A racing mind…

I am doing something I never do.  I am sitting in a bar.  OK, I retract the first statement.  I am often in a bar…just working.  Tonight, I am a patron enjoying the ambiance of an establishment that so reminds me of home.  This bar even serves Rogue…how fitting.  I assure you, this evening is spent sober and coherent.  I needed to get out, so out I went.  Here I am, sitting alone at a bar.  I have not been this bizarrely happy in a long time.  Oregon, I miss you and this is the best I can do until I am home to you again.

Life has taken a strange turn lately.  I think I am in the midst of a slight identity crisis.  As I re-read what I have posted recently, I believe this to be ever so apparent, it just didn’t dawn on me until now.  Be warned – this could be strange tonight.  Even more so that this is not my standard writing element.  I have grown accustomed to writing hidden between the silenced, four walls of my bedroom, not a dark hookah bar, curled up on the corner of a maroon velvet sofa, with Pearl Jam’s first album sounding through the speakers.  For the record, I’m wearing flannel.  This feels oh so politically correct.

I mentioned not too long ago what a divine feeling it was to be surrounded by friends again, and no longer feeling as though I am a prisoner inside of my own head.  Introducing the first part of the identity crisis: since moving here, I didn’t quite realize just the extent at which I can feel alone.  This is still strange.  Though friends are present now (and ever so thankful for them I am), I still feel as though I am lost in my own thoughts a bit.  The ever wandering words, stories, the book, poems, it is all compounding into noise and I am struggling right now.  I am fighting to turn this all off and the only solace I have had from being too emo (yes, emo) has been the comfort of others.  Where once alcohol had been salvation, it is now the company of a good friend to quiet my sensitivity to life.  There, I finally said it.

A few years ago, I was working for a website.  The building our office was in also was the home of an art gallery and local artist.  The artist and I became close friends and she even displayed some of my photography in the gallery.  One day we were chatting about love, what it meant to us, and if we could really define it.  She asked me if I would describe myself as sensitive and my knee-jerk reaction was a quick no.  If anything, a vehement no.  She then gave me this all-knowing look of understanding and handed me a book.  It was a self-help book for the overly sensitive.  For years, I have carried that book around, almost in denial of admitting that I am sensitive.  I have put on a tough face and created my version of Berlin.  Wall down:  I am sensitive.  I still haven’t read the book.  It is in a box, burning a slight hole in it I fear, but I fear more that I would read it and only find myself tucked away between sentences and words of the sensitive person, that same person in love, carrying a heart that almost feels as though it is going to explode, and replacing tears with words.  Here she is, sensitive and afraid that this is the beginning of a quarter-life crisis.

I’m sure tomorrow I will have pulled myself out of this funk a bit.  I am thankful for much right now.  If anything, I am thankful for my anonymity the most at this moment in my life, as I can hide on the corner of a sofa, in this strange, beautiful bar that reminds me so much of the organic beauty that is home, and write the words that I have kept so hidden from myself even.  I am still not the girl to cry, I just feel a bit too much.

I certainly haven’t been shopping for any new shoes
And I certainly haven’t been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot and by foot it’s a slow climb
But I’m good at being uncomfortable so I can’t stop changing all the time

I noticed that my opponent is always on the go
And won’t go slow so as not to focus and I notice
He’ll hitch a ride with any guide as long as they go fast from whence he came
But he’s no good at being uncomfortable so he can’t stop staying exactly the
same

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it I’m an extraordinary machine

I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay
I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way
And say I’ve been getting along for long before you came into the play

I am the baby of the family
It happens so everybody cares
And wears the sheeps clothes while they chaperone
Curious you’re looking down your nose at me while you appease
Courteous to try and help but let me set your mind at ease

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it I’m an extraordinary machine

Do I so worry you
You need to hurry to my side, it’s very kind
But it’s to no avail
I don’t want the veil or flowers
I promise you everything will be just fine

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it I’m an extraordinary machine

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean

Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine

Not just…

The weekend is finally over and my version of a weekend is about to begin.  I must say, I am delighted.  While still mildly recovering from whatever stomach bug decided to plague my holiday weekend, it has been rough.  I am beyond ready for two days away from the bar, Bloody Mary’s (I have not cut myself this weekend so I assure you I mean the drink, not my ever so awkwardly bloody knuckles), and all things vodka, shaken, and garnished.  Just my luck, my mother is going to throw a holiday party this Christmas and of course, I will be in charge of drinks.  What joy!

