I went to a wedding last weekend where the bride was 83 and the groom was 87.
The bride is my great-aunt, and she’s always been full of life and easy to laugh. When my dad told me that she was getting married, I assessed the 3-hour drive to Yakima, and decided that if I were to continue to call myself a romantic, I had to go.
Lev and Lorraine knew each other growing up in Cowiche. For anyone who doesn’t know – and that’s going to be nearly everyone -- Cowiche is a small farming community west of Yakima, with only a small grocery store, a high school and a gas station. It’s its own little valley full of orchards and a little bit of wheat, with mostly humble homes and at least two churches. On Saturday was more than 90 degrees and the sagebrush is snarled into the rocks in any area that hasn’t been cultivated for farming. It was dry and dusty, and small enough that I wasn’t sure if it could have been any smaller when my grandparents grew up there.
Despite all this, I was charmed as we drove into town. It could have been because I was recognizing a place where my grandparents grew up and that my grandfather hasn’t been back to for probably more than 20 years. It could have been that I recognized a lifestyle that I’ve come to appreciate more and more, and it could be because it was a beautiful sunny day and two people far past the age that many people live were pledging love to each other for the rest of their lives.
My grandmother and her sister both moved out of Cowiche and made their lives somewhere else. Lorraine has three children, all of whom made it to her third wedding. She became reacquainted with Lev five years ago at a Cowiche High School class reunion, and they’ve been dating ever since.
Lev’s wife had cancer and died in their 53rd year of marriage.ten years prior. Now he can say he’s been married three days. Lev’s children came, and many of his grandchildren made it with their children. I marveled at the idea that his great-grandchildren will have memories of their great-grandfather, and some of the oldest ones would remember being at his wedding.
Many people asked why someone would remarry this late in life, and I didn’t really have an answer until that day. For practical purposes, they married because they were “tired of living in sin,” as my aunt called it. But that isn’t the whole answer. No one whose face lit up as much as hers did could have had sin on the mind as she stood there. She pulled me into a hug when I arrived, then whispered, her eyes twinkling, “I can’t believe I got such a handsome man to marry me.” I knew I would see it and that’s why I went, but the wedding reminded me that it’s never too late for love, for a second or third chance, for the chance of a lifetime to be with someone you love.
Lorraine has made it full-circle: she started her life in a small farm town and had ended up there, 83 years later. She has lived, loved, and laughed. After a lifetime of seeing and doing so many things, she is still not ready to give up and sink into old age.
I think too often it’s easy to think that life ends at a certain point, or that you will figure everything out and live happily ever after. Part of me is glad this isn’t the case, because it would be mean that you just get to put on the cruise control and stop paying so much attention. Lorraine has reminded me that there’s never a reason to rely on the cruise control, and that the view is better with the top down and the wind blowing in your hair, even when that hair is gray.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Maybe It's Time to Face Reality
Maybe it’s time to face reality. Maybe it’s time to take a good, honest look at my life and come to some conclusions about myself. Maybe, based off of these conclusions, I should make some decisions and just go with it.
No, this does not mean that I am going to admit that maybe I’m not cut out to be a writer. It doesn’t mean that I am admitting that I have been irresponsible or wandered around in a bubble of bliss that will pop the minute I run out of money. It does not mean that I am perhaps not entirely human because I prefer ice-cold river water, wrinkled overworn clothes out of a backpack, and prefer a short bout of Monteczuma’s Revenge to having a mortgage. No, ladies and gentlemen, it means that perhaps it’s time for me to admit that I probably will never, ever, truly settle down.
Settling down means different things to do different people, so let me expand on the definition of this strange thing that I will never do. I will never say, “Gee, I haven’t had that much fun for like, 10 years.” I will never say, “I always wanted to go there, but it was never in the cards.” I will never refuse to go on a trip because there’s no running water. I will never refuse to eat something that looks even remotely tasty, even if I have no clue what it is. I will forgo doing something because I would have to do it by myself.
This settling down thing isn’t all bad, and to be honest, there are some things that I may never do on this path that I would kind of like to do. I will probably never own a new car, unless I win one. I will probably never be able to travel first class. I will probably never live more than a couple years in one place without it involving a super long hiatus to a foreign country. I will probably never have kids. I may never be able to find someone who wants to share all of this with me.
The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that my destiny is something I’ve been fighting for a long time. I keep expecting myself to get to the point where I want to live in one house with a mortgage and a job that would pay it; to wake up one day and hear my biological clock ticking; to want to commit myself to something and STAY committed to it. But what if I never do? What if I’m 45 years old and find that I am still single, still without a full-time (as opposed to a borrowed) pet of my own because I don’t know how long I’ll be here, still without children, and still planning long-ass trips all over the world?
