Penpathy

Dear Pen:
Today I feel like maybe I'm having some sort of distant HSP sympathy experience for you. Nothing seems right. Everything is in transition. There's this looming uncertainty that could be just in front of something wonderful or complete and total disaster. Like a spinning plate wobbling on the stick, the need for balance is essential but the wobbling seems so unbalanced and out of control and when will it stop spinning? It's so uncomfortable to be so precariously placed.

I have this weekend and next before a long string of out-of-town weekends, so if I'm truly going to get in the house before Nov. 5 (and let's face it - I must), I have to get moving. But how? How to get past this stuck place into the next place I'm supposed to be...I could make a list but then there's the actual doing. And at this point, there's a sort of weird unclarity about what to put in the box and what to take out of the box and what is actually required to consider myself moved.

Oh, Lord. Help.

Please know as you are packing and wrapping and boxing and making those painful piles of keep/give/trash, that in another state (i.e. the State of Panic), I am doing the same thing for a move just miles from where I am but seems like a great distance.

xo,
Ash

Promises, Promises (31)

- To post soon (about something besides Kudzu)

- To move

- To reflect upon meeting the one and only Mendacious

- To be older

- To get my passport (for Mendacious)

- To write more poems, essays, letters

- To think about tomorrow

- To take a break

- To call

- To wear a dress

- To go to bed

TTLY Syndrome

I've always had a particularly pronounced sense memory. Smells, sounds, even a certain atmosphere, light - all provoke the return of sharp visceral memories for me. This little trick came in handy at times during acting classes when I was in college. But on a day to day basis, this sensitivity piles up into what I refer to as TTLY Syndrome or "This Time Last Year Syndrome" (TTLYS).

The oppressive heat and humidity of the last fews days have thrown me into last year's frame of mind. Indeed, the past few weeks have brought on a bewildering myriad of memories. This time last year, I was interviewing for The Job. I was feeling bereft and rootless. I was waiting.

And inside, away from the shimmering heat, in the cool darkness of my brain, the chemicals were sliding out of the proper equation. My stomach was burning, turning itself inside out almost every night. The Panic was coming.

This time last year was a tipping point, away from what was and toward what is. It was a precarious lean into the unknown. Everything was tossed into the air, floating down in a slow-motion freefall with no end in sight. Everything was all questions and no answers. The unknown was my only friend.

It's back again, like a second wave. I am waiting. Waiting for a movement away from this stalemate of grief. This terrible endgame, all the pieces on the board and nowhere to go. The Panic is rising. I waffle on the edge of nausea, try to push it down, pray through it. The unknown is siddling up next to me...it's reminding me that in a year, I haven't made very many strides. I haven't built the life I envisioned.

The heat lashes down on me when I walk out of work each day. I stumble through the evenings, fight the TTLYS washing through my veins. I remind myself that I have moved down the road, made progress. That I'm waiting and panicking and befriending the unknown because I had not choice when life jumped the rails in February.

Tonight, Dad said to me, "I feel like...we're never going to be normal again." And somehow, seeing the weight of it on his face, hearing the crushing reality in his words, I thought, "Not any time soon."

As I stare down the barrel of TTLYS right now, I rue the next season of it - the last season where everything was normal. And that season followed by the one where everything fell apart.

Emotional Pickpocketing

Yesterday was the Rockstar's last day. Last week, I went to his farewell outing - a bowling extravaganza filled with shouts and razzing and toasts and a definite sadness tinging the whole affair. A part of me absorbed it...felt sad because he is leaving, and after a year, I'd like to think I could call him a friend. But it was also the memory of all that I went through last year seeping from the corners of my mind. As the departure was unfolding, I could see little flashes of my own life layered over his. When he hugged me yesterday, and I wished him luck, I felt like I was talking to myself a little bit...a little bit letting go of that person I was then and wishing her luck as she tries to become the person she is now.

***
More and more lately, I've been feeling the quiet beginnings of the panic. The disrupted stomach. The irrational anxiety of anticipating "it." I went to the doctor last week who asked if I wanted to up my dosage. And I said no, I should try and do this. I should try and do this life thing without having to adjust my medication up and up and up. So I'm pushing through, pushing up the threshold of discomfort and willing myself to work through it, one deep breath at a time.

***
I turned 29 earlier this month. And while I flogged my coworkers for the lack of festivities surrounding my birthday, it was really me that caused the disappointment. It was really me who didn't celebrate myself. It was really me who let my birthday be a reminder of all the things I'm not, all the things I lack, instead of all the things I am and all the things I have. What an empty feeling to be consumed by absences on a day that should be spent building a totem of great memories and accomplishments.

