I am writing this on my last day in Seattle. Maybe not, most likely not, my last day in Seattle EVER. But tomorrow, the Buick will be packed up with whatever stuff it brought here a month ago, and Alex and She-ra and I shall begin the long drive south to the hot hot desert. Hot, indeed: It was 122 degrees in Vegas last week. 122 moisture-free degrees. Oh man, oh man, oh man…
I don’t want to leave Seattle. Not even a little bit. This place is magical when the sun is out, and wow, is the sun out! The sun has been for most of this month, and I have taken full advantage of it. I have taken full advantage of being in a place where I can walk and bike and hike and do it all with friends! Take last week, for example: On Saturday, I shared fantastic tapas with my boys while my lady mixed mojitos behind the bar, with Judd Hirsch munching away at a table behind us. Sunday brought me and a college buddy to a dirty-crunchy-hippie music festival, where we listened to bagpipes and rockabilly and stoners singing for their supper. Monday took me and my crew across Puget Sound to a friend’s organic farm, where we barbecued and walked in the forest and sat on the porch watching the world go by. Tuesday I spent walking through Seattle to a waterfront sculpture park, where a girlfriend and I sat at the intersection of Love & Loss, talking about the journeys that brought us there. That night, it was karaoke with more college buddies, where I brought the house down singing “The Man That Got Away” in my best drunk Judy (Garland, that is). Wednesday, I hiked a favorite trail with my best friend and tossed bits of bagels to the birds at the summit. On Thursday, I was back across the water to build chicken coops on yet another organic farm, this one complete with 29 chickens, 12 baby turkeys and a very pregnant she-goat and her very bully Billy, then it was back to Seattle to celebrate my girl’s 24th (again) birthday. And yesterday, me and my lady had a picnic on a West Seattle beach, looking out at the still-snowy Olympic mountains while turning lobster-red in the mid-day sun, wondering what life would be like if this was the place where our families lived, if this was the place we’d always called Home. That was how I spent this last week in Seattle. Doesn’t it sound magical? Doesn’t it make you wonder why the hell I’m leaving this place? It certainly makes me pause and consider the what-ifs. What if I stayed…?
But I won’t stay. Because I’m not ready yet. For a long time, Seattle has been the place that I want to return to after I’m done doing all the things I want to do before I settle down. And I’m not there yet. I’m not done with New York. I’m not done with my Big City Dreams. I don’t really know what I’m looking for out there, but I know I haven’t found it, and I know that I will regret it if I stop looking. I have lived this long with no regrets, and I refuse to take the easy road now, now when I am on the verge of something, something big and beautiful, I don’t know what that something is, but I know that it’s out there, somewhere, and I know that I need to struggle in order to find it, I know that I need to throw myself in to hardship before I can have a little easy, and Seattle is easy, Seattle is peaceful, Seattle is a place for me to catch my breath and enjoy the good life. I’ve been gone for 6 years, and this place still loves me. And when I’m ready for it, it will welcome me back gladly. It will throw its arms open and embrace me and all that I am and all that I am not. But I’m not ready for it. I need to go back to New York, a city that doesn’t have a clue who I am, even though I lived there for 5 years. I need to go back to that New York energy, that New York pace, that New York ambition, I need to get my ass kicked some more and see if I can start kicking ass back, I need to be a Nobody and do my best to become a Somebody. And if it doesn’t happen, I need to know that I tried, I need to know that I gave it everything I’ve got so that if I come back to Seattle, it will not be with my tail between my legs but with battle wounds that I am proud to call my own, scars that will heal but will always remind me that I am a warrior and that I can survive anything. I need to leave Seattle because I need to finish New York. But first, oh man oh man oh man, first I need to go back to Vegas. ARGH!!
I am dreading the return trip for many obvious reasons, but there are some bright and shiny joys waiting in the desert for me. Namely, there are Jess and Vina, my voice teacher and my mailman, both of whom I am lucky to call my friends. And of course, there’s the whole purpose of my return, the whole point of leaving Seattle NOW instead of 2 months from now when I’ve got a place to live back east: There’s the piano man with whom I’m gonna rehearse and hopefully book some jobs, some non-Vegas jobs, some I-get-to-be-a-lounge-singer-and-live-out-some-of-my-dreams type o’ jobs. I have to remind myself that this return to the desert is entirely MY doing. Alex has no purpose in being there, other than being with me. He would be glad to never set foot in that town again, with its crooked cops and its more crooked casinos. Alex is going to Vegas for me. Isn’t it ironic? And our return will be brief, a month and a half of hiding from the sun and drinking water by the gallon. After a month and a half, the Buick will get packed up once again, and almost a year after saying goodbye, we will make that cross-country return to New York City and all the family and friends who are waiting for us. And from there, who knows? I can’t even begin to imagine. All I know is that tomorrow, it’s Sayonara Seattle. And my heart is breaking. And I wish I could just squeeze this country together until its two oceans almost meet, so that my two hometowns could be side-by-side. Or, I wish I could just be satisfied with what I’ve got right here where I am.
There’s an Ani DiFranco song that sums up Seattle for me. It’s appropriately entitled “Grey”, appropriate because this place is nothing but grey for 8 months a year (I must remind myself). The chorus goes like this:
What kind of paradise am I looking for?
I’ve got everything I want, but still I want more.