As I said last week, I can’t guarantee that someday my feelings will be different. But today, right now, this moment, on 7/8/09, I can look that future straight on and be okay with it.
In the past I’ve tried to shape my future to something normal. I’ve tried to be in jobs that will get me on a career path with two weeks of vacation a year, that make me enough money I could potentially save for a house, looked for people to date in similar situations with similar goals. Where has this sort of searching gotten me? Back at the same place I always find myself: with money, a schedule, a social life, a boyfriend, and most likely completely miserable. One guy I dated said to me, “Well once we got married you would stop traveling, right?” I didn’t even think twice about it. I didn’t think about what he meant to me, how much I loved him, how this might actually be a normal idea. I just opened my mouth and said what my entire being was shouting: NO.
So maybe it’s time I try to shape my future to me. Maybe it’s time to let go of this idea that perhaps one day I’ll finally “grow up” and admit that “settling down” may not be in the cards for me. Maybe I need to be okay with the fact that I may be that cool aunt that brings back trinkets from foreign places; that some people will envy my freedom but would never actually want my solitude, and that maybe, just maybe, I like it that way.
Love and realistic kisses
Morgan
No, this does not mean that I am going to admit that maybe I’m not cut out to be a writer. It doesn’t mean that I am admitting that I have been irresponsible or wandered around in a bubble of bliss that will pop the minute I run out of money. It does not mean that I am perhaps not entirely human because I prefer ice-cold river water, wrinkled overworn clothes out of a backpack, and prefer a short bout of Monteczuma’s Revenge to having a mortgage. No, ladies and gentlemen, it means that perhaps it’s time for me to admit that I probably will never, ever, truly settle down.
Settling down means different things to do different people, so let me expand on the definition of this strange thing that I will never do. I will never say, “Gee, I haven’t had that much fun for like, 10 years.” I will never say, “I always wanted to go there, but it was never in the cards.” I will never refuse to go on a trip because there’s no running water. I will never refuse to eat something that looks even remotely tasty, even if I have no clue what it is. I will forgo doing something because I would have to do it by myself.
This settling down thing isn’t all bad, and to be honest, there are some things that I may never do on this path that I would kind of like to do. I will probably never own a new car, unless I win one. I will probably never be able to travel first class. I will probably never live more than a couple years in one place without it involving a super long hiatus to a foreign country. I will probably never have kids. I may never be able to find someone who wants to share all of this with me.
The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that my destiny is something I’ve been fighting for a long time. I keep expecting myself to get to the point where I want to live in one house with a mortgage and a job that would pay it; to wake up one day and hear my biological clock ticking; to want to commit myself to something and STAY committed to it. But what if I never do? What if I’m 45 years old and find that I am still single, still without a full-time (as opposed to a borrowed) pet of my own because I don’t know how long I’ll be here, still without children, and still planning long-ass trips all over the world?
As I said last week, I can’t guarantee that someday my feelings will be different. But today, right now, this moment, on 7/8/09, I can look that future straight on and be okay with it.
In the past I’ve tried to shape my future to something normal. I’ve tried to be in jobs that will get me on a career path with two weeks of vacation a year, that make me enough money I could potentially save for a house, looked for people to date in similar situations with similar goals. Where has this sort of searching gotten me? Back at the same place I always find myself: with money, a schedule, a social life, a boyfriend, and most likely completely miserable. One guy I dated said to me, “Well once we got married you would stop traveling, right?” I didn’t even think twice about it. I didn’t think about what he meant to me, how much I loved him, how this might actually be a normal idea. I just opened my mouth and said what my entire being was shouting: NO.
So maybe it’s time I try to shape my future to me. Maybe it’s time to let go of this idea that perhaps one day I’ll finally “grow up” and admit that “settling down” may not be in the cards for me. Maybe I need to be okay with the fact that I may be that cool aunt that brings back trinkets from foreign places; that some people will envy my freedom but would never actually want my solitude, and that maybe, just maybe, I like it that way.
Love and realistic kisses
Morgan
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Lake Chelan, the ex
When I tell people that I grew up in Lake Chelan, nine times out of ten they say, “Oh, really? I didn’t know people actually lived there year round.”
After this response, I am glad that I didn’t lead with “I’m from Manson,” because most of these people don’t know where that is – even if they’ve stayed at Wapato Point or been to the casino.
