Nerves,

There's a peculiar sort of feeling I get in my stomach when I'm nervous about something and I drink too much coffee. Usually, when I'm nervous or bothered my instinct is to drink coffee because caffeine will surely calm my nerves, right?

But, it happens. I'll wake up and my feet don't feel attached to the ground, and then I drink cup after cup until I feel like acid is swirling around in my stomach and the idea of swallowing food makes me want to retch.

Because of the way I handle stress, this feeling will actually trigger to me that something is wrong, and I'll try to figure out what it is that's bothering me. Sometimes I figure it out. Sometimes I don't.

This time, I can't figure out whats bothering me, but I'm five cups deep and something certainly is.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With Peace on earth, good will to men."

There's a pretty big part of me

that wants to clean out this whole thing are start over. Someone commented to me the other day that I only write about sad things. All of my stories have a dreary edge to them. Not a dark, gothic side to them. Just the themes they deal with: loneliness, abandonment, and fear tend to be inescapable.

I guess I didn't quite realize this. I think of myself in positive upbeat terms, and in fact project that kind of personality, in order to avoid the things that are bothering me. Which is probably why they come out in my creative outlets. My characters don't always make these things clear to me.

I'm not going to turn my back on any of it, but I am going to grab hold of a new happiness that I've achieved and try to wrestle with it a little bit. Let's see what happens.

The First Snow

My twenty first year
was the first time the snow felt stale.
It seemed too soon,
though it was late in the season
on the seventh of December.
It fell on my shoulder and
dusted my hair.
I felt the still burning flame of summer
flicker and die in my chest.
The external light of Christmas
is a comfort, but dull
in comparison.

Friends Are Essential During Finals Week

"It smells like Christmas and homework in here."
-Joel VanderWeele

"We don't KNOCK before we walk into their flat."
-Amy Buckingham

Whiskey Between Men

He stood just outside the door in a jacket that smelled like 1974 and September. The house was an imposing shape, pale blue and stark against the sky. It was not his home, but now he needed to make it seem that way. He resented this fact.

He walked inside and the smile he tried to give his nephew was stiff from the salt dried on his cheeks. It matched the smiles of the Dresden dolls lined up along the fire place: cold, hard and empty. His old mind had been poetic once upon a time, but now he thought mostly in disheartening clichés.

There were no lights on in the living room and it was cold. The windows were open, and he shivered inside the old jacket. He saw Stephen’s huddled shape in black and white, surrounded by a kingdom of dirty dishes and half empty glasses. The sound of a muted laugh track made his stomach churn.

He knew that this pile of dishes mirrored the one in the guest room which he had currently taken over. He hoped the boy had neglected to notice them. They were scattered with bits of leftover toast and cold stained tea cups. He’d noticed that no matter how much he ate these days, he never became full.

He down and removed his shoes. The laces were worn and bent from being tied in the same way year after year. The leather was cracking in certain spots, and he felt out of place in this house and this room with a boy who would not speak.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, breaking the silence. But the people on the television laughed at him again. His nephew shuffled his feet underneath a crocheted blanket and said nothing while he removed the hat from his head, turning it over and over in his hands. He didn’t understand how this wall had sprung up between them.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say. He could think of a thousand sentences that he could utter, ranging from compassionate to furious. But for all he talked, he might as well speak to his reflection in the mirror.

Maggie would have known what to do.

He continued to stare at the circles that blossomed out from the center of the blanket on the boy’s lap. Even in the darkened room he could see the vibrant colors his sister had woven into the pattern one day when they were both younger. It was just one of the many inescapable things that Maggie had left behind.

Somewhere underneath the grief and loneliness that lay heavy in his ribcage was a guilt he was not ready to face. He wanted to go somewhere with cacophonous noises and bright colors. Somewhere he could beat down this guilt. But in this dm room his guilt was making louder and louder noises. He didn’t want to be here with this silent boy for company.

There was a desire under this grief but it was one he felt slightly ashamed of. Now, it inspired an idea. An idea that wasn’t the most honorable but he supposed that Maggie wouldn’t mind.

He turned and rushed out of the room and Stephen glanced up from the TV in the sudden flurry of action. All around, the house seemed to hold its breath. His feet pushed down onto the carpet with more purpose than any of his limbs had felt in the past two days. When he reached the kitchen he pulled two small glasses out of a side drawer and out of the cabinet over the sink came a cool bottle of whiskey.

