Once

I'm still a little jumpy when I hear an odd little noise on the other side of the room or think I see a shadow on the wall somewhere.  I always expect to see a giant roach running by or a mouse scurrying along the edge of the room.  It's still strange to lie in bed and not hear the scratching and running of mice behind the wood paneling that's no longer next to my head.  Change was in the air.  I had been saying it for nearly a year but I still wasn't prepared for what happened.  I wished for it on a hundred stars and still wasn't ready when it happened. 

I had a best friend once.  The greatest best friend ever for 20 years or so.  From piggyback rides through the halls of high school and late night mischief all over town to college and back.  By the time we were adults and back in our hometown we'd meet weekly for late night coffee sometimes talking until the sun was coming up. 

I'm not sure how long it's been.  He's married now.  So am I.  He always did get sucked into relationships, not calling or hanging out for months at a time.  Months have turned into years.  3, maybe 4 by now.  I'm pretty sure he's lost forever, with the others.

Change and I don't get along very well.  We never really have.  I prefer Time to Change.  It's easier for me to work with.  Plus, I can lie about Time.  I certainly cannot ignore Change.  Though I can close my eyes and ears and pretend for a few short minutes that everything is still the same.  That does as much good as lying about Time.

There's a kid here.  A fiery compact package of everything a singer-songwriter should be.  Every time I see him I'm taken back to Rhawnhurst on a January day 2008ish.  We played hooky and sat in the old man bar on Verree Road all afternoon.  Joe sat between us covering his toothless mouth while he told all his best stories.  "There's not enough time.  All you can do is love."  We walked out of the bar around 4 pm to the city streets carpeted with a lightly falling cinnamon snow. 

I wonder if tomorrow's snow will smell of cinnamon.

Tonight I spent some time with an old mutual friend.  It's been a while since I've heard some of her stories and they warmed my insides.  It's exactly what I needed to recenter my Self.  Hopefully it's exactly what I needed to climb into bed and sleep soundly.

11 28 13

Whoever designed this room (and whoever ok'ed the design) is an ass.  No human being can sleep in a room with curtains that don't close.  The light coming in is ungodly even at 3am in the least sunny city in the continental US.  I say this as somewhere in the next zip code, on the other side of this king size bed, my husband is peacefully sleeping.  By 4 am I was groggy enough to close my eyes again and the heating unit decided to make the sound of a passing freight train every time it kicked on.  No human being could possibly sleep with all that racket.

My husband stretches in his sleep, groans slightly and curls back up.

It is Thanksgiving 2013.  My grandmother is in from Greece for the first time in 2.5 years, I am freshly married, jobless, and in quite a pickle.  I'm sure by this time next week, things will be better. 

Pickles are only good when you can eat them.

5 am, my head is beginning to ache and my mouth is dry.  Although I'd love some conscious company, it would do no good for both of us to be awake right now.  My husband.  My husband of 12 days.  "How does it feel?" "Does it feel different now that you're married?"  Really?  It's supposed to feel different?  Did these married and previously married people feel any different when they got hitched?  Is it supposed to feel different?  The only thing that's different is now I have stopped asking him if he's sure.  Of course he's sure, and now we are stuck with each other.  I feel the same way I did 13 days ago and 3 months ago and 5 years ago.  The world is still the same.  Nothing has changed.  I wish certain things had changed, like my ability to get some sleep even when not in a soundless, lightless room.

There are members of my family that apparently are quite upset at the way I decided to handle my wedding day.  Apparently, the "my" in that sentence should be spelled "their."  I understand its that they just want to celebrate with me but there really is no compassion on their part that our ideas of celebrating this particular event are completely different. 

My day was absolutely perfect and wonderful.  Would I have enjoyed having more of our friends and family there with us?  Of course.  But we would not have been able to do it the way we did had there been more people.  It would have been an organizational nightmare not to mention an expensive day which would have, in turn, made the whole thing not perfect, not fun, not remotely something I'd look back on and smile about.  In the end, we pleased ourselves and isn't that what matters?  It was our day and it was perfect and I don’t regret a minute of it.  Nor will I apologize to anyone for it even though it breaks my heart that some people I love with all my heart are upset by it. 