But it’s okay – these people are not, obviously, from the Chelan Valley. They do not know the best park to swim at with the least amount of people (and I’m not going to tell them), that there are actually houses way out in Manson past the single main street, and they have no idea how fun it is to drive along Rocky Point after Labor Day when you can go the speed limit.
It’s not their fault, any more than it’s my fault that I had to learn how to give directions by street names instead of landmarks. Telling someone to take a left at the house with the chickens just doesn’t seem to get you places in Seattle, strangely enough.
The Valley is very different from when I grew up there. I want to blame it on the tourists; the fully-fledged wine industry that was just hatching when I left; the people who pulled out their orchards to sell their land for more than they could make growing fruit. I want to blame it all on someone else, but I can’t. The truth is that every time I go back to Manson, I don’t quite feel like I fit, and it’s my own fault.
On Memorial Day Weekend I walked into Manson Bay Market and was told by a cashier that I didn’t know that I could buy a container larger than a quart of milk for the same price. I answered without thinking that something bigger than a quart of milk wouldn’t fit in my parents’ motor home refrigerator. I instantly wanted to take it back. I wanted to explain, in ever-growing detail with an ever-growing line of impatient people behind me, that my family had had a timeshare at the Mill Bay trailer park for years, and that we were locals but it had always been our affordable waterfront. I wanted to, but instead I sighed, paid for my quart of milk, and left. Yesterday I went to visit my aunt and uncle, who are staying on the south shore in a rented house for the Fourth of July weekend. The whole time I was there I felt like I had betrayed someone, like I was cheating on the Valley that I knew, hanging out at a tourist rental when I could have been at a public park or on someone’s lawn who lived there year-round. Instead, I have perhaps become a tourist in my hometown, because I no longer feel truly at home there.
Each time I go back to the Valley I feel like you would about an ex-boyfriend. You see him, he looks great, your stomach does a flip, and even though you remember all those great reasons you had for breaking up, you can only seem to focus on why you should have stayed together. The longer you’re in his presence, the better a time you have, the more nostalgic you feel for what you once had. You no longer take each moment for granted like you did when you were together, because you know it is going to end after this one chance encounter. That idea packs the moment with bittersweet memories, feelings, emotions, and you are wistful, because you know you can never have it again. It at once makes you feel like you want to stretch out the moment forever, or end it quickly to get past the pain.
I don’t want to say that I could never live in the Chelan Valley again, because I have learned that things change in ways that are unexpected and there’s no telling where I will be or what I’ll be doing in the future. Emotions pass with the seasons, and eventually Chelan may seem like a whole new person to me, with only traces of the good parts I liked about that first boyfriend. At the moment, however, the breakup is still too fresh for my liking. I can’t imagine making a new life in a place so infused with my past.
Love and nostalgic kisses
Morgan
After this response, I am glad that I didn’t lead with “I’m from Manson,” because most of these people don’t know where that is – even if they’ve stayed at Wapato Point or been to the casino.
But it’s okay – these people are not, obviously, from the Chelan Valley. They do not know the best park to swim at with the least amount of people (and I’m not going to tell them), that there are actually houses way out in Manson past the single main street, and they have no idea how fun it is to drive along Rocky Point after Labor Day when you can go the speed limit.
It’s not their fault, any more than it’s my fault that I had to learn how to give directions by street names instead of landmarks. Telling someone to take a left at the house with the chickens just doesn’t seem to get you places in Seattle, strangely enough.
The Valley is very different from when I grew up there. I want to blame it on the tourists; the fully-fledged wine industry that was just hatching when I left; the people who pulled out their orchards to sell their land for more than they could make growing fruit. I want to blame it all on someone else, but I can’t. The truth is that every time I go back to Manson, I don’t quite feel like I fit, and it’s my own fault.
On Memorial Day Weekend I walked into Manson Bay Market and was told by a cashier that I didn’t know that I could buy a container larger than a quart of milk for the same price. I answered without thinking that something bigger than a quart of milk wouldn’t fit in my parents’ motor home refrigerator. I instantly wanted to take it back. I wanted to explain, in ever-growing detail with an ever-growing line of impatient people behind me, that my family had had a timeshare at the Mill Bay trailer park for years, and that we were locals but it had always been our affordable waterfront. I wanted to, but instead I sighed, paid for my quart of milk, and left. Yesterday I went to visit my aunt and uncle, who are staying on the south shore in a rented house for the Fourth of July weekend. The whole time I was there I felt like I had betrayed someone, like I was cheating on the Valley that I knew, hanging out at a tourist rental when I could have been at a public park or on someone’s lawn who lived there year-round. Instead, I have perhaps become a tourist in my hometown, because I no longer feel truly at home there.