He headed back toward the living room, trying to keep his feet from hastening ahead of him. He knew it would be important to approach his nephew carefully, like trying to sneak up on a wild animal. He stopped by the front door again, slipping his jacket from his shoulders and hanging it on a peg. He unwound a scarf from his neck and folded it carefully before placing it in the closet. He felt out of his own skin, in a shirt that was stiffly ironed. He unbuttoned one button to allow him to breath and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.

When he entered the living room again he noticed that Stephen was sitting more upright underneath the blanket. Their eyes met he saw all of the emotions his nephew had been trying to hide, but the strongest of all was anger.

“I thought people liked to be left alone after a tragedy,” Stephen asked with a grimace pulling his face into an ugly expression, “you’re going to get me drunk instead?”

It would be so easy, he thought, to give in. To remind this boy that he was grieving too. Anger would be easy. He could feel it in the shiver that ran through the room. It was charged, like the shakes in a volcano before it exploded. He could drop the glasses and the bottle, leap over the coffee table and punch him in the eye. But he can’t, because he remembers Maggie, and instead sits in the loveseat that has the uncomfortable springs that squeak when you move.

Stephen’s eyes roamed everywhere but at him while he sat the glasses on the table between them. It would be easier if this could be reduced to a battle of words and fists. He tipped the whiskey into the shot glasses. He doubted this boy Irish temper would even recognize the gesture. He carefully aligned the top of the bottle and the rim of the shot glass, not trusting his shaking hands.

He raised them both, and held out one to his nephew. Stephen stared at them but said nothing. He made no move to take them. His hands, young and clenched, stayed on his lap.

“I think this will help,” he said, but he knew his tone was harsh and made his nephew flinch. It occurred to him that there was so much of his sister in these defiant actions. Stephen had always been so like Maggie, with his temper and the way he pretended the world did not exist, or at least that the world could not make him explain his actions.

“This is what adults do, boy,” he barked. “They honor the dead. They don’t hide from the world in front of their TV’s.”

There must have been something in his tone of voice, and he knew his sister would have shushed him and made him apologize if she had been here. But that was the point of all of this, that Maggie was not here, except in the whiskey that Stephen refused.

Another explosion happened somewhere behind his nephew’s eyes, and his hand shot out to take the glass from his uncle. A tiny amount splashed over the side and dropped to the carpet between them, leaving a stain that wouldn’t come out anytime in the remembered future.

“Now,” he instructed, “I want you to make a toast. A real toast, something your mother would be proud of.”

The way his shoulder’s dropped to told him the boy did not want to do this. There was fear under all his big words and angry eyes. But he waited. He studied his nephew’s hands and the way they gripped the glass. All of his fingers were bunched around the edges, and the skin of his knuckles was brown and unbroken. His own hands were pale and spotted by age, grasping his shot glass between fore finger and thumb. So many years divided them.

“To my mom, because she taught me that the world revolves,” Stephen paused as his voice was on the edge of breaking, “around love stories,”

He downed the brown liquid, and he lifted his shaking hand to do the same. His nephew tried to hide the grimace as he swallowed, but it was comical the way his eyes watered. He pretended to be preoccupied with filling the glasses for another round.

He lifted his glass high in the air and waited for Stephen to do the same.

“To Maggie,” he said, “for always leaving me with messes to clean up.”

Stephen laughed, and something between them splintered and shattered. The sound had been so unfamiliar in the past few days that it he almost felt embarrassed for his nephew. The rest of the toasts came more easily.

“To mom, for always leaving the stove on when she left the house.”

“To Maggie, for never learning how to decorate a living room.”

The looks between them became heavy with the whiskey as the shots past and the blanket slipped down to the floor from the couch. The drops of whiskey on the table became more and more numerous as his pours became less and less careful. Stephen had left the couch, and now sat on the floor with his limbs flung in every direction.

Eventually, he thought his nephew had consumed enough. His gaze was no longer present but he stared through the window to the changing leaves on the trees.

“This doesn’t hurt as much as it did before,” he whispered. He wondered what his nephew meant by ‘this’ but something in him filled in the blanks with words he did not know. His nephew’s voice was barely louder than the hum of the refrigerator in the next room and looked down at the boy beside him and thought about how much hope there was in that statement.

