehead and calling me an idiot.) But, I was cray cray after this one. I did the smart thing. How could I get around this issue in the future? How many exceptions can one make on promises before it counts for naught?

Hmm every little bit counts? Something like that?

Every day seems a little longer,
Every way, love's a little stronger