Each time I go back to the Valley I feel like you would about an ex-boyfriend. You see him, he looks great, your stomach does a flip, and even though you remember all those great reasons you had for breaking up, you can only seem to focus on why you should have stayed together. The longer you’re in his presence, the better a time you have, the more nostalgic you feel for what you once had. You no longer take each moment for granted like you did when you were together, because you know it is going to end after this one chance encounter. That idea packs the moment with bittersweet memories, feelings, emotions, and you are wistful, because you know you can never have it again. It at once makes you feel like you want to stretch out the moment forever, or end it quickly to get past the pain.
I don’t want to say that I could never live in the Chelan Valley again, because I have learned that things change in ways that are unexpected and there’s no telling where I will be or what I’ll be doing in the future. Emotions pass with the seasons, and eventually Chelan may seem like a whole new person to me, with only traces of the good parts I liked about that first boyfriend. At the moment, however, the breakup is still too fresh for my liking. I can’t imagine making a new life in a place so infused with my past.
Love and nostalgic kisses
Morgan
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Everyone is Different
Everyone is different.
Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious.
No, really. Everyone is different.
Everyone is different.
It may seem like a strange thing to say over and over again, yet over and over again I have to say it to myself. It isn’t so much a mantra so that I’ll leave others to their own lives that are different from mine; it is more a mantra to remind myself that it is my life to do with what I wish.
I have been pondering this point a lot lately, for a number of reasons. Firstly, many of my friends have started getting invitations to their 10-year high school reunions. Whether we want to admit it or not, we want to make a good impression on people who used to know us. As a result, a life that has seemed satisfactory could suddenly look dull when facing the threat of scrutiny. To some extent, everyone dreads former classmates who look down on you because your measure of success does not meet their standard.
I was joking with a friend today about starting a company that supplied “spouses” for reunions: someone that you could write a back story with, who would make you look like you had a successful life; someone who would help you impress those people that you hardly know anymore.
There’s just one problem with that, and it’s a glaring one: it’s not you.
Making a good impression is great and all, but eventually that great impression fades into the everyday impression you give. This isn’t to say that you can’t constantly give a good impression, but no one is perfect all the time.
I’ve actually given up on trying to be. I’m more likely to speak my mind than I used to be; I’m more likely to say something unpopular if I feel like saying it, instead of holding my tongue for the sake of appearances. I’ve realized that you have to accept people for who they are, every single freaking part of them, not just the good parts. This has kind of run over into the pictures I’m tagged in on Facebook. Even when I look at a picture someone else posts of me and I know I look like absolute crap, or fat, or ugly, I won’t let myself remove the tag. This is because I am not just a person in a picture. If I looked like that in one brief moment that was caught on camera, then I have probably looked like that more than once, or every day for that matter. The people who see those pictures just saw me in an every day moment, when I wasn’t sucking in, when I was concentrating and my tongue was sticking out in a very awkward and unflattering way, when my lips and teeth are tinged red from the wine I’ve been drinking.
As unflattering as it may be, it’s me. I’m not only those moments when I say and do the right thing and impress the right people. I’m also me when I vomit all over myself at a company Christmas party. I’m me when I tell you you’re wrong but you’re right; and, unfortunately, I’m me when I sing horribly, off-pitch and too loudly.
Just as I have come to accept me for being me, bitchy and imperfect as I am, I am also trying to do the same for others around me. Unconditional love is loving someone and their faults, not in spite of them. I think my biggest accomplishment in this area is being able to truly be happy for people who are getting what they want, even if their idea of bliss sounds like hell on earth to me. I can’t do it all the time to everyone – I’m not perfect, remember? – but I no longer feel the streaks of jealousy or condemnation that I used to feel when someone told me that their newest boyfriend is just perfect for them despite the fact that he has never left the state, or that they just booked a trip to Nebraska for their honeymoon. This doesn’t mean that I’m not without my opinion on these matters, but I at least can recognize happiness when I see it and not get in its way. Everyone’s idea of bliss is different. It’s better that way.
Another reason for my new mantra is, of course, that I am not following the normal path, and it’s getting more and more apparent. It kind of made me feel like an outsider when my friends started marrying or holding steady jobs and I didn’t, but I got over it. It feels like a bigger deal now that they’re starting to talk about children; that they have houses; that they’ve been in the same jobs for long enough they’ve been promoted multiple times. Basically, they’re settling down, right when I’m starting from scratch. It’s not that I want their lives, but I do feel the differences between their realities and mine becoming more and more apparent.