He didn’t know yet that the grief would wake him up in the middle of the night unexpectedly. He didn’t know that in ten years he would realize he could no longer remember the color of her eyes. He didn’t know that in some ways it would always hurt just as much as it did before.

But maybe he was talking about the whiskey. The burn did fade.

There was chasm between them that had never been crossed, and he doubted now was the best time to try. He wished that he could place a hand on his shoulder and offer a gesture of comfort.

“You’ll be okay,” he said, with his hand hovering somewhere between them and finally landing on his knee. It fell short of where it should be, just as he had.

Stephen didn’t answer, he just closed his eyes. There was understanding of what his nephew felt hidden somewhere in his chest, though he could never explain what it was.

“I know you didn’t go to the church either,” Stephen said.

No more words really needed to pass between them. He counted the seconds of silence, and thought about how each second carried them farther away from Maggie. He watched dust particles float in the light of the setting sun and each of the seemed to settle on Maggie.

“She deserved better than us,” one of them whispered. He couldn’t remember who it had been, but both of them knew it was true.

I wish I could forget all the details.

Close to the surface of my memories of Christmas
is the memory of running to a doorway in thin stockings
while you came in from the cold
and I felt the moisture on your cheek from when you had shaved.

I wish I could forget the way your jacket settled around me,
as we bowed our head and ran for the car.
The smell of your soap and shampoo sticking to the collar,
and pulling me closer to you because it smells like home.

I wish I couldn't remember this as I walk now,
from a different house. To a different car,
with only my own arms hugging my torso.
Those memories make this moment not enough.

Followed by purposeful thoughts that declare - I miss you,
and I know you don't miss me.

Months of conflict have led to this:

I am sensible enough now, or at least I think I'm sensible enough, to know that just because things are beautiful it doesn't mean they're eternal. And I know that things will not always be the same. I know that everyday we wake up and the world is a little bit shifted, a little bit new, and that one morning we wake up years and years later and realize things have been changing all this time and we never stopped to notice.

Forgetting that we couldn't have stopped if we had tried.

However,

I'm shaking out the optimist in me like an old tablecloth. Letting it settle with a comforting weight over the flaws and nicks and hide them from my view.

I will forget these things because it is the happier way to live. I want to believe in all of the things this season tries to make true. Like the holiness of blessings and the ever elusive myth of peace of earth and goodwill toward men.

Luke 5:14-16

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and its gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven."
-Luke 5:14-16

Boo,

By next year, it will be five years since I have celebrated Halloween in a way which feels "real" to me. I will wear a costume which I will consider classic and I will walk on the carpet of leaves on my sidewalk. I will hold my brothers hand and I will buy candy two weeks in advance so I can get the good stuff. I will split and divide my spoils that night with boys and girls alike not really noticing which gender we are, because that's how it is when we're home. It never really matters.

Its somewhat reminiscent of fourth grade, before things started mattering and life got complicated. I like that I have people this is preserved with.

In my neighborhood everyone trick or treats and we see two to three hundred kids each year. Adults stand on their lawns all day long and spook and scare and then light candles in their window and reunite with their families.

When I was in third grade I dressed up as a cow girl. Hannah was a power ranger and we each had our own rooms. I laid in bed that night and thought about how likely it would be that a werewolf would eat me. Those fears were easier than the ones I have now.

I love Halloween.
I miss Halloween.

I wish I was home this time.

I spent roughly three months in the third grade unable to sleep because I watched Jumanji (even though my mother told me not to). I used to set up an elaborate night light. I would take my Simba doll and put my desk lamp next to it and project a huge lion shadow on the wall. This lion was my form of protection but even then I couldn't shut my mind off.

Why? I don't know. Its the plight of the over imaginative child.

When I was fourteen, I stayed up for a week straight because I was convinced that the Al Qaeda was attacking RIGHT NOW and my family needed to move somewhere safe.

That was a particularly awful stage.

I've discovered something. There is always something to be afraid of at night. A lack of fear is probably the thing I covet most. When I inevitably fall asleep at night its because I lost focus for a minute and forgot to be scared. I'm always waiting for the one night when something will go wrong and I must be prepared.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, extra points if you can name that character.

Inspiration,

She wants to write about God.
but not the friendly God character
that appears in the gleam
of so many smiling book covers.
She wants to find the God that makes
her heart change its beat as the
organ shakes the cathedral.