***
My laptop has been a source of immense frustration of late. One of the hinges has cracked and the lid won't stay upright, falling instead into an almost horizontal position. On top of that, some part of Microsoft Office is malfunctioning, auto-launching, and utilizing 99% of my CPU capacity. And it's like, Really? Is everything in my life broken?

***
Yesterday, on the drive home, I felt restless. I shifted in the seat. I peered through the grubby windshield at the searing cerulean sky. I saw a few blue-black crows perched in the naked branches of a dying tree. It felt like someone might cue the classic Sergio Leone whistle in the background. It was a showdown between me and waiting. It's been so long on this precipice, me perched, angled forward, looking for what's next. And held back by the gravity of all that's happened. I'm waiting for something - something good and hopeful. Something that gives me an indication that there is a way out of this valley of the shadow of death and not just endless wandering.

***
We start looking at the weekends coming up through the end of the summer and the fall and planning out who has to do what when and where. I realize how scheduled we are with this and that family obligation - things I would normally look forward to, but now seem like just another outing that will perpetuate our togetherness. I could stay home, stay away, but even the thought of it starts the guilt to gnawing away at me. In my mind, coulds and shoulds and wants and needs get so tangled up that I don't know what to do. So I stay tied up in where I am right now, resenting all the hands on the other ends of the strings that are pulling me in every direction.

***
Despite my bravado, I realized the other day that there's almost no chance that I'll even be married before I'm 30. And that's okay. Really. It is. I know that. But sometimes - just sometimes - I want to let my guard down and say that's not how I imagined things.

***
Last week, I had a really, really super important client meeting with the client I landed awhile back. I thought everything went well. I was nervous leading up to it, felt pretty A-game in the midst of it, and relieved as soon as the meeting participants filed out the door. I headed from the office to have a beer with some friends. I missed a call from my boss while I was in the bar. I called him back to find that at least one of the participants was disappointed and felt like we didn't deliver. And that fragile euphoria came crashing down around me, and I felt 16 tons of disappointment fall upon my shoulders.

***
This weekend, I woke up early to go to the salon with Anna, and when I got back home, I said, "I have to take a nap." And it was true. I was bankrupt.

With every passing day, it seems there's emotional thievery going on. These unexpected strains slip in and steal little pieces of me. There are those things that I face everyday that I know I'm going to spend my time and energy and willpower on - some that I even choose to exert some emotional funds for. But these stealthy hands that swipe my reserves are tearing me down a piece at a time, leaving me penniless. I'm utterly broke, with nothing left to give and not even enough for myself.

One

One year ago today, I moved.

One year ago today, something horrifying broke inside me and every pain I felt about leaving came rushing out.

One year ago today, I looked out the window on the big tree outside for the last time.

One year ago, I paced across those wide-board wooden floors and locked the door.

One year ago, the echo of my footsteps in the hallway was loud and hollow.

One year ago, I sat in my car at the stoplight at Fourth and Grace.

One year ago, I looked in my rearview at the yellow stucko and the red tin roof and the black curls of wrought iron.

One year ago, I drove away.

One year ago, I said goodbye.

One year ago, I crossed the bridge.

One year ago. And sometimes, I can't help myself from looking back.

Cutting Loose

This weekend held two anomalies: one, I cut my hair, and two, I went to the bar - twice.

The first had to do with nearing a year away from Wilmywood (next Monday) and feeling like my long hair was strangely tied to the hardships of the last twelve months: Booker dying, the panic attacks, the second thoughts, the loneliness, Ronnie's death. About two weeks ago, I decided it was time to cut it. Time to let those inches go - and let the things associated with my longer locks go as well. So yesterday, I went to Corey and told him to cut it - really cut it - and that I trusted him to do what he thought best. The result: a fabulous, fabulous new style. And a slightly refreshed outlook on life. It's amazing what exposing your neck will do for you. Photos soon...

The second - bar trips two nights in a row - had to do with Justin being in town for his MBA class reunion. He and Eva told me I'd spent too many Friday nights watching "What Not to Wear" and that it was time to find something to wear and hit the town. So I did. I spent Friday and Saturday evening in the international company of Justin's friends from grad school: a Portuguese, a German, two Indians, an Israeli, and a couple of Americans for good measure.