But it’s okay. Everyone is different. I have known that for a long time in specific aspects of my life: not everyone loses the same amount of weight on the same diet; not everyone gets spiritual bliss from the same religion; not everyone thinks swimming in ice-cold glacier-fed lakes is the best form of exercise on earth. But really, the beauty of it all is that we are all different in nearly every way. This is why we aren’t all clamoring to marry the same man; why they don’t constantly have a shortage on dark chocolate Lindt truffles (my favorite, so you’re gonna lose if there’s one bag left and it’s you or me) or why you don’t have to book years in advance for flights to Mexico and the Caribbean. Not everyone wants the same thing. We are not all built in the same way. Everyone is different.
I just heard an interview with Woody Allen, and I think he put it best.
“What kind of life would you have if you made your decisions based on the outside world and not what your inner dictates told you?” he asked, before answering his own question, “You would have a very inauthentic life.”
Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious.
No, really. Everyone is different.
Everyone is different.
It may seem like a strange thing to say over and over again, yet over and over again I have to say it to myself. It isn’t so much a mantra so that I’ll leave others to their own lives that are different from mine; it is more a mantra to remind myself that it is my life to do with what I wish.
I have been pondering this point a lot lately, for a number of reasons. Firstly, many of my friends have started getting invitations to their 10-year high school reunions. Whether we want to admit it or not, we want to make a good impression on people who used to know us. As a result, a life that has seemed satisfactory could suddenly look dull when facing the threat of scrutiny. To some extent, everyone dreads former classmates who look down on you because your measure of success does not meet their standard.
I was joking with a friend today about starting a company that supplied “spouses” for reunions: someone that you could write a back story with, who would make you look like you had a successful life; someone who would help you impress those people that you hardly know anymore.
There’s just one problem with that, and it’s a glaring one: it’s not you.
Making a good impression is great and all, but eventually that great impression fades into the everyday impression you give. This isn’t to say that you can’t constantly give a good impression, but no one is perfect all the time.
I’ve actually given up on trying to be. I’m more likely to speak my mind than I used to be; I’m more likely to say something unpopular if I feel like saying it, instead of holding my tongue for the sake of appearances. I’ve realized that you have to accept people for who they are, every single freaking part of them, not just the good parts. This has kind of run over into the pictures I’m tagged in on Facebook. Even when I look at a picture someone else posts of me and I know I look like absolute crap, or fat, or ugly, I won’t let myself remove the tag. This is because I am not just a person in a picture. If I looked like that in one brief moment that was caught on camera, then I have probably looked like that more than once, or every day for that matter. The people who see those pictures just saw me in an every day moment, when I wasn’t sucking in, when I was concentrating and my tongue was sticking out in a very awkward and unflattering way, when my lips and teeth are tinged red from the wine I’ve been drinking.
As unflattering as it may be, it’s me. I’m not only those moments when I say and do the right thing and impress the right people. I’m also me when I vomit all over myself at a company Christmas party. I’m me when I tell you you’re wrong but you’re right; and, unfortunately, I’m me when I sing horribly, off-pitch and too loudly.
Just as I have come to accept me for being me, bitchy and imperfect as I am, I am also trying to do the same for others around me. Unconditional love is loving someone and their faults, not in spite of them. I think my biggest accomplishment in this area is being able to truly be happy for people who are getting what they want, even if their idea of bliss sounds like hell on earth to me. I can’t do it all the time to everyone – I’m not perfect, remember? – but I no longer feel the streaks of jealousy or condemnation that I used to feel when someone told me that their newest boyfriend is just perfect for them despite the fact that he has never left the state, or that they just booked a trip to Nebraska for their honeymoon. This doesn’t mean that I’m not without my opinion on these matters, but I at least can recognize happiness when I see it and not get in its way. Everyone’s idea of bliss is different. It’s better that way.
Another reason for my new mantra is, of course, that I am not following the normal path, and it’s getting more and more apparent. It kind of made me feel like an outsider when my friends started marrying or holding steady jobs and I didn’t, but I got over it. It feels like a bigger deal now that they’re starting to talk about children; that they have houses; that they’ve been in the same jobs for long enough they’ve been promoted multiple times. Basically, they’re settling down, right when I’m starting from scratch. It’s not that I want their lives, but I do feel the differences between their realities and mine becoming more and more apparent.