She wants to write about the God
she sees in the sharpness
of the horizon,
or in the hot shame in her sister’s eyes
as her secret is found out.
Not the God she feels around her
like the scent of laundry detergent.

What's to Come,

As he continued on some

linear explanation of

fathers and courthouses

I couldn’t keep my mind

on his words.

Rather,

I travel farther

and farther

away like the

snowflakes falling outside

the window. I’ve lost the

desire, and I believe that if I

tear my eyes away

the flakes that

haven’t reached the ground

will be caught

eternally

in mid-air.

Lyrics of Tuesday evening

Or the lyrics I hope will one day apply to my life:

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could
But somewhere in my youth and childhood
I must have done something good

The rain means something these days,

All these blank and tranquil years,
Seems they've dried up all my tears.
And while she runs free and fast
Seems my wild days are past

It rains a lot in Houghton, but it doesn't rain enough. It doesn't rain nearly as much as the place the rain makes me think of. It makes me think of the first time Joel leaned back on the rear legs of the chair in my pink bedroom and watched the unexpected rain drops fall down the glass. It was our first afternoon there, and the sun had been shining just a minute before.

"Well," he said, "that's London."

An Ode to Whatever

I think about days in funny ways
Like being alone, and not,
And reading books to fill the nooks
Too easily forgot.

To: He Who Does Not Know this is About Him

This will probably never change.

An Autumnal Poem,

When the leaves begin to fall,
sunlight tinkles into the room
and the shadows on the wall confuse me.

I can't help asking myself
if finally I will be able to capture
Peter Pan's shadow
and it isn't too late for me,
after all.

There is nothing for me like summertime.

I don't know what the reasons are in that equation. I wish I could be the kind of person who likes all the seasons the same. Or even that my preference was so minuscule that it didn't really matter. But I have never been that kind of person, I have not been raised around those kinds of people, and I feel like my experiences are only going to get more extreme.

Autumn has come to Houghton and I'm trying my best to make it a good one. I wear scarves and sweaters and I drink spiced apple cider like its going off the market. But Autumn to be has a subtext that I cannot ignore or deny.

Autumn comes before winter. Winter is on its way.

And Autumn is so short in western New York. The chilled days we've been having lately remind me of late November on the Island. The leaves do not make a slow decent toward the ground. One day they are a cacophony of color, and the next they are on the ground and my flip flops are irrelevant.

Meanwhile, I'm growing out the damage done to my hair with chlorine and salt. My skin looks stretched and pale. I dream of sand and air that always smells like the ocean. I don't want to think about the sunflowers which are not now lying crumbled on the cement. Sunflowers I waited months for.

Whatever homies.
I'ma just go to Hogwarts.

She's very eloquent

Bluetigers83111 (3:31:34 PM): seriously

Bluetigers83111 (3:31:35 PM): like

Bluetigers83111 (3:31:36 PM): ugh

Blargh,

Its so funny because I hate it. I hate this. I hate school in so many ways. Its not that I hate classes its that I don't like classes all the time. But when I'm honest I don't like people all the time either. I just hate that I rush here, and then I rush there, and then I have to SIT STILL for hours at a time either reading or writing or thinking.

And then later when I want to stop thinking I can't because my brain has been trained to think ALL THE TIME instead of just when I tell it to.

Then I reach a point where I decide I want to watch TV instead. Even though I know that the thinking is better for me then the TV watching. And I just want to sit there but the book in the next room that I'm supposed to read keeps yelling my name. Like, who cares.

That point? Was yesterday.
Long year.

Touche,

"Patty Keene was stupid on purpose... the women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sense of comfort and safety needed all the friends they could get."
-Kurt Vonnegut

The Day is August 31,

Summer is overlapping with what is always the "end of summer" in my head. The beginning of school. The beginning of taming my anxious and wandering desires for nine months to sit in classrooms and learn things I probably won't remember in a few years.

I so don't want tomorrow to come. But it seems it already has.

A mix of thoughts,

I wrote about August last year. About crickets and cement stoops, and even if I never addressed it, how New York becomes another world during the summer.

This year August scares me, like everything lately. The sound of the crickets makes me anxious and makes the palms of my hands clammy. My mind is swimming with questions that I have no answers to and that scares me too.