I had a rather in depth conversation today with a customer about my recovery process.  This customer has come in on a rather consistent basis over the course of my employment and he was interested to hear today when I told him that I don’t drink.  He was boggled that I am able to bartend and in all reality, be covered in alcohol yet still summon the will to not consume.  My friend, it is simple: those that cannot do, teach.  Those that cannot drink, serve.  I cannot omit a slight side note of honesty in that truly, I enjoy bartending.  I really need to finish my book and get on with it…

My book has hit a slight standstill over that past week.  As I struggle to write and work at the same time, I wonder when I am ever going to finish this monstrosity that has so distressed the once calm corners of my mind.  I feel as though I am in a race against time to finish it, almost in fear that if I don’t get it all out now, I am going to lose the very pieces that so quietly made up the story.  Honestly, I ask myself daily what on Earth I was thinking to even start it in the first place.

But back to bartending I go until she is done.  In the same conversation earlier, I mentioned my book to my customer.  He was intrigued by what little information I gave him of the story and I may have thrown him a bit of a curve when I initially told him of my novel intentions.  What he said next was interesting:  “I chalked you up to being just a bartender.  Thank you for proving me wrong.”  Pressing goal: finish book, get book published, quit bartending, don’t be ‘just a bartender’.  Oh age, while you are but a number, you are a daunting figure.

Where is the light?

As I had initially created this blog as a source to chronicle my move east, I know I have taken a bit of a departure from that stance.  Though this departure has been truly the mundane aspects of life and hilarity surrounding such, I found tonight that this move is treading on areas that I have not addressed since life in Oregon.  Better yet, even life before Portland.  Yes, these past few months have been a whirlwind.

I tend to draw inspiration from general voyeuristic participation.  As I embark on friendships here, and maintain those I left behind, I trace thoughts out of these relationships and bring them to page here.  It is again with this inspiration that I am here tonight.  My friends, my constant muse, are yet again pressing on the forefront of my creative lobe.  I almost feel it necessary to thank them in reminding me that I am not alone in this fight.  What fight, you ask?  We’ll get there shortly…

In moving, better yet in leaving, there is a weight that is brought on, and a strange weight this is.  The at first encompassing solitude was almost suffocating, but as I came out of my shell and allowed others to create a presence in my days, I found my thoughts to be dwindling.  Not in a bad sense, but almost in the sense that out of this solitude, I had been drowning in my own thoughts and words that I could hardly function.  Spend a week alone, without anyone else around, and you too can know this feeling.  Bizarre.  Strange.  Almost refreshing at times though.  As thoughts turned into conversation, and as conversation turned into emotion, it then turns an even stranger page.  Oh dating…here we come.

As the glory college days are now over and adulthood is on the horizon, this dating scene takes an even stranger and often uncomfortable turn.  In college there in an understanding, this unspoken knowing almost that there are games and rules that must be applied.  I was well versed in this area and without avoiding the obvious that none of these relationships turned out successful, I know how this is supposed to work.  I am apart of something now though that is bringing me right back to these strange days.

A year ago, life was approaching a very different direction than it is now.  I look to my left now and see the wedding dress, so ironically hanging on the door of my closet, as though it is just there to remind me of what could have been (it is being moved to a box in the garage…it is usually buried out of sight).  I still feel as though a weight has been lifted in never having worn this dress other than the two times to try it on.  Even the left hand, that once carried the heaviness of symbolism, has more of a breeze to it.  When though, is it finally time to say I’m ready for something new?

