July 28, 2010

Stay a Lover of Little Things: Pearls for the Suitcase and the Train to the City.

The train ticket is booked. Suitcases that claim they are big enough to fit my life in their tummies have come tumbling down from the attic. I am moving to New York City in 25 days. A little less than a month.

The original Pearls of Wisdom came right before my college graduation, three months ago: a compilation of wisdom that I found strewn throughout my four years at Assumption. This second strand of pearls is in dedication to the woman who made me both a seamstress of stories and a searcher of the soul. Every single day I gather these pearls and more from an individual whose heart, in comparing sizes, makes New York City just a speck on the map.

 love you mom

Stay a lover of little things.

No matter what big cities you go off to and big opportunities you are graced with, always take time to acknowledge the little things.

Never give up on the things that make you smile because smiling is one of the most important things we can do in this world.

Find time to just wander. With No Direction. No Plan. No Time Restrictions.

Look for beauty every where that you go. In the ladybugs on the window sill. The sunflowers in the backyard. The sky scrapers in a new city. The faces of strangers and family alike.

Form family in every place. Form family by reaching out a hand to people who need to hold one, calling someone to brighten their day, giving up your time for others with no exasperation of ever needing to have those minutes repaid.

Leap. Leap High. Leap Far. Leap when you see the landing point. Leap when you see nothing but darkness.

Find God in the nooks of this world. Find God Everywhere Around You. Help Others Find Him Too. Because others are looking, and some don’t even know it.

It’s worth repetition: Stay a lover of little things. Spider Webs. Children Laughing. Band Aids. Light Weight Sneakers. Coins. Cheetos.

Refuse to keep your feelings bottled up: cry, scream, yell, stomp your feet, spit. Do whatever it takes to feel outside of your own mind.

Go to concerts. Dance on stage. Be the best damn tambourine player you  can be. Have a crush on the lead singer.

Be unafraid of your heart: Whatever & Whoever makes it beat. You could keep it sheltered forever if you please but hearts become more versatile the more we use them. Better that we risk them breaking through good use rather than breaking them from never using them at all.

Wake up every day with the intention of painting something beautiful. Some days you won’t feel like you have all the right colors. These days, borrow colors from others.

Carry a kazoo wherever you go. You will continually stumble across people who are having a birthday and are in need of a good song.

Aspire to be something wonderful. Something Remarkable. Every single day.

Don’t pay too much attention to all the hubbub about ultra violet rays. The sun is far too glorious to not let it kiss your face and plant freckles on your shoulders sometimes.

Drop everything. Absolutely everything. For a good friend in need.

Nothing in this world stops you from being an artist, a dancer, the best writer this world has ever seen. If anyone stops you… it is only yourself.

Counting Blessings. Don’t count calories too crazily. Count Kisses (especially the forehead ones). Never ever worry about counting friends. Don’t count money before you have it.

Ask outlandish questions.

You can tell a lot about a person by asking the question, “If you had one night to be any performer on stage, who would it be?”

Be good to people but don’t give them everything or every part of you. Especially if there is evidence that they may tamper with your heart.

Take long walks on the beach.

Walk sometimes instead of drive.

One last thing on walking, take time every day to walk outside of yourself. You will quickly find that the world does not revolve around you and sorry to say, it never did.

And remember: Stay a lover of little things no matter how big your dreams may be. Stamps. Sonnets. Hot Chocolate. Desert. Songs that read your soul. Tears of Joy. Tears, in general.

Home is not so much a noun as it is a cross-breed between an adjective and a verb. Be home to someone. Hold close to those who feel like home.

Add something sequined,silver or red to any outfit you wear out for a night. A silver bangle never fails and patent red pumps are unstoppable at any age.

Write poems. Without Rhyming or Worry about Iambic Pentameter. Without judging them. Just write poems because they are groovy and we are all poets.

Make pet names with every letter of the alphabet. Leave no B, G, or E unused.

Start the morning quietly. When you step outside or get stuck in your dose of morning traffic you will have wished you had that solitude.

Make your efforts big but remain little. No one likes a big head.

When you feel a pulling in your heart or a weight on your chest don’t push off the feeling. Let it flood you, push you around, challenge you. Under pressure diamonds are made. Welcome Darkness and Welcome Change.

Never stop asking yourself, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”

Not everyone in life is going to care about you, your favorite breakfast foods or your pet peeves. Don’t even try to make them. Just appreciate those who come into your life and do care.

Have coffee or tea in the morning. Or just something warm. Feel the warmth on your hands. Let it spread to your soul.

Be mindful of bikinis that are too small and tops that are too low cut. No one buys cows when they get the milk for free. And its better to be classy.  Always better to be classy.

Don’t expect the world to understand all that you attempt to do. Your dreams will only fly if you first give them wings. And another thing, let the world think you are crazy. Crazy is Good.

And never forget: Stay a lover of little things, above all else. Prayers. Pearls. Compliments. Movie Nights. Letters from Home…. Home.

