*In the tall quiet room in the Bushuis where we met once a week to talk about our Hopes Fears Dreams and Goals with Letje who remains my guru. Amsterdam is a short city so four floors up with vast windows feels so high, looking out over other roofs.
It was March or something and we were probably wearing coats and scarves, still, but Marc, with his quiet laugh, said that he had spent the weekend sitting on his balcony. The girls are starting to wear their sundresses, he said. I had three customary fourth floor perches, in Amsterdam : the Bushuis, where I bared my soul, and the OBA, where I sat looking out over the harbor and parsed through my freakouts, and my apartment and its floor to ceiling windows, where I did not spend any time when Lindsay was home but when she wasn't, fried potatoes and stared out at the other brand new glass-sided buildings.
*Two years ago today walking through the crisp golden translucent globe of fall Buffalo with Liz to find french toast stuffed with Greek yogurt and stumbling on a surprise patch of radiant roses, still blooming. Waking up at 7 to talk to Alia 12 hours behind/ahead in China where she was quietly saving my busted porcelain insides, "I'm not like you - I can't just go out and do things," she said, and also, "If you feel like you're shutting down, you just call me and I'll fix it, ok?"
I was getting ready to leave for a self-discovery journey around America and the Continent in five days, and on that journey I dressed as "metal" for Halloween, felt awkward in a terrible haircut, felt enveloped with old friends and my girl cousins with the same voice as me in the green and drizzle of the Pacific Northwest and had the seed of my living here planted, had the best car ride of my life spilling everything across Ireland Dublin to Cork, was scared and confident everywhere, ran out of money, ate only chorizo and baguettes for days on end, created what is still my favorite soup, fell in love with a person and a country, and sat in parks and beaches and walked all day and night simply staring at beautiful people and things and muttering "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you," nursing the broken self that would explode supernova when I returned home to eight hours of light a day and a deep sense of worthlessness. I ran out of money and spent a lot of time cooking for other people.
*Seven years old wandering between rooms of my parents' house in the afternoon sunlight, the only warm time of day. Dust streaming through the windows, hands running over the silver dials of the receiver, the leaves of the jade plant, the lid of the Hungary water on the dresser. Mirror to mirror.
Today I spent the day wandering through Goodwills with Mark, looking for a toaster oven and a good spatula and a couch if we were lucky. We struck out but found sheets of mylar free chocolate samples Vietnamese sandwiches an excellent heavy-bottomed frying pan and an assortment of nifty mugs. I also bought brown sweats with which to create my woolly mammoth costume and two more walkmen. It was possibly the most beautiful day of fall there has been, and although there is so much to do and I have done so little of it, I don't have too much doubt it will get done in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment