A vacation

It's funny watching people's mannerisms when they're coming home from vacation. When they're waiting at the airport, impatient and sunburned, their eyes half-glossed over and their steps reduced into mere stumbles. It's like they've forgotten to see as they walk around. They only look.

And they're rude. They forget their manners somewhere between the strawberry daiquiris and the overpriced excursions. It's like they forgot they were on vacation in the first place.

We waited at Cancun airport today after driving up from our timeshare near Playa del Carmen (we did not stay in Cancun. I'm not a fan of that city and avoided it like the plague, except one rainy day when we drove around its mega hotel-lined streets), and from the corner of my ear I heard a couple fighting. Rather, the husband was yelling at his wife. Something about her always being mean to him. His voice just kept creeping louder, but he was faintly trying to keep his level down. She responded with tight-lipped requests for him to keep quiet. It was a mess. They sounded like they belonged in divorce court. I tried to tune it out, but couldn't do much about the pit in my stomach it unleashed.

Don't people know how privileged they are to be able to take a week out of their lives, visit an underdeveloped nation where they live much better than the vast majority of the locals, pick and choose what they like in said nation and spend their money on needless souvenirs and sidetrips? Isn't that worth pondering over moreso than adding fuel to a petty argument in the middle of an airport? I don't get it. Maybe I'm the only one that sees the link.

I guess you don't need money or fancy vacations to be happy.

Across the borders between continents...

"In the cathedrals of New York and Rome, there is a feeling that you should just go home and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is. " - Jump Little Children

This song has been ringing in my ears and my heart and under my skin for the past 3 days or so. I'm not sure why I was reminded of it... a few weeks ago we listened to it on the car ride from Seattle to George, Washington (seriously, that's the name of the town where Sasquatch was held). I had heard it months before, when searching other Jump songs (I was only acquainted with "By the Way They Dance from an ex). Anyway... the more I listened to it on that trip and now, the more connected I feel with it. I feel as though this song can play as the soundtrack to my life over and over. I get a tingling feeling inside when I hear it... it feels as thought I've figured things out in life... by embracing that I haven't. It's just a beautiful feeling, and I don't know what else can replicate it. Except maybe last Friday, when I caught Josh Ritter at Summerstage with the NY Pops. When he brought Glen Hansard out and they sang a song together, something in me just felt so complete. Utterly, shamelessly content. It wasn't a feeling as though I'd solved all my problems or gotten everything straight with myself, but that there was beauty in the questions, in not knowing. And somehow, I linked all this with listening to two very honest, sincere musicians onstage in a world somewhat bigger than themselves... that they followed their hearts and somehow ended up on that wonderful stage, in front of thousands. Just something about it.

I'm not sure how I came to feel complete by it... but I did. And maybe that's part of why "Cathedrals" just kills me a little inside, and births anew inside me with each listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsbQ2ZvFLn0&feature=related

How is it June already?

The times just kind of pass and next thing you know, the year's halfway done and it's just a handful of months til I turn 24. 

I read somewhere that Twenty-something women have a tendency to look towards their future and ponder on their past, and hardly ever live in the present. I wonder if that's the reason for my restlessness.  

Next thing's next.

There was a man in a fedora and thick-rimmed glasses clutching his acoustic guitar close to his white-shirted chest, a harmonica wrapped against his neck. When Joyce and I walked in we weren't sure what to expect - but we certainly didn't expect this: a thirty-foot room (maybe) with the tiniest version of a wooden stage and a man on a chair playing his heart out. I hoped the tiny part of his foot that nearly dangled off that makeshift centerstage wouldn't steal his balance. There were maybe six other people in the room, scattered in chairs that leaned up against the wall. It was dark. The brick was old, one part eaten away into a cave. There was no microphone. I wasn't sure what to think, but I soon decided that I loved it. The Postcrypt at Columbia University. I've already shot off an e-mail to the booker, after talking to a bunch of the organizers there. I hope I can get a slot... apparently there's a lot of demand to play in that acoustic place. I have a feeling it's the uniqueness that really gets people. Imagine that. A place to play in Manhattan that doesn't involved fumbling around with quarter inch cables. I think deep inside most singer-songwriters imagine this is the best kind of place to play. Those microphones are hindering, the monitors almost always lie and that sense of officiality almost takes away from that honesty we constantly long to deliver to the audience, in every sense of the term.

But we can't just invite people to our living rooms on a daily basis. Hence, I imagine, the Postcrypt was born. It's probably smaller than many living rooms... outside of Manhattan. 