And last night, standing in the bar between the German and the Portuguese and trying to explain the phrase "junk in the trunk" while bouncing a little to the bar music, sipping a Cosmo and rocking my new haircut, a night out turned into a step forward - a refreshed look, physically and mentally. A few moments that seemed normal in a hopelessly abnormal time in life. A sense of confidence about where I am and where I'm going, when it was easy to laugh and easy to walk down the street on the way back to the car, and feel that good in my own skin.

The New Theory of Relativity

Motion is defined by a point of reference.
There are two directions in which you can move - backward from the date of death or forward from it. All things are defined by this point - a nondescript Monday evening in February when the wind was cold and dry. Perhaps it was the wind that defined the motion, sweeping away all that came before and bringing in the chilling days that followed.

***

There is the other point, the great leap of faith from the shores of North Carolina back to the red clay hills of Georgia. The movement from that to this. The movement of time from there to here. The shift in self from the person I was then - so uncertain, so broken, so full of questions - to the person I am now, forged in flame and still standing.

Space and time are relative.
Distance from the point of reference is widened as the days pass. But relatively speaking, the space isn't making the passage of time any easier. As the chasm between then and now broadens, the pain shifts from the sharp, knife-twisting pain to the persistent weight of a leaden heart. And though the weeks roll past, the space of it from everyday life isn't easing. It is there, in your face, on your mind, demanding your attention every second of every day.

***

It's 385 miles from here to there. It's almost been 365 days since I left. The distance sometimes seems other worldly, and the time, another life entirely.

There is no motion greater than the speed of light in a vacuum.
In an instant - the flicker of light hitting the back of your retina, reflected piercingly through the lens - in the vacuum of a sterile white room, life passed. One breath emitted quietly, one last heartbeat against the cavity of a failing body. No motion greater than this - the final falling of the chest and life extinguished, all the light fleeing the world for a moment.

***
This motion swung swiftly through my world like an unmerciful pendulum severing all the lines of second thoughts and uncertainty. On the heels of the light leaving the room, all my questions followed. I stood certainly on polished eggshell white tiles, my hands seeking those of my brother, my father, my mother, my sister, my sister-in-law, and I said, "I am here."

Mass increases as velocity increases.
The faster you try to outrun this tragedy, the greater the weight of the shackles that bind you to it. You can try to escape, pushing one foot in front of the other, call it "going forward" or "moving on", but the truth is, the speed at which you move only heaps the heaviness of heartache upon you, bringing you slowly but surely to a full stop. The sadness alone will determine speed - however achingly slow it wishes to pass, it will do so, without regard to how heavy the burden is to carry.

***
I am running a hundred miles an hour against the wind trying to make sense of this world in which I find myself. And everything I try to outrun is just clinging to my back. Flying unfettered behind me are all sorts of ghosts - sometimes, the ghost of my apartment in the golden spring light; sometimes the job where I felt so sure and accepted; sometimes the friends who knew me soul-deep. And I imagine myself with exacted light steps that fall to the earth with the heaviness of all the filmy white memories streaming behind me.

Mass and energy are equivalent.
This heaviness finds its way into your bones, making them leaden. This heaviness steeps in your veins and dilutes energy. Every time you stand, you are assaulted by lethargy. Every time you think about your heart, you are exhausted. Every time you think of all of the life that has left your sister, you realize that there is nothing left with which to fight.

***
For so long, I fretted over whether I'd done the right thing and gone the right way. I carried the burden of my decision around in my pocket, pulling it out from time to time to reflect upon it. With feverish energy, I reviewed it from every possible angle until there was absolutely no stone left unturned - until there was a rote memory of what lay beneath each stone.

Time is dependent on the relative motion of the observer measuring the time.
Others are simpling measuring days on the calendar. Today is Tuesday. Next week there's a holiday. When can we schedule this meeting? And I see the days marked by days forward from it and days since it happened. And as everyone moves through life, heedless of what happened, I seem to have come to an abrupt standstill.

I'm not sure how to go about redefining the time. I'm not sure how to be a different kind of observer. I'm not sure when the day that Ronnie died will stop feeling like a nightmarish Maypole around which I keep twisting and twisting...

***
The days have ticked off the calendar with astounding speed - at the time, those days seemed to go by with impudent slowness. And yet, here it is, that time when I almost can't say "this time last year" anymore without including a geographical shift. And with that point of reference diminished, I know that there will be nothing left to observe other than the days trickling away from the very worst day of my life. And even as we move forward, it will be a long time before we can say anything is "good" or "happy" or "joyful" without the suffix, "relatively speaking."