I have heard this a few times over the past few weeks and as I don’t know if I’m ready yet continues to echo through my ears, I wonder if there is ever such a clear, definitive moment that absolutely states such.  How do you know when your body is ready for the company of arms again?  How do you allow yourself to feel and move near something that has been such a stranger?  When is it time to say yes, I have packaged away the skeletons and ghosts of lives past and have effectively moved on?  There is something so ineffective about that.  I wish there was a light that could turn on just to make clear of the precise moment.  I am waiting for that light…maybe it’s on…

With this transition, and clear upbringing of what I would have at one point described as useless, unnecessary questions, I am finding a strange level of simplicity in the confusion.  I know what has come out of this turmoil.  I have myself again, probably more so than I ever did before.  But when though is it time to bring a someone else into the world that you have created for yourself?

“Venture too far for love…and you renounce citizenship in the country you’ve made for yourself.” – Michael Cunningham

An ending of sorts…

I would love to tell you that the nausea and overall feeling of illness has subsided, but that would be a lie.  I have not worked all weekend, have been fighting off this bug of sorts, and I am still circling somewhere between wanting to jump off a bridge and curl under my blankets and hide.  The only relief I have had from all of this has been when I am asleep.  Needless to say, I have caught up on a years worth of missed sleep in the past four days.

In between my communions with the god of porcelain, I have found some time to write.  As my friends have all returned ‘home’ from Thanksgiving, I can now settle back into my routine that is not so much dripping in solitude.  I have missed them.  These friends, these wonderful people, have become my muse, and it was a struggle to write without their presence over the holiday.

The book is making progress.  Albeit still pulling out my hair a bit, I have drifted off into my peaceful land of writing where I am entirely encapsulated in words, story, and at times, overwhelming emotion.  This is a beautiful process.  Painful, but beautiful none the less.

I took time off when I first moved here from the book.  I think I really needed to adjust to new spaces, sounds, people, and the general change of life.  As I gave you all words of my thoughts surrounding the move here, I knew I was not in the accurate frame of mind to write a story.  I was so lost in the present and almost shell-shocked if you will, that I could not wander back into the novel land to tie up even a loose end on my story board.  It was certainly a challenge, but I feel I am returning to my roots.

As I am sure I am not the only person to remark on this, but I have been writing this story in almost backwards sense.  I have the beginning, the middle, and the epilogue covered, but not the true ending.  Yes, I have what happens after the end, just not the end.  In my mind, this makes sense…but I don’t know how to end her.  It’s like I am almost scared to write the last words knowing that it will all be over and my love, she will be done; that the story that has been overriding my thoughts for close to two years will be at an end.  Where will I go from there?  Yes, I could get into the technical side of publishing and editing, but needless to say, the creative aspect that has been my blood will no longer be harnessed.  I imagine it will be something like an empty nest.

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Emily Dickinson

Thanksgiving, round two…

I  could give you all words of my past week, but alas, I will maintain with the present…well, the past two days.  In brief, I tried to write, but I could not.  I have spent the past week working on my book and as my mind has been flooded with words, almost in overwhelming sense, I could not bring them to page other than that of my book.  Great progress on the novel front.  Horrid progress on the blog front.  I’m back.  I have missed this.

As Thanksgiving has now passed and the holiday season is officially upon us, I am reminded of the dear old stance of tradition.  This was the first year in six years that my mother and I have spent Thanksgiving together in her house and we certainly held true to our bizarre sense of traditions.  We Burger Women, we do holidays a bit differently.  Our traditions have always been a bit off, but are endearing none the less.  I always break something on Thanksgiving, usually when unloading the dishwasher.  This year, my mother was reminded of this and I was given strict orders to stay out of the kitchen.  That was not a problem at all.  She and I always get into a fight and instead of the annual Thanksgiving blow-out, we decided to start the fight early this year and fought the day before.  It slightly carried over into the day but once our friends arrived, we put all feelings aside and had a lovely day.  Strange traditions they are, but they are ours none the less.  It was great to be home.

Something new happened this holiday though and I would have been very happy to live without this feeling from now on.  I must warn you, this could be very graphic and for that, I apologize.