I’m beyond exhausted now.  This is the first truly sleepless night I’ve had in months.  Well, there were a few all night phone calls back in February but that’s different.  It was nights like this back in Port Richmond I would surf the web and watch hulu until I drifted off.  Nights like this in Fishtown I would make 4am pancakes.  Nights like this in NY I would go to the roof and look out over Manhattan making up stories about what people were doing there at that moment.  Tonight I’m marveling in the sheer size of this bed and the fact that people can indeed sleep with light and sound and a blogging out-of-sorts woman next to them.  It’s all fair, there have been many nights where this was the other way around.  So it goes.

He has grabbed the sheets and covered himself which means he has about 2.5 hours worth of sleep left in him.  Perhaps it’s time I attempt sleep again.  Perhaps this time it will work. 

Sleep well.  Happy Thanksgiving.

beach living

It's that perfect time of year when we can open the sliding glass doors to the ocean and enjoy our morning coffee without sweating our asses off in the southeastern North Carolina heat and humidity.  I've been back to hot showers for the passed week though I have not had to turn on my electric blanket yet.  In fact, I feel the electric blanket days may be over.  May be.  It also occurs to me that I've slept in the same bed every night for 84 consecutive nights.  That hasn't happened since spring of 1994.

The ocean is rough today.  White caps as far as the eye can see and waves breaking  25 feet out pulling white foam all the way up to the shore line.  There is a crispness to the air though not bitter like up north.  It feels like fall but it's not painful.  My bones aren't beginning to chatter as they have for the past 13 years.  I want to bake apple pies and pumpkin tarts.  I miss my daily 3pm Dunkin Donuts pumpkin coffee on my way to the music school most of all.

I love autumn.  The way the smells hang in the air just a little better than any other time of year.  There's something wonderful about the smell of a food truck scrapple egg and cheese on a kaiser or a cheesesteak with fried onions.  The smell the passed few weekends on the boardwalk reminds me of my Oxford Ave rooftop.  I am sad to know Britts is now closed for the season and I sense a depression to living on the beach in winter creeping in.  Now I'm looking forward to my move into the city.

Almost every night this week I've been able to sit outside and play and listen to music.  This is a town of musicians.  The sheer numbers of them seem to match that of Nashville.  Everyone plays and/or sings.  Everyone.  The Nashville players are all monsters and the ones who are any less don't stay in town very long.  Around here, most of them are great players.  Some of them not so much.  But the love of playing is unequalled.  People here play simply because they love it. 

Friday night's stop was the first Irish pub I've been to since moving.  Although I find, like many other things down here, the term "Irish pub" is used loosely.  Still, they had Guinness on tap and it was the most Irish pub-by place I've been since Philadelphia.  I sat on the back deck they called a Beer Garden and listened to a conglomeration of local players and drank my Guinness out of an embossed pint glass.  My thoughts drifted to the set of glass Guinness tankards packed away up north.  And not so much the mugs themselves but the best friend who is packed away with them.  The term best friend is not used loosely here though it is a term of the past that tonight makes me mutter "sonuvabitch" under my breath. 

You really would have liked this.



"My life is very exciting now.  Nostalgia for what?  It's like climbing a staircase.  I'm on top of the staircase, I look behind and see the steps.  That's where I was.  We're here right now.  Tomorrow, we'll be someplace else.  So why nostalgia?"  ~Jeanne Moreau

519 Miles

I've been awake for over an hour now.  Since the first rays of sparkling sunlight started coming through the windows.  This is the last morning I will wake up in my bed in my own apartment.  I'm ok with that right now.  There's a beautiful cool breeze coming through the open windows, birds chirping, and the pre-rush hour hum of the traffic on I95.  I'm in love with these sheer golden curtains that I got years ago for my Fishtown Guinness themed kitchen and my giant aloe plant that now enjoys the sill that I've spent so many mornings sitting on with my coffee.  The apartment is beautiful today and I already feel twinges of missing it.

I hear him breathing, still sleeping, in the other room.  His feet are the only thing I can see when I turn and look in.  His feet.  Generic male feet peeking out from the futon.  They could belong to anybody but they don't.  They belong to the man I will marry.  I never thought I would utter those words.  I am shocked and awed. 