Calendar Girls: The Posts of 2007

This year, 2007, was among the most turbulent, most emotional, most awful years of my life. Amidst the chaos and the despair, there were, of course, some bright shining moments of euphoria, like Dillon's grand entrance into the world - which changed everything about our lives. And on top of that, I decided to change virtually everything about my own life.

Looking back through the posts of '07, I realized just how much I've been through, and how much I've grown. And changed. And cried. And I figured the only way to review '07 was through the posts that said it best, brought to you by the calendar girls of the year.

Right now, I'm looking at 24 more hours in the year, and I'm not sorry to be closing the books on this one. I'll be holding my breath as the clock ticks toward midnight tomorrow that '08 will turn out to be a better year. Happy New Year, y'all.

January: A Very Happy Announcement



February: My Life the Democracy


March: Georgia on My Mind


April: Leaving: Part One



May: Taking the Long Way (or the Unplan Plan)



June: The Girl Who Lived


July: (Untitled)


August: Sister Mary Sunshine Gets Sucker Punched



September: Handle It


October: Shoreline
November: On Meeting People



December: Bones

The Tipping Point

Several people asked me over the weekend how long I had been back in Georgia. The first time, I looked to the left, calculating in some empty space above my head. "Almost seven months," I said. And then I said it again and again. Oh, wow, I thought, almost seven months.

After a few times, it occurred to me that this is a tipping point. No matter what, this year will be one in which I spent the majority of the year in Georgia. It can no longer be a North Carolina year. As though some proverbial scoring has been tallied, I realized that I'm mostly Georgian now and less of a Carolinian. And I'm not sure how I feel about this shift in the balance of things...this dive toward more of one and less of the other. It's an odd feeling, particularly because this time last year, I was announcing The Big Move to my family. And that alternately feels like yesterday and years ago. It was a tipping point then, to move forward with something I had been thinking about, and, now, it is that uncertain feeling of the slightest movement working in concert with gravity to pull me in another direction.

Moment of Acceptance

Right now, I am sitting alone in a hotel room with a king-sized bed on the sixth floor that overlooks the Savannah River. Right now, darkness is squeezing the last of the color down to the horizon so that the skyline is black as charcoal against the blush of pink. Right now, I am looking down at a river, flowing fast past old buildings, new buildings, boats docked at its edge. Right now, there is a bridge in the distance. Right now is a very odd reflection of my old life looking back at me. And fittingly enough, I am on the other side of the Savannah from the city...so it really is like looking at my old life across the Cape Fear from a different vantage point.

Earlier, I sat in a meeting where people said "we" a lot. And about halfway through, I realized that I'm included in that we. I am part of the we. I am a cog in this machine. I stand under their umbrella. And when they talk about the company as a family, they consider me part of that tree. At first, it was odd. And then someone said something funny, and I got it because, after three months, I finally sort of understand how we work. And I laughed and looked around me, and thought, Okay.

That's all...just...right now...okay.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Blessing and The Curse

My favorite choose your own adventure book was about searching the pyramids for treasure. At best, you ended up with the Pharaoh's riches; at worst, you ended up trapped in a dead-end tomb with no escape. But the best thing about ending up in that tomb with no escape was that you could simply go back to the beginning of the book, try harder not to lose your map and your flashlight, take the right tunnel instead of the left, and at least walk out unscathed. Over and over, you could choose until you found the right permutation of choices to achieve the best possible ending.

Perhaps it's this early love of revisionist choices that cripples me now. It's not so easy to go back to the beginning of the story and retool the choices to configure a better ending. There are professional, financial and personal implications for every "do-over." The threads of life get all tangled up during the criss crossing.

And yet, today, I was reminded on more than one occasion that choose your own adventure is still possible. The implications are there, yes. But if I shift my focus away from the details of what will happen, I realize that I can go back - or go forward - and find the right ending. I realized that I'm in the incredibly lucky position to have a supporting cast of characters at the ready, whichever way I choose. So that even if I end up in the dead-end tomb, there will be people who love me, who support me, who will have a flashlight handy to lead us out of the dark. And now that I know the ending, the curse of trying to determine how we'll get there.

