April 25th Journal Project

The sun this morning was incredible. The trees seem to be vividly green for the first time this season, outgrowing that yellowish first-bloom color. The sun was clearly helping in all this, with the clouds from the storm rolling square over the mountains, endlessly it seemed. We made today. We stayed up all night so to make the day so luminous. Because the sun is in our blood, it is our creator and our guide (and I will not judge you if you return the favor, love). The sun does not judge, either, except “illuminate” or “sustain the blockage”. Like the big black hole in my history, my head, my humor, where it concerns J*. It is intangible to me outside of emotional scars, but when I see that in the light of healing, I recognize just how deep the wound had been. Still, I must be like the sun, not succumb to judging him or our history. I must be like the sun and return into loving and thoughtful giving.

There were flowers, there was energy for them to grow within the song. So we return: the sun calls the blooms out of hibernation, and then the rhythms of the wind give them presence, sharing their sauna of scent, their wetness, their delightful aimlessness. We pick them, and suddenly they have a new type of freedom. Flowers do not die off as many plants do, slowly, after they are plucked from their roots. No, flowers gain the freedom like the root-less do, the wanderlust that describes many tribes of human. They enter our lives, and we give them backdrops, vases, meaning. A bouquet of flowers lights up a cold hospital room like it were a group of old friends, wishing you well.

With all these wounds, it is interesting that I am strongest to deal with the physical ones. I am not afraid of my puncture now that I can no longer see the fat and muscle, oozing out but steadfast and held just barely outside my body. It is no longer painful to wash, unsettling to touch, and nauseating to look at. I feel stronger in learning to take care of my physical body than I do against my emotions, sometime, though even in these dark hours, I feel more peaceful in my head than I ever have. It’s the hidden emotions, the ones that even we do not notice, that eventually are the cause for heart-pain. My fear of physical injuries is the one I am learning to cope with now. Every day, a new series of challenges.

And my one for today is to stay awake. The hours have added up and, now that I am alone, I recognize how tired I am. Being a good parent, a good lover, a good mind, a good body, a good spirit…. these things exhaust a woman. I hope that most days are not as difficult as these. I wish upon myself the clarity that I’ve seen over the past twenty-four hours (and then some). As I was told last night, “You must see your future”. I see many more days in the future, full of the prophecies written in the sun and the flowers, and in the eyes of an old friends mother. She told me the truth, the future, I know, but it is up to me to accept that into my life.

There are things that I know, with my heart, and things that I know, with my head. I believe I’ve seen the third, now, the sight from the gut. There is so much I will not learn in this lifetime, but I see that I have acquired the knowledge, at one time or another, necessary to keep my soul on track. And I see the loved ones who have been around, who are here with me now, and those dearly departed. I cannot dismiss them for even a moment, or I am to be miserable. My greatest joys are in the eyes of those with whom I share my heart. But without trusting the mind and gut, your heart is unstable or unprotected… But, if we stay with life – the flowers – and with love – the sun… well, we can then be our own music makers, our own dreamers, beloveds.

I hate to reiterate this point, but today was a dreary day. Finally I hear a rumble of thunder. Something to disperse this gloom of clouds and thick air. I feel like the color scheme of this blog-type page is pretty apt.

I am moving to Philadelphia at the end of the summer. I have been looking for apartments online, but I suppose it’s too early, still. I will be making more money next year than I ever have, but somehow that is not enough to afford a nice apartment in Philadelphia. Ideally, I would like something in a nice area near public transit, less than a half hour bike/bus/subway ride or walk from Temple. One bedroom. Allows pets. I would really like a deck or yard or something, but would settle for a nearby park and a sunny window. And for under $500. Or up to $600. I could live with $575.

For a few months, every night, around 10:30, I hear a strange thumping coming from my neighbors house–I think. We share a wall. It’s irregular. It almost sounds like someone is playing the bongos really slowly. Usually at night there is a faint sound of new age music that creeps through our shared wall. I think I like that better. It just stopped.

I am really nervous about moving. I bought a bike. I haven’t ridden a bike (regularly) in years. Am I going to change so much that I will become someone who rides a bike? I am not looking forward to living by myself. I will miss my boyfriend. I will have my pets. That’s not the same. I can’t think of a room mate who I would actually want to live with–specific person or type of person. I am deciding whether or not I want to get internet. I only had internet on my computer for 1 year of college, and it was the worst year, performance-wise. I feel like I do better with no distractions.