In about an hour the day, and this weekend, will start rolling and it won't stop until Monday evening when I arrive in my new home, in North Carolina.

"I hope you know what you're doing."

Yeah, me too.

Truth is, I have no idea what I'm doing but it feels right.  That's something right?  I'm happy.  I feel good about everything that has come my way these past few months.  Life threw a curve ball and I was ready for it.

It's time for contacts and a shower.  Target opens in 45 minutes.  I need packing tape and I need to finish packing.  48 hours until we pack the car and leave Philadelphia!

***

It's a good thing my mother sent my electric blanket and crocheted shawl this week, it's been a cooler than normal July after a wetter than normal June and I've been bundled up.  Wore jeans, a tee, and my hoodie tonight to the gig.... late July in North Carolina and I'm screaming "freezation!" to which he looks at me and laughs and shakes his head. 

It's now been a month since I left Philadelphia.  I've given up on my hair.  My once semi-tamed waist length perfectly spiraling curls have been replaced by a mid-length suffocating poof of curls that behaves as well as the 11 yr old son of a tourist at the condo's pool.  Or as my wonderful other said this morning, "It's not that bad." I flipped upside-down to shake it out of the bun and he followed with, "Well, before you woke it up it wasn't too bad.  .....still.... it's not quite homeless girl, 42nd Street-Port Authority."  Ahaha, well, this is how it's going to be with this southern coast humidity.

My big hair and I are famous here.  I sit at bars, in restaurants, alone, and strangers walk up to me, sit next to me, or put their arms around me and give me a hug and say, "Its so nice to meet you!  I'm ____.  I've heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already!"  I feel welcome.  I don't feel like a stranger.  I don't quite belong but I'm comfortable.

I have yet to see one of those spectacular sunrises over the ocean.  Every morning I wake up after the sun is high in the sky and the tourists are already flocking to the water.  The salt air is thick and I get to admire the ocean quietly through the sliding glass doors to my third floor balcony.  My car is now coated in a sticky layer of sea salt and sand, the windows completely hazed over and rust bubbles have started popping up on the hood.  Still, nothing beats the constant sound of the waves or the salty air and the sand between my toes.  And bless the brown pelicans!  I adore those beautifully ugly birds.

Northbound

My heart was pounding so loud I couldn't hear anything else and I couldn't breath.  I had to keep driving.  There were things I needed to take care of and I had put them off as long as I could.

Things Philadelphia has taught me: "one way" signs are suggestions so look both ways before crossing that one way street, traffic lights are optional especially when making a left off of Broad St, and sidewalks and center turn lanes can both be used as travel lanes or parking spots depending on what you need them to be. 

2553 miles to Barstow, CA

But I am not headed west.  I am going north.

I knew this would be happening for the past year.  It was just the details that I was unsure of.  Now everything is falling into place.

By the time I saw the "Leaving Cape Fear River Basin" sign I had a headache.  My heart didn't calm down until Goldsboro, NC.  Tori sang me songs of betrayal that I could no longer relate to but her songs of adventure sat nicely in the passenger seat.  Fear sat quietly in the backseat not making a sound.

Signs kept teasing me to turn around and head back.  Showing me all the roads that could take me to the place I started.  I fought the urge.  North.  About 6 hours to go.

I made it to the NC/VA border, to Roanoke Rapids, before I had to stop for gas and snacks.  By that point my breathing was normal and my insides were numb.  I can do this.  I was about to pull the rug out from underneath a whole lot of people who mean the world to me.  I couldn't find a care anywhere in me.  Even the love I had felt earlier that day and for weeks prior couldn't be found in that moment.  I gnawed on some turkey jerky and washed it down with Lipton Green Iced Tea.  I felt absolutely nothing.  Key back in the ignition, cranked the engine, and allowed autopilot to steer.  She went north.  It required no thought, no backlash, no explanation.

