Tribute

"I want everyone to remember me as a person who wanted to be free."

- Rosa Parks

cracks.

our conversations are terse - meaning is incidental and accidental, though that is what we both yearn for. the words we send to each other are staccatto piercings of the silence we struggle to hold, and the words get embedded in the silence as we look on, not without hope, but knowing nonetheless that our words will not survive this noisy silence between us. i would that i were brave enough to show you this woman in front of you, to move from behind this silence, but vulnerability and honesty are difficult, and you have long since shielded your eyes. and i wonder how the tears distort your vision when you do bring yourself to look for those brief moments.

so i talk quickly about the mundane, the business of my life that i think you want to hear or that i hope will make you proud, and you respond, just as quickly, of your business, with your quick affirmations. we talk of external things, making notes on the weather, but the closest we get to sharing our internal lives come from the subtle cracks in our voices. the weather inside is still raging, but we do our best to pretend that the devastation is not there - both of us too polite, too proper, too scared to point it out. and as time passes, we have gotten better at playing our parts. the cracks are less frequent, more subtle, and i am wondering if i am willing the cracks as i am willing us to have the type of relationship we just don't have.

these days i find myself desperately saying more words, trying to pound through this silence we have created with our disappointments and hurts and confusions and fears, and we are saying less and less. but it is in these pauses while we are busy catching words to say to each other that give us any reason to have these conversations of ours. every time i hang up the phone, i am willing you to hear what the words didn't say. and every time we speak again, we begin anew - neither one of us able to translate for ourselves in this noisy silence, both of us too busy trying to hold ourselves together as the cracks compound, and we are left holding the pieces, afraid to drop anything, losing the meanings of the varied subtleties we pass between us.

dc love.

the end of the day finds me exhausted, which is not all that surprising when most mornings find me crawling out of bed, unwilling and pouting at the prospect of dislodging bella from the warmth generated from my body underneath the covers where she has just gotten settled. i can't remember the last time i slept through an entire night where i haven't woken up thirsty or needing to pee or jolted awake by the loud whirring by the large machinery right outside my window that flips on and off at random it seems or the sounds and movements of bella doing her thing whatever it happens to be or too hot or too cold or by some other unaccounted reason. of course, when i say i can't remember the last time, that could mean that this has been happening for weeks or this could be just the past couple of nights. it's hard to say for certain.

last night i realized that i've been in dc for just over a year now, which surprised me because it seems like i've been here for much longer, and it's hard to remember what life is like not in dc, although i tell myself that it was more interesting and meaningful and, you know, *deep*, since i spend as much time as i think of it convincing myself and whoever else happens to be standing there, listening or not, what a "thoughtful" person i am. and i am reminded of what i was told once by a writer: "show, don't tell". mmmhm. well, you know, we're busy and distractable, and just in case you might have missed it, or wished you had, i like to tell just to hammer the point home.

this might prove to be problematic in my incipient writing career i've convinced myself i will have. and by career i mean, having a partner who will financially support my writing, while also agreeing to pay down the $100,000 + in loans that i am told is a reasonable estimate of indebtedness by the end of law school. i am really looking forward to it. by which i mean, i'm really looking forward to my partner's career that will finance mine. of course, she might also appreciate the advice that my two lawyer friends have been giving me about applying to a broader range of law schools that will be more likely to give me scholarships. i'll keep that in mind.

anyway. dc. for as much as i whine about wanting to move to another city that i've decided is more livable or intellectual or something, perhaps i need to remind myself that for someone who doesn't necessarily like a whole lot of people, finding a city she likes all the way down to her painted toenails is going to be difficult at best. sometimes i think i have the affect of a crotchety old woman. okay - a lot of times.

at the end of the day, though, dc's seen me through some things that no other place has, so i like it for that, in spite of myself. and even if i'm not here in another year, i know i'll miss it in the way that you miss those places where you experienced changes and revelations you never knew you needed or wanted and took you in when you were wanting to get away and held you there while you were licking your wounds and never judged you when you realized that you were wrong all along because you found out that what brought you there turned out to be not at all what you wanted. i'll miss it like that.

and on a grey day like today, a little cool, fall breeze, a little damp, i'm reveling in the too-hot bus, the too-cold office, the suits, the tourists...and this is home. at least for now.

built.