And those who believed in you first.

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Filed under 1, 364 Pearls, Big City, Big Dreams, Life Lessons, Uncategorized

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July 25, 2010

I swear this post is NOT about Emily Dickinson. Pinky Promise… Just keep reading.

I straddle a line between wishing I could slap Emily Dickinson in the face and wanting to make her my best friend forever.

The thing about Em (Can I call her Em? I will call her Em) is that the majority of her works, the ones that make her the Angelina Jolie of Literature, were not discovered until after her death. So what’s the main debacle with the majority of your poetry meeting publication after you are six feet under? You are not around to explain it.

Em is a literature lover’s dream. We could tackle hours and ages’ worth of ambiguity in her punctuation and the intention behind her words. We could wrack our brains over who she addressed her poetry to and what she really was trying to say. But I used to fight the urge to stand atop my desk in lit classes to state, “Maybe Em was not all that misunderstood. Maybe she just wanted to produce beautiful poems.” Oh goodness. What would happen if we stopped dissecting them for a moment and took them for what they really are? Radiant Imperfect Pieces of Perfection.

I am known to go at life with a magnifying glass. Often my friends and family remind me that I should stop to be in wonder of this world instead of always trying so hard to understand every little thing. Every nook and cranny of each person I encounter, place that I visit, and experiences that I stumble upon.

Life Lesson #__Insert grandeur number here__: This world is too big. The number of people and their purposes are far too wide. We will never have it all figured out. Ever. No matter how hard we try.

Sometimes we need to throw out the books that remind us to not sweat the small stuff or the ones that teach us how to lead a more fulfilling life. Instead of “learning” how to live we might just want to try living sometimes.

I think about dying a lot. Not in a morbid sense, really, I swear. I think it’s smart to muddle over the topic from time to time. We are all going to die eventually. But that is not the point of this post either. I wonder about my bedside and the people whom I would want to surround me in my final hours. And bring me flowers. And kiss my forehead and hold my hand. And I realize that it is just that: People That I Want.

We have become so wrapped up in this notion that everything and everyone comes walking into our lives with a reason trailing behind them and lesson to teach us in their arms. Don’t misunderstand my message, I think all of this is very true. However, where is the balance? When does someone stop being a person we need to learn from and just start being a person we want to learn with?

I once had someone ask me not to turn him into a life lesson. A strange request. At first I didn’t understand. And I also wondered why he would ask that, seeing as I practically survive on life lessons. If they were food I would be morbidly obese. Trust me.

People don’t want to be life lessons in our books as much as they simply want to be in our books. To Play a Part. To Have a Role. To have made a difference with their presence, a difference that made us always want them to be there. Even if we knew it was not possible.

You see, life lessons are good. But People are Better. I would much rather lay down with someone under the night sky and its blanket of stars and together we could get great practice in wondering about this lifetime. In Trying to Wrap Our Heads Around Our Place In This World. I would much rather do that than to watch someone slip out of my life because I turned them into a lesson instead of a friend. Because I held too tightly to the things that they taught me instead of remembering to reach for their hand.

We should probably all surrender. Hold up our white flags and turn in our magnifying glasses. Admit that we don’t have all together all the time. That we cannot explain every aspect of our lives. The more I think about doing this, the more I realize that the walls would not come tumbling down and the earth would not meet an apocalypse with this declaration. The world actually might look wonderful with less mysteries for me to solve. And more mysteries for me to marvel at.

I don’t even believe I would want to figure everything out. What would be the point? Who wants a life that they understand so well that they can tuck it into their back pocket? I have yet to meet the individual who wants the life so little that they see and understand every bit of it.

I would rather stay convinced that we are all just walking around. Hungry. Thirsty. Confused. Content. Wondering. Wandering. But then we Bump. Bump. Bump. Extraordinary Bumps Into One Another. And we hold tight to hands and find companions in this world. Soul Mates. People we declare to be partners to us instead of just a passing lesson, a speed bump along the way, on our journey to the bigger picture.

So share with me a mystery of your lifetime, something you cannot comprehend but you love it just the same. But then stick around for a little while. I want to believe this life makes more sense with people sitting by our sides.



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Filed under Letting Go, Life Lessons, Live with intention, Simply Living

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July 21, 2010

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together: The Beatles, the homeless, and the Golden Rule

It did not hit me until after I gave him: the man holding up a sign for money on the side of the road, five crinkled greens from my wallet and drove away. 

1) I did not memorize the color of his eyes.
2) I did not ask him what one food he would marry if he had the choice.

We all have quirky rituals when it comes to meeting new faces. New friends. I memorize a person’s eye color, though I never tell them outright. I add them to a concordance of blues and hazels and greens within my mind. And I delight in breaking the ice with the question, “If you could marry one food what would it be and why?” Sounds pretty silly but trust me, this question of matrimony (and the sheer insanity of the thought) has the capacity to absolutely chisel away the ice. (In case you were wondering: I would marry blueberry pancakes because they are pretty clutch at any time of the day BUT they are a great comfort when the world gets me down. Let’s just pray I never have to compare my future husband to them).