For some reason summer feels unfamiliar. I laid in the sunlight with a book propped up on my knees and I imagined thick sweaters, wool socks, and stews so thick they stick to your ribs.

I don't want to move into flat 101 on August 25. I want to move into room 21 in Islington, London instead.

I know I am no one's protagonist. I hate that fact.

The only thing I can think of is how unfamiliar the end of college feels. Everyday it creeps closer and closer and without the bold faced title of "student" hanging over my head, how will I even know who I am?

A Midsummer Night's Poem

Our skin was slowly turning apricot,
because it was never meant to be brown.
We let the colors swim before our eyes,
drinking white wine out of paper cups
and counting freckles until the world turned upside down.

Our heads ached because sleep eluded us in the night
taking a vacation from keeping us warm.
You shivered in the dark and I felt it in my bones.
I held your hand at midnight and you didn't refuse,
Placing kisses on my temples to ward off the pain.

We called each other Victorian names
drank tea on the cold sand
and laughed at the oceans roar.

Its been three weeks since I last showered in non-bacteria infested water.

I was in a book store tonight,

and one of my friends read off a cover a shocking statistic about friends who last more then ten years. We all laughed, and then another said, "Well, we've lasted seven years."

And then my mind crashed into a hypothetical wall and exploded.

Seven years. Is that really how long its been since I wandered into the huge block of cement called Tottenville High School? Seven Years since I wore Bebe shirts and listened to Good Charlotte. REALLY? When did I get old enough, hang on mature enough, to have seven year long friendships?

And then I went on to think, my new friends are already three years stale. That caught me off guard. Three years is sometimes an eternity. Three years can change your life. My "new friends" have stuck around for there abouts three years now.

I am not grown up enough to start being an adult.

Wisdom from last summer,

Last year, between May and December I read a lot. I also made the decision to document some of the more moving passages I found. I want to put these here. One quote from each book I wrestled with.

"There is enough love in this world for everybody, if people will just look."
-Cat's Cradle

"But most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible but Jesus knew - KNEW - that we were carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddamn stupid and sentimental to look?"
-Franny and Zooey

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensation for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly as spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle against temptation, or a fatal over throw by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
-Brave New World

"You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed."
-The Little Prince


"...when the point is there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice at the right time can move the world."
-Ender's Game

"The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
-A Man Without a Country

"Jesus was a living baby once. He went barefoot like we do in the summer."
-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

"Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him."
-The Alchemist

"Its all like the ocean!" cried Dostoevsky. I say, its all like cellophane.
-Breakfast of Champions

It's true. Never a truer breath was ever breathed. "The Lord giveth," I say.
-As I Lay Dying

"Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore."
-Farenheit 451

"I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I know such people, and they need me like comets need tails."
-Looking for Alaska

"Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange unknown world, but our own."
-Anthem

"to the person in the bell jar, black and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream."
-The Bell Jard

"Its living up to being happy that's the difficult part."
-The Time Traveler's Wife

"You said I killed you - haunt me then! Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you! Oh God, it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
-Wuthering Heights (Oh Heathcliff...)

"Life is a gift horse, in my opinion."
-Nine Stories

And then from someone I have much to learn from, Stephen King, I have three wonderful quotes:

"I'd think, this isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going. Then I'd think, half the world has the same idea."

"Just remember... Dumbo didn't need the feather, the magic was in him."

"Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life."
-On Writing

And that's it. Seven months of acquired wisdom.

I was sitting in our white washed pews yesterday and I thought about what we're saying when we talk about God. My hands were folded in my lap and I was staring at the eaves, not at my pastor's preaching face.



And I thought, loneliness.
Loneliness is what we're talking about when we talk about about God.
How all of us are lonely.

All I can think to say today

My basement smells damp.

I generally have a certain fondness for my basement. It has orange walls and pictures of flowers hanging up. The furniture is all a wickedly dark wood and I like it. The windows, however, are raised so that I can see a tiny piece of my driveway, and through this window the rain tends to leak.

The rain will leak in on summer days like this one. It has been raining on my island for what feels like ages. The sky may not have any blue left in it, so full of gray it has been. Yesterday I sat on my bed and watched the rain just fall. It wasn't the kind of rain that frightened. It was just there and I knew that it was keeping me inside.

My neighbor stood on his stoop with shorts on and a cigarette between his lips.