"I'm built to love. Isn't that clear to anyone who knows me?"

yes, z. yes, it is.

and i'm huddled on the front stoop, half-heartedly smoking a cigarette, my jacket zipped up, hood on over my hat, and i have no words for you. i'm silent because what i'm thinking is that i can't think of a better way to be known or remembered. and you do make that clear, and you have made that clear from the moment i met you.

and in this moment, you made me realize that stripped away of everything else, all the superfluous strivings, this is the one that matters. and this is the one that i want to be known for.

yeah, she's my roomie...

and what? check out today's nyt:

To the Editor:
Re "To Sir, With Love" and "The Trouble With Harry" (columns, Oct. 8 and 12): Maureen Dowd's last two columns made me cringe. I know that they must be deeply hurtful to conservative evangelical Christian women I have loved as best friends, mentors and relatives.
They confirm all suspicion that women and men on the left jointly sneer at their intelligence, accomplishments and sexuality.
I am a feminist who has done work and organizing around issues with which there will be no reconciliation with women like Harriet Miers. Yet I recognize that in a profoundly misogynistic world, women must make no-win choices all the time.
Ms. Miers made hers; I make mine. And I resent Ms. Dowd's alignment with allegedly progressive leftist men who would try to divide us.
Laura NixonWashington, Oct. 12, 2005

well said.

packing up.

pure silence is hard to achieve, even for a woman who likes quiet. as we sit together, my mind travels through yours and yours through mine, and we are having the best conversation we've had in a long time, but the only sounds we are making are barely audible - the ones that come from the reflexive tightening of the throat when we hear something that is so true we have a visceral response that we don't even notice until after it happens. for once, we're not worried about the exact way we need to say things, we're not worried about having to explain this that or the other - we're just moving together, dancing through and around, weaving the stories of our lives. and the quiet permeates. but i think it's the most i've really said in awhile.

i walked out of my apartment this morning into the fall rain i love so much and started smiling immediately - a real smile, the likes of which i rarely display before noon. on another day, i might have been grumpy about having to leave the warmth of my bed, the thought of a day of a sterile office too much for my weary little head to contend with as thoughts of hot tea and good reading in the softest clothes i own, with the blanket pulled up to my chin, with bella curled at my feet, make me toy with the idea of calling in sick. but not today. because i am awake. and loving the too short of walk to the bus stop.

today is moving day at the office, and it occurred to me on the bus that my belligerence as of late has come from being forced to pack my life neatly and nicely so that others can poke and prod, and i have my doubts about whether they will really see the good stuff - the stuff i value the most. but that's the stuff that's hardest to see and the hardest to find, nestled deeply within the mundane and the various things i may or may not have accomplished.

so with two days left, i wonder if i need a new approach, but i think it's just about figuring out how i can hold it all out there, making the writing seem effortless. making it about us, sitting in the quiet, engaging in mental acrobatics, channeling the excitement of taking you by the hand as we run from place to place, inadvertently showing each other the best versions of ourselves.

pure joy.

for real. it's true. a triple decker double-stuf oreo. mmmm... what an auspicious happening. and i am lovingly staring at it as i type. it doesn't get much better than this, my friends. no no. you are witness to a magnificent occurrence, and i am just thankful that i have enough time on my hands to fully appreciate and share the situation. do i need to say why i'm in a wonderful mood at the moment? i think not. i think not. enjoy.

on the verge.

of something i'm sure. the shallow breathing, the tightening of my heart, the feeling of tears that may or may not come at some time as yet undetermined. fall has always been my favorite season. i think that it's the juxtaposition of brightness with the cool wind and the crumbling leaves. the fluidness of memories that come from smells i notice for brief moments - those same leaves i hated while raking them as those same leaves i've loved when they made me an itchy bed.

i've been reading and re-reading more than usual it seems, although that may or may not be true. what is different is that i have been unable to read anything not written by the lives of my sisters. and everytime, the multiplicity of living the way they do - with hearts first - creates paradoxes i can't seem to get out of.

and i've been trying to avoid it all day - this feeling. this culmination of feelings. trying to ignore how heat has resided in my shoulders, my neck, my head. it occurs to me now that maybe what i'm trying to say is that there is a part of me that's wary of something - i think what i am wary of is an impending implosion. the heat. the tightness. the breaths that are just enough.

the words are all in my head, and just to make sure, i read them again. and i think that in this moment, this dull droning pain, while not getting actually louder, gets perceptively louder because it won't go away. and i think that it is the noise of love i can't contain. i wonder what an implosion of that sort would look like.