But I had neglected to do either of the things with the homeless man. So I kicked myself all the way home while wondering if he had blue eyes or brown. If he would marry macaroni or maybe chocolate cake.

I was angry with the fact that I had treated the man any different than I would a new face in a crowd. For putting myself on a pedestal in front of him. For judging him by his Dirty Clothes, his Tattered Sign, the Circumstances Dealt to Him.

If I could erase one thing from this world it might be judgment. I think it is the root of a lot of other problems. And what I cannot understand is why we walk around all day, two conversations constantly going. The first conversation we have with one another. That is the one that actually plops off our tongues in the form of Words and Dialogue. The second conversation is the one we carry in our heads, you know, the one with the little voice that makes us feel entitled to judge another by their status, the decisions they make and the person they are. We judge strangers, friends, loved ones. More often than we probably care to or even notice.

These days my mind has a hard time wrapping itself around anything but the act that is judging. It is all that I think about. And I believe I have started to look at people a little differently because of this judgment that is suffocating me… Seriously. Last night I was walking through the grocery store and my eyes caught the sight of another and I prepared myself to make a judgment of them. And then I heard this little voice say, “Who do you think you are, Hannah? What makes you so cool that you can judge that person? What did they ever do to you?” I kid you not, this is happening to me everywhere these days.

So I have no other choice. It is either change the way I see the world or be doomed to enter an insane asylum for hearing the voice of judgment in my ear 24/7.

Here is the case: closed. We should have admiration for one another, because we all pretty admirable people. We each wake up and we walk outside and we try to make sense of this thing called life. And that is pretty brave. Some of us have it easier. But tomorrow it might be harder. Some of us are forced to figure out life on a street corner, or within a broken family or while fighting a disease. But if you ask me, we are all pretty courageous. But more than that, we are all pretty equal. And if we only stripped ourselves of our statuses, the zeros within our paychecks, the clothes we wear and the privileges we have, we would see that we are all pretty Similar. Pretty Tired. Pretty Wonderful. Pretty Cool. Pretty Daring for being human beings in this broken world.

And Gandhi got it, Mother Teresa understood it too, Jesus knew it and Che comprehended. Even the Dalai Lama is all over this like bees on honey. That if we are lacking peace in our lives it maybe because we are forgetting a simple fact: we are here to help one another, to stand on equal ground with one another- not forge a distance or set ourselves apart. Treat others as you would want to be treated? Oh yes, now I recall.

And honestly, we waste a lot of productivity and energy by judging people so often. We could use that energy better. To Love Better. To Care More. To Be Better Friends. Better Lovers. Better Human Beings. And we could be so much more productive. Instead of judging (an act that gets us absolutely nowhere) we could sing songs, or create murals or start the next Woodstock. It doesn’t really matter, I just think there are better things to do with our times then separate ourselves with a pair of scissors called “judgment.”

Want to work at it with me? I have learned quite a lot for just trying it out this week. I have learned that I admire the people who work in construction. That I adore the man who pushes carts at the grocery store. That I have a newfound respect for the worker at Dunkin Donuts and for the people on the treadmill next to me at the gym at 5a.m.

And I learned that no matter who I come across (NO MATTER WHO) I should treat them as I would my best friend. With kindness, loyalty, respect and compassion. And I should get better at memorizing their eye color and asking them what food they would marry and why.

And while I am on this, what food would you marry? And what color are your eyes?

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July 18, 2010

She searched her life. She Searched It Good. She found it to be enough.

First off, before anything, the warmest thank you that I can offer to the 20 Something Bloggers Community for voting me Featured Blogger for July! Your votes and support mean the world to me and I am so humbled to be featured on the site. 20sb, you have been so good to me. Thank you is a little word in comparison to the gratitude that I have for each and every one of you.

I am currently curled in three kinds of ways. Curled up in a wicker chair, facing the sunset that stretches its arms out like a well-trained yogi. Fingers curled around the curve of a coffee mug, brewed in a manner that hints at perfection. Curled up in a conversation that I am having with myself.

As I have written before: She is me and I am her. She is me when I am at my best.

“What do you want right now?” she asks me.

“This,” I say. “I want so badly to just want this. This Moment. For it to be enough.”

“Ah, so you wish you were a Master of Enough, I see. That is a very tricky thing to be. Rarely do we ever really believe that a moment is enough or that we have enough. We are constantly scrutinizing our lives and what we have in them. It is as if we treat our lives like a dinner plate but there is never quite enough on the plate. The steak could use more cooking. The cupcakes need more icing. Often we are never satisfied with the simple fact that we have a portion. That We Have a Heart That Beats. A Life To Fill.”

“Well it sounds perfect and whimsical when you script it to me like a Hallmark card,” I say, rebutting her once again.  “But send anyone out into THIS world with THAT sentiment and they will drown. Because I never hear the word “enough” only the begs and cries for more. More money. More power. More technology. More lines of communication. More networking. More pounds to lose. More skin. More brands to choose.”

