With Arms Outstretched

My palms had been turned inward in the yoga classes I'd dragged myself to. There is a belief in some yoga circles that the direction your palms face is the direction your energy will go, outward or inward, and I'd needed to retain my own energy lately, so I'd needed to believe that, too.

I used to "dedicate" my practice and send energy to my mom, the guy of the moment, or the person I cannot reach with my words. But not lately. Lately I'd been greedy, self preserving, hoarding the love and the light for myself.

The city had been closing in on me. Elbows in my ribs on the bus, someone around seemingly every corner, oops, sorry, excuse me, goddamnit I exist! We were in our umpteenth month of renovation in my lobby at work, temporary walls blocking the light and filtering us through changing mazes like cattle.

 

Our office was coming apart at the seams, all of us desperate to come out on top of the fiscal year, a hill we weren't sure we could mount. My hands were clenched every time I looked down, my anxiety tell, and I felt like any moment I might start beating my chest with them like a caged animal.

The #firstworld #whitegirlsbelike #millennial problems were piling up, and then I was pushed off the edge by a wolf in sheep's clothing, this time in an array of perfectly pressed Ralph Lauren button-downs. The kind with the collars I can't help but fuss with, that make flirting, and apparently letting your guard down, so easy.

 

I kept telling people "I need to go home. I'll be so refreshed after Michigan" but I lost track of whether I was promising them, or myself.

I read paperbacks on the porch instead of blogs on the bus, had conversations about French fries instead of fiscal years, muddied my hiking boots instead of searching Match.com. I was seeking higher ground.

I didn't find it, not the peace I was after, or the momentum. Not the rest, or the meaning. I wish I could say that because this post is written in past tense, that I let go any, that I shrugged off any of the worry, or felt like I was over the hill in any regard other than just feeling plain old.

I filled my tank a bit, stretched my legs, fed my soul in the way that only best friends and back roads can, but I am really no better prepared to climb than I was a week and a half ago.

But I can say this. I've turned my palms toward the sky, in a very I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer kind of way. 

Your move, Universe. I've given you all I've got.

It's sixteen miles to the promised land

and I promise you, I'm doing the best I can

I visit these mountains with frequency

and I stand here with arms up

Now some days they last longer than others

but this day by the lake went too fast

And if you want me, you better speak up, I won't wait

so you better move fast

--Rilo Kiley, With Arms Outstretched 

Summer 2015 Bucket List

I have officially shifted modes from WHY IS IT SO COLD AND WHY DOES IT MAKE MY SOUL SO SAD? to IT'S LIGHT OUTSIDE, MY HEART IS BURSTING, LET'S DO ALL THE THINGS.

So, let's.

So far my summer bucket list includes:

• Yoga in the Lincoln Park Zoo
• Yoga on the beach     x
• Yoga in Millennium Park     x
• Yoga in a butterfly haven      X
• Improvised Shakespeare    x
• Drinking cider out of cans (no glass allowed!) with my esteemed colleagues after work on our super swanky 11th floor outdoor lounge space, overlooking Lake Michigan and Millennium Park     x
• Dave Matthews cover band at a street fest
• Tacos at a street fest      x
• Dirty sandal group photo at a street fest        x
• Tacos at a food truck      x
• Live taping of The Moth, a story-telling podcast     x
• Wanderlust 108, a mindful triathlon      x
• Revisiting college, aka OAR at Ravinia      X
• Judy Blume (!) talking about her new book at the Chicago Humanities Festival     x
• The Revivalists at Taste of Randolph    x
• Niagara Falls/Canadian road trip with my family     x
• A really solid beach day on Lake Superior      x
• Camping in the U.P.
• Antiquing in the U.P. or in Chicago
• Watching Henley swim in the U.P.     x
• Grilling with my parents on their deck     x
• Dirty Dancing (!) in Millennium Park        X
• Cheap seats at the Sox     X
• Country bar in Chicago     x
• Downtown Sounds concert...in, you guessed it, Millennium Park
• Lincoln Park picnic       X
• Lincoln Park reading on a blanket; getting Henley to chill with me     x
• The Northman, a new all-cider bar opening soon
• Read the remaining 18.5 books on Huff Post's List of 21 Books From The Last 5 Years That Every Woman Should Read
• Re-reading The Great Gatsby
• A Ferris Bueller Day, doing something completely non-work during work hours

Epiphanies, Volume V

• "Stop listening to yourself, and start talking to yourself." Boom.

• There is a difference between complicated and difficult. You can be the girl in the country song who is complicated and maybe even a little crazy, whom the boy loves for just being herself, without being the girl in the country song who gives way more than she gets and loves difficult and stubborn men.

• Nailing it and not looking back > nailing and needing a little feedback that you did, indeed, nail it. > nailingggg? it? I think. I'm pretty sure. > not fucking doing anything

• Honey is magic. Seriously, make this greek orzo salad and do. not. omit. the. honey. (You can, however, omit the basil and mint, and the tomatoes. Just as good.)

• In Sanskrit, chair pose (utkatasana) roughly translates to "fierce pose." Also known as "hazardous pose" or "awkward pose." That's basically your elders saying, "Yep, we know this sucks."

More flashes of genius here.

A Cure-All Tonic

It must be something about my connection with my friend Alicia, because after my trip to Hawaii, I experienced another love hangover.