That strange thumping started again–but it’s faster now.

The thunder made one more appearance, and now it’s just rain. I was hoping for a storm. I miss listening to storms at my parents’ house. They are surrounded by tall trees, 100 foot tall trees, that sway violently, branches snapping, leaves rustling, wind howling through the valley. I liked to hear twigs fall on the roof overhead. The rain was much louder. The lightning was spectacular to watch through their big glass windows. It would illuminate the whole hillside, the black curtain would dissipate, revealing the whole valley, across the valley, the fir trees in the distance across the meadow.

The view from the window here is nice, too. The cemetery stretches so far into the distance, and I’m sure if I were to catch it in a flash of thunder, it would be wonderfully eerie.

The nice thing about rain in the city is the sound of car tires swishing through the wet roads. I like that sound a lot. I like to hear my own tires when they drive through puddles and flooded roadsides where the grass can no longer absorb the water and it pools along the shoulders. The streets in this city are so clean. I would eat off of them sooner than I would eat off of the floors in my own house. I would not say the same thing about Philadelphia’s streets. Though I am very excited to live in a big city again. Even if it will be without friends or companionship for a while.

If this project is revived again in two years, things will be much different. It will be midweek, a Wednesday I believe. I will be writing from a different location. I will have written much more in the meantime. Hopefully a book-length manuscript. I will be worried about other things, probably more than I worry about now. Maybe I will have a future plan. Maybe not. And it is likely that it will have been a rainy day–you know what they say about April.

The rain is much harder now. It appears like it might storm after all.

I suppose nothing happens out of the ordinary unless you have that yearning to open your eyes a little wider upon waking. I did just that today, my eyes bulging, my hand harnessed on my chest. Tornado dreams again. it must of been early cause the sun was shining but had just been driving down a rainy highway at night. A specific highway, this stretch of route 81 where the red hotel lights gleam, smearing themselves into the the heavy eastward raindrops. The tornados were cultivating in the sky…it was dark in the sky, wet and somber and cool, sometimes the sky was a placid orange. We were headed to some establishment, one of safe keeping I guess. We would make it, a group of faceless friends and I. A shopping mall I guess, that;s what it looked like. Not any shopping mall though, this mecca of capitalism had been constructed as a high end technological establishment. We were let in, we walked down corridors past clothing store, a record store, one of those earth stores where they sell those interesting looking rock in the bins, whale music was playing and there was a globe, grow-a from and sea-monkey kits on a shelf. We were escorted by personal to the end of the corridor to bolted metal doors, the men had guns…not the mall security type you’d think, these men carried military issue artillery. they punched in a security code and the door pressure locked released as freezing oxygen lurched forward escaping confinement. Walked through this white room as warning sirens began to permeate through the whole establishment, I heard shrieks of terror echoed from various regions of the ‘mall’. we crossed a metal catwalk two hundreds of feet in the air from the bottom of some laboratory, some abyss. Approaching a round apparatus in the center, it looked like some sort of huge disc shaped aircraft, like a ufo, it was docked. The pods encircling the oblong cylindric device were meant for our protection from the devastating tornado at hand. People, my faceless friends, the boarded the craft. I however did not as I found myself in the food court among my fellow hysterical proletariate. A french fry stand is where I would seek shelter, a middle aged Spanish woman welcomed me in with haste. I was instructed to duck-down in the doorway that lead back into the kitchen. SHe made sure I was safe and we prayed. The tornado ripped off the roof and was directly over me. I closed my eyes and hang onto these yellow railings next me me. I knew I was at peace. My friends in the pods had escaped, i knew it. I was never taken by the tornado, and perhaps it just loved me and wanted to claim me. I awoke from dream at noon. So the dream was my morning. I felt panicky for a brief second, I had more dreams before that in the night of falling of buildings twice, I usually wake up screamin from those ones though. but a tornado…that’s more cool that frightening,