Maybe some tiny, shiny key will wash up on the shore…
I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I’m not ready to stay. So, I will make the choice to remain unsettled. I will make the choice to go seeking out satisfaction in hard-to-satisfy places. I will make the choice to take the hard road and see where it goes. And someday, maybe it will bring me back here. Someday, when I’ll be ready.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
I Feel Pretty
I love Seattle, for so many reasons, in so many ways. This has always been a good city for me. I first came here as an escape from a Philadelphia butcher shop, and while it took time to for this place to feel comfortable to me, it immediately felt better than where I was coming from. Seattle was my Adult starting grounds: it was my first paid acting job, my first hike in the mountains, my first review in the paper, my first time living clean and sober. I made wonderful friends here, was a working actor with good notice from the press, and generally lived a good life. So why did I leave?
I left because there was too much else I wanted to do, and Seattle became far too comfortable. I was happy but not satisfied, and I knew that if I didn’t leave, I would always wonder, What if…
And now, it’s been 6 years since I called Seattle home. I’ve been able to make it back for a few visits, and the longer I’ve been gone, the more I’ve come to love this place. And one of the things I love the most: in this town, I’m a total hottie.
I don’t consider myself to be beautiful. I’m attractive, certainly, and I clean up pretty darned good. But I am not the kind of beauty that turns heads when I enter a room. Rather, mine is a kind of beauty that sneaks up on a person. Mine is a kind of beauty that grows as one grows to know me. Like, I might know a person for months, and my beauty is never considered; then all of a sudden, in the middle of a conversation, I change and morph in that person’s eyes and my beauty is discovered. And this is partly due to the fact that I have lived in places flooded with beauty. Different kinds of beauty for different kinds of places. For example, New York is a city of international and exotic beauty. Everyday in that city of skyscrapers, I would be struck blind by the beauty of 6-foot women and 6-foot men. There’s an easiness about beauty there; it doesn’t require much makeup or tanning salons or bleached blonde hair. Rather, it is a beauty that comes from confidence and world-travel and intellectualism. It’s a beauty that matches the marvels of Manhattan. In New York, I am short and average-looking, with really cool hair. In Los Angeles, beauty is judged quite differently. Its beauty is a combination of healthy living and plastic surgery. The beauty of the mountains and the ocean seep into one’s skin, but the ideals of The Industry seep into one’s mindset, so that in addition to an organic diet and a hardcore fitness routine, much time and energy is put into painting on the proper appearance. It’s naturalism enhanced by technology, and there are strict standards for what beauty is allowed to be. In LA, I am short and chubby and underdone, with really cool hair. And then there’s Vegas. Vegas is LA taken to extremes. There’s nothing natural about Vegas, and natural beauty is unrecognized as beautiful. Vegas is a city of strippers, and that is what beauty boils down to. It’s about tiny waists and huge boobs, it’s about tons of makeup and huge hair, it’s about teeny bikinis and 4-inch heels. Vegas is porn-star beauty, it’s the Fantasyland of Beauty, it’s about pleasing the senses immediately and leaving before the sun rises, exposing the truth underneath the false lashes and silicone implants. In Vegas, I am unnoticed in everyway, except that I am female and therefore cannot help but be objectified. But beautiful, I am not. Even though I’ve got really cool hair.
And then we come to Seattle. Seattle is a contradiction of beauty. The city itself is the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived. It is also the ugliest. When the sun comes out and exposes the mountains and the water and the bluest sky imaginable, this place is like Heaven on Earth. But the sun comes out for only a few months a year. Most of the time, this city is grey. Most of the time, the sky is a flat grey ceiling that hangs so low as to make a girl feel claustrophobic. Most of the time, it is cold and rainy and colorless. And that cannot help but sink into the people here. There’s a greyness about everything here, and even when the sun comes out and fills the world with colors unimaginable, the grey has seeped deep into the skin and remains long into August. And this is a city that respects what is natural, this is a city of granola and yoga and letting your hair grow: bearded boys and hairy-pitted girls are everywhere. This is the city that gave birth to the Grunge scene, and grunge is something this place does well. Makeup on women is not the norm, nor are outfits that show skin. It is a city of naturalism, almost to a fault. It is a city where casual is the dress code. And it is a city where I am beautiful. It is a city where I turn heads. It is a city where men and women flirt with me and dance with me and ask if I need a ride home. I didn’t notice this much when I lived here, perhaps because I was as grey as any other inhabitant. But since I’ve left and come here to visit, it has been clear: In Seattle, I’m a total hottie. And it’s funny, because while makeup is never required here, I wear makeup. Not everyday, not if I’m taking a bike ride or running errands or going to a friend’s place for dinner. But when I’m going out to a restaurant or seeing a show or meeting friends in public, there I am with my lipstick and mascara and blushed-up cheeks. In Vegas, I never wore makeup. I never wanted to be noticed. But here, I am happy, and I feel good about myself, and so I put a little effort into my beauty routine, effort which is in no way expected, effort which would turn off many of the dirty-crunchy-hippie types who thrive here. This doesn’t bother me in the least, because I know that in Seattle, I am beautiful. In part, it is because I am happy. In part, it is because I’m coming from the desert and have no grey in my skin tone. In part, it is because I show more skin than the average inhabitant and therefore shake some life into some people. (Seattle is a very liberal town, while also being quite conservative: cleavage is a no-no, though drag queens are celebrities.) Whatever the reasons, I like it. I like feeling pretty. I like feeling noticed. I like feeling as though I’m not a disappointment when I walk into a room. Call me egotistical, and I’ll agree with you. But understand that beauty is rarely a goal for me. I can count on one hand how often I shave my legs each year; I often don’t wear makeup because “I have to wear makeup for my job, so why should I have to wear it when I’m not working?” My wardrobe expands only at Christmas when family members gift me with new clothes. But that’s the thing about Seattle: I am beautiful as is. I don’t need the makeup or the miniskirt to turn heads (I just like the added affect). In Seattle, I’m a total hottie. And I love this town.
