Revisions Necessary

Bits and pieces of a sleepy, saucy, silently-typed rave on the 6:07 train after a day in Jersey.

Sometimes, I feel liable to collapse.

I feel so overwhelmed by possibilities - options, courses of action, absolute outcomes of the next 15 seconds - that I literally paralyze my mind or my legs or my hands, which stop altogether in whatever I am doing or thinking. My eyes may well up, I might get a little shaky or break out into a giant wide smile. For me, at least recently (much like many, many years ago), possibility holds no anxiety: only joy, wonder or confusion.

There are no sweaty palms, no hyperventilation, just a whole set of hopes and wishes for my immediate future or the future that might have been- might have been, might have been - occurring every few seconds as the possibilities scatter like chopped film strips left to collect dust on the studio floor. This is not an everyday, all-the-time occurrence. Just an occasional road block in the normalcy I've adopted to cover my tracks as the tallest 4 year old girl on the planet.

***

When I see a stranger visibly upset - someone I haven't met and probably will never see again - I still feel the urge to comfort them. My instinct tells me (my American-bred, kind but cautious instinct) that going up and hugging or striking up a conversation or patting the back of a stranger who is upset could lead to a multitude of problems.

But gosh, it is hard to see someone cry or blink away tears and look down with a heavy, heavy stare, when you cannot do a damn thing about it. Some of them look like the VCR that was playing their soul got its tape ejected and was unplugged and put in the basement. I wonder when the next time there will be (or last time there was) wonder in their eyes - life in their eyes. And it makes my heart hurt so much to see people trudge from point to point and stare into space. Even if this is a relaxing comfort between work and home - and I know I’ve been there myself - it makes me sad.

I think I may have some sort of disease that wants every moment to be filled with gorgeousness and light and beauty and fun and creativity. I feel somehow that this is the best defense against waking up one day and realizing I am completely numb…like an Obsessive Compulsive taking vitamins and washing their hands, done unintentionally but with great care.

I just can't imagine being that someone sitting on a train, staring at the back of the head of the person in front of me, wondering how long I could prolong the journey home before launching into another night of work. To go sleep. To go to another day of work. To be back on that train, wishing I was anywhere but this place.

***

Sitting in a company meeting this afternoon, I began to want and dream and scheme and plan things I haven’t wanted (or dreamed or schemed or planned) in quite some time. I began to feel the stir of that feeling I got back in Judy Austin or DeLamarter & Schaefer’s classes, when I thought that advertising could make anything possible...

Large grassroots movements could launch and gain momentum and grow and grow and change the world.

People could be mobilized to get up from their very televisions and help to fix the state of things.

People could be persuaded by a newspaper or magazine ad to write a letter and together, they could save the Grand Canyon from muddy flooding.

I lost some of this wonder in my third year of college, regained for a brief shining moment watching a Sony Bravia commercial on the second floor office on Lower John Street outside of Picadilly Circus. [Bouncing colored balls on a San Francisco street and Jose Gonzalez’s Heartbeats.]

But today- well, today was just sunshine. Sunshine packaged in the form of men and women and a Powerpoint presentation that wasn’t projected in quite the right colors. A man who turns phrases like some people jiggle rusty light bulbs out of sockets. A man who doesn’t say no. A man who turns the world into a neat joke. A woman who believes that anything can be done with the right amount of time and brainstorming.

I am just in awe of how such a functional and successful company could be built in only 8 years and how I (one who has years and years of experience at being an extroverted, flashy, flighty, messy, loud, sometimes quiet and dead, messy messy colorful accidentally-intelligent mess of a human being) got taken under its wing and trusted to maintain something as large as what I do. It might not be large in the scope of their entire project roster, but man, it’s insane to me.

Sometimes, when I have a call or a meeting with people- people at a network or an agency or even the clients I talk to daily, I think, "Do they know who I AM?! Do they know what I’ve done?! Do they know where I came from??" Not like I’ve murdered people or chopped up puppies in my basement, but...I am not one of them.

I mean, I might be one of them. Whoever they may be...I mean, I might have ideas, I might be creative, I might be driven. But I am not born and bred from agency or corporation stock. My mom has a mind for numbers, a soul for art and hands for baking. My dad loves to read and write and talk to people and now cleans a grocery store for a living. I don’t think my parents have ever individually made the amount of money I am making this year- and they have at least 28 years of experience on me.

It’s insanity.

I feel insane.

But happy. And hopeful.

***

I can be known to overwhelm myself and others. I hope I have not done the latter here. I know I have already accomplished the former.

On the face of a dime.

In a hundred words or less, my thoughts on...

Homeless in the city:
I hope they don’t see me smile and think it’s out of pity. I keep my eyes bright and warm and full of love and not shock or sadness at their physical state. I hope they don’t remember me for the times I pass them by, but for the times I dig my last dollar bill out of my wallet and dump the change out of my receipt stuffed change purse. I hope they know that I’ve been close to where they are and I feel nothing by brotherly love and lots and lots of hope for them.

Americans today:
I cried for America on the train today. I shed a tear, hoping my fellow passengers didn’t have the burdens I keep hearing about, reading about, experiencing; hoping my smiles on the street aren’t ignored; hoping my transparent optimism does not come off as ignorance; hoping we all are not in for it. In for it with China. In for it with the world banks. In for it with Japan and India and with god. The gods. All of them. Don’t cry for America, I tell myself. Just say a prayer and do some good.