“And is that satisfying? To always want more? Would it be better for you if you could just have more and more?”

She is onto something. Oh, she is good. Too Good.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because more would just mean that it was never enough. If I keep adding more it is just giving me less capacity to appreciate what I already have.”

“So if you are not afraid of a desire for more then what keeps you from being a Master of Enough? What are you so afraid of?”

I tell her.

I pluck a fear from my heart like it were a daisy and I give it to her. “I am afraid of silly things. Of having no one at my funeral or always being a face but never a name. But more than anything, I have this fear that at the end of my life someone will hand me a sheet of paper that resembles a cell phone bill. Except instead of “minutes used” it will be “moments wasted.” Moments when I should have been content in the presence of another instead of being absorbed in my email inbox. Moments when I should have just appreciated a person instead of choosing to judge them or criticize them or stay bitter with them. I am petrified those moments will come back to haunt me.”

“Well, can you recall a time when you “used up your minutes” and it was enough?”

I think for a second and I convince myself that a moment such as this does not exist. But then I remember.

I am eight-years-old and the driveway is my very own Broadway stage. I spent hours picking models out of the JCPenney catalog to be my backup dancers for the production of “Annie.” I sashayed and strutted and taught imaginary clothing models how to dance to “Tomorrow.”

And cars whizzed by. Neighbors stared. But I never noticed.

“And why is that?” she asks.

“Because, what would it have mattered? I had everything I needed in that very moment. Passion. Creativity. Backup Dancers. Enough.”

“Well there you go,” She and I. We are getting somewhere. “Someone is always going to tell you that don’t have enough or that you are not doing enough. Drown out the ridicule with your song. Drown out the need for More with all the Enough your heart can hold. Don’t become discouraged when moments get lost in the shuffle, for they surely will, but ask yourself often “Am I living this life right?” No one is Too Good, Too Wise or Too Old for a reality check. Question often if you are using your time well, to marvel at creation or to say thank you to a friend. To Shower Others With Compassion. To Soak in a Bathtub of Simple Things. Sunsets. Cups of coffee. Scented markers. Dirt stains. Jokes on popsicle sticks. Friendship. Memories. People who are willing to make space in their heart for you. Not just for a minute but for forever.”

If I choose to listen to myself tonight, and the wisdom that she gives to me, I will accept that we are all just students to the word Enough. Some of us are scholars but I have yet to encounter a Master of Enough.

No matter our ranking, we should resolve either way. Resolve to delight in the learning. The little life lessons. The starting and restarting. The memories. The moments. The mysteries. That we gather on our way, in search for Enough as a bookmark for our day.

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July 13, 2010

Our dreams were always meant to belong to the world but have we forgotten that we must raise them first?

I feel bad.

I left her sitting on the subway without any dreams in her head. I abandoned a drug addict without granting him a resolution. I left some boy in a random hospital bed but I forgot to geographically pinpoint the hospital so I will probably never find him again. And still there is someone else who has no name. I never got around to giving her a name.

It is not that I want to abandon the characters of the stories that come to be when the lead of my pencil meets my notebook paper and they decide to fall in love.  But lately I cannot do anything but that. Abandon My Characters. Translation: Abandon My Dreams.

They say it takes a dreamer to be a writer. I say it takes being unafraid of dreaming to get anywhere in life. Anywhere you want to go that is.

When we are young it is almost as if we are expected to be dreamers. Adults coo in a synchronized manner at our hopes of becoming firefighters or the next great prima ballerinas. Inside of us sits this invincible belief that we can do anything we set our minds to. And sure, that notion tends to last for a little while.

But as life becomes less about skinned knees and water balloon fights, things start to get in the way. Tangible and Intangible. Loans & Taxes & Insurance. Tragedy & Stability & Practicality. Reality Breaks Us In. We stop believing in silliness; in sugarplum fairies and the naughty and nice list. In Yellow Brick Roads and Horses of a Different Color.

We do a great disservice to our dreams when we forget the times they allowed us to live in them. We could hide in those dreams, seek comfort in them, look toward them when no interest prevailed to be ordinary in this world. We could retreat to them and we could fill diaries about them. We Grew Them. Fed Them With Our Thoughts and Beliefs. But did we all remember to let them out into the world? To open up our arms and set our dreams free? Did we forget to let them burst at the seams and make this world more brilliant than ever before? Or did we simply belittle them… degrade them… abandon them…

We need to treat our dreams like human beings, that is, if we really want them to mean something. We must first acknowledge those dreams, believe in them until we are convinced we can never stop. We need to baby those dreams like infants, understand their weak beginnings but covet the progress. No Matter the Size. We need to smile at the baby steps.