On Meeting People

I am starting to recognize a basic difference in the people I encounter as I go about creating some semblance of a life here. First, there are the Nice People. Nice People make up a great deal of the population surrounding you. Sort of like that old Seasame Street song - "These are the people in your neighborhood." You may encounter them daily - or just once. You can have a polite conversation with them. They may ask what you do, and you may feign interest in what they do. You may give them the basic vital statistics of your life (age, education, family, interests) and they will return the favor (marital status, children, pets, coffee drinker or not). Among these vital statistics, you may find commonalities. But they don't matter, because the Nice People will always be merely Nice People.

I went to lunch last week with one of the Nice People, which reminded me of the other part of the population. The small, rarefied part of the population that must be searched out, mined and cultivated. These are the Connection People. These are the people with whom the cross reference of vital statistics has no bearing. The commonalities are inconsequential. These people, the Connection People, are the people who make you feel alive when they talk about walking their dog. The Connection People create sparks and energy. They surge forward from the neutral beige of the Nice People with vivid, audacious color. Like magnets, you attract. You connect, lock together. Human Legos. (And no, I don't know those people, but I loved the photo so much I had to share - especially since it says "Cheetah '98" in the lower right corner - but I digress...).

Awash in a sea of Nice People, I am trying to sift through the sand and find those precious Connection People. In fits and starts, there are glimmers of Connection. But I need more. Not to mention that it makes me a bit sad to know that to most of the people I've met, I'm just another one of the Nice People, too.

Handle It

handle: (noun, slang) a name by which a thing is known, described or explained; nickname
Let's call it indigestion, ulcer, acid reflux, "nervous stomach", under the weather, PMS, too much ice cream. An episode. An inconvenience. (Try to laugh about it later.)

handle: (verb) to manage, direct, train or control
Take double-shots of Alka Seltzer, Pepcid AC, Zantac. Crunch Tums like candy. Turn to exercise -- copious amounts of exercise. Lose ten pounds. Go to bed early.

handle: (noun) that which may be grasped as to understand another thing; a key
Examine the symptoms closely. From under the rubble, you may hear a whisper, a single hieroglyph to unlock the Rosetta Stone.

handle: (noun) a part of a thing made specifically to be grasped
It is slippery smooth and shapeless, and just when you think you can grab hold, your fingers close around a wisp of smoke. In your determination to excavate it, you may find that it is not a thing to be found.

handle: (verb) to deal or trade in
I handle broken thoughts, waiting, overanalysis, fragility.

handle: (noun) the total amount wagered in an event
Absolutely everything. I gambled it all to be here.

handle: (verb) to behave or perform in a particular way when operated
Under the circumstances, in the grand leap from one place to the next, I find that I don't handle well at zero gravity. Sputtering and shaky, I'm unreliable at best.

handle: (verb) to touch, pick up or carry
I handle loneliness.

fly off the handle: (idiom) to become very agitated without adequate warning or reason
Cracked.

handle: (verb) to manage, deal with or be responsible for; cope
Begin the search for equilibrium - set out on the quest for an even keel. Map out a way to peace of mind, shepherding thoughts to greener pastures beside quiet waters. I ask kindly, "Restore my soul." And, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, please, please comfort me.

The Georgia Identity

The reason I didn't start work this week is because a) I'm not insane and b) I am still an illegal alien in the state of Georgia. The time has come at long last for me to surrender my NC self and convert back to a true Georgian.

First step, the DL. Getting a driver's license in any state under any conditions is generally a pain. But this time around, it was downright humiliating. I had to provide proof of residence - you know, bank statement (not converted to GA yet), utility bill (not in my name), canceled rent check (nonexistent), or proof of employment (sighs...aha). So I was forced to email the HR director at my new job to request a letter of employment since I'm living with my parents and have no other proof of residence. Yes, I had to make it overtly clear to my new employer that I live at home. The experience itself was rather painless - even though I went to the DMV armed with the iPod, Northanger Abbey and a notebook for thoughts and observations during what I estimated would be an interminable wait. They called my number before I could even get the forms filled out.

I have to say that it was with some sadness and definite reluctance that I surrendered my NC driver's license to the examiner. That license is like a badge of honor, and I have a particularly fond memory of the day I got it (even though the NC examiner called me a cyclops because of my terrible vision in one eye). [An aside to the great state of Georgia - please improve your camera equipment. My license photo looks like it was taken with a bad camera phone in a bar. And the composition. It's not flattering to any lady to have a photo that cuts right across the middle of her bustline. But I digress.] Plus, the state requires me to send my plate back, too. The injustice!