Exactly like what followed her visit to Chicago this summer, in the wake of my vacation I felt unusually thirsty for creativity, for influence, for progress. For love.

The love part was quenched when my friend Allison made a trip down for a belated birthday celebration with my Chicago girlfriends. Sushi, a dive bar, and late-night pizza punctuated by sweet toasts, loud laughs, and too many vodka sodas to count. My friend Whitney shared a touching tradition from her college friends: Each person went around the table to say how I came into their lives and why they love me. I think my exact drunk words were: "You guys, words are my love language!"

As if they didn't know.

 

Allison brought me a kombucha SCOBY so that I could brew my own tea, the supplies for which I finally moved to Chicago from my parents' basement a few months ago. I'd been reluctant to bring them prior for the same reason I have yet to buy a coffee table or a real bedside table: Why acquire more things if I don't know how long I'll be in Chicago?

 

I missed making my own, and I cringed (as one does) when shelling out $4 every time I bought one in the grocery store. But still, it took me two years to bust out my supplies.

 

 



You guys, I do these things. This is my way. I drag some things out unnecessarily, and I will not listen to anyone who tries to impart wisdom or offer alternatives. Sometimes it's as if I need to make myself completely miserable in one facet of my life before something breaks, and I change courses.

 

 

Today I bottled my first batch of kombucha in over 2 years, my first since selling my house and moving to Chicago. That was five hours ago. I listened to podcasts with Henley at my feet, and I am still smiling.

 

 

I won't wait so long next time to do something I know makes me this happy.

 

 

 

The hangover is inevitable, whether it be love or otherwise. I'm going to do the living anyways.

31

31 is crumbs in your keyboard and the perfect black heels that you hope will make it through another season. 31 is raising your hand and saying "Yes, I can get that done for you" while thinking "That's not fucking possible" and then doing it anyways. 31 is delivering, over and over, until they do it your way.

31 is laughing out loud in the way that made your grandfather beam. 31 is silver and gold, and keeping an open heart with the bronze. 31 is polishing what's worthy of elbow grease.

31 is rigidly straight enemy grey hairs. 31 is eye cream and a prayer that you inherited your mom's agelessness. 31 is junk in the trunk and the familiar ache in your right knee. 31 is owning it.

31 is coordinating pet sitters and filling up the water bowl. 31 is smooshy-face kisses and belly rubs and "hello my little plum, what did you do all day?" 31 is savoring the tail wag.

 

31 is vinyasa after yinyasa, well past when your arms tire. 31 is knowing that someday, out of the blue, you'll pop up into side crow. 31 is practice. 31 is showing up.

31 is cracking rental car deal codes.  31 is forgetting your car charger and knowing all the right shortcuts to get home before the battery dies. 31 is watering your roots.

31 is loving people, well past when your heart hurts.  31 is knowing that someday, out of the blue, you'll master the balance between vulnerability and boundaries. 31 is mustering grace. 31 is letting go instead of being dragged.

31 is well-laid plans and "oh, shit" moments. 31 is remembering that nobody really knows what they're doing anyways. 31 is winging it.

31 is being free, defined your way. 31 is truth, even when it hurts. 31 is being grounded, only by things of your choosing. 31 is thriving, in spite of it all.

Because this is where you are.

It's no secret that I've tired of city life.

The freedom and newness and possibility that enveloped me upon my arrival has, over the past two years, given way to inconveniences, grind, and cramp.

It culminated a few months back, when I came down with the flu just as Henley picked up a bug from, one can only guess, the back alley. Days of diarrhea and vomiting on her part gave way to a very scary reality: It was Sunday, a day when all normal vets are closed, she was refusing food for the third day and couldn't keep water down, I had a fever and no car, and the nearest emergency vet--bound to cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars--was 2 miles away. And it was freezing and snowing, because of course.

As the saying goes, FML.

--

I spend a lot of time going back and forth between two camps:

• This city doesn't suit your ideal lifestyle and you need to take care of that ASAP
• You are really lucky and you need to recognize that and not take it for granted

So basically I've spent a lot of time beating myself up.

"Why do I live here?" has become a pretty constant refrain, both in the "why the fuck do I live somewhere where it hurts my face to walk down the street??!!" kind of immediate way and also in the "but no really, why? What's keeping me here?" It gets existential pretty quickly.

Answers range from "because it's 6 hours from your family" and "because you have a great job and why would you risk leaving" and "because it would cost a couple grand to relocate" and "because I'm scared that I don't have it in me to start all over once again".

The other day on the bus home, I found myself silently asking that familiar question. I looked out at the lake, a daily commute ritual that calms me and reminds me of home, and a new answer appeared: You live here because this is where you are.

You are here because this is where you are.

It's as simple as that. This is where I am in life. It's not where I'll always be, and the mysteries behind that will unveil themselves in good time. But for right now I live here because this is where I am.

And that's...satisfactory. It doesn't feel like a question anymore. It hasn't crossed my mind since.

I live here because this is where I am.

You guys, I am nowhere close to being a Zen Buddhist Priest, but I am so much closer than I ever thought I'd be.

Um.

This personality test is eerily on point.

"...isn't always prepared to share her grievances" might be the understatement of my lifetime.

That is all.