So, why am I leaving again?
I left because there was too much else I wanted to do, and Seattle became far too comfortable. I was happy but not satisfied, and I knew that if I didn’t leave, I would always wonder, What if…
And now, it’s been 6 years since I called Seattle home. I’ve been able to make it back for a few visits, and the longer I’ve been gone, the more I’ve come to love this place. And one of the things I love the most: in this town, I’m a total hottie.
I don’t consider myself to be beautiful. I’m attractive, certainly, and I clean up pretty darned good. But I am not the kind of beauty that turns heads when I enter a room. Rather, mine is a kind of beauty that sneaks up on a person. Mine is a kind of beauty that grows as one grows to know me. Like, I might know a person for months, and my beauty is never considered; then all of a sudden, in the middle of a conversation, I change and morph in that person’s eyes and my beauty is discovered. And this is partly due to the fact that I have lived in places flooded with beauty. Different kinds of beauty for different kinds of places. For example, New York is a city of international and exotic beauty. Everyday in that city of skyscrapers, I would be struck blind by the beauty of 6-foot women and 6-foot men. There’s an easiness about beauty there; it doesn’t require much makeup or tanning salons or bleached blonde hair. Rather, it is a beauty that comes from confidence and world-travel and intellectualism. It’s a beauty that matches the marvels of Manhattan. In New York, I am short and average-looking, with really cool hair. In Los Angeles, beauty is judged quite differently. Its beauty is a combination of healthy living and plastic surgery. The beauty of the mountains and the ocean seep into one’s skin, but the ideals of The Industry seep into one’s mindset, so that in addition to an organic diet and a hardcore fitness routine, much time and energy is put into painting on the proper appearance. It’s naturalism enhanced by technology, and there are strict standards for what beauty is allowed to be. In LA, I am short and chubby and underdone, with really cool hair. And then there’s Vegas. Vegas is LA taken to extremes. There’s nothing natural about Vegas, and natural beauty is unrecognized as beautiful. Vegas is a city of strippers, and that is what beauty boils down to. It’s about tiny waists and huge boobs, it’s about tons of makeup and huge hair, it’s about teeny bikinis and 4-inch heels. Vegas is porn-star beauty, it’s the Fantasyland of Beauty, it’s about pleasing the senses immediately and leaving before the sun rises, exposing the truth underneath the false lashes and silicone implants. In Vegas, I am unnoticed in everyway, except that I am female and therefore cannot help but be objectified. But beautiful, I am not. Even though I’ve got really cool hair.
And then we come to Seattle. Seattle is a contradiction of beauty. The city itself is the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived. It is also the ugliest. When the sun comes out and exposes the mountains and the water and the bluest sky imaginable, this place is like Heaven on Earth. But the sun comes out for only a few months a year. Most of the time, this city is grey. Most of the time, the sky is a flat grey ceiling that hangs so low as to make a girl feel claustrophobic. Most of the time, it is cold and rainy and colorless. And that cannot help but sink into the people here. There’s a greyness about everything here, and even when the sun comes out and fills the world with colors unimaginable, the grey has seeped deep into the skin and remains long into August. And this is a city that respects what is natural, this is a city of granola and yoga and letting your hair grow: bearded boys and hairy-pitted girls are everywhere. This is the city that gave birth to the Grunge scene, and grunge is something this place does well. Makeup on women is not the norm, nor are outfits that show skin. It is a city of naturalism, almost to a fault. It is a city where casual is the dress code. And it is a city where I am beautiful. It is a city where I turn heads. It is a city where men and women flirt with me and dance with me and ask if I need a ride home. I didn’t notice this much when I lived here, perhaps because I was as grey as any other inhabitant. But since I’ve left and come here to visit, it has been clear: In Seattle, I’m a total hottie. And it’s funny, because while makeup is never required here, I wear makeup. Not everyday, not if I’m taking a bike ride or running errands or going to a friend’s place for dinner. But when I’m going out to a restaurant or seeing a show or meeting friends in public, there I am with my lipstick and mascara and blushed-up cheeks. In Vegas, I never wore makeup. I never wanted to be noticed. But here, I am happy, and I feel good about myself, and so I put a little effort into my beauty routine, effort which is in no way expected, effort which would turn off many of the dirty-crunchy-hippie types who thrive here. This doesn’t bother me in the least, because I know that in Seattle, I am beautiful. In part, it is because I am happy. In part, it is because I’m coming from the desert and have no grey in my skin tone. In part, it is because I show more skin than the average inhabitant and therefore shake some life into some people. (Seattle is a very liberal town, while also being quite conservative: cleavage is a no-no, though drag queens are celebrities.) Whatever the reasons, I like it. I like feeling pretty. I like feeling noticed. I like feeling as though I’m not a disappointment when I walk into a room. Call me egotistical, and I’ll agree with you. But understand that beauty is rarely a goal for me. I can count on one hand how often I shave my legs each year; I often don’t wear makeup because “I have to wear makeup for my job, so why should I have to wear it when I’m not working?” My wardrobe expands only at Christmas when family members gift me with new clothes. But that’s the thing about Seattle: I am beautiful as is. I don’t need the makeup or the miniskirt to turn heads (I just like the added affect). In Seattle, I’m a total hottie. And I love this town.
So, why am I leaving again?