We must bring our dreams out into the world, not hoard them or hide them away. But most importantly we need to push our dreams out of their comfort zones as we would little children trying to find themselves in this world. We must pass them on and push them and tell them to be more. It is not enough to simply “want” our dreams to come true. We must learn to let them go, to set them free. To turn them into realities beyond the etchings of our journals and the margins of our math homework.

I am convinced that although our dreams start as our own, they are meant for the world. That even though we may love our dreams and depend on them to identify us, they ultimately exist to make the world a better place. And in order for that to happen, we must learn to grow them and let them go.

Our dreams were always meant to belong to the world but have we forgotten that we must raise them first?

People often ask me what I want to do with this lifetime. I tend to lean towards practicality. I deliver a scripted monologue about global affairs and poverty and humanity, microfinance and other key words. I say this stuff because it sounds good and stable. Then people won’t have to worry about me or walk away saying, “that one is a silly little dreamer.”

But in reality, and this is the first time that I am openly admitting it on this blog, I want to write books. Books that Help. Books that Heal. Books that Turn the World Upside Down. Or Right Side Up. Unearth the Pain. Untie the Complexities of Humanity. Or, better yet, Tie Up The Simplicity That Continually Convinces Me That We Are All the Same.

I want to be a writer. A peace maker who uses words as her remedy. A radical who uses stories as her ammo. A writer who tells all the stories; the pretty ones, the not-so pretty ones. The Silent Ones. The Loud Ones. The ones that others convinced themselves were too much for the world to read.

And you may say that I am a dreamer for believing that one day I will do just this, but John Lennon has already convinced that this is ok, for you see, I am not the only one.

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July 12, 2010

A Visit from the Gaping Wallow and his Teary Friends.

I received a visit from the Gaping Wallow last night.

The Gaping Wallow is like that friend who continually nags you to catch up over a cup of coffee. You don’t have the energy nor the time but, upon finally meeting up, you find yourself happy for having gone.

The Gaping Wallow is very much like that sweatshirt that your mother insisted you bring for when the nighttime chills your shoulders. You reluctantly throw it balled up in the back seat of your car, but you find yourself thankful when your arms get chilly.

The Gaping Wallow is a long, much-needed (though not anticipated) cry.

It comes to us in the most unexpected of moments. Wrapped Up and Ready in the Sad Song Lyrics of Yesterday’s Memories. Tied to the Fringes of a Bad Day or a Harsh Comment.

It is that cry that seemingly comes out of nowhere and in the oddest of places. When we are driving to the grocery store. In the parking garage after work. In bed at night when our eyes are searching for closure.

It is that long stream of sobs and sorrow that makes us question if it will ever cease. It is that cry that makes us wonder if we are holding all the tears of the world in our eye sockets or if we should call Noah and instruct him to build an ark because our tears are so high in numbers that we might just drown the world.

The Gaping Wallow operates on its own time. It never asks to stop in or phones politely to make its arrival known. No, no. It sweeps into town, knocks on your door and demands your attention.

And this is exactly what happens when the Gaping Wallow arrives: It starts with a single solitary tear, peaking out from behind the eyelids and plummeting down over the hump of your pallid cheek. And when one tear comes, it is as if that tear gives orders to the followers. And they come too. Following their Leader. Forming a Puddle.

At first you thought you were crying over something menial. A messy room. A stubbed toe. A day that you wish the calendar would just erase. But before you know it, you are sobbing. Reaching to Find Breath to Catch.

Long Sobs. Short Sobs. Salty Tears. Tears That Won’t Stop.

Crying over what happened a year ago. What you should have gotten over four months ago. Sobbing over your fears for the future. Dying a little inside over the people who refuse to sit anywhere but in your past.

The tears that the Gaping Wallow brought (like cupcakes to a birthday party) won’t stop coming for a while because you know they have been pent up for too long. It is as if your mind has filed these tears into a database after every sorrow or little thing that did not go your way. And they sit and wait until they can make an appearance. All over your cheeks. In the runs of your mascara. Below your nose.

But we never really can predict when that appearance will be, when the Gaping Wallow will visit.

The Gaping Wallow is as unreliable as the weather. Or perhaps as reliable as the tide.

But there are advantages to him and the tears he brings with the visits he makes.

The Gaping Wallow allows us to believe in the sunrise of a new day, the turn towards a blank page, the calmness in the air that follows after a storm.

You know, full and well, that when the tears stop coming and the Sobs Cease, that you will feel better. Drained, tired, but better. As if the tears have wiped away the built up stress and worries that had begun to collect interest on your shoulders.

It is as if the Gaping Wallow, though showing off as big & robust & demanding, carries with him a quiet voice that is for you. Just You. And he kneels down beside you, as you are curled up in the left-hand corner of your king-sized bed or with knees folded under you in the driver’s seat of the car, and he delivers some reassurance.