As I trade in my planes for peaches, I can't shake the feeling that I'm surrendering a little bit too much. And perhaps it's horrible to admit, but I suddenly feel Just Like Everybody Else. Like somehow, having gone outside the bounds of Georgia qualified me as Being Different. It's like some sort of superhero who gives up her powers for the good of mankind and agrees to live like a mere mortal among them. I had taken the road less traveled and then I backtracked all that way to the most benign, most familiar of lanes. At least now, it's legal for me to drive on them.

Working Girl

After several hints and allegations here on the blog, I'm going to come right out and say it: I got a job. Somewhere among the six interviews and the 90-minute writing test, I impressed someone enough to make me an offer. Plus, I was wearing a shirt that, according to Eva, said, "Give me a job and then take me disco dancing."

I know I glossed over that writing test part until now. I confess, I lived in absolute fear that I would suffer the greatest humiliation of my life in holding an MFA and failing a potential employer's writing test. Although, I'll tell you kids, it wasn't anything to thumb your nose at. My disco shirt was wringing with sweat at the end of 90 minutes.

But I was offered The Job, I accepted The Job, and I start The Job on Monday. I'm still a little vague on what The Job is. And whether I can do it. But I prefer not to dwell on those things for now. For now, let's merely celebrate that I don't have to write any more heinous cover letters.

Leaving: Part Six - Love Letter to a Ghost Town

Dearest Wilmywood:
I fought you for so many years, unable to see the ways that you were slowly, inextricably becoming a part of me. Your landscape was my landscape - your streets mapped out in my brain, your buildings in my mind's eye, your river and ocean made my boundaries. I know your steepled skyline, your cobbled streets, your ancient trees and your columned houses. And while I was fighting to let go, I found so much to hold on to that now you haunt me.

And flashing over the bridge, I saw the familiar riverfront and I met my ghosts. There was the ghost of my life past, an eerie shadow of all that belonged to me that no longer does. An apartment I no longer have a key for in a house that still seems like mine. And the office that I sat in has two desks and someone who started the day after I left. Three have joined the company and another is leaving, such that in just a few months time, the cracks have shifted and filled and the place that I was is gone.

On your streets, I saw strangers and tourists and realized that I am a stranger to you now. This is the ghost of my present life, a subtle shift in things that reminds me that change has come. New buildings, construction along familiar streets, a sudden moment driving when I couldn't remember where to go. I've left and you've gone on. You're a different city, and I am a different person, and we simply can't be what we once were.

All of this made all too real by a phone call on the way to see you in which I accepted a new start. And here we meet the ghost of my future life, the hollow-eyed face of the unknown. Even as I was there with you, I was thinking about it - this life in another place that I'm headed towards. This ghost is the most frightening, for it tells me that, to go with it, I must let go of more of what I'm holding.

And, Wilmywood, I must tell you, I don't want to let go. I want to hold on to you and Grace Street and the river and the places that I know. I want to make friends with the ghost of the past, change the ghost of the present and turn my back on the ghost of the future. But we both know I can't do that. We both know it was time for me to go.

But it doesn't mean that I don't miss you. That I don't know now that I loved you. That I didn't cry when I drove away from you, on the street I know so well, past the buildings that marked my existence. And even as I leave, it's all printed in my mind. I'm going now, taking hold of that future, but we'll always have what we shared. And, if we're honest, I think we both know, you'll still be a part of me.

Love,
Ashley

Leaving: Part Five - A Room of One's Own

One of the things I've missed most about being home is my space. Granted, there's no place like home, and in home, I've been reunited with the room I grew up in. I spent many an hour there feeling like it was the one place in the world that was really mine. It's undergone several incarnations, from the Holly Hobbie wallpaper to the sunflower explosion of the 90s to its more recent makeover to nice neutral tones. But upon my return, I've found it hard to fit back into it - quite literally, between the tiny bed and the tiny dimensions, I can't physically live there comfortably. Currently, my possessions are exploding from overnight bags and boxes and littering every room in the house - and especially the floor of my tiny room, which now has only sparse patches of carpet showing so that you can step carefully through the rubble.

Crammed into my parents' house, I'm like a jack-in-the-box, stuffed without grace into a tight space and ready to spring at any moment if only I get wound up enough. As the days and weeks have rolled past, it's been impossible not to long for my house on Grace Street. Sometimes at night or in a passing moment, I'll recall my favorite details about the old apartment - the wide-board wooden floors and the places where the edges were cracking and splintering; the design on the black tin cover on the fireplace; the eerie circles of light cast upward by the living room chandelier that came from New Orleans; the thick grey plaster walls that held stains from hurricanes and air conditioner leaks; and of course, the giant many-paned windows that stretched up the walls and filtered in the sunlight, the moonlight and the view of my tree.

