snow days
i’m a bit late, but happy solstice. this day was a little longer than yesterday.
the evening show yesterday was cancelled but even so it took me five or six (happy!) hours to get home. i bought some xmas presents for my family at powell’s books and then ran into a friend on the slow bus from downtown. on the east side of the river, we stomped through the snow together to his house for hot cocoa, magnetic poetry, and catching up. when i left, i stomped on south and called another friend when i was near his house. in this way i made my way home from one warm stepping-stone place to another.
i walked down 41st ave in the middle of the street. the footsteps ahead of me were fresher than the car tracks they followed. i am loving this weather because it is so unusual and that unusualness means portland doesn’t have the infrastructure to “deal” with it–so snow covers all the pavement, even on main streets… and there are so very few cars on the road and everyone laughs together and how unusual it is and smiles at their neighbors and walks down the center of the street. it feels like a little glimpse of utopia.
today, though, i gather the snow has pretty much done in even the buses, which had up ’til now been pretty good at getting one where one needed to get eventually, and camaraderie aside, it’s been a disaster for portland’s transportation budget, according to bikeportland.org.
it was my day off anyway, and i have hardly left the house. just taking out the trash was in and of itself an adventure this morning–but i sorta regret the day. i like myself and the city and pretty much everything else much better when i get outside. this is one of those truths i’ve discovered about myself since i graduated from college. still, not a total loss. i made granola (i love this recipe) and watched doctor who with my housemates and my cat. and i did a whole lot of reading of peace corps journals.
cinnamon buns & icing
get it? icing?
today–
feeling warm, cozy, and a little lonely. everyone seems so far away across the literal and metaphorical ice. the cinnamon buns are pretty tasty, at least.
give & take
i had a great day today. i invited a friend over for dinner and made us both acorn squash soup with sweet red pepper puree. first i filled the kitchen with smoke and burned the bottom of one of our pots. then i broke a bowl. made a mess, splashed soup everywhere… and laughed it off. the soup–made from a recipe for butternut squash soup, and with at least a couple other substitutions–was, after all that, pretty delicious. we ate ’til we were stuffed. there’s leftovers in the fridge.
this morning i rode to the theatre one last time (for this show, anyway). it rained. i haven’t replaced my fenders for the season–i need to buy a new pair ’cause the old ones were melted in a fire–ooooh what a summer it has been–and the rain soaked through my rain pants but i had a spare pair of pants (seriously!) in my amazing everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bag. draped my jeans over a chair and packed up props. came home, got cozy, bought groceries, talked to my mom about the endless possibilities.
i am really racking up possibilities these days. today i am simultaneously excited by these possibilities and just simply happy with my life as it is today. my messy backyard. the library four blocks away. the roadways-not-improved criss-crossing my street (see the photo at the top of this blog). the sound of the washing machine. my cat asleep on his favorite couch. the photos tacked up on my wall, so many good things in my past:
it is nice for a moment to not think too much about all those possibilities. to just, well, be here now. the rain, the soup, the friend, whatever.
last night i biked home at midnight singing “fly me to the moon,” except i don’t know all the words, so a lot of it was “da da da daaaaahhh.” it started to rain a mile or two in and instead of stopping to pull on my rain gear, i decided i couldn’t wait to be soaked through. unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be that kind of rain, and i arrived home just a little moist. my housemate and my cat on the couch. kepler (my cat) looked up at me over the arm of the couch and blinked slowly. i turned on the tap in the bathroom sink for him to drink from.
from this show, i have: a small paycheck, $25 to spend at powell’s from the cast, one helluva caffeine dependency, and an african violet that i will try my darnedest to keep alive, at least for the next week and a half or so before i leave town.
a few days ago, someone used an email list that my aunt (who lives in san francisco and who taught at new college there) put together months ago to announce a dance performance that she choreographed, to announce the death of a new college graduate named kirsten brydum. i didn’t know her or anyone else on the email list (which eventually devolved into pointless pettiness and a dozen “please take me off this list” emails, anyway), but because of the link included with the email, i was able to read some journal entries she wrote for her friends and family, which was a real, thoughtful pleasure. i am sorry for her death and for the way she died, but grateful for her faith in people and for the way her life was able to touch me today. small serendipities, i suppose.
one of the first few people to reply to the email list signed her email “take/give care,” and the same day, one of the actors in the show (a really fantastic person who i am so glad i was able to meet; i hope we work together over and over if possible) picked up my notebook and wrote a note on a blank page, “stacia– remember when you are in hawaii to give of yourself freely–as much as you take–or should i say receive–that’s a better word. open yourself to the beautiful universe and invite it in.”
so that is what i have been thinking about these small quiet days. what i want to give–for now i just mean in small interactions–versus what i want to take. when i focus on what i want or need to give, what i want or need to take becomes what i’ve pretty much already got. i mean that sounds so cliché and saccharine… and i am trying to write in vague terms rather than in intimate detail because that’s how i roll lately, but i’m not used to it yet and i’m still learning the ropes. i feel like life has been asking me lately to be so self-centered–or at least i have been letting myself believe it’s “life” and not my self-centered self–but it’s pretty stressful to be the center of the freakin’ universe. ok and life’s finally changing and moving on. i think i’m only a few days from being done with dealing with the insurance company. left with a lumpy collarbone and a big chunk of change. here we go: possibilities.
amy hempel: how [do] we know that what happens to us isn’t good?
or:
o heart weighed down by so many wings.
–joseph hutchinson