“Cry now. Cry now. Just be sure to let it all out. Cry for Yesterday. Cry for Tomorrow. Cry for all the things that hurt you good today. All the things that batter you with Confusion, Doubt, Insecurity and Restlessness. And don’t discriminate against your tears. If what you are crying over happened six years ago, I don’t care. If it happened when you were seven, I still don’t care. Just cry. Just push those tears into existence and validate them for once. Your tears are like every human being: we all want validation. Let it all out so that when you are done you will find that there are no more tears to use. And you will be ready to pick up a smile and a brand new day and start all over again. Without me and the tears I brought for the visit.“

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Filed under The tough stuff, Tragedy, loneliness

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July 8, 2010

She knows my whole heart. And she does not judge me for any of it.

She is a friend of mind.  She gather me, man.  The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.  It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.  ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

There are days when I want to literally curl up into my Inbox and just wait. I could find a cozy spot between the sent items and saved drafts and just wait. I would even settle for making a bed with the piles of junk mail and deleted items. Just To Wait.

Life might be easier this way, if all we were expected to do with our days was wait to hear from our best friend. A friend who gets us completely.

My best friend and I email each other almost every day. Sometimes I have great difficulty in coping with the fact that we have the adjective “Long Distance” attached to our friendship for what could be a very long time. But we have a bond that I cannot explain. She Knows Me. I Know Her. And at the end of each day we cling to that understanding.

Our emails are a mess. A Literal Mess. Sure, you could uncover the paragraphs. The punctuation. The breaks and beginnings. But our hearts are splattered all over the messages. I sometimes think after I send an email to her that I should recieve a notification that says “Mailbox over size limit” because we pack so much emotion, hope, desperation, questions & answers, and an overwhelming love for life into each email. No gigabyte or megabyte seems justifiable.

Someone asked me the other day what was the best thing about my friendship with her. “She knows my whole heart,”  I said. “And she doesn’t judge me for any of it.”

I guess as we grow older we learn what is important and not so important when it comes to friendship. I once thought friendship was all about quantity. Lots of friends on the playground. Plenty of friends to sit next to at lunch. Too many friends on Facebook. Always people to text message. But sometimes having so many friends can make us feel so little in this world. Insignificant, as we cling to our generic messages and irrelevant friend requests.

I now see that friendship is about something much deeper than numbers like “7″ or “12.”

My mother always warned me not to pick and choose my friends like colors out of a crayon box. She feared the ease I found in becoming bored with one and moving onto the next in such a natural manner. I always replied that it was best to have a lot of friends. “A lot of friends, Hannah?” she would ask. “Or real friends?”

She waited for me to learn (in the way no parent ever hopes for: The Hard Way) that friends, real friends, are there without question. They are not be seeking out the next best route to make us feel worthless or weak. Friends, real friends, are loyal to a fault. They lend relevance to the cliche “catching you when you fall,” as they know when to stop walking next to us and start walking close behind. Arms Out. Ready for the Catch. Friend, real friends, never give us a reason to ask if our secrets are safe with them. We trust the second that the deepest intimacies of our souls reach their ears they are tucked straight into the heart. Locked and Keyed. And there they stay.

Friends, real friends, let us Wallow, Cry, Scream, Be Mad at the World. They accept broken hearts and bad moods as currency to our friendship on some days. But they are real friends because they know when to tell us to snap out of it, to straighten ourselves up and get back out there in the world. Friends, real friends, know when our sadness is no longer an excuse for missing out on life, when our delusions have gone too far and when we need to smarten up before the World deals us a harsh lesson. Friends, real friends, are the kind who rejoice in our victories. We count on them. To Celebrate. To Commend. To Be Proud. They also give reality checks and bring us back down to earth when we get ahead of ourselves.

Friends, real friends, help us to uncover things that we were not meant to find on our own. Sometimes diligence. Other times passion. Sometimes kindness. Other times persistence. Friends, real friends, are a saving grace in a world that seemingly becomes scarier every single day. Because this world comes with a lot of potential for pain: bullies on the playground, broken hearts on the concrete, broken dreams in the gutters.

Sometimes there are no better words than this to describe a true friend: No matter where you are, in your hometown or a big city, someone, somewhere knows your heart. They know the pieces. They know the stories. They know the struggles. And they choose not to judge you for the mess that you are. Someone, somewhere, carries you in their heart wherever they go. And that will always surpass carrying around a number like “1,700 Facebook friends” or “300 followers.”

Someone, somewhere, never made you a number. An obligation. A project. A chore. They simply made you a friend and, in a world that seemingly requires so much to be happy, it became all you never knew you were even missing in life.

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Filed under Best Friends, Simply Living, Thank You, Uncategorized

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July 5, 2010

Operation Fall in Love in a Coffee Shop

My friends are sending me to New York City to fall in love in a coffee shop.

Of all the jokes that have run through the bloodstreams of our friendships, this is the one that withstands all time and circumstances.

I began talking about my dreams of falling love in a coffee shop, over a skim latte and a book recklessly abandoned for the sake of conversation, quite a few years ago.

It’s always an early Saturday morning. It’s always an autumn day where possibility seems to rise up off the ground like steam on gravel after a fresh fallen rain. It’s always in New York City.  Perhaps the unintentional ambiance that the city conjures up or maybe the fact that a coffee shop awaits at every single corner so Love is bound to sit inside of one.