But it’s okay. Everyone is different. I have known that for a long time in specific aspects of my life: not everyone loses the same amount of weight on the same diet; not everyone gets spiritual bliss from the same religion; not everyone thinks swimming in ice-cold glacier-fed lakes is the best form of exercise on earth. But really, the beauty of it all is that we are all different in nearly every way. This is why we aren’t all clamoring to marry the same man; why they don’t constantly have a shortage on dark chocolate Lindt truffles (my favorite, so you’re gonna lose if there’s one bag left and it’s you or me) or why you don’t have to book years in advance for flights to Mexico and the Caribbean. Not everyone wants the same thing. We are not all built in the same way. Everyone is different.
I just heard an interview with Woody Allen, and I think he put it best.
“What kind of life would you have if you made your decisions based on the outside world and not what your inner dictates told you?” he asked, before answering his own question, “You would have a very inauthentic life.”
Monday, June 15, 2009
Restless Panic
All day I’ve been facing a panic that has been hard to hold down, yet it has paralyzed me. I realized that I began thinking about how easy it could be; how easy life could be if I just let go of this dream and rejoin the rest of the working world. After getting the job – the hard part, nowadays – I would simply step back into the harness and make money for someone else. While I did this, however, I would be promised a paycheck; a chance to grow my savings account instead of depending on it. I could start thinking about vacations, buying property, houses, expensive foods, visiting friends, retirement accounts. All of these ideas are bubbling just below the surface every day. It doesn’t help that my parents have started making small, probably benign comments that plopping into this stew and causing it to bubble more insistently. Did I want to write for the local paper? Have I thought about applying to do this, or that? While I dismiss their questions, I can’t quite get rid of the thought of them. It doesn’t help when I’m having a low day and I can’t control my jealousy toward the cat; he stayed in bed when I got up and only moved to eat and poop all day long.
When people told me that this year would be hard, I nodded my head solemnly without understanding what exactly they were referring to. The truth of the matter is that the hard part is getting up and doing the work day after day. The hard part is not knowing if your plans will ever pay off, but going ahead with them anyway. The hard part is not taking that nap when you want one, and pushing down the thought that you can do it if you really want to, because there’s no one to answer to but yourself. The hard part is believing in yourself. At the same time, the hard part is knowing when you can’t do any more and it’s time to stop for the day, the week, or the month.
Can I do this? Well, I’ve been doing this, so apparently I can. Do I want to do this? The answer is a resounding yes. What’s the real problem then? I am afraid. I am afraid that I will wake up one day and know that I can’t try to write anymore. I am afraid that one day I will realize that this isn’t going to get me anywhere that I would want to be for a long period of time. More than anything, I am afraid that I will throw in the towel before it’s time and forever regret not pushing myself harder to get what I wanted.
Most of the time I believe that life is what you make of it; that positive thinking will fill in the chinks between the concrete blocks of hard work and steady, slow labor of building a future. Today? Today I am afraid that there is nothing that I can do to alter what has already been laid out for me, and that at the end of my life I will repeat the same monotone sentences that I have heard before: “I could have been more, if only I had tried.”
Tomorrow will most likely be different. The sun will shine, the air will smell sweetly of pine, and I will know that I can do whatever I want, if I only put my mind to it. Tomorrow, I will feel better. Today, I am restless while I wait for tomorrow to come.
When people told me that this year would be hard, I nodded my head solemnly without understanding what exactly they were referring to. The truth of the matter is that the hard part is getting up and doing the work day after day. The hard part is not knowing if your plans will ever pay off, but going ahead with them anyway. The hard part is not taking that nap when you want one, and pushing down the thought that you can do it if you really want to, because there’s no one to answer to but yourself. The hard part is believing in yourself. At the same time, the hard part is knowing when you can’t do any more and it’s time to stop for the day, the week, or the month.
Can I do this? Well, I’ve been doing this, so apparently I can. Do I want to do this? The answer is a resounding yes. What’s the real problem then? I am afraid. I am afraid that I will wake up one day and know that I can’t try to write anymore. I am afraid that one day I will realize that this isn’t going to get me anywhere that I would want to be for a long period of time. More than anything, I am afraid that I will throw in the towel before it’s time and forever regret not pushing myself harder to get what I wanted.
Most of the time I believe that life is what you make of it; that positive thinking will fill in the chinks between the concrete blocks of hard work and steady, slow labor of building a future. Today? Today I am afraid that there is nothing that I can do to alter what has already been laid out for me, and that at the end of my life I will repeat the same monotone sentences that I have heard before: “I could have been more, if only I had tried.”