Thirteen dogs walked by in an hours time.

I don't know why its been raining so persistently, but I certainly wish it would stop.

Circa 2006:The Product of Notebook Searching

The first time we broke up he was smoking a cigarette. I remember because he kept looking at its lighted end instead of into my eyes. He never said any words that would make it final, and that's probably why it never was. He said, I won't be calling you anymore. He said, I hope I didn't hurt you. He whispered a lot and I stared into the sky because it was setting and before I knew it he and the lighted end of his cigarette were walking away.

the second time we broke up I was the one who did it. I drove to his parent's house and it was all business from beginning to end. I smiled at the end and he frowned. I kept eye contact. He wasn't smoking because he hadn't smoked in months. I congratulated myself on my way back to my car that this time, someone had said the words that needed to be said. We can't do this anymore.

As I pulled away I waited for him to do something. Take even one single step toward the car. But he didn't. He didn't even wave. I turned my eyes to the rear view mirror.

He would smoke again that night.

I have a sunburn

Its kind of funny actually.

Yesterday (the first nice day we've had) I dragged my chair outside next to the pool and proceeded to get lost in the music of my iPod while the sun warmed me. I was wearing a new bathing suit and and there was an ice cream truck driving circles around my house. A friend sat with me by the water and it was lovely. Later, I went inside, changed, and vanished for burritos with friends.

I didn't realize until I got home just home red my shoulders had gotten. And quite frankly, I didn't notice until this morning just how red my entire upper body was. I didn't realize until tonight just how much the sunburn stung when I tried to rub aloe on it.

But its okay. Its painful, but its okay. It means summer is here. It means my hair is slowly getting blonder. It means sand will soon be in between my toes.

Ah. Summer.

There are often things I would like to say here that I struggle with for one reason or another. I often feel like the things I want to say are things I shouldn't. Or rather, they're things people wouldn't want to hear about. Or things that are better kept inside to ponder.

Because of this hesitancy, and my desire to remain safely away from any pity parties, I will say what I want to say like this.

I love long conversations. I love really thick socks. I love freshly washed hair. I love powdered donuts and the havoc they wreak on your fingertips. I love quirky handwriting and aged notebooks. I love the ocean and chlorine. I love the color tongues turn after eating cherry ice. I love laughing with somebody else.

Now what I want to say is that I want someone to love these things with.

Words for today,

"Cause I built you a home in my heart
With rotten wood, it decayed from the start."

On the Blondes,

A few days ago, I went to the mall with three of my friends. We wandered around and collected things we do not need. We are still young enough to have disposable income. We do not buy jeans in our mall because our legs are too long. We laughed.

One of my sister's friends saw us there on Monday or Tuesday. She watched us go from store to store apparently unaware of the flaws in our surroundings. Laughing at the more ridiculous clothes. Picking up things in interest, turning for other's opinions.

She called us, "The Hannah's".

A few years ago. My cousin and I went to see my sister's Christmas concert at school. We were standing at the snack table contemplating Auntie Ann's chocolate chips, when another of my sister's friends approached us with Hannah in tow.

"OH MY GOSH, THERE'S THREE OF YOU."

This is a reaction we receive most of the places we go. Store clerks want to know where we're from in Europe. Waitresses ask how our mother managed to raise us all. We forget sometimes how different we are on this island.

Our island is many things. We appreciate it for being so many things, and it has given us each other so we can't be too harsh. But we all grew up with jeans that didn't reach our ankles. We all asked our mothers to dye our hair brown. We all wanted to leave school early on Wednesdays to go to CCD.

But, we weren't what we thought we should be. We were all tall. All of us grew thick blond hair. All of us grew up in tiny protestant churches that taught us Scandanavia was in our blood. This was different on the island. And now, when we travel around in our pack, we are surprised when eyes follow us.

Advice,

Don't worry about the future.
Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind,
The kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
-Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen

This morning I took a large piece of newspaper. I found the largest marker in the house and scribbled these words into its surface. Then I thought about hanging it on the ceiling above my bed, so it was the first thing I saw in the morning.

Then I folded that newspaper and put it away in my drawer.

I have a problem with worrying. I'm a nervous driver, I can't sleep in my basement without a nightlight, and my heart rate is accelerated more often than not while watching my younger siblings. Worrying is not something I struggle with, its a part of who I am.

Summer goal, number one. Stop this nonsense.