Post a sign that reads “Hopeless Romantic” across my back, but I have often wondered what it would be like to live a life skipping from Saturday to Saturday. To be so content to just sit in the presence of someone else as they sip their cappuccino and read their New York Times, someone that literally does not even know you exist. What It Might Be Like To Never Exchange A Word. However, these wordless encounters somehow come packed with enough passion and mystery to crawl you through the next seven days. All the days, Sunday through Friday, are spent thinking of that person who sits in the coffee shop. Wondering about their thoughts, dreams and how they fill their days.

I wonder what it would be like to be one of the millions who have not the courage to reach out a hand to the one they love and introduce themselves.

I guess I am a horrendous story teller because that is where my plot ends. Quite the lack of thickening, if you consult with me. I have never thought of what would come after the first handshake- of “our” thoughts together and “our” dreams and how “we” would fill our days.

I only have the coffee shop and the moments planned out pre-handshake. And that is like sending a pretty girl out into a big wide city but giving her no map to get anywhere.

We spend a lot of time building up dreams in our heads. We convince ourselves that happiness exists in a certain place with certain people. That our dream job does not exist outside of our dream city. That we were destined for a coffee shop, a freshly brewed Chai and a warm smile. And we stop there.

But don’t we pigeon hole ourselves when we plan so furiously? We should be so careful not to dream too specifically that we wipe away all other options. That we don’t grow to be so arrogant as we hold the soft hand of our dreams that we deem the others- outside of the coffee shop, jobs outside of our dream city and opportunities apart from our thought process- to be less than worthy. Perhaps, perhaps our dreams are good… but our futures are even better.

What if I could make all of our dreams come true in a matter of 172 days. That might be nice, right? We would stroll around in less than a year (24 weeks and five days) with spouses we have dreamed of, jobs we have wanted for a long time, white picket fences and all that good stuff. But what might we do for the 172 days? Sit and wait?

A lot of life can pass us by when we are waiting on one option. When We Forcefully Close Other Doors Because We Are Convinced That a Specific One Will Open.

This silly little “reach for the tissues” cinematic dream of mine is teaching me very much as of late. Oh How To Make Things Not So Silly. Not So Little. Not Just Dreams. I would love to claim to be the best director of my life but I have learned through experience that the best in this lifetime comes when we least expect it. When we are hoping for one smile and we gain another. When we are waiting for one opportunity and we stumble across something even brighter and more brilliant. We need to be careful not waste time sitting in our heads and precariously planning out dreams that lack a certain “plan of execution.”

If we want great things, well, we must work. If we want happiness, well, we must be open-minded.

Open-Minded: o·pen-mind·ed. adj. To not designate the corners where our happiness must wait for us, nor the coffee shops that our true loves sit in. To entertain curiosity, new faces and life when it throws us for a loop.

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Filed under Big City, Big Dreams, Life Lessons, Live with intention, Reality, Simply Living, happiness, love is...

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July 1, 2010

“Don’t worry miss, we all got this kind of baggage.”

via WeHeartIt.com

I am talking about toothbrushes and towels.

She is talking about misguided directions and failed friendships.

We are both talking about baggage and so we resolve to meet somewhere in the middle amidst a tangle of toiletries, Heavy Feelings and carry-on items.

The decision. To either focus on the tangible things: the items that will soon be packed up in my New York-bound suitcases along with the “necessities” that I will load into a clutch for a night out. Yes, those easy things: the lip gloss, the passport, the camera.  Or the real baggage. The Sometimes Clunky Stuff That No One Wants To Admit To Carrying.

I sometimes wonder how it would feel to be surveyed for this kind of baggage in the airport. “Excuse me, Miss” the security guard would say as I walked through the metal detector only to encounter a shrill beeping. “Please empty your pockets or anything on you that might be causing the alarm.”

Out come a few stray pieces of a heart. A couple melodies sunken deep in my pockets. A few battered conversations that I tried so hard to forget. A pack of unexamined decisions. Too many stories that are missing their endings.

The security guard might stare at me, shake his head and turn away, but I like to think that he would be human. He would say, “Don’t worry miss, we all got this kind of baggage.”

I used to pack the most illegitimate stuff into my suitcases. Books that I had not picked up for years, but might find the time to during this vacation. Love letters that did not need my eyes to scan them one more time, especially while laying out by a poolside. Stuffed animals even when I had long outgrown the need to have one at night. All this baggage that served me no purpose and no longer reflected who I was as a person. And Yet I Clutched It.

You see, my baggage does a poor, poor job of reflecting who I am as a person today.