After I made my way upstairs to read CCN online. I like to keep up. I also woke up with many text messages from my best friend asking for my help. She had visited a friend in Philadelphia and forgot some of her medication she needs and so she was sick and crying. Putting our usually petty dramatic fights to the side I hopped in my car and went because she called and because I’d like to think of myself as a gentleman. I felt indifferent, but I like taking drives and I got to listen to the new COCOROSIE record I had illegally downloaded. On the way I abruptly stopped my car behind another inactive vehicle almost causing an accident but than I saw two very nice and lost looking dogs walking by the side of the turnpike, they were on the road and someone had to stop s not to hit them. I felt awful and almost opened my door to bring them in but they looked very dirty and I had no room i my car because it’s already filled with so much shit. I carefully proceeded and thought about those poor dogs rest of the day and I hope they are safe and found shelter in the rain. I picked my kitten up in South Philly and we sat in silence for a while on the drive back before she started crying, this made me feel bad because I’m sensitive and sympathetic, even though sometimes it makes me feel good I can make people feel bad sometimes when I am feelin like being mean. Eventually we talked and after things got calm we stopped at a rest stop for some food. Betraying my vegetarianism for a slight, we split chicken strips, fries, mash potatoes and biscuits. This made me fee nice. It began to rain very hard and the drive gave me a headache. When I got kitten back to her house she asked me to come inside. I could not help but to be taken into the warmth and care of a woman for a short time, so naturally we made up over any stupid problems we had and drank tea… my legs really hurt and she gave my a perquisite before I left and now I feel great finally being home.

No one called me at work today because I do not believe in working, I am so glad obama is president because I’d be very comfortable living in s communist state, and hopefully America could achieve the communist ideal better where as it has been flawed in the past.

What defined my day is making up with my girlfriend, She is where I find my solace and it is nice to have a best friend who is a woman. She is really cool and I am going to bed now feelin good on percs and in hopes that I will have a nice relationship in the future when the kinks work out. The rest of my week might be stressful with schoolwork and all, but I feel relatively good about sleeping tonight.

today equaled three hamburgers in a row. it also equaled me being unhappy again.

Today brought about a reconciliation between two former friends, a young man and woman. They are similar people; both are proud, at odds with themselves & others, narcissistic, full of their own misunderstood natures. Their friendship began awkwardly, but in time they became inseparable, and then socially exclusive. Sadly after about a year, their sibling-like affection turned into manipulation and obsession. This culminated in a rage one night, and ultimately resulted a complete severance. They have seen each other only at church, and have been civil to each other for propriety’s sake, embarrassedly avoiding probing questions from friends who had believed the pair actually betrothed to each other. Now we enter the scene of the reconciliation today, which was as pathetic and impotent as can be expected of these two.

After church he requested to drive her home & come up to her apartment for tea, a ritual they had always shared in until several months ago. This is, of course, what she has been waiting for with her whole, poisoned heart. As she mutely put on water, he became very chatty and made many allusions to his uniqueness, his busy schedule, their days of friendship, their experiences, and shockingly made several implications of spending time together again in the upcoming days. He energetically discussed his recent ills, events, and successes. He mentioned a tea he had discovered and intended to give her, and told her that he was interested in joining a study group that he’d heard she was involved in. She remained uninquisitive, and even allowed him to question her regarding the young man she was talking to at church and whether or not they were involved. He asked if she thought the young man was interested in her, and insisted that surely he must be. Although she expected conversation layered with possessiveness and denial, she was ill-prepared to concede it. Staring at the floor, she suddenly asked him why he was sitting there, having tea; why he was alluding to their friendship, why he was bothering her now. She recalled his rage, from months ago- when he had declared that their friendship was a sham, a waste of time, and he could hardly stand her company anyway. That any connection with her was a poor reflection on himself. She reminded him that they had not spoken since then- was he seriously inclined to act as though this weren’t the case? She stopped- any pride maintained in her saintly, injured silence now evaporated. He admonished her for holding a grudge. He reiterated his apology, delivered like a reprimand. He said he simply didn’t mean those things, and even though being acquainted with her made him look bad, he countered that he had been nice to her in public. He didn’t really wish to discuss the event at all. She looked at him, sitting across the table from her, and shrugged. After a pause, she told him that she had to go, she had promised to feed her neighbors cats. He insisted on taking her as it was rainy, and together they drove to the large house on Prospect Avenue.