I was scheduled to work yesterday morning at 8AM.  My alarm started going off around 6:15 and as I turned to reach the snooze button, my stomach turned and suddenly I was flooded with nausea and sweat.  I rolled around until I could get comfortable again and the feeling subsided.  Well, temporarily.  Within five minutes the feeling had come back in full force and a strange metallic taste entered my mouth.  Shit, here it comes…

Thanksgiving dinner is not so pretty when it comes back up.  I spent twenty minutes crumpled on my bathroom floor, sweating and vomiting until I could no longer think.  I managed to get my act together long enough to head down to work to set everything up before I was forced to come back home.  I have never called in sick to this job before and I felt horrible, but I knew there was no way to bartend and be as sick as I was at the same time.  I drank a glass of water on my way home and within thirty minutes of being home, the water came right back up.  My poor mother and I could not determine what had made me sick as I ate nothing that usually upsets my stomach (dairy, yes, I am one of them).  Our first thought was food poisoning and as she made calls to the other ten people that had joined us for dinner, it became clear that I was the only one sick.  Great.  Leave it to me to get violently ill the day after Thanksgiving.

I spent all day on the sofa rotating somewhere between vomit, wanting to stick my head in the oven, and hot flashes.  By the evening, I was finally able to keep a bowl of cereal down but needless to say, I wanted to curl up in a ball and die.  I don’t remember pneumonia being this bad.  I was miserable.

I still don’t feel 100% today.  I haven’t thrown up, but have not had a meal yet either.  Fluids have stayed down thankfully.  I never thought my day of thanks would be followed by a day of vomit.  I think next year will be the beginning of a new tradition.  To be honest, I don’t know if I will ever eat a Thanksgiving meal again.

Welcome back, friends!  Happy Holidays!

A novel idea…

I am going to do something today that I have put off for the past few months.  Well, ‘put off’ may not be the appropriate choice of wording there, but needless to say, I have avoided doing this for quite some time.  Maybe it was the emotion involved, the process in and of itself, or simply opening the Word files…I don’t know.  My friends, I am going back to my book today.

I have shared very little of my book and I will maintain that stance.  As many writers are aware, it is not the safest bet to share your book until completion, and I know how just one small change in environment can shift the course of action for the writing process.  And I thought solitude was tricky business…

What I have learned so far from writing as much as I have is that this is a painful process.  As I have taken a fall back into my lonely road that is solitude, it is a perfect air for writing though.  Thankfully, I am beyond the drawing board and can press on and tell the story I began writing two years ago.  Yes, two years.  It is exhausting.  It is painful.  To have to remove myself from the present and dive back into old emotions, places, times – another life for that matter – brings a wave back of positively bizarre feelings.   Solitude is necessary in this process.  Maybe anti-depressants should be next on the list…I kid, I kid.

My book has sat in its file moderately untouched since I moved here.  I say moderately as I have made a few pages of progress, but I feel they are not the pages I should have worked on.  They were the ‘easy’ pages to write.  If I wanted to write short stories for the rest of my life, I could have books and books of that information by now.  I don’t though, and now I need to press on through the ‘hard’ pages, where the bulk of the story is told.  Somewhere behind the emotions, simplicity of words, and story, there will be a writer that was simultaneously crying and pulling out her hair in sheer frustration.  And as I am not the only writer to say this, please let a legitimate publishing house find this, please publish me, please like my words.

So today, I am going to neglect all better aspects of business (A, the house is clean), Skordo is going in to be groomed, and I will be left with an empty house, offensive amount of coffee, and three computers, simultaneously writing a story that has brought me this far.  I can only hope that when it is all done, it was worth it.  When in doubt, I will be very awake.

where are we?
what the hell is going on?
the dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
sinking feeling

spin me round again
and rub my eyes,
this can’t be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
all those years
they were here first

oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines (oh, you won’t catch me around here)
blood and tears (hearts)
they were here first

Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmm that you only meant well?
well of course you did
Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmmm that it’s all for the best?
of course it is
Mmmm whatcha say?
Mmmm that it’s just what we need
you decided this
whatcha say?
Mmmm what did she say?