Yes, the pain and joy and wonder of some relationships and happenings in our lives make us who we are, but there is no need to keep carrying the stuff much long after it provides us with a new piece of our character.  Oh, we could carry these conversations in our hearts forever. We could wake up every single morning and trace the syllables and examine the ways in which we swear that “goodbye” was an inadequate sense of closure, but those are some Heavy Sentences. Those Are The Hard Rocks  at the Bottom of Our Suitcases. Those are the instances in our lives when we realize that punctuation does serve a radical purpose. Commas are good. Semi colons are better. But Periods Are Best… in some cases that is.

I sat down to tea with a good friend last week. Three cups of tea to be precise. And we engaged in sharing stories to bridge the time we had spent apart from one another. And as I geared up to tell her a story that she had been waiting to hear I realized how tired I was of telling it. My tongue grew tied before the words even left my mouth. My head began pounding before even reaching the beginning, never mind the climax. And so I resolved to tell the story one last time and never let it touch another ear again. Because that is the truth to some stories: They are not fit to define us. We should stick with the ones that never tailored us to be Too Small.

Oh goodness, can you see them coming? They are just over the horizon and they are carrying capital letters in their arms. They are people just waiting to begin a new story with us in mind. And I already know I don’t want to reach out my hand and leave the crumbs of old stories and hard lessons learned in their palms. I want them to know the version of myself that came out of those stories. I want them to know that some trashcan somewhere holds the memories and some dump yard elsewhere holds the pain. And that I took the resolutions and I walked.

Walked away.

I want them to know that I learned a valuable lesson in elementary school. That I never forgot what existed on the chalkboard as when I was a knobby-kneed second grader folded up in Aesop’s Fables: To take the moral of a story but to leave the rest. To pack the towels but to leave the mess.

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Filed under Humanity, Letting Go, Live with intention, The tough stuff

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June 29, 2010

Beauty that comes in six shades of red and seven different sizes.

The secret to a life well-lived is beautiful skin. A whittled waistline and “stop him dead in his tracks” pick up lines. The right pair of shoes. A clean diet (one that will try to convince you is not based upon deprivation). Great sex. A slim body and a fat wallet. A swimsuit that fits your shape. Flat abs that take less than 15 minutes a day to maintain. Makeup that feels like it is barely there. And looking better naked.

At least this is what the world tells me as I walk out the door each morning.

My hands detected the worth and weight of beauty magazines at the age of 12 and I was never the same again. I flipped through the glossy pages where pretty girls smiled back at me and home remedies made promises that I don’t think they were ever fully equipped to keep. As I traced the Perfect Lips. Lashes. Long Flowing Hair. I remember thinking to myself, “I never realized I had this much to fix.I never knew I was missing so much.” I never realized I was this broken.

We digest the pages of these magazines and websites as though they are the 300-calorie sandwich with only 217 milligrams of sodium that sits and waits for us on page 112.

We are fed this idea that the key to true satisfaction and real happiness is somewhere amidst a butt-toning workout and a cream that makes cellulite vanish. We stay hungry over the fact that we can chalk life up to being obsessed with outward appearance, to Always Needing to Fix Something. And as a result? We never need to put away the tool belt, fully loaded with 8-minute abs and voluminous mascara.

If we always have some outer glitch to fix- To Make Our Thighs Smaller, Our Love Handles A Little More Lovely- then we never have to stare inward. We can abandon a quest for inner piece in order to make a journey towards a clear complexion. We never need to shred emotional baggage when Jillian Michaels and P90X promise us a different- more visible- kind of shred.

A great friend of mine spent time building a medical clinic near an all girls orphanage in Latin America and I saw the revelation in his eyes as he told me about the beautiful little girls. Little Girls who missed arms & legs & limbs and yet found nothing to miss at all. “But they were the happiest children I had ever seen, ” he told me. “Because they had not been taught that they were missing something.“

We are floundering in a culture that wants to convince us that we are missing something. Constantly Missing. Seven Steps Away From Perfection. Perfect Thighs. Perfect Curves. Perfect Lovers. Perfect Days. What would happen to all those magazines and reality TV shows and billboards if we looked in the mirror and realized we were missing nothing. That it was all there. Sitting abundantly on both our insides and outsides.

That we could stop in our own reflection stand there without an ounce of pressing time itching at our ankles.  To realize the most radiant element on our faces was not half off at WalMart yesterday. To say confidently to our inner selves, “You are not missing things. You are wonderful just the way you are. You are whole.“

Whole in a world that tells us we are empty. Full in a world that tells us we are hungry. Content in a world that tells us we are unsatisfied. Here. Right Here. All Parts Intact. In a world that convinces us that we are missing vital parts. Parts that will fulfill us, happiness that sits on a shelf for $4.99, beauty that comes in six shades of red and seven different sizes.

At some point we decide that we are going to pull away, that we are going to shun our ears from the messages that seek to pierce us and make us feel less than worthy. It is not an easy task. A task that never meets perfection. But little by little we allow ourselves to put down the tool belt, put down the coupons and the washed up images of the “way we used to look” to stop and see that all we ever needed never cost us $19.99 and our own self esteem as a sacrifice.

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Filed under Beauty, Healthy Lifestyle, Love yourself, Women

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