Consumption

My brother, Mike, tells people his favorite holidays are those that center around food and I tend to agree with him. So, naturally, we both love Thanksgiving. When I think about Thanksgiving, I think about turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and three types of pie and green beans and the cranberry sauce which never seems to be eaten. I think about how much work we put into cooking that one meal, about my stepmother organizing grocery lists as early as September, and about my Aunts trying to one-up each other's pumpkin pie recipes. I think about how--for one meal--we dedicate an entire holiday and close schools and banks and spend money we might not have on the right plates on which to serve turkey and fly miles to share that one meal with the ones we most love. Thanksgiving, as I have come to know it, happens between appetizers and desserts.

So, when I came home from Wake Forest University this weekend, I expected Thanksgiving feed me and to feed me well. (And, let me tell you, I have missed being well fed.) I expected to feel it in the fullness of my belly and to look around at the people with which I had shared that beautiful meal and feel thankful for their company. And then, I expected to go to bed and for tomorrow to just be Friday.

But, I was wrong. I felt Thanksgiving when I looked out my airplane window and saw buildings I have walked through. I felt Thanksgiving in the sound of Jeff Tweedy's voice, in the ambient interludes, in the alphabetical stacks of songs I've missed. I felt Thanksgiving in the scent of my house and my mother's obvious attempt to straighten it up. I felt Thanksgiving in the familiar hug of my best friend, in the tears that filled both of our eyes, in how I would only break it so that I could hear her speak. I felt Thanksgiving in the bombarding questions of my friends' mothers, in their overwhelming interest in a life they used to live. I felt Thanksgiving in how quickly we revisited traditions, in how easily we could forget that time had past. I felt Thanksgiving in the songs my friends sang, in the harmonies I have always heard but will never contribute to, in the comfort of never having to. I felt Thanksgiving in the chorus of laughter, in the variety of each laugh from one another, in the comfort of how easily they blend together. I felt Thanksgiving in the conversations that reached beyond us and I felt it in the nearness they still represented. I felt Thanksgiving in Prospect Park, in my cozy bed, in the farthest back booth at Denny's, in the hallways of a school I graduated from, in the cake shakes and the phone calls and my dad's CD collection. I felt Thanksgiving here. At home. Where I have always felt it, even if it took me this long to notice.

This weekend I have learned that Thanksgiving means coming home--coming home to hugs and smells and sounds and places and, yes, foods that I know and love and am thankful to consume.

Happy accidents

We are ignorant. Every last one of us. We know so little about so much and hardly know that. What we do know, we know by accident. We stumbled upon the discovery of this continent, we sparked flames when we weren't trying, and we had to try every poison berry before we knew which ones tasted best in our fruit salad. Of all the facts that are floating around in the realm of possibility, it is by pure chance that we found the ones that we did. Just as easily as we have plucked these things from the unknown and made them true, we could have left them there, plucked something else instead. But we have not. And for that we have the world that we do, full of facts and yet so equally not. And, for these accidents, I am immeasurably thankful. 

I am grateful that we discovered there are different ways to move the pitch in our voices and that these tones can be imitated by tightened strings and pots and pans, for whoever decided these sounds were beautiful and worth progressing. I am grateful that we gave words to things like "love" and "thought" and "purpose" and "enough" and all of the things I cannot hold but so often try to in my head. I am grateful for running water, domesticated crops, multi-story buildings, the alphabet, arithmetic, good smelling soap--things we could survive without but not in the way I have come to enjoy. And, right now, I am grateful to have stumbled into the company I have. I am grateful that, by happy accident, I have found comfort and tranquility and bliss. 

Oh, influence, let me go

The song it is familiar
One I sang in winters past
It's quick and sad and lovely
But it never seems to last

But in a feat of nostalgia
I found it and hit play
Stretched out my untrained legs
And danced the tune away

Daintily, the song sang
About love unreturned
I heard the crying lyrics,
softly danced the way I learned

But when verse led into chorus
I felt sadness I used to know
Shoulders limped and feet gone heavy
My turns began to slow

Each note it was a memory
Each chord an old romance
They haunted me in melodies
And forced oldness in my dance

I twirled the way I used to
I leaped like times before
For this song, it was a ghost
And it's familiar weight I bore

But, no, I shook ferociously
For here I am, so new!
And no matter what the song says
I am far away from you

Sad spins twirled into angry
I jumped and kicked and dove
Trying to shake this haunting sameness
I assumed I'd rose above

I can't sing this song any longer
I don't want to dance this way
But it's impossible to start a new
When your stuck in love's ballet

The last lights on

I am alone for all have gone
Not long before, this house was bright
Now mine are but the last lights on

I thought conversing would go on
The talking here felt safe and right
But I'm alone for all have gone