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
speak no feeling no I don’t believe you
you don’t care a bit,
you don’t care a bit

(hide and seek)
ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs

Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek

Hidden behind boredom…

I am going to venture back to my old stomping ground tonight of solitude.  Yes, a tricky business it is, and I was reminded of that today.  As my house is empty this week, I found myself slightly sequestered.  I did nothing.  I was bored.  I am still bored.  I did my hair for sheer entertainment purposes today, and those that know me can attest to the fact that I do not wear make up or do my hair on my days off.  Boredom, you are my nemesis.

As I made meager attempts to surround myself with entertainment, I found myself listening to the same song over and over again.  I crept momentarily into a peaceful land where I could be lost in my own thoughts.  I attempted to gather them at one point for you all but was led back to the daemon that is writer’s block.  Not to say this is much of an improvement, but at least the words are traveling from head to screen.

Caught in my imaginary land today, I tried to gather an image of what could present itself as perfection.  I wavered on the fence over a few issues and could not quite determine what it was I wanted.  Oh yes, the indecisive side has not left these Oregon bones yet.  I am still pondering what it is that I am searching to find, wherever that peace may be.  Whether it is in a partner (which I have proven to have horrible luck in that department…a further blog, one that does not even involve the irrevocable heartbreak, get excited), a career, or a life by the water, I am still mustering up whatever conviction it is that will drive me there.  I am strangely torn at the moment over what I want.

When I first moved here, I had a vision of life in Key West.  As that plan has clearly shifted, I now have to determine where to go from here.  I have made progress in areas that needed to be addressed and as my heart is no longer shattered beyond all recognition, I feel I can press forward now on a brighter note and truly begin the renewal process.  That strange feeling that had washed over me last week is beginning to feel comfortable, I just need to figure out what to do with it.

I am undecided about the next chapter.  Where do I go from here?  Do I stay?  Should I stay?  What is it that makes me definitively happy?  I can make small lists for both but cannot come to any true conclusion.  I guess time will be the best course of action in this scenario but I have never had the greatest strength for patience.  I must say though, it is nice to feel present again, however bored I may be.

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something – you don’t know what – has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone’s Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren’t supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now:
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Free from armor…

I have a tendency to do this.  I will overlook the pieces of me that were once so vital, only to be hypnotized by the brief appearance of something else.  I am easily distracted.  This may come as no surprise, but alas, it is true.  Unfortunately, these distractions can have tragic endings.

When once I had come here with such high expectations, I was quickly encapsulated by a presence that made life easy to forget.  I was able to blindly fumble through my days, carrying only what I needed to survive, and rush with such speed into this great unknown, fighting with what I could to forget what I had left behind.  It did not take long though.  What I left behind finally caught up with me and I had to face it all head on.

As a new week begins, and thankfully my wretched last one is ending, I am preparing to go head on into a new battle.  This one though with a steady hand of caution.  I am bracing to build a life here, finally, and one that is wholly of that – present.  It’s about time, as it is now four months of life post Oregon.  I know this to be long overdue, but as my A.D.D. seemed to get the best of me for the first four months, I won’t let it this time.

It was easy to forget when I first got here.  Though always a constant presence, Oregon was still there, holding onto me.  Through whatever means necessary, I still found myself holding safe for hope that maybe she would be in my near future.  As I continued to move throughout my days, carrying my broken heart like trophy of distorted sorts, I was unable to truly see the beauty that was around me and certainly couldn’t appreciate it.  Life, I am grabbing hold.

Something happened last week that blew me out of the water.  As quickly as I was blindsided, I seemed to fend off this blow with a strength I thought I had misplaced somewhere in the vast Oregon wilderness.  I realized that I never lost it, I had just somehow forgotten how to properly use it.  No longer do I feel as though I am wearing my broken heart like a suit of armor, for it is gone now.  There is a strange feeling beginning to wash over, and as I had tried to keep myself as close to home as I could be, I am bidding a long overdue farewell to her.  It took four months to the day but I can finally say, I’m done.  I believe I once stated that most people come here to die, where as I came here to learn how to live again.  It’s just as simple as that, only I forgot how to feel alive.  To Florida: it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.  I live here now.