They wandered around the front garden, scared a cardinal & discovered its nest filled with tiny chicks. Inside, they meowed at the cats and admired the oils and spices in the home-owners kitchen. The older cat growled to be petted, she said because he was self-conscious about an ear that had become ugly from infection, and he didn’t want their pity. He laughed, and mentioned that he’d been chewing catnip in the garden with his own testy cats just the other day. The rift was temporarily forgotten, as they wandered through the house chatting and saying the same silly things to each other they used to say. As he finally left her back at her apartment, he said that he may see her again soon at the study group, if he could make the time to attend. He asked then if she and her friends thought he was a terrible person, and she shook her head. She said she didn’t know. He said he hoped that she would correct their flagging opinion of him, as he may see them again at some point. As she unfastened her seatbelt, she half-heartedly said she felt it would be foolish to befriend him again. He advised her to take some responsibility for his prior frustration with her. He seemed animated, reinvigorated by their time together. She got out of the car and headed inside alone, despising and missing him immediately. The remainder of the day she spent in melancholy, without appetite.

The story of the 25th of April actually starts with events from the day prior. Saturday was the celebration for the birthday of a friend and I had baked a cake for the occasion. It was a ridiculously sweet chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting topped with chocolate ganache at the request of the birthdayee who told me she like chocolate and peanut butter. It came out pretty well, made me think of diabetes with every bite, and would have gone good with a large glass of milk.

I got home late after the party and went to bed thinking about having to go to church later in the morning, what with it being Sunday and all. But when I went out to my car, it wouldn’t start. This problem had occurred before and I had a general idea of why it was happening, but there was nothing I could do to get the car to go. Sometimes it feels like you get hit with these really crappy events as a punishment for the really good events in your life. Giving up, I went back inside and took a nap.

Eventually, I figured that it would be good to get the car running, so I spent some time seeing if any of my friends could swing by and give me a boost. Nobody was around, so I worked under the hood for a while until one of my neighbors noticed and was kind enough to help me jump start my car. Yay for nice neighbors in non-so-nice neighborhoods. The engine fired up and I was on my way up north to my fiancee’s place. Her grandmother (father’s side) was celebrating her 82nd birthday. That’s a pretty long time for someone to live; I hope I still have my wits if I live to be that old.

After the party, I drove over to Sears and bought a portable battery starter thing to leave in the trunk of my car for potential future non-starting events. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

Since this post is being written on the last day for entries, I feel a little bit like John the Gospel writer. I understand his book was written long after the events took place, so there may be some fanciful or apocryphal details. It’s made all the sweeter by the irony of me being unable to get to church that Sunday.

And so it goes.

Today I went to a new bakery in my neighborhood and shared a sticky bun with my fiancee. I really don’t like the word fiancee. It sounds fancy and it sounds like fancy, but I don’t really like the term boyfriend either. Husband will be better but even that will take some getting used to. I don’t mind husband so much but I really don’t like the word wife, it seems like a negative word to me, but I guess that’s my problem. We are just people together. I wish I could introduce him like that, hey this is Chris, he’s my person I’m with. Anyway, the sticky bun was good but the bakery was weird. The one person behind the counter seemed to be having a fight with her boyfriend, or should I say the person she’s with, who was sitting in the bakery. The other lady behind the counter was dealing with a trouble making customer, and it required great effort for me to get a napkin, a fork, etc. Overall though we had fun eating our sticky bun and it was a nice treat. The rest of the day was work around the house, and a party at a friend’s house that evening, but the most memorable and enjoyable part was just being at a bakery with my person.

What a beautiful day. I had my family back in our home. The sun was shining and I don’t think we spent more than an hour inside. It’s such a great feeling to put clothes on the clothes line. They feel so clean. Our hens were so happy to be free in the yard. Our daughter was cute with my husband, they cleaned the bike given to her by her aunt.
Later that night we grilled our dinner outside then had a little fire in the fire pit. It was a great day to be a family. No crying, no fighting only smiles and appreciation of what we are to each other.

yesterday, saturday, I moved to a new apartment. the 25th started at midnight, with me dancing at a show in allston. later at a friend’s place we made grilled cheese sandwiches with hash browns and pizza added to them, and talked about david bowie’s eerie agelessness, and how you have different personas in different physical locations. took a cab home at 4am and waded through boxes to find my bed.

i woke up having no idea what time it was, where i was, what city i was in. my cell phone (the only clock i have) was dead and the charger was packed in a box mysterious to me. my new apartment is new york city brownstone flavored, and a combination of hangover and the general emotional disorientation of the last few weeks made me think i was back in brooklyn.