By the time I hit Richmond my backseat friend had moved from the passenger side to the center.  I could see the tips of his sticky-upy hairs in my rear view.  I ignored him and wished he would put his seatbelt on and leave me be.  He leaned over the center console and a wicked little grin lit up his face and I felt his hand brush my shoulder.  The rocks in my stomach moved around a bit and everything that had been falling into place sprayed up in the air and filled my car with dread.  North was suddenly the only direction to go.  I hit the gas.

Philadelphia healed me over the years.  It brought me home, taught me what home was, not a geographic location but a frame of mind.  It showed me who my true friends are and what the "job" of a friend is.  I learned the difference between freedom and indifference.  Love had become my best friend over the past 13 years though I still struggle with forgiveness.

Highland, MD couldn't come fast enough.  I stopped at the Twist 'n Turn and met up with a friend.  Just an hour and then I'd hit the road again.  Just one beer..... and some fries.... and 2 more beers.  Three hours later we headed back to his house, he opened the garage to his multiple bike projects carefully explained each.  I nodded and smiled pretending to understand.  For a moment I was whisked back to New Years Eve in that same garage staring at the same dismantled Harley.  It was colder then.  Much colder.

I hopped back in my car and reached into my glove box for the Monster I had stored in there over a week ago.  The first few vile sips stung my tongue with super sweet and poked me into post too-far-from-home gig mode.  130 miles to go nearly 12 hours after I left the house this afternoon.  Luckily, this is a drive I've made many times, several with very little to no sleep.  Philadelphia loomed ahead. 

By 3 am I cozied into my bed.  Alone.  Exhausted.  No longer numb or anxiety ridden and once again ready to take on the task at hand.

Whiskey kisses and cupcakes

It seems I can't escape the bitter chill in the air but I'm ok with that right now.  I've got the sliding door open a few inches so I can hear the waves and the chatter of those filthy gulls.  I'm at the beach.  I'm in North Carolina with some strange large research ship or something running up and down the coast doing who knows what and for the first time in days, I'm alone.  I'm actually doing the laundry too, go figure!

Seeing palm trees makes me feel silly being wrapped in this old ugly floral beach house quilt.  Sand, waves.... I keep forgetting it's only late March and the sun isn't quite ready for me although I am very ready for it.  But there's nothing to complain about.... I sat in a hot sun spot yesterday morning with my coffee and the door open wide watching the waves while my friends and family 500 miles north dug themselves out of the snow.  I hope that was the last snow of the season.  I may cry otherwise.

So is this where I intend to live?  I think yes.  I think the words of Fondly, Martha have come true.  Perhaps I'm not putting enough weight on decisions of this size.  Maybe I just assume that since I was looking for a change, this must be the right one for me.  Maybe it just feels so right that I have no reason to question it.  There's just something about this 3rd floor condo overlooking the ocean that feels like the right next step.  Not to mention its a 3rd floor condo with a balcony overlooking the ocean.

My return to Philly is only 5 days away and my resignation from the job I've loved for 13 years is close behind.  For real this time.  There will be no hanging on to a few days mid-week and commuting.  This isn't NYC.  This is much too far for that kind of security blanket.  It would be no security blanket anyway.  After all, I decided to leave the job nearly a year ago in an effort to find something that pays enough to eat and put gas in my car.  I'm tired of choosing between those two things while chasing the mice and roaches around my apartment.

And the best part of it all is that I seem to have found the elusive "something" that I had finally brought myself to believe I'd never find.  For the first time in my life I have no doubts, no questions, no anxiety, and full trust in just being.  I logically try and tell myself to think this through more carefully and to keep a safety net out but I don't know what else to say other than it feels like I'm home and I'm not speaking geographically.

Ghost cat is wandering around the condo.  I haven't seen her since my apartment in Woodside Queens.  She hides in my Port Richmond place.  There's too much bad juju there.  I will not be sad to walk away from the only place I've lived in alone and I will not be sad to not have to burn sage on a regular basis to clean the air just so I can sleep.  I am indeed more superstitious than I care to admit on most days.