Tomorrow will most likely be different. The sun will shine, the air will smell sweetly of pine, and I will know that I can do whatever I want, if I only put my mind to it. Tomorrow, I will feel better. Today, I am restless while I wait for tomorrow to come.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Creativity's Best Work
Creativity looks up at me and smiles. She moves out of the way, and I sit down in her place and stare at the computer screen. Almost immediately, my eyes start to well up. She moves away, embarrassed to see me cry, but smug nonetheless.
These are the moments when I know just how great she can be. Sometimes her work is funny, sometimes soulful, sometimes downright lewd. When she’s really done it, though, the subject matter doesn’t, well, matter. At those times, something more than tears wells up inside me, and I can see the future as it could be – I can see her talent taking her to the stars and beyond, with me following in her wake. In these visions, I am but a trusting puppy with large feet that I trip over, smiling simple-mindedly while I let her shine in the spotlight. The visions aren’t exactly the truth, however. The truth is that I would be the one in the spotlight, I would be the one taking all the credit, even if in reality I don’t really feel like I deserve it. I prefer to think that I am merely a chaperone until Creativity is old enough to surpass me in her brilliance and shine like the star that she is. Once that point is reached, she won’t need me anymore, much like a daughter gets her drivers license and no longer needs her mother to cart her around. She may still prefer that I drive on the long roadtrips, but for the most part she is self-sufficient and she is simply obliging me by sometimes letting me tag along as she zooms all over existence, honking the horn at people to get out of her way.
As much as I may not agree or think it’s unfair, the truth is that Creativity will always be dependent on me. I am the one who will carry her along; whether she needs me or not I am the face that will represent her work. Sometimes I don’t think I’m up to the task, but then Creativity makes me cry with her inventions, and I vow I won’t be the one who holds her back.
Love and best work kisses
Morgan
These are the moments when I know just how great she can be. Sometimes her work is funny, sometimes soulful, sometimes downright lewd. When she’s really done it, though, the subject matter doesn’t, well, matter. At those times, something more than tears wells up inside me, and I can see the future as it could be – I can see her talent taking her to the stars and beyond, with me following in her wake. In these visions, I am but a trusting puppy with large feet that I trip over, smiling simple-mindedly while I let her shine in the spotlight. The visions aren’t exactly the truth, however. The truth is that I would be the one in the spotlight, I would be the one taking all the credit, even if in reality I don’t really feel like I deserve it. I prefer to think that I am merely a chaperone until Creativity is old enough to surpass me in her brilliance and shine like the star that she is. Once that point is reached, she won’t need me anymore, much like a daughter gets her drivers license and no longer needs her mother to cart her around. She may still prefer that I drive on the long roadtrips, but for the most part she is self-sufficient and she is simply obliging me by sometimes letting me tag along as she zooms all over existence, honking the horn at people to get out of her way.
As much as I may not agree or think it’s unfair, the truth is that Creativity will always be dependent on me. I am the one who will carry her along; whether she needs me or not I am the face that will represent her work. Sometimes I don’t think I’m up to the task, but then Creativity makes me cry with her inventions, and I vow I won’t be the one who holds her back.
Love and best work kisses
Morgan
Bonnie
A friend of mine's father is losing a battle with cancer. Reasonably enough, this has gotten me thinking about death more than usual. I wrote the post below after watching a woman with cancer die, and decided to re-post it instead of writing something new. My thoughts are with Katie and her family.
Last night I watched a woman take her last breath and die.
I had met Bonnie once, and it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She was only 57, a principal who had just started at a new school, she had a newly married son, her husband was closing a deal at work that would have brought them money at home.
A month ago, Bonnie was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer whose carriers number less than 50 worldwide. It grew quickly on the hypatic artery that fed her liver, displacing her inner organs and causing her to lose her appetite. Her mother learned she was terminally ill two days before she died.
Bonnie was the older sister of my mother’s oldest friend; their house was her second home growing up. As we sat in the hospital room with Bonnie, slack-jawed and in a coma, her breath coming suddenly like someone gasping for air, my mother began to tell stories to Brenda, Bonnie’s sister.
“Bonnie saved me once. I spilled nail polish all over the carpet in one of the bedrooms, and she told you mom that she did it. Lucy was so mad.”
Over and over, again and again, little bits of information about this woman leaked into the room. She has a son working in L.A. for a billionaire. She did the yard work at their house, because her husband hated it. She cooked standing on one leg, the other foot resting comfortably on the inside of her knee. She wanted her ashes mixed with the ashes of her cat, Fred the Fat, whose frame had been so large when they got him that her 8-year-old son had to use both arms and carry him like a big stack of firewood.