But there's something beyond the love of the old house itself in my longing for it. There is the point of it being a place that was mine - searched for and discovered totally on my own. And I belonged there. And I had solitude there. Though the solitude may have been too much at times and sometimes I looked forward to breaking away from it, there's a bit of me that wishes for a long stretch of quiet evening with sole possession of the remote control or the stereo or just silence if that is what I wished. Then there is the need for all my things: ready access to all my books (even if just to take them out and open their covers and flip idly through the pages without ever reading them); all of my CDs including Ray LaMontagne, Scarlett's Walk, Under the Iron Sea, and the whole John Mayer catalog which are somewhere in the storage bin; my photographs and teacups and the print of The Pink House that I love so much. Without the trappings of me, I feel a little strung out, unable to feel like much is really mine.

Just having turned 28, I think that I should be expanding out into the world. Instead, I feel like I'm shrinking, back-peddling into a former self that can fit into this house. While on some levels, it's been wonderful to reconnect with my parents and share their roof again, there are moments that I feel absolutely monstrous, like I'm going to Hulk-out and lose my mind. After so many years of relying on and only having to answer to me, myself and I, constant companionship can be stifling. Perhaps that's why I'm up past midnight most nights, relishing the quiet and the stillness. When, if I just close my eyes, I can pretend that when I open them, there will be the soft mellow glow of the downtown streetlights through the window casting shadows along the walls, all the way up to the cavernous ceiling while silence fills a space that is mine. All mine.

The Girl Who Lived

"You can't help but wish that maybe you aren't really all Muggle -- non-magic folk -- but have some bit of wizard blood in your veins that would allow you the chance to visit Hogwarts....and so I've had my nose pressed into the pages of the first four books--rather lengthy, they all are. I've been obsessed with Harry, because in Harry's world, there is no graduate school. A fire-breathing dragon or a life-ending curse, but nothing as bad as moving to the next state."
-- Journal dated August 8, 2001, three weeks before relocating to N.C.

I've just finished rereading Goblet of Fire for the I-don't-know-how-many-times, and I can't help but think of the first time I read Harry Potter. It was six years ago to the summer that Niki convinced me that I had to read Socerer's Stone. I remember reading that first chapter with Dumbledore and the Put-Outer and the flying motorcycle and thinking, "What is this?" I don't recall exactly the point at which I got hooked, but once I was hooked, I was all the way hooked.

It was a tough summer. I'd just graduated from college, and on my graduation day, I had no plans. No job. No apartment. I was waiting to hear from UNC Wilmywood to see if a spot had come open in its MFA program. And on top of that, I decided not to get a job that summer, owing to the fact that Mom needed my help since Anna and Justin decided to get married less than 30 days apart. Did I mention that my boyfriend at the time was in D.C. doing an internship?

Everything was changing, my whole world upended and the future totally uncertain. I was lonely and worried. And I was suffering the fate of the youngest child, which is that everyone else goes on to the next stage of life without you. I suddenly felt like the classic which-one-of-these-doesn't-belong?

But in the midst of it all, I found Harry Potter, who was suffering a bit himself in a world so far removed from my own that I could almost forget what was going on here. I was insatiable; I carried the books with me everywhere. Car trips, waiting rooms, dress fittings, hotel rooms. At 2 in the morning, I sat in the recliner in the den deep into the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire, and was more than a little spooked by the dark yard outside the sliding glass door. Upon finishing, it took me a bit to calm down enough to brave walking past the big glass door and go to bed. I may have finished the book, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. But it was okay that the next book wasn't around yet - it was time for me to go to North Carolina.

It was two years after that when Order of the Phoenix hit the stands, and I made myself nearly sick and hysterical reading that giant tome for such a stretch. And the death in that one hit me particularly hard, and I was inconsolable for days. Two years after that came Half-Blood Prince, whose release caused an absolute temper-tantrum when it wasn't delivered as expected. But that was nothing compared to the quivering mass I was after the outcome of the book.

And now it's coming down to the wire. Less than 25 days before all will be revealed in Deathly Hallows, Potter's last stop. I'm on schedule to plow through OOTP and HBP before the big day gets here. Today, I read an article with a massive spoiler, a possibility that I hadn't considered, and it was the first time during all my conjecturing that it really hit me that, whatever the outcome, this is it. Whatever's on those final pages, whether it's Harry's death or happily-ever-after or a mysterious sentence ending in "scar," it's the end of the story and we'll all have to live with whatever ending Rowling penned.

