1. Medication. 2. Petrichor: the aroma of damp earth, the promise of sun. 3. Dogs. Big boofers, li'l snappers, tiny puppers who mewl like kittens; ankle-biters, police heroes, arm-wrigglers, lap-hoggers. All of them. 4. Gabby's laugh (especially when she snorts). 5. Books. All the passages I have committed to memory--"all is well, and all is well, and all shall be well"--all the characters I strive to emulate, all the millions of pages I still have to read and experience for the first time. The knowledge that I'll never read them all; the decision to try anyway. 6. Fire. Candle flame. 7. Too-hot, too-long baths. Emerging wrinkled and victorious, like an elderly mermaid. 8. Harry Potter World. Memories of stepping into Hogsmeade for the first time and crying, and Cori going dead silent before finally telling me to calm down. 9. Smiling at people who pass me on the sidewalk. 10. Not smiling at people who tell me to smile. 11. Playing peek-a-boo with staring babies on the train. 12. The pull of the full moon. 14. Therapy. 15. Screaming into the void on social media. Being comfortable with the echoes. Smiling when someone shouts back. 16. Playing video games badly. Stressing Rob and Kara and Jordan out when we’d sit on the futon and play that one Mario game, in which I would inevitably push everyone off an iceberg. Being begrudgingly forgiven. 17. My mom’s hugs. The smell of her lotion. The shade of blue she’ll always wear (it matches her eyes). 18. Searing loneliness. The heat of it, like embarrassment, like fear. Recognizing it as the opportunity to take my own hand. 19. The music of good prose. 20. Music. 21. Vinegary red wines, saccharine whites. 22. Blowing bubbles, and chasing them. 23. Vivid lipsticks in unnatural hues. Wearing them, staring at them. 24. Crying so hard that I think I’ll never stop. Stopping. 25. Rachael coming over and scooping my laundry into the machine when I haven’t been able to for weeks. 26. The spa clients who come in every week. Making them laugh. 27. Making anyone laugh. 28. Making people laugh when I’ve never even seen them smile. 29. Dreaming. Creating memories of events that never really happened. 30. My high school friends posting sporadically to our private Facebook group. Their successes that I’m able to view on my computer screen. 31. Sweating glasses of iced chai tea lattes. 32. Craning my head back to marvel at the buildings stretching towards infinity. 33. Standing on stage and thinking that I’ll never be this happy, this pure, ever again. 34. Being that happy, that pure, in the next show, and the next. 35. Rage. Embracing anger that makes my heart stutter and my hands shake. Unleashing it into action that helps instead of hurts. 36. My dad figuring out how to FaceTime; his wide-eyed grin when his face flickers into view. 37. Netflix. 38. Screaming at the ceiling when I can’t force myself into movement. 39. The ocean. The thrum of the tide in my blood. Imagining sailing under a full moon until I fall asleep. 40. Shimmery signs of God, or the Universe, or something beyond us all. The sometimes reluctant quest to determine what it means to me. 41. Perfume. Warm and spicy scents that linger at the wrist. Glass bottles on my shelf refracting light. 42. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 43. My cat stretching her paws in her sleep. 44. The people who choose to love me over and over and over again. The friends and family I see regularly, and those who I carry in my heart until we meet again. 45. Seeing my grandpas in my sleep. Asking them to stay with me a little longer. 46. Swinging at the park. Throwing my head back, kicking the sky, the rush of adrenaline and comfort and fear. 47. Creating things. Using my hands and my words and my voice and my heart. 48. Grief. Keeping it locked in the basement; every now and then, feeding it worms. 49. The uncertainty of the future. Letting fear and curiosity mingle. Resolving to stick around to watch what unfolds. 50. Knowing that everything is temporary. Cupping life in my hands like water until it slips between my fingers. And then the rain fills them once again.
4 Comments
Rudy Gonzalez
6/14/2017 05:55:46 pm
❤ nerd herd love
Reply
Tom mohrbach
6/14/2017 06:37:28 pm
Good stuff. Keep on keeping on
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Livy
6/15/2017 04:21:16 am
I love all of these!! Love reading this blog and seeing how you're doing!
Reply
Mary
6/15/2017 07:28:55 am
Very, very good! Your heart was definitely in this.❤️
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