Rare am I the last to yawn
But something's different here tonight
For mine are but the last lights on

Good company, the night does pawn
So for distraction, this I write
'Cause I'm alone and all have gone

Yet a busy mind will still dwell on
Whatever dark things that it might
When mine are but the last lights on

Now all the curtains have been drawn
Though in my head's a blinding light
When I'm alone for all have gone
And mine are still the last lights on

Where I ate lunch

Today I left my vacation home
With plans of coming back
My boots laced up, my long hair tied
My lunch within my pack

I walked and dreamt of where I'd stop
To eat what I had brought
Through trees I passed and miles walked
I went where I had got

And soon I reached my eating spot
I looked for somewhere dry
To rest my feet and to consume
My sandwich made on rye

I passed a spot beneath a branch
With bugs, I would not share
I skipped across the sandy beach
Hunger surpassed by "where?"

And then I saw a giant rock
Three times the size of me
Amidst a busy current
Yet sturdy as could be

And so I climbed that giant rock
And loosened up my hair
I stretched and laid beneath the sun
And ate my sandwich there

Upon that rock I memorized
The parts that I could reach
And quickly I decided this
Was the best thing on the beach

But when I got to sitting up
And took a look around
I was humble and amazed by all
The beauty that I found

The trees they were uncountable
The clouds, they tried to block
And the mountain that they stood upon
Made a pebble of my rock

So I jumped from off my pebbled rock
Looked at it from below
This giant thing that I had loved
Could be the smallest love I'd know

To measure a moment

When a man dies
At age ninety five
2 years and a hyphen
Prove he was alive

But if that man dies
Before he's full grown
His years, months, and days
Fill up his turnstone

So numbers will scatter
The place we last rest
And they become more specific
For those who lived less

When do seconds mean nothing?
When do hours seem small?
How many must pass
Until they don't matter at all?

Sometimes I wonder
If the best lives are fast
For with too many summers
These minutes won't last

Time may move fast
Or time may move slow
But today will soon feel
Like forever ago

A bigger bathroom

When I was very young, before I spent nights at my dads house, a good portion of our time together took place at Comiskey Park. My dad always had season tickets and, on the rare nights when neither my brothers nor I had soccer or baseball or gymnastics, we would make our way down to section 137, row 12.

Sox games were tons of fun for me. I got to spend time with my two older, cooler brothers and my dad usually bought me a Lemon Chill. I never had to brush my hair or walk much if I didn't want to. It was in those seats I learned to snap, swear, and ask questions. Surrounded by drunken men and crop-topped girls, baseball games always made me feel older.

Most of the maturity I feel in my childhood memories stems from going to the bathroom. These games were a time for my brothers and I to see my dad- not his girlfriend, fiancé, or wife. That, plus the fact that we only had 4 season tickets, meant that I was always the only girl in the pack. So, unlike trips to the mall or church where my mom would insist on enforcing the "buddy system," when the 5th inning became the 6th and I fought up the courage to ask my dad to make room for me in the aisle, I would climb the stairs alone, stick my ticket in my pocket, and walk straight into the women's bathroom.

I think the first couple of times my dad would walk me to the door and wait for me on the other side. Occasionally, he might have asked a friendly looking woman to look after me in line. But, for the most part, I felt alone in the sea of older and fatter legs. I would stand in line patiently. I never talked to anyone. I even tried to avoid eye contact. When a silver door would swing open, I would lock myself behind it and do what I had gone there to do. It was systematic and easy, but I figured it out on my own.

Even though those lines were always indescribably longer than the male counterparts, waiting in them was the first time I ever felt alone. I was 4 or 5 or 6, standing and listening to groups of adults- trying very hard not to disrupt the social norm which meant talking to no one. In that bathroom, I learned to be content within my own head; I didn't need anyone to talk to me or look at me to get done what I needed to. Without my mother or stepmother there to hurry me along, I could take my time washing my hands, watching older ladies brush their hair and fix their makeup. It was a very cool feeling knowing that no matter how long I stayed in there, no brother or father of mine could come in and force me out. I really loved the independence of Comiskey Park's bathrooms. On days the Sox weren't playing too hot, I would stay inside the bathroom for close to an hour. I would stand and watch the women do old things and enjoy the thoughts I could form for myself in my head, though I always was sure to make it out in time for the 7th inning stretch.

Now I am 18 and US Cellular had bought and renamed the stadium I grew up in. My family still goes to games, although work schedules are surprisingly harder to clear up than AYSO schedules. I am heading off to Wake Forest in less than a month where, for the second time, I will have to fend for myself. I will be alone, no father or friend to hold my hand in line or tell me to wash my hands. I only hope that I can learn to love that independence as much as I did in the bathroom.