The real definition of home away from home,

I was in sophomore year when I started loving Tuscarora like I loved a pair of old jeans or my worn out stuffed animals. There is a smell that hits you when you walk into the Hillside manor that always bombards me with memories. I came home from camp that year and could still smell Hillside on my blanket. My eyes welled up with tears. The day coming back from camp is hard because you are as far away from going back as you will ever be.

I was eighteen when I found my second home away from home. It was my white washed dorm room in Houghton. It was thr first time I could leave something in one place and it would be there when I returned. My DVD's remained unscratched and my clothes stayed folded. It was luxurious to a girl who had always shared a bedroom with two younger sisters. I loved it.

Neither of these two places compare to the location I am homesick for now.

I emerged from the underground for the first time and my first breaths of London air were a memory I didn't think I would hold onto. I know exactly what I was wearing, I remember dragging my 80 pound suitcase down Highbury Fields. London fit me like a glove from the start. And beneath the surface of the modern trendy city there were echos of the ghosts of London's past.

I didn't expect this. No one warned me. No one tells you that you will lie awake at night months after coming back thinking about the planters in front of the flats across the street. No one mentions that you will taste cadbury spread in the morning even as you try to forget. I didn't think my hands would still itch for a tea cup after dinner.

I didn't know London was breaking my heart. I didn't know I had the world within reach until it was gone. Now I feel tied down and lost. I feel far from home. I want to cry at times for no reason, and then I realize I'm crying for London. The city I'm too far from. The city, that though I didn't know it, stole my heart away from New York. If only for a little while.

On Highschool

I don't always like to think about high school. High school was kind of strange, and I've definitely hit my stride in college. But there were times back then when I really loved my school. Thats not something I ever thought I would say, since I socialized with exactly .001% of the student body.

Today I went back to my high school. I really haven't gone back very much, and every time I do it feels more and more foreign to me. It was cold for May, and there was rain coming down. "Its like we're living in a cloud," my other half said. Nevertheless, we stayed and watched a game of lacrosse and smiled because we loved it. As we approached the sidelines the faces that recognized us were few and far between. Next year they will all be gone.

We stole keys. We snuck into an office we used to hide in while we cut classes. We climbed on a desk and looked around at the yellowing articles on the walls. Our names are painted on the ceiling. The articles telling about our victories are old and no longer exciting.

While we grin to each other, we are thinking, are we old and no longer exciting?

We used to be the shining stars of this office, and now we are nothing but a memory. Nothing but stories that get told on long bus rides. We used to have fun here, we met each other here. But here is no longer a place for us.

I've been struggling lately with what my place is. When I used to run up and down the lacrosse field I felt like I knew where I belonged. I haven't had that feeling for a long time, possibly since high school.

As we rolled up the sweatpants we were going to take, purple the color I suspect our blood still flows, our old coach smiled at us.
"You still have our pictures on the walls," I noted as we walked by him.
"You two are never coming down," he answered.

Michael Scott taught me that sometimes today is about having today.

Moulin Rouge tried to teach me that the greatest thing you can learn is to love and be loved in return. To which I say, what Moulin Rouge, is it not enough just to love?

I don't know the answer to my own question unfortunately.

I don't like writing in riddles, but I need to say that today is about having today. Its about doing what I can right now. Its about filling the role that I'm in, not shoving my way into one I'm not invited to.

Its about being the friend because I need to be. Unfortunately.

I have been home one week and four days.

Home.
I've spent a lot of time eating pizza. Sometimes more than once a day.
I've ingested a lot of sugary frozen water.
I have stayed up late.
I have woken up early and watched my brother.
I have tried to find a job.
I have talked on the phone.
I have driven around with my music too loud.
I bought a new pair of sunglasses.

I am happy. Happy is the word I would like to use to describe this emotion.
The problem is, I am also anxious.
Anxious for what I really couldn't say.

I am almost too happy. This happy feels temporary.
And now, I am going to make a silly allusion. An allusion to a blockbuster film that many of my friends have not seen.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Peter says to Rachel that it is good they were hurt so badly.
Now, they have nothing left to fear.
They have already experienced the worst.

I have not experienced the worst. I have much left to fear.
I don't know why, but these are the thoughts in my head as the sun warms my island.
These are the thoughts I choose to ponder while clocks tick everywhere.