Its getting time to close the glass door and heat up some of the delicious homemade eggplant parm in the fridge.  I'm not quite sure I'm ready to move yet though.  I guess I can wait until the washer is done.  A washer and dryer, the sound of the waves, the black leather vest with the Harley-Davidson patch hanging over the kitchen chair.  Things couldn't get more comfortable and right than this, of that I am pretty sure.  It certainly has felt like I've stumbled upon my own fairy tale.  The cynic in me cringes at my even thinking those words and now that I've typed them out I see her swinging a sock of rocks over her head.  She is only concerned for me and it concerns her more that I'm not paying her any mind.  If this all does come back to bite me in the ass, so be it because it's all been worth it so far. 

hmmm the washing machine sings a little song at the end of the cycle.  It reminds me of the cute little house in College Park, MD that I haven't seen in a long while.  We will stop on our way back here in late June and have some lunch or brunch or something wonderful.  I will miss those visits most of all.  I will miss the closeness of all my cousins that I've come to enjoy these past 3 years.

The sun is beginning to set, the tide is coming in, and he'll be home soon.  He'll come home to find me here, where he left me, comfy and cozy and drinking a big glass of wine.  Dishes are done.  Laundry is done and folded.  I don't feel like I'm playing house.  I feel like I'm home.

There is a lot of work to be done over the next two and a half months.  It will take my mind off the fact that there are a lot of goodbyes coming.  When I think about that too much it's a little hard to breath but its even more difficult to think of what I'd lose if I didn't follow this through.  

strange little girl

Woke up to an inch of new snow on the ground and heavy flurries.  I heard Tori coming from the kitchen.  Something from Venus.  Otherwise the world was very quiet and cold but not muffled like the snow usually is.  Something just felt a little off but not in a bad way.

After 3 and a half hours of sleep, I was oddly alert and ready to get on with the day.  I was also a little disoriented and tried to separate my dreams of the "night" with the real.  I'm not sure I did have dreams but I'm also not sure if what I thought was reality really was.  We had to leave later that day.  I needed to pack and clean and say goodbye soon.

Mother is doing well although she seemed strikingly older than she did six weeks ago.  It's understandable but I look forward to things getting back to normal or even better than normal was.  It was a good visit.  We are getting along better than we ever have.

I think she really enjoys telling people how backwards a baby and child I was.  Hopefully it's because, despite how awkward my behaviors were, I've turned out well enough.  A little weird, but well enough. 

"Most babies cry until you pick them up.  You would be happy as a clam until I picked you up and then you'd cry and cry until I put you back down.  It got to the point where I would just hold you until you stopped crying and then I'd put you down again."

We wonder why I have an aversion to hugging immediate family members...

How about speaking my own language until I was 5 years old.... I was playing and reading music long before I was speaking proper, coherent English.  I was also in diapers until about then and had to be kept on a strict schedule or I would fall asleep wherever I was, including in my food.  Apparently, I almost drowned in my soup on more than one occasion. 

"I couldn't ever put you in a time out because you preferred to be alone and play by yourself.  You liked time outs too much."

I still prefer to be alone most of the time.  My head gets too loud.  It's too loud right now and I can only manage about 10 seconds of even my favorite songs.  Being around people for several consecutive days  turns into constant noise in my head and makes me dizzy.  At that point even light turns sonic and invades my peace and makes it impossible for me to perform the simplest task like getting dressed or brushing my teeth.  My only desire is to hide in a dark, silent, solitary place for a day or two and it's the only way I've found to help me feel normal again.

I was an odd child who grew into an odd adult.  An odd adult who is proud of her accomplishments and loves her friends and family and even *cough cough* her sisters and mother with all her being.  I also still love time outs and put myself in them on a regular basis. 

A little after 1 am on, well, technically Monday morning, I returned to my apartment.  As I climbed the stairs to the second floor I noticed a door that had never been there before.  I stopped and turned around to make sure I was in the right building.  I remembered I had to unlock the building door just to get in so I had to be in the right place and turned back and proceeded slowly up the stairs my eyes never leaving the new door.  It is white with proper molding... unlike any other door in this building.  I promise it wasn't there before but I questioned myself until I was up in my own apartment. 

I was half expecting the door to be gone today but it's still there.  I tried to open it.... its locked.  I will try again tomorrow and look for the five and a half minute hallway.  I'm still a little confused and anxious and unsettled but numb to the negative aspects of all those things. 

Things are changing and for once, I'm ready for it. 

I think.