Monday, May 11, 2009
Always a Bridesmaid
On Saturday, I marched down the aisle in one of my best friends’ weddings. This year, I will march down a total of three aisles in three very different weddings, all of them to celebrate the union of two people who hadn’t even met by the time Alex and I were shacking up in our 3rd or 5th or 7th apartment in our 3rd or 5th or 7th home-base city. All of these weddings, I am in support of. All of these marriages, I have the greatest confidence in. All of these couples, I am terrifically happy for. Yet none of them are for me.
On Saturday, I watched Zoe Fitzgerald become Zoe Cauley. It seemed, indeed, to be the happiest day of her life. And I’ve known her for many days. I met Zoe the same day I met Alex, way back in 1993, in the broken-down building known as the Charlesgate in Boston’s Back Bay. It was the first day of Freshman orientation for Emerson College, and Zoe was my roommate, along with Molly and a host of mice and cockroaches who lived in the walls and vacationed in our bags and shoes and garbage cans. Destiny brought Zoe into my life; hormones were responsible for Alex’s entry. On that first day of a new life in a new city, I was getting to know these two girls who would be seeing me naked for the next 9 months, this Zoe from Manhattan who was bashful as could be, and this Molly from Maine who papered the walls in Motley Crue. We three were making nice and skirting around the issues of cohabitation which we would spend the next 9 months trying to balance (what with Molly’s sorority girls and me & Zoe’s smoking boys a fixture in room 309), when suddenly there entered into our room 2 boys on a mission. The one was clearly the leader: “Hi, I’m Alex, and this is my roommate, Jim. We’re walking around the dorm trying to meet hot girls. How you doin’?” We three hot girls were immediately of one mind: IN YOUR DREAMS! Who did this guy think he was, with his slicked-back hair and his South Jersey accent? I had just escaped Jersey, no WAY was I gonna move to New England just to hook up with some guido-wannabe with too much confidence and not enough fashion sense! When Alex and Jim (who was dressed head-to-toe in Miller Light gear, and who managed no words but looked at the three of us as though we were a mirage) finally took their leave, we three girls laughed and wondered if this was what college was all about. It was. But on that day, we could not have dreamed that Alex would soon become a best friend to all of us, and we could not have dreamed that Zoe and I would become The Little Debbies, the two girls surrounded by a whole flock of boys who were our buddies, who perhaps fell in love with the both of us at one time or another, but who always saw us as a unit, as the two girls who could speak a boy’s language and always be one of the guys without ever losing our femininity. On that day, I could not have dreamed that Zoe would become like a sister to me, that she and I would grow so close as to no longer need language to communicate, we needed only a look or a touch or even a thought to tell each other what we were feeling at any given moment. I could not have dreamed that one day, I would find myself placed on the opposite side of a ballroom from Zoe, in a 15th century castle in a tiny Dutch town, that I would be blindfolded and spun in circles and then released with the goal of finding my girl across the way, my girl who was also blindfolded and spun in circles, my girl who was seeking me out as I was seeking her, in an exercise that we were the first to attempt on that day, in that class, in that grand room that was so silent I could hear nothing but my breath and my heartbeat and my feet sliding over the polished hardwood floors, I could not have dreamed that this exercise in apparent futility would take less than a minute for the two of us to complete, as we slowly and silently stepped one foot then the other towards that place that felt like home, towards that energy that called through the darkness and the emptiness, towards the safety and comfort and beauty that we found in each other, until we heard “STOP” and were told to stand still and remove the blindfolds, and there she was, not two inches in front of me, that bashful Manhattanite who was never bashful around me, that lovely girl with whom boys fell madly in love within minutes of knowing her, that miracle of a girl who was mine as no one had been mine before.
Now, it’s hard to have a friendship so close, so intense, so other-worldly, and not have it get confused. There was an element of ownership to our friendship, and we didn’t like to have to share each other, which made things tough, as we were pretty freaking cute, us Debbies, and we both had our admirers, and each of us was longing for love, the only kind of love that we couldn’t provide for each other. And who would have guessed that I would find that love in that guy from South Jersey, that over-confident dude who smoked too many Marlboro’s and had the fashion sense of a homeless man. Who would have guessed that within a month of knowing each other, Zoe and Alex and I would become a trio of sorts, the two Little Debbies and their favorite bad-behavior boy. Alex was the boy whom we would turn to first, the boy who always found a way of making everything seem like no-big-deal and made us laugh in the face of overdue papers and curious love affairs. Alex was never the guy I imagined falling in love with, which is probably the only way it could have happened. And it did. And on July 5th, 1996, Alex asked me to marry him. And I said yes.