I can't help but recognize that there are eerie parallels between reading those first pages of Sorcer's Stone and now anticipating Deathly Hallows: the waiting, the need to escape reality, this strange station between one chapter of life and the next (a Platform 9 3/4 time in life, if you will). There are similar trappings - temporarily living at home, my stuff scattered everywhere, and me not really belonging anywhere. And more than once in the last couple of weeks, I've thrown up my hands at the job search and buried myself in Potterdom just like I did way back when, only then I was trying to avoid registering for classes and folding wedding programs.

Me and Harry have been through a lot together. (Like the development of my slightly unhealthy obsession. ) The intervening years have been as much an adventure for me as him. And whether or not he lives or dies, his adventure is coming to an end. But me? I'll get to be the girl who lived. For me, there will be another chapter.

Out There (or The Waiting Place)

As I've run into old friends and acquaintances (or their parents) and I relay the circumstances of this place in my life, I hear the following: "Don't you worry. (Fill in the blank) is out there for you. Just you wait and see."

And it's one of those things that people dash off, a ready-made phrase selected as easily as a cliche, a proverb, a line of Shakespeare. It's just what you say in these conversations. I'm not ungrateful for it. It is said in such a manner as to suggest that people aren't worried for me, that, in their minds, the future holds good things for me. It is a sort of glimmer of hope when they say these things and reminds me that this place isn't forever.

As for this place, I'm torn between two schools of thought about it. One stems from this kind of remark - this place is not forever and there is a next station on this train ride of life, and when I get there, I will laugh about my panic/insecurity/overt worrying. It is the thought that emphasizes that this is temporary, to be endured and to test patience. It is the place between here and there - a life layover. And like all layovers, I simply must make the best of it.

And the other school of thought comes from another place that tells me to be patient and enjoy. For me, it's swimming-upstream, beat against the current, a thought against the status quo to stop trying to "get past" this time and accept it. This voice is very, very quiet, because I'm not much given over to things like relaxing into a life without structure, without habits and plans and knowing.

Along with this school of thought comes the question, is there a reason I'm stuck here for longer than I anticipated? Maybe "out there" is just not out there yet, and so I'm here waiting for it to fall cosmically in line. And beyond that, maybe while I'm here, I'm not supposed to see the time as wasted on waiting. Instead of ticking off the time like so much sand through the hourglass, maybe I'm actually supposed to be doing something with this time - learning those things I need to know from Mom, like how to cook eggplant. Or maybe it's time to pick up with my writing. Or photography. Or something...something besides adding up the hours and days and weeks like a bean counter.

And so it's a fight to the death between these two schools of thought, hovering around me like the proverbial devil and angel. But in this case, it's more like a fight between Ferris Bueller and Cameron. And, like in most situations, I think the key is balance - pursuing the job search with a reasonable amount of intensity but not letting myself forget that I exist right now. Carpe diem.

Drought

Since I've been here, we haven't had a rainy day. Most of the state is suffering from extreme drought conditions. Still, humid afternoons that parch the grass, burning it away bit by bit to strew lawns with dirt patches (despite some people's attempts to surreptitiously water it against the enforced watering bans). The heat shimmers up from the pavement in such waves that it gives the illusion of water trickling down. The water is receding from the muddy banks of the river, the topmost levels now drying and cracking.

Without storm clouds rolling in along the line of a weather front, the sky seems eerily unchanging. A cruel almost metallic blue stretching from horizon to horizon with barely a wisp of white, reflecting sunlight with unbearable clarity. The air doesn't move but settles around you wherever you linger too long like a cloak. The ground is hot and arid, and everywhere you look, you can see the red clay Georgia is famous for pushing through the green or rising up in rusty clouds.

Tomorrow's the first day of summer, and with it will come heat so oppressive, it will steal your breath the moment you walk out the door. It's the kind of weather that brings on lethargy, a sting of heat so intense that it stifles energy. It presses you down, keeps you in. Smothers the euphoria that comes from ozone-rich air, dewy grass, cool darkness. It's the kind of weather made for waiting. It's weather for the unmoving and unchanging. For a time in life that seems to be standing still and timeless. For stretching out under the unforgiving sun in its blazing blue sky, feeling it burn red against your eyelids, feeling its heat fill your lungs, feeling it set fire to every pore on your body and wondering if it will ever rain.