How am I ever going to return to school in the fall?

What is the likelihood,

that two girls, both around the same height and of the same hair color pursuasion...

would both leave their houses, without talking about it, in jeans, a white T-shirt, and a sweater vest...

on the same night...

with their hair the same way...

and then proceed to island romp?

Cousin- MOM, can you take a picture of me and my favorite cousin?
Aunt- You two will never get married, because no one will ever love you as much as each other.

This morning,

(was it really only this morning)
I woke up too early. My things were already packed away in the car.
I rolled over and into clothes.
I hugged a lot of people goodbye.

I hugged people goodbye that I may never see again. People who have played a major role in shaping me and my life the past three years.
They don't warn you about that when you apply to college. That eventually college has to end. That nobody stays in college for the rest of their lives.

Even though this wasn't the end for me, it was for so many people. Tomorrow morning they will put on caps and gowns and do the graduation thing. They will remember everything about their four years at our rural institution fondly.

They never tell you not to make friends with the class above you. When they leave, you might not have many friends left.

Today was interesting. I put on orange sneakers and walked up to campus. I sat in a class where I clearly don't understand anything, but handed in the final paper anyway. I filled a mailbox with Cheez-its and was then completely unsuccessful at covering it up.

I tossed a Frisbee and then caught a glimpse of a running dear between the trees. Things are weird.

There is a bike behind some of the townhouses. As far as I know, its been there since before the snow came. Everywhere on this campus there is life springing into action, and for the most part it is causing my throat to itch and my head to ache. I do know that I would like to take pictures of that bike though.

Summer's coming. I know it because my bones don't protest as much to stirring and climbing out of bed in the morning. I want to smell like chlorine again. I want to roll myself in sand like a chicken cutlet. I want to be with my blondes. I know that sounds cliche, but its what I want. I want to relax into being a kid for a few months and let my parents feed me. I want to drive the family car to work everyday. I want to have sleep-overs and watch my brother.

I want someone to explain the world to me through rules and be looking out for my well-being. I am seriously not grown up enough to start pondering adulthood.

A Poem for Sarah,

We climb from the waves,
brown and stiff
never brushing our hair
and calling ourselves warriors
conquerors of seas.
We snicker to ourselves
about the heritage we have discovered
of Atlantian blood.

Some question the value of salt water
we know its good for the soul.
It creeps into bones
through our developing wrinkles.
Laying out sweet and satisfied,
Drying like prunes.
Drying like sand.
Drying like towels.

We are the wild hair and wicked eyes
of the beach
and for each other.

We are the whip of the moment.
The snap,
crackle,
pop.
We think about scavenging for sustenance.
But for now the sun is too wonderful,
and we are too blessed.

You and I,

Don't you worry there my honey
We might not have any money
But we've got our love to pay the bills

Maybe I think you're cute and funny
Maybe I want to do what bunnies do with you
If you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parent's homes
In the south of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
And teach them how to dance

Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
Making everybody look like ants
Way up there, you and I, you and I

Well you might be a bit confused
And you might be a little bit bruised
But baby how we spoon like no one else

So I will help you read those books
If you will soothe my weary looks
And we can put the lonesome on the shelf

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parent's homes
In the south of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
And teach them how to dance

Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
Making everybody look like ants
Way up there, you and I, you and I

This is my first summer song. I hope listening to it on repeat can bring a bit of its magic into my life.

May 6, come quickly,

Its a funny sort of feeling to have friends across the world.

All week I've gotten text messages painting pictures for me of sipping rum and cokes while looking over the beaches of Zanzibar. Zanzibar isn't like Paris or London in the way that I might see them someday. Zanzibar will probably stay as an experience only they had. It will be a spot I don't ever know. Like some places in London might be just for me.

But now I'm no longer waiting. I'm anticipating. They're coming home. And I missed them.

We've been traveling for a long time. I say we because even the experience of being at school without them has been new and exciting. We will continue to travel, but it will never be as concentrated again.

They had internet a few days ago, and ran through the rain to get to computers and spoke to me while I sat up in bed at three AM, typing quietly so as not to wake my room mate. But I didn't email them days in advance like I sometimes did. This is because everyday they get closer. Everyday the distances between us is shrinking. Traveling to Toronto to fetch them is an event not far on my planner.

Africa, I'm putting you on notice. Send my friends back in one piece.