Fast-forward to May 9th, 2009. There we were, Alex and I, in the wedding party of our Little Debbie and her Prince Charming, whom Alex brought into Zoe’s life way back in the Fall of 1999. Zoe Fitzgerald, that bashful Manhattanite, was now ready to say her I Do’s to William Cauley, a man so opposite her in so many ways as to be her most perfect companion. Her bashfulness was in contrast to his outgoing nature, her softness a counterpoint to his brass. And in him, she found the home she had been seeking for years. His love for her was so complete, so intense as to have been overwhelming at times to those of us who had watched Zoe try to find her voice in a crowd; his love was so powerful that it made us want to protect her, to try to find the gentleness that we felt she needed. But it turns out that his love was exactly what she needed in order to find her voice, as was never clearer than when she said her vows on that altar with more confidence than I had ever known from her. There we stood, Alex and I, along with our lady Caroline, who moved in with me and Zoe in our Chinatown flat back in ’96, Caroline who became Zoe’s roommate after Alex became mine, Caroline who has lived all over the world and yet has always managed to remain in my heart as My Lady. I watched her try to hold back her tears as Our Girl became a Wife, knowing all of the history that has passed between us three ladies, from the time we first met in that Dutch castle before the floods moved us to that German boys’ camp, to the time Caro and I drove cross-country in order to make it in time to a performance of one of Zoe’s plays. I watched her smile as Zoe’s voice rang out with her I Do’s and Forever Is Today’s, and right beside Caroline stood Alex, whose eyes rarely left me during that ceremony. I looked into his eyes as the vows of our friends were spoken, knowing that we were speaking them to each other, knowing that we have journeyed to Heaven and Hell and lots of places in between and have always managed to come out of it together. Together, forever. That is our plan. That has been the plan since that July 5th evening almost 13 years ago, when Alex got down on one knee in front of the Christian Science Center reflecting pool and asked me to be his wife. And I said yes. And on Saturday, we walked down the aisle to help our friends celebrate their love and their commitment to Forever, knowing that commitment is a bitch and Forever is an eternity and Love is a 4-letter word, and knowing that it is the most beautiful pain-in-the-ass imaginable. And I knew that Alex and I were both thinking, We should get married. Why not? We should have our friends and our families celebrate our love and our commitment and our past/present/future together. Why not? We should be able to call each other something more significant than “My boyfriend/girlfriend” or “my partner” or “the guy I’m living in sin with”. Why not?
Yet here I am, always a bridesmaid, never a bride, and it’s entirely by choice. What am I afraid of? Or what am I waiting for? Or why should I care? I mean, it’s not like Alex and I need to prove anything to anyone. We’ve survived far more than any of these couples saying their I Do’s this year, and we’ve stayed together without any legal or societal pressures to do so. We have proven our commitment again and again, so what’s the point of getting married? That is generally the way our few scattered discussions of marriage have ended. Except…
I never would have imagined back in 1993 that I would be a bridesmaid at the wedding of that Bashful Manhattanite. And I never would have imagined that I would look across the aisle at that South Jersey boy, whom I’ve loved since long before I finally told him so, with a desire to be the ones speaking those words. But here I am. And yes I was. And maybe we will. Someday. But for now, I will continue on to the next march down the aisle, this time at the wedding of my brother and the love of his life, and from there down the next aisle to celebrate my friend and the guy that almost let her get away. Perhaps someday, these people will return the favor and walk down an aisle for me. But for now, I am content to be Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride.
On Saturday, I watched Zoe Fitzgerald become Zoe Cauley. It seemed, indeed, to be the happiest day of her life. And I’ve known her for many days. I met Zoe the same day I met Alex, way back in 1993, in the broken-down building known as the Charlesgate in Boston’s Back Bay. It was the first day of Freshman orientation for Emerson College, and Zoe was my roommate, along with Molly and a host of mice and cockroaches who lived in the walls and vacationed in our bags and shoes and garbage cans. Destiny brought Zoe into my life; hormones were responsible for Alex’s entry. On that first day of a new life in a new city, I was getting to know these two girls who would be seeing me naked for the next 9 months, this Zoe from Manhattan who was bashful as could be, and this Molly from Maine who papered the walls in Motley Crue. We three were making nice and skirting around the issues of cohabitation which we would spend the next 9 months trying to balance (what with Molly’s sorority girls and me & Zoe’s smoking boys a fixture in room 309), when suddenly there entered into our room 2 boys on a mission. The one was clearly the leader: “Hi, I’m Alex, and this is my roommate, Jim. We’re walking around the dorm trying to meet hot girls. How you doin’?” We three hot girls were immediately of one mind: IN YOUR DREAMS! Who did this guy think he was, with his slicked-back hair and his South Jersey accent? I had just escaped Jersey, no WAY was I gonna move to New England just to hook up with some guido-wannabe with too much confidence and not enough fashion sense! When Alex and Jim (who was dressed head-to-toe in Miller Light gear, and who managed no words but looked at the three of us as though we were a mirage) finally took their leave, we three girls laughed and wondered if this was what college was all about. It was. But on that day, we could not have dreamed that Alex would soon become a best friend to all of us, and we could not have dreamed that Zoe and I would become The Little Debbies, the two girls surrounded by a whole flock of boys who were our buddies, who perhaps fell in love with the both of us at one time or another, but who always saw us as a unit, as the two girls who could speak a boy’s language and always be one of the guys without ever losing our femininity. On that day, I could not have dreamed that Zoe would become like a sister to me, that she and I would grow so close as to no longer need language to communicate, we needed only a look or a touch or even a thought to tell each other what we were feeling at any given moment. I could not have dreamed that one day, I would find myself placed on the opposite side of a ballroom from Zoe, in a 15th century castle in a tiny Dutch town, that I would be blindfolded and spun in circles and then released with the goal of finding my girl across the way, my girl who was also blindfolded and spun in circles, my girl who was seeking me out as I was seeking her, in an exercise that we were the first to attempt on that day, in that class, in that grand room that was so silent I could hear nothing but my breath and my heartbeat and my feet sliding over the polished hardwood floors, I could not have dreamed that this exercise in apparent futility would take less than a minute for the two of us to complete, as we slowly and silently stepped one foot then the other towards that place that felt like home, towards that energy that called through the darkness and the emptiness, towards the safety and comfort and beauty that we found in each other, until we heard “STOP” and were told to stand still and remove the blindfolds, and there she was, not two inches in front of me, that bashful Manhattanite who was never bashful around me, that lovely girl with whom boys fell madly in love within minutes of knowing her, that miracle of a girl who was mine as no one had been mine before.