Safe for memory…

I know that this feeling will soon evaporate and all I will be left with will be the hollow feeling I have grown so accustomed to.  Right now though, the only feeling to rush through my veins is that of absolute anger.  I was blindsided today.  This happens to me most often at my own doing.  On this occasion though, it was not my decision or even action that could have even prevented this.  Well, I’m sure I could have prevented this, and we will get there.

I let him back in, simple as that.  I could have stopped and said no, but I went on with chance and made a grave error in judgment.  What once had been a life shattered by heartbreak, was again beginning to feel some semblance of whole.  Slowly, we were coming back to something.  I don’t know if that something was simply friendship or even just the standard norm of communication, but here he was again in my life.  And the first interaction, or the many that followed, was not at my instigation.

Two weeks ago, his name appeared.  It was the first moment of blindsiding that would eventually lead to today.  It would begin so irrelevant, just small talk.  Quickly though, it would move into the entirety of truth that I would have to say to him “Yes, you’re right.  I’m not over you yet.”

I’ve been to this place so many times
Down roads and rows of dreams in my mind
I’m walking through the trees, in the orchard

Still I see it, when I close my eyes
When sleep’s about to come after a restless night
I go there in my dreams, back to the orchard

The seasons of my life, I watched them pass
The blossoms of spring fall, leaving only winter’s naked branch
I remember you and me, in the orchard

As easily I could say those words, they are gone, along with the presence of him.  For what I believe – and almost hope – to be the last time, this is done.  No more.  I cannot stomach anymore dangling hope of what may have been hiding behind his words, maneuvering, and thoughts.  I cannot live this way in such deep questioning.  I asked the last and final question to him today and with his response, I cannot fathom a life with his presence in it anymore.  Where once I had held him and his memory on such a pedestal, I can now reduce it to the distance of him, carrying him at such a weight where he no longer belongs.  To be honest, I don’t know if this, all of this – the move, the feelings, the words I wrote with such force of memory to his name – was ever worth it.

At one point in conversation the word closure was used.  I was quick to respond to him that I don’t think I will ever get the closure I so desire from him; that he knows me well enough to know that I never wanted that.  I had just wanted him.

Maybe at some point over the past two weeks, Berlin fell.  Maybe I am mistaken by all of this.  Maybe I was quick to find hope in all of this, as at one point he had left me with such.  Maybe my days were dripping with memory of the better sides of him and I was quick to forget that Berlin, the worst part of him, existed.  I have a feeling though, that this was exactly what I needed to finally bid farewell to the great wall that so divided us from each other and let him go.

Taken in context
It’s not a bad thing
But when you start to pick it apart
It gets so depressing
It’s that sort of thing
That makes you think too much
It’s that sort of thing
That makes you lose your objectivity

So, if you made it
Just be glad that you did and stay there
If you ever feel loved or needed
Remember that you’re one of the lucky ones
And if it’s over
Just remember what I told you
It was bound to happen
So, just keep moving on
There’s no perfect endings

You peel back the layers
And get down to the inside
But sometimes you lose sight
Of what it was you were trying to find
And it’s that sort of thing
That makes you think too much
It’s that sort of thing
That makes you lose your objectivity

So, if you made it
Just be glad that you did and stay there
If you ever feel loved or needed
Remember that you’re one of the lucky ones
And if it’s over
Just remember what I told you
It was bound to happen
So, just keep moving on
There’s no perfect endings
No perfect endings

Straylight Run – No Perfect Ending

Somewhere in Arizona…

The idea for this post comes from a very dear friend of mine.  Since we met, it has been an ongoing understanding that we are soul mates – each others’ better half.  Our bond over the past few years has only grown deeper and distance has not even tampered that.  As we are both now away from our once so familiar streets, beloved Oregon rain, she is amidst Arizona desert sun and I am somewhere between palm trees and the South Florida waters, we still know each other in such a perfect light.