i started out the day very grey. i looked at screens for a while, played some iphone games, unpacked some boxes, ate 4 consecutive bowls of frosted mini wheats. the weather was crisp outside so i figured i would feel more alive if i went for a walk. it worked! i tried on glasses frames (i smashed my old ones a month ago and have been subsisting on contacts, which i don’t like) at some eyewear places in harvard square. i walked over the smoots bridge and walked down marlborough street (for the first time) and smelled the smells of spring. smell is such an overlooked sense for me, but man, good job smell. you are great. even mulch. just the best. i felt at home in my own head.

i worked out at the gym and gave myself many back pats, then came home and met with mike at the knockoff whole foods grocery store. he had just gotten back from a dude weekend in the woods for a friend’s bachelor party and was worse for the wear, dropping things, generally feeling the exact distance between each synapse. for dinner we made couscous with parsley and tofu and cucumber and cumin and it was the best thing we’d ever eaten. we played some wii mario and cuddled on the couch. we fell asleep at 11pm with Empire Strikes Back playing on his tv. Falling asleep with a movie playing in the background is one of my favorite comforts.

Sunday, the 25th day of the fourth month of the tenth year of the 21st century, in the land of the free. It is the second year of the first reign of the son of an African immigrant. What will today bring? What does it have to offer?

The day begins near the banks of a river called Charles, in a neighborhood known as Lower Allston, within the city limits of Greater Boston. Fondly known by residents as L.A., and long recognized as a haven for hipsters, musicians, artists, post-grads, young families, and some old people that have probably lived there since the first reign of the grandson of an Irish immigrant. I wake up in my room to the sound of my cell phone at 8:15am. “Aargh!! Please head, stop pounding!” It’s going to be a full day and i’ve only tallied about 4 hours of sleep; 7 hours in the will be 72 hours by the time today’s over. My aunt has been visiting from England for the past 3 days and today’s her last day here. Which means that all the shopping needs to be rounded up this afternoon in time to get her to the airport on the other side of the city for her 7:20pm flight. Then making it back to my apartment to start packing for a two week trip to Pennsylvania. Oh, did i mention that my train leaves at 9:45pm from South Station. Oh well. I focus better when facing a crunch, plus i’m an eternal optimist. I figure i’ll take it one thing at a time and by the end of the day i can shut it down on the impending 8 hour train ride…

It’s 8:00pm. I’m at the apartment, bags are packed, and i’m checking that everything is where it’s supposed to be. You know, that feeling that you’re forgetting something. I start with the pants i’m wearing. Pen, yup. Chapstick, yup. Phone, yup. Wallet… wallet… Oh crap! The bags get unpacked and repacked. Steps retraced, traced, retraced again. Nothing. It’s now 9:11pm and if I’m going to catch this train at all i have to leave now. I rustle up an old college ID and an expired debit card. Hopefully that’ll be enough identification. We arrive at the station at 9:30pm. I run in to go see if they’ll let me on the train with my current sitch. They will. Except that the train to PA left at 9:25pm. I ask when the next train leaves. “6:15am tomorrow morning,”says the ticket lady. “Can i just book that ticket?” I ask. “Yeah, but it’s going to be more money, and i’ll need to re-swipe your card.” she replied. To which i countered, “Hmm, that’s going to be a problem”…

It’s really quite easy to lose faith in humanity when things are falling apart. And believe me when i say my faith was being tested. Tired, frustrated, no wallet, and somewhat stranded. I had to hold on to the belief that the wallet wasn’t stolen and that someone would maybe send it back to me. And like my mother said when i spoke to her, to take it as a sign that maybe i just wasn’t meant to travel today. So i let it all go, quit stressing, went back home, got online and rebooked a later train on Monday at no extra expense, went to bed and got a full 8 hours of sleep.

Sunday April 25th 2010 was a roller-coaster of a day that very easily could have ended negatively. Yet it made me really consider what i had lost and why i was in low spirits. OK, i missed a train. Hard to do, but not impossible. As for the wallet, ID’s and bank cards are replaceable, cash comes and goes, and it’s not good to get too attached. In summary, you control your own happiness. I woke up on Monday intending on card cancellation housekeeping and such, and instead found an email on facebook from 9:30ish last night letting me know that my wallet was found on my street and to come get it. So now i’m back on track, rested and ready to go. And this time i’ll be sure there’s nothing left behind.