The bus that leads up to my house is via Pear Street. This is a spire-inspired world, the streets are small and winding, the colors muted by an alway-sleeping sun. I don't know where to begin, but I am full of exhaustion, the coffee is disappointingly cool, weak as the milky blend I drank as a child. Even when the sky is clear, it feels moist and cold, I am waiting for the clouds to weep.
I miss New York, of course and everyone, but my missing is mediated by how tired I feel, by the quiet, by my curiosity incredibly awakened, with bright, bulging eyes. I have yet to explore the streets of Oxford, only my own, across the way from a school, and one small alleyway that I could not bear to pass.
My room is huge and bright with large, wall height windows that face out onto the front of the house. In the back is a large "garden" (yard) with groomed christmas trees (ahhh the Christmas trees, they follow me everywhere). It feels like a mix between Telluride, a 70s studio and a hotel.
There is so much to say--of the small trains in London, climbable toy trains for me; of pence and getting caught without a ticket exiting the train (which I had bought and promptly lost); of red-wine receptions with ambassadors; cobble-stone streets that I had expected and then entertained; the un-doubtable skies; the disappointment of rose tea (blech); pubs costumed as lodges; roasted lamb and peach pudding; the confirmed knowledge that I would love Notting Hill.
I have never felt so old, so alone and so able in my entire life.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Perusing
What if I got it wrong?
And no poem or song..
Could put right what I got wrong
-Coldplay
One more week until I cross the Atlantic, and the city seems so precious to me. I hate last moments, last walks, last looks, gurgled goodbyes. Everything feels alive, however, the Hungarian café awakening a small smile when the warm iced tea touches my lips, the lacquer on my nails peeled to the bone, the streets littered with flowers and fat cigarette butts, striped in white and gold. Our street flags, perhaps, our New York Look.
In the stores, I am surrounded by slippery, small wonders, things looking out at me with all empty eyes. My insides ache for another time, a walk backwards to the place, the path where Megan and Kim and I licked rainbow ices and centered on stoops. Perhaps it was Megan’s presence, her known bright eyes, the threesome suddenly reunited in a more volatile, violent time. The world seemed softer, then, and I hugged her tight to my chest.
At home, I am surrounded by the blankest of memories…my mind wanders forward fawning streams, blue boats afloat and aflutter on rivers raw with youth. My mind wanders backward to the places where the photos once lay, their tape pulled down by my own, desperate fingers, my frequented failure to follow through.
Inside, I am less elevated, I am wholly in the present, so much more than I have been for a long time. I know I have lost and then lost again. I am not becoming at all immune to the familiar ache, the pull at my heart but I am becoming more realistic, and more whole. I am sorry, still, I am not separate inside; however, I am standing tall, taught, learned. There are so many tomorrows to revel in, so many more smiles to be had. There is so much more to the world than this. Over coffee with Amy, dainty plates with Emma, chortled laughter with my parents...I am dancing, delighted, dangling outside of the present remorse.
England falls in my lap at the ideal time, a precious walk to another moment. I tell myself it is an event, a promise, a purse of life’s lips, a gift in time. (not a wrinkle in time in the least, rather an acceptable escape route).
Now I know. I know I am bold, in certain ways, but not in all the ways I had hoped for. I sprung forward, singing my slight tune...I was tickled by it all but the romance shattered and I shunned by the shadows I hid from for far too long. Now I know what my mother has gone through. Now I know I hate only abandon.
Maybe it is the Corona. Maybe it is the moonlight. I am tired, less tense, here tripping into a world I never thought I would know. What if I was wrong? What if I was wrong again? This is a moment of so much to say but all certainty stifled. And I am alright, not dancing, but slightly delighted (at a possible resilience? at my same pink pajamas and ponytail? at the (guilty) relief?). I am perusing my past and my present...and it is through these shy glances that I can recreate my expectations. I promise no more games or grown-up gossip; I promise to go only for the grasp of my gut. That is where the answers lie, really--not in advice or aching, not in the head or the heart. The gut, the belly, my favorite round of life.
And no poem or song..
Could put right what I got wrong
-Coldplay
One more week until I cross the Atlantic, and the city seems so precious to me. I hate last moments, last walks, last looks, gurgled goodbyes. Everything feels alive, however, the Hungarian café awakening a small smile when the warm iced tea touches my lips, the lacquer on my nails peeled to the bone, the streets littered with flowers and fat cigarette butts, striped in white and gold. Our street flags, perhaps, our New York Look.
In the stores, I am surrounded by slippery, small wonders, things looking out at me with all empty eyes. My insides ache for another time, a walk backwards to the place, the path where Megan and Kim and I licked rainbow ices and centered on stoops. Perhaps it was Megan’s presence, her known bright eyes, the threesome suddenly reunited in a more volatile, violent time. The world seemed softer, then, and I hugged her tight to my chest.
At home, I am surrounded by the blankest of memories…my mind wanders forward fawning streams, blue boats afloat and aflutter on rivers raw with youth. My mind wanders backward to the places where the photos once lay, their tape pulled down by my own, desperate fingers, my frequented failure to follow through.
Inside, I am less elevated, I am wholly in the present, so much more than I have been for a long time. I know I have lost and then lost again. I am not becoming at all immune to the familiar ache, the pull at my heart but I am becoming more realistic, and more whole. I am sorry, still, I am not separate inside; however, I am standing tall, taught, learned. There are so many tomorrows to revel in, so many more smiles to be had. There is so much more to the world than this. Over coffee with Amy, dainty plates with Emma, chortled laughter with my parents...I am dancing, delighted, dangling outside of the present remorse.
England falls in my lap at the ideal time, a precious walk to another moment. I tell myself it is an event, a promise, a purse of life’s lips, a gift in time. (not a wrinkle in time in the least, rather an acceptable escape route).
Now I know. I know I am bold, in certain ways, but not in all the ways I had hoped for. I sprung forward, singing my slight tune...I was tickled by it all but the romance shattered and I shunned by the shadows I hid from for far too long. Now I know what my mother has gone through. Now I know I hate only abandon.
Maybe it is the Corona. Maybe it is the moonlight. I am tired, less tense, here tripping into a world I never thought I would know. What if I was wrong? What if I was wrong again? This is a moment of so much to say but all certainty stifled. And I am alright, not dancing, but slightly delighted (at a possible resilience? at my same pink pajamas and ponytail? at the (guilty) relief?). I am perusing my past and my present...and it is through these shy glances that I can recreate my expectations. I promise no more games or grown-up gossip; I promise to go only for the grasp of my gut. That is where the answers lie, really--not in advice or aching, not in the head or the heart. The gut, the belly, my favorite round of life.
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