Now, it’s hard to have a friendship so close, so intense, so other-worldly, and not have it get confused. There was an element of ownership to our friendship, and we didn’t like to have to share each other, which made things tough, as we were pretty freaking cute, us Debbies, and we both had our admirers, and each of us was longing for love, the only kind of love that we couldn’t provide for each other. And who would have guessed that I would find that love in that guy from South Jersey, that over-confident dude who smoked too many Marlboro’s and had the fashion sense of a homeless man. Who would have guessed that within a month of knowing each other, Zoe and Alex and I would become a trio of sorts, the two Little Debbies and their favorite bad-behavior boy. Alex was the boy whom we would turn to first, the boy who always found a way of making everything seem like no-big-deal and made us laugh in the face of overdue papers and curious love affairs. Alex was never the guy I imagined falling in love with, which is probably the only way it could have happened. And it did. And on July 5th, 1996, Alex asked me to marry him. And I said yes.
Fast-forward to May 9th, 2009. There we were, Alex and I, in the wedding party of our Little Debbie and her Prince Charming, whom Alex brought into Zoe’s life way back in the Fall of 1999. Zoe Fitzgerald, that bashful Manhattanite, was now ready to say her I Do’s to William Cauley, a man so opposite her in so many ways as to be her most perfect companion. Her bashfulness was in contrast to his outgoing nature, her softness a counterpoint to his brass. And in him, she found the home she had been seeking for years. His love for her was so complete, so intense as to have been overwhelming at times to those of us who had watched Zoe try to find her voice in a crowd; his love was so powerful that it made us want to protect her, to try to find the gentleness that we felt she needed. But it turns out that his love was exactly what she needed in order to find her voice, as was never clearer than when she said her vows on that altar with more confidence than I had ever known from her. There we stood, Alex and I, along with our lady Caroline, who moved in with me and Zoe in our Chinatown flat back in ’96, Caroline who became Zoe’s roommate after Alex became mine, Caroline who has lived all over the world and yet has always managed to remain in my heart as My Lady. I watched her try to hold back her tears as Our Girl became a Wife, knowing all of the history that has passed between us three ladies, from the time we first met in that Dutch castle before the floods moved us to that German boys’ camp, to the time Caro and I drove cross-country in order to make it in time to a performance of one of Zoe’s plays. I watched her smile as Zoe’s voice rang out with her I Do’s and Forever Is Today’s, and right beside Caroline stood Alex, whose eyes rarely left me during that ceremony. I looked into his eyes as the vows of our friends were spoken, knowing that we were speaking them to each other, knowing that we have journeyed to Heaven and Hell and lots of places in between and have always managed to come out of it together. Together, forever. That is our plan. That has been the plan since that July 5th evening almost 13 years ago, when Alex got down on one knee in front of the Christian Science Center reflecting pool and asked me to be his wife. And I said yes. And on Saturday, we walked down the aisle to help our friends celebrate their love and their commitment to Forever, knowing that commitment is a bitch and Forever is an eternity and Love is a 4-letter word, and knowing that it is the most beautiful pain-in-the-ass imaginable. And I knew that Alex and I were both thinking, We should get married. Why not? We should have our friends and our families celebrate our love and our commitment and our past/present/future together. Why not? We should be able to call each other something more significant than “My boyfriend/girlfriend” or “my partner” or “the guy I’m living in sin with”. Why not?
Yet here I am, always a bridesmaid, never a bride, and it’s entirely by choice. What am I afraid of? Or what am I waiting for? Or why should I care? I mean, it’s not like Alex and I need to prove anything to anyone. We’ve survived far more than any of these couples saying their I Do’s this year, and we’ve stayed together without any legal or societal pressures to do so. We have proven our commitment again and again, so what’s the point of getting married? That is generally the way our few scattered discussions of marriage have ended. Except…
I never would have imagined back in 1993 that I would be a bridesmaid at the wedding of that Bashful Manhattanite. And I never would have imagined that I would look across the aisle at that South Jersey boy, whom I’ve loved since long before I finally told him so, with a desire to be the ones speaking those words. But here I am. And yes I was. And maybe we will. Someday. But for now, I will continue on to the next march down the aisle, this time at the wedding of my brother and the love of his life, and from there down the next aisle to celebrate my friend and the guy that almost let her get away. Perhaps someday, these people will return the favor and walk down an aisle for me. But for now, I am content to be Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
I'm Baaaaaaaaack..............
So, it’s been awhile.
I guess Life is like that. At times, we’ve got so much to say, we can hardly get it all out. At others, each word takes a Herculean effort. Such has been my story. I look back over the history of this blog: See how verbose I was in September! And April went by without a word. September was a month of discovery; April I spent holding my breath and praying for peace. And somehow, I find myself in the month of May, wondering how I got here, wondering what lies ahead. I am cautiously hopeful, but Hope is a 4-letter word. I have had my hopes dashed again and again in these months gone by. Yeah, HOPE paid off for me in November, with Yes We Can and Yes We Did. But Hope broke my heart in January. Hope kicked my ass in February. Hope spit in my eye in March. And in April, Hope embraced me, told me it loved me, and then cheated on me with that prissy whore, Despair. And still, here I am in May, inching towards Hope’s outstretched hand, trusting that this time, this time it’s for real, this time it’s for the long haul, this time I’m The One, and the Siren Songs of Despair and Anxiety and Doubt and Anger and Defeat will not steal my Hope away, will not prove me wrong once again, will not leave me feeling used and abused and rooted in the muck of Misery. Yes, my friends, that is what the past months have felt like. Yes, my friends, it really was that bad. And yes, my friends, I am once again feeling hopeful, reluctantly so, I must admit, but hopeful nonetheless. And it is my hope that I will once again use this space to relate to you my adventures in the Wild West. It is my hope that I will dig myself out of my somewhat self-imposed isolation and throw myself open to the possibilities of Love and Friendship and hey, what’s that thing called Fun? All the kids are doing it, I’m told….