Anyway, Tom Stall I think was the name of the performer, and I picked up a CD from him and suggested he play Sidewalk, since he'd mentioned he couldn't find a place in the city that didn't require a minimum draw. 

Mana met us halfway through, and we eventually made our way downtown to La Lanterna, where we absorbed some jazz from a quartet playing in the basement. The crowd was older but we didn't mind. I sipped my prosecco and wondered what it was about jazz that made people want to get so immersed in it. The group was decent - not the best - but they were very positive and laughed a lot between tunes. 

After that we made our way to the Dove Bar, which I haven't been to in a while. I was raving about it to the girls - about the decor, the vibe, the sophistication. Of course, the moment we walked in we were hit with a noxious wave of body heat, sweat, cologne and alcohol, and then hit with the packed crowd that covered up all the good stuff I'd just gushed about. Secret's out, huh? It'd been a while since I'd been there.

At some point I went to the bathroom and came back to find Mana and Joyce getting tag-teamed by a wing and his wingman.. it was pretty comical, until I got bored. Then some guy noticed that I was looking uncomfortable and started a conversation with me. He was fun to talk to though, and he didn't ask for my number afterwards... which was good. Though I did wonder if I should take that as an insult. ;)  

Now I'm home... and avoiding sleep.  Ah yes.... the luxury.

P.S.: Joyce reminded me on the ride home that I have a wonderful boyfriend. And that I should never forget that... sigh. She should join the Yahoo group. :)  

Sunsets only paint the sky at twilight.

We are designed to be creatures that live by redemption. We don't just fall and then stay down, but we learn to be resilient. As babies, we learn to pick ourselves up after shedding a tear or two. As toddlers, we learn to scale walls and toy blocks again, even after scraping our knees over and over. As teenagers we run with our hormones and then learn to scale back when we realize we've let ourselves be too vulnerable. As college students we try doing things we never thought we would, and later learn that we didn't have to do them to feel comfortable in our own skin. And as adults we just wade our way through the torrential waters of life, unsure what we'll step on, or whether we should take our wading boots off, but somewhere we figure out that what came to pass was part of what made the present exist - whole, utterly empty, but still worthy of living through. 

Sometimes I look at where I've been in the last 24 months and I feel that I've done nothing. I'm afraid this is a feeling I'll harbor forever - knowing I am only human, and no matter what I do it will never be everything I wanted to have done. But that's not the point... I don't think. Today I realized that the last 24 months yielded so much more than I allowed myself to see. There was so much life in the time that passed. I am not even that person anymore.  Yet, I didn't need to reinvent myself to find discoveries. I just needed to constantly move, to constantly grow...to keep writing even when it felt useless, to keep searching even when I felt lost, to keep living in the best way I could even when I felt like I was just doing the running-man in place and going nowhere. Because after 24 months I think I've learned that I covered a lot of distance. And not in the usual measurements that I'm tempted to these days - in record deals, superficial praises or gigs acquired, but in emotional growth, life experiences, healing, finding love, learning to love, work achievements, traveling, meeting new friends, finding new music, and other things that can't be put into words (I'm finding I can't put much into words of late). 

Isn't that the beauty of life, after all?  

Version B1

Just a bit contemplative today. I took a day off work so I spent the morning cleaning, a worry looming over my head like one of those cartoon clouds that follows you around. My mom had always told me there would be a crossroads one day where I'd have to choose music or a "Real life." 

I am always afraid I've hit that crossroads... I guess I shouldn't really fear it. It is inevitable, and what's the point of fearing something that's bound to come?

Or maybe it's just the definitions in my head that need to be fixed. 

Sigh.  

Tired. Irate.

Here it comes again: another moment of screaming "I just want to get out of here!" at the top of my lungs, in my head. I'm annoyed and irate because things are bothering me. Things like boyfriends that forget what should be fairly easy to remember...of wondering if I'm on the right track...of being fearful of getting pulled into decisions that will sink me in a hole somewhere and close doors that might be open. It once bothered me to have so many doors open, but there's a frightening feeling of finality when one or others close. That if one door closes, I should have figured myself out a little bit more. And the pressure of having to do that - even when I might be ready to. That hesitation of thinking, maybe I'm not at all...?

Just trying to breathe and remember that oftentimes, when we think we'll fall, we don't. And that there is still some greater being that sees beyond what I can. Maybe I'm just trying too hard to see it.