She recently posted on her blog in detail of the evening we first met.  I was interested to read how she interpreted that first interaction.  While our memories of it are similar, I couldn’t tell you what I was wearing and she remembers this.  I remember her gray hoodie (very much so a trademark for both of us…I believe that same hoodie she was wearing that night was shared between us for the next year).  I remember her blond hair positively glowing in the street lights that lined the Benton County Courthouse that was across the street from our decrepit apartment building.  She was lugging a huge black leather purse, which I would later come to find as comfort and always full of a wide variety of lip gloss.  Her cell phone never worked properly.  It still doesn’t.    Getting to the point…

I am going to take you past that night though.  Past the moment when I later ran into her at my favorite watering hole, which was ever so conveniently across the street from our apartment (very alcoholic maneuver on my behalf…less driving/easier access).  She and I exchanged phone numbers and in my drunken stupor, I typed her name into my phone in some strange code that by some grace, I remembered in the morning to be her.

That following morning, I awoke to the sun beating through my blinds.  It was February and sun in Oregon is never anticipated at such an early month.  My hangover was beginning to crawl over my skin and I threw the blankets over my head, willing it to disappear.  I was hungry.  It was 9am.  I was lonely, hung over, possibly still drunk, in dire need of greasy food, and was in no way willing to drive to Safeway (though it was only four blocks from our building).  I reached for my cell phone to raid the list of text messages, incoming and outgoing from the night before.  None were offensive or anything shame worthy.  Mission accomplished, none the less.  I then notice an oddly spelled name that resembled  my neighbors but I couldn’t be certain.  Screw it, I thought, and I called it.  Sure enough, she too was awake and in the same condition as I.  We both gathered ourselves, sweatshirts, over-sized handbags (very common for both of us), sunglasses to ward off the offensive glare of this strange bright ball in the sky, and off we went on a mission to Safeway.  Our grocery list read that of the standard recovery food, and I remember drinking an entire gallon of Sunny D while we sat and watched Friends DVDs in my tiny studio apartment, as I did not have cable.  From that day on, there was an understanding that we made sense to each other.

Over the course of that year, we would share apartment keys, trade apartments, complain about crazy neighbors, cry over boys (yes boys, not men yet), have our fair share of trying moments.  She would hold my hand as I stumbled home from the bar, barely able to walk myself up the five steps leading into our building.  We would break into our building after I lost my keys.  We would light off fireworks behind the police department on the Fourth of July, all the while taking shots of very cheap grape vodka in broad daylight.  She is one of the few friends to stand the test of my sobriety and stay by me.  She is my better half – the one that understands the importance of plaid flannel, leggings, and knee-high leather boots, even in 80 degree heat.  The person that always knew how a lyric could shift the momentum of the day and that songs, notes, and sounds were always the driving factor behind both of our veins.  And now we are separated by a long list of states, miles, and what seem to be never-ending freeways, yet we continue on and everyday remind each other that though the loneliness is often palpable, there is understanding and knowing somewhere in Arizona.

Well I made my way back down to the valley
Right on past 83rd street
That’s where we once belonged
But I’m gone
I swear I’m long gone

So give it up, throw your hats in the air
And change is as you ladies say
“We’ll get out of here”
Something tells me that you’re too scared to go

So the stairs that you could climb
Are the ones you’ve left behind
And your eyes light up when we talk about the past
God, I miss those songs we used to sing
Talking like getting away would be the greatest thing
Well me, I got out,
And you, you kept singing to me
Like that’s really going to set this free

So give it up, throw your hats in the air
And change just as they land
You’re saying, “We’ll get out of here”
Something tells me that you’re too scared to go

Like a ghost
You’ve been haunting all these dusty old roads and old homes
The ones we swore we’d never go, oh oh

The Format – Give It Up

Three years ago in our old 525 building...