I will not try to put into detail the downs and further downs of 2009. There’s too much to say, and honestly, I can’t wrap my head around it. I have written many blogs in my mind, but everything felt too confused and contorted to put down in writing. How I wanted to share with you my adventures in Los Angeles, with Fish Frys and birthday parties and theatrical events that reminded me of what I want to do onstage. How I wanted to share the awe-inspiring experience of seeing Cirque du Soliel’s “LOVE” with my mother-in-law, one of the biggest Beatles fans I know. How I wanted to share the ongoing drama of Alex’s court proceedings, with continuance after continuance and the bullshit that is the Justice System. But it all over-whelmed me. It was all too much. And now, it’s all behind me. On April 28th, we had the pleasure of hearing a judge say, “Case Dismissed.” We’d been waiting for those words since the beginning of October, when Alex was arrested on 8 bogus charges. We’d been waiting for those words since January 5th, when the DA decided to file 14 felony charges against Alex, again all bogus. We’d been waiting to hear those words with the same anticipation that I imagine a dying man has when waiting to hear about an organ transplant. Because, truly, this court drama felt like Life and Death to us. If Justice prevailed, then all charges would be dismissed, and we could get out of Limbo and start to live again. But as there was no Justice from the moment Alex was arrested, we half expected that somehow Alex would be found guilty and spend his life behind bars. And frankly, that felt no different than Death. But it worked out, the DA decided not to pursue the case (realizing there was nothing to pursue, as Alex broke no laws), and we can close this chapter of our lives. Except…How do you live with your Life on the line for 7 months, and then just pick up where you left off? I was expecting to feel this wave of relief that would melt into sheer joy and optimism. Instead, I feel nervous. It’s like I’ve got Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or something. I am terrified of what’s around the corner. I want to Live, but I’m afraid that in doing so, I will invite calamity. And it’s worse for Alex. His whole body has been in knots, his whole life has been in question, and he is having a hard time believing that he can relax, that he can feel safe and at peace.
But we’re trying. On April 28th, after hearing the judge say “Case Dismissed”, we packed up the car and said goodbye to our desert abode. We left behind our call-girl neighbors and our industrial park neighborhood and began the drive north to the anti-desert. Yes, we drove to the rain forest, the Pacific Northwest home that we so loved for the 5 years we lived here and said goodbye to in 2003. I write this blog in Seattle, looking out of my 5th floor window to the flat grey ceiling that is the Seattle sky for a solid 8 months each year. The rain is coming down lightly and steadily, there is no blue above me, no sky to be seen, and it is the most beautiful sight in the world. We are in Seattle for the month of May, and it is exactly where I need to be. I would love to be here for the summer, but alas, I have to be back in Vegas in June (I will write another blog to answer any questions that may have arisen there), and then we’re heading back east in July (there’s no way to express my joy on this last count, other than to say, OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODI’MSOEXCITEDTOGETBACKEASTANDSEEALLMYFRIENDSANDFAMILYANDPICKUPWHEREILEFTOFFANDGIVETHATCITYONELASTSHOTANDMAKETHEMOSTOFITTHISTIMEANDOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODI’MSOEXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) So I am grateful for this month-long gift of moisture (my skin is so happy!) and nature (my heart is so full!) and friendship (my soul is so hungry!) and I am, again, cautiously hopeful about the road ahead. I am cautiously hopeful that this month will begin to bring peace and joy and self-love and a reminder of how very lucky I am to be alive, to be a part of this world, to have been born Meghan Mary McLynn on that April 26th all those years ago (yes, I just celebrated my 27th birthday again, with a trip to the Grand Canyon that I would have loved to share with you, if only I had the words to do so). I am cautiously hopeful that this month will hold up a mirror to my strengths and talents, that it will leave me no choice but to embrace myself and feel at home in myself again. I’m lucky to have such wonderful friends here who want nothing more than to help me be Me. I spent a day at a spa with Zoe, learning to relax again. I spent mornings doing yoga with Caro, learning to feel strong again. And I spent an afternoon building chicken coops in the Port Orchard rain with Angela, learning to laugh again. These are my ladies, who’ve loved me since before I knew I should love myself, and they are a miracle. And then I’ve got a whole crew of friends in this town to drink tea with and go hiking with and ride bikes with and eat ice cream with and….This is a time of healing, of renewal, of rebirth. It is spring, after all. I arrived in Seattle just as the blossoms opened, just as the cherry trees exploded into cotton candy. And on the day I arrived, the sun shone brighter than anything I’ve seen in Vegas. Some things are meant to be, and I am meant to be full of Hope, sans caution. I look forward to filling you in on the journey.