These memories are what it came down to. Bonnie’s life had been full and she was loved. She had touched many lives as a principal, teacher, sister, mother and wife. In the end, though, what really touched me, sitting at her feet, was that her outreach had been small, infinitely small, and made monumental differences.
I had never watched someone’s last moments before. Bonnie’s breath slowly slackened, her color turned gray, her limbs grew cold, and slowly, slowly, she stopped breathing as regularly. When she stopped, I kept expecting to see her chest rise again, because it’s something you expect but don’t notice: breath. In. Out. In. Out. I realized that I had stopped seeing it, but kept believing it was there, like a mirage of life, a last defense mechanism against the inevitable.
I barely knew this woman, yet I cried the hardest when she died. I cried in fear of what was to come: for the other people whose deathbeds I would see, the friends I would lose too early, the relationships that would be taken away from me before I was ready, because you’re never ready. I cried at the thought that one day it would be me lying there, slowly drifting away, my loved ones wishing me the best but begging me not to go. I cried because I felt death cheats us all, because there is no escape. I cried because this is supposed to be normal, but death has never felt normal to me.
Then, inevitably, I couldn’t focus on death anymore. It is hardwired into our lives to want to live, to go on, to pretend that we will be young and vibrant forever. I didn’t want to fight my new focus, my new train of thought that washed over me like a cleansing wave. Death is to remind us what life is all about; what’s really important; what shouldn’t be taken for granted. I suddenly had a clear picture of what I wanted to accomplish before I made it to this bed, and realized that I was the only one in my way. I woke up the next morning not weighed down by Bonnie’s death, rather invigorated by her life.
Perhaps that is why the sun seems so much brighter today.
Love and mortal kisses
Morgan
Last night I watched a woman take her last breath and die.
I had met Bonnie once, and it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She was only 57, a principal who had just started at a new school, she had a newly married son, her husband was closing a deal at work that would have brought them money at home.
A month ago, Bonnie was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer whose carriers number less than 50 worldwide. It grew quickly on the hypatic artery that fed her liver, displacing her inner organs and causing her to lose her appetite. Her mother learned she was terminally ill two days before she died.
Bonnie was the older sister of my mother’s oldest friend; their house was her second home growing up. As we sat in the hospital room with Bonnie, slack-jawed and in a coma, her breath coming suddenly like someone gasping for air, my mother began to tell stories to Brenda, Bonnie’s sister.
“Bonnie saved me once. I spilled nail polish all over the carpet in one of the bedrooms, and she told you mom that she did it. Lucy was so mad.”
Over and over, again and again, little bits of information about this woman leaked into the room. She has a son working in L.A. for a billionaire. She did the yard work at their house, because her husband hated it. She cooked standing on one leg, the other foot resting comfortably on the inside of her knee. She wanted her ashes mixed with the ashes of her cat, Fred the Fat, whose frame had been so large when they got him that her 8-year-old son had to use both arms and carry him like a big stack of firewood.
These memories are what it came down to. Bonnie’s life had been full and she was loved. She had touched many lives as a principal, teacher, sister, mother and wife. In the end, though, what really touched me, sitting at her feet, was that her outreach had been small, infinitely small, and made monumental differences.
I had never watched someone’s last moments before. Bonnie’s breath slowly slackened, her color turned gray, her limbs grew cold, and slowly, slowly, she stopped breathing as regularly. When she stopped, I kept expecting to see her chest rise again, because it’s something you expect but don’t notice: breath. In. Out. In. Out. I realized that I had stopped seeing it, but kept believing it was there, like a mirage of life, a last defense mechanism against the inevitable.
I barely knew this woman, yet I cried the hardest when she died. I cried in fear of what was to come: for the other people whose deathbeds I would see, the friends I would lose too early, the relationships that would be taken away from me before I was ready, because you’re never ready. I cried at the thought that one day it would be me lying there, slowly drifting away, my loved ones wishing me the best but begging me not to go. I cried because I felt death cheats us all, because there is no escape. I cried because this is supposed to be normal, but death has never felt normal to me.
Then, inevitably, I couldn’t focus on death anymore. It is hardwired into our lives to want to live, to go on, to pretend that we will be young and vibrant forever. I didn’t want to fight my new focus, my new train of thought that washed over me like a cleansing wave. Death is to remind us what life is all about; what’s really important; what shouldn’t be taken for granted. I suddenly had a clear picture of what I wanted to accomplish before I made it to this bed, and realized that I was the only one in my way. I woke up the next morning not weighed down by Bonnie’s death, rather invigorated by her life.
Perhaps that is why the sun seems so much brighter today.
Love and mortal kisses
Morgan
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