I guess Life is like that. At times, we’ve got so much to say, we can hardly get it all out. At others, each word takes a Herculean effort. Such has been my story. I look back over the history of this blog: See how verbose I was in September! And April went by without a word. September was a month of discovery; April I spent holding my breath and praying for peace. And somehow, I find myself in the month of May, wondering how I got here, wondering what lies ahead. I am cautiously hopeful, but Hope is a 4-letter word. I have had my hopes dashed again and again in these months gone by. Yeah, HOPE paid off for me in November, with Yes We Can and Yes We Did. But Hope broke my heart in January. Hope kicked my ass in February. Hope spit in my eye in March. And in April, Hope embraced me, told me it loved me, and then cheated on me with that prissy whore, Despair. And still, here I am in May, inching towards Hope’s outstretched hand, trusting that this time, this time it’s for real, this time it’s for the long haul, this time I’m The One, and the Siren Songs of Despair and Anxiety and Doubt and Anger and Defeat will not steal my Hope away, will not prove me wrong once again, will not leave me feeling used and abused and rooted in the muck of Misery. Yes, my friends, that is what the past months have felt like. Yes, my friends, it really was that bad. And yes, my friends, I am once again feeling hopeful, reluctantly so, I must admit, but hopeful nonetheless. And it is my hope that I will once again use this space to relate to you my adventures in the Wild West. It is my hope that I will dig myself out of my somewhat self-imposed isolation and throw myself open to the possibilities of Love and Friendship and hey, what’s that thing called Fun? All the kids are doing it, I’m told….
I will not try to put into detail the downs and further downs of 2009. There’s too much to say, and honestly, I can’t wrap my head around it. I have written many blogs in my mind, but everything felt too confused and contorted to put down in writing. How I wanted to share with you my adventures in Los Angeles, with Fish Frys and birthday parties and theatrical events that reminded me of what I want to do onstage. How I wanted to share the awe-inspiring experience of seeing Cirque du Soliel’s “LOVE” with my mother-in-law, one of the biggest Beatles fans I know. How I wanted to share the ongoing drama of Alex’s court proceedings, with continuance after continuance and the bullshit that is the Justice System. But it all over-whelmed me. It was all too much. And now, it’s all behind me. On April 28th, we had the pleasure of hearing a judge say, “Case Dismissed.” We’d been waiting for those words since the beginning of October, when Alex was arrested on 8 bogus charges. We’d been waiting for those words since January 5th, when the DA decided to file 14 felony charges against Alex, again all bogus. We’d been waiting to hear those words with the same anticipation that I imagine a dying man has when waiting to hear about an organ transplant. Because, truly, this court drama felt like Life and Death to us. If Justice prevailed, then all charges would be dismissed, and we could get out of Limbo and start to live again. But as there was no Justice from the moment Alex was arrested, we half expected that somehow Alex would be found guilty and spend his life behind bars. And frankly, that felt no different than Death. But it worked out, the DA decided not to pursue the case (realizing there was nothing to pursue, as Alex broke no laws), and we can close this chapter of our lives. Except…How do you live with your Life on the line for 7 months, and then just pick up where you left off? I was expecting to feel this wave of relief that would melt into sheer joy and optimism. Instead, I feel nervous. It’s like I’ve got Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or something. I am terrified of what’s around the corner. I want to Live, but I’m afraid that in doing so, I will invite calamity. And it’s worse for Alex. His whole body has been in knots, his whole life has been in question, and he is having a hard time believing that he can relax, that he can feel safe and at peace.
But we’re trying. On April 28th, after hearing the judge say “Case Dismissed”, we packed up the car and said goodbye to our desert abode. We left behind our call-girl neighbors and our industrial park neighborhood and began the drive north to the anti-desert. Yes, we drove to the rain forest, the Pacific Northwest home that we so loved for the 5 years we lived here and said goodbye to in 2003. I write this blog in Seattle, looking out of my 5th floor window to the flat grey ceiling that is the Seattle sky for a solid 8 months each year. The rain is coming down lightly and steadily, there is no blue above me, no sky to be seen, and it is the most beautiful sight in the world. We are in Seattle for the month of May, and it is exactly where I need to be. I would love to be here for the summer, but alas, I have to be back in Vegas in June (I will write another blog to answer any questions that may have arisen there), and then we’re heading back east in July (there’s no way to express my joy on this last count, other than to say, OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODI’MSOEXCITEDTOGETBACKEASTANDSEEALLMYFRIENDSANDFAMILYANDPICKUPWHEREILEFTOFFANDGIVETHATCITYONELASTSHOTANDMAKETHEMOSTOFITTHISTIMEANDOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODI’MSOEXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) So I am grateful for this month-long gift of moisture (my skin is so happy!) and nature (my heart is so full!) and friendship (my soul is so hungry!) and I am, again, cautiously hopeful about the road ahead. I am cautiously hopeful that this month will begin to bring peace and joy and self-love and a reminder of how very lucky I am to be alive, to be a part of this world, to have been born Meghan Mary McLynn on that April 26th all those years ago (yes, I just celebrated my 27th birthday again, with a trip to the Grand Canyon that I would have loved to share with you, if only I had the words to do so). I am cautiously hopeful that this month will hold up a mirror to my strengths and talents, that it will leave me no choice but to embrace myself and feel at home in myself again. I’m lucky to have such wonderful friends here who want nothing more than to help me be Me. I spent a day at a spa with Zoe, learning to relax again. I spent mornings doing yoga with Caro, learning to feel strong again. And I spent an afternoon building chicken coops in the Port Orchard rain with Angela, learning to laugh again. These are my ladies, who’ve loved me since before I knew I should love myself, and they are a miracle. And then I’ve got a whole crew of friends in this town to drink tea with and go hiking with and ride bikes with and eat ice cream with and….This is a time of healing, of renewal, of rebirth. It is spring, after all. I arrived in Seattle just as the blossoms opened, just as the cherry trees exploded into cotton candy. And on the day I arrived, the sun shone brighter than anything I’ve seen in Vegas. Some things are meant to be, and I am meant to be full of Hope, sans caution. I look forward to filling you in on the journey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)