On race:
I see a man, a woman, a child, an Indian America, a Korean American, a fellow Anglo-Saxon American. I believe I didn’t see these things 20 years ago. When my brain was completely immersed with how people walked and if I could picture them dancing and how I thought they’d look in a hat. I wish I could rewind and capture that sense of the world. Capture, not color blindness, but the unimportance of color and nationality and race and their connotations. I don’t believe I made decisions based upon these factors, but gosh, I wish I could be sure of that.

On art:
There are few things that bring us closer to god than taking a paintbrush to paper. Or a hand to clay. Or a camera to glow sticks at night. Or even a box of chalk to a wall or sidewalk. In a culture so thick with media driven values and sicknesses, can we find peace? Maybe in nature or quietude or architecture. But these are all art. I think I would like to carry music and speakers and paint, and just paint to the music as I went about my day. It might be messy, but I’d feel a bit holier.

Logging the Journey- Rural Corruption.

July is a great time to hang out in the sun at a train station....but why are there never working payphones anywhere anymore?? Good thing there are nice groups of young gentlemen fishing...
Morgantown, PA: a beautiful rolling scape of green cornfields, small mountains, lovely old houses, flower gardens, ponds and simple structures.
Mohnton, PA: Rural-tastic. But really pretty. Met Rachel & Lindsay; walked to the park/pool/bar/playground & listened to a teen cover band while eating a hot dog and $1 lager.
With Emma and SLS to Sonic: you have to press a button?! and speak into a speaker?! I got grilled cheese w/ bacon. And small tots.
Wal*Mart: They all look painfully the same. I bought freeze pops, lighters & gum.
Then I danced through the parking lot to the Avett Brothers, holding my freeze pops out like a small dance partner, watching the sunset over the cornfields. How old am I again?
Then I met Becca's mom. How old does she think I am?
Then it was to the beer distributer and the state store. Now I remember how old I am. Inklings have already begun to develop that I have bought too much.
But the fireflies are so distracting.
And lovely. Emma makes good conversation too. Kids these days...and their conversations.
To the Red Carpet Inn...to meet Hersh, buy postcards, and *oops* make it clearly obvious that I am the oldest person residing in room #101 this fine July evening. To the room!
Obligatory leap onto made-up king sized bed.
Obligatory dance around the room to Michael Franti.
Obligatory first shot of Penn 1681.
Obligatory reading of verses from the nightstand Bible.
Toenail conversations in the closet, investigation of every crack hole and drug spot in the room, fridge stocking, taste testing, the realization we have no cups, the arrival of a Mooney mistress...
And what was to become the demise of the first round of fun: the boys.
[F*CKING DOUG.]
Passing out the drinks, another couple of ladies arrive, and then another. Drinking, passing, drinking, smoking, passing, chatting, laughing, a step outside and-
Don't close that when you come out, we don----
BAM.
[F*CKING DOUG.]
We really don't have the key. Really.
[F*CKING DOUG.]
Press the call button for the office multiple times. Walk back shaking my head...
[F*CKING DOUG.]
"Is everything alright?"
"Nope."
[F*CKING DOUG.]
"THE COPS ARE COMING! EFFING RUN!!!"
No, ladies...we're just locked out.
Guess who bolts? Among others,
[F*CKING DOUG.]
SLS joins me at the office to convene with some sane-telligence. Which is eclipsed by the smooth move of a full body slam of the locked door. Enough (or more than the call button) to rouse Hersh from his slumber.
Another head shake.
We're back in.
The night gets hazy. Girls and girls and girls. I sober up into an alternate half awake reality where I play inquisitioner in game show style truth or "double truth." I participate half-heartedly in platonic spin the bottle where I am passed over for a bag of BBQ chips by the one person I'd be interested in kissing...but am surprised at those who don't chose the chips over my cheek. Which is simultaneously odd and unnerving.
I went to the fair. We rode the ferris wheel twice, got some cotton candy, some balloons and headed back.
We rode in a backseat with four people. Seven total in the car. To Sheetz. I do not know the Sheetz I speak of.
I spooned with a girl. Two or three in total. They were tattooed and smelled like cigarettes and ironically were not old enough to buy either of those things.
I kept myself in check. I broke the law on only two fronts. No, three. Four?
Becca guarded my face when I slept from Sharpies gone awry.
I woke to Indian music at 8AM.
I went for a morning drive with a nice young gentlelady. I bought her some coffee for her generosity and the fact she kept me sane.
Mooney mistress brought me an hour out of her way to the train...
After a casually confusing kiss goodbye. I gave up figuring it out. And that's seemingly OK.
Drank my latte and listened to Tegan and Sara while waiting for the train, processing the day, the week, the month, the year.
Came home and launched into another kind of debauchery- drinking up sunshine and water and filling my stomach with all (by all I mean 2 or 3 or 4) the things I denied myself last night. Threw out the cigarettes with the dirty drawings on the pack.
[F*CKING DOUG.]
And took a drive. And a nap. And had another glass of water.
Refreshed. Renewed. Ready to make this week another great one.

The question is...focusing primary mental energy on one person seems to get me into trouble. Is it time to sow some oats? I think it may be.

Getting to Here, from There

I'm trying to get faster at everything work related. But things still take a minute to upload. So I'm writing.

And reflecting.

One month ago I was struggling to know what I wanted in a relationship.
Two months ago I was struggling to learn how to do my job.
Three months ago I was struggling to lose weight.
Four months ago I was struggling to figure out where I was going to GET a job.
Five months ago I was struggling to figure out how I was going to even get myself to Philly.
Six months ago, this was all just a spark in my eye- one of those things you tell people to which they raise their eyebrows and say, "Really? How cool..."

[You doubt they believe you. You don't know if you believe yourself.

But then you think of a year before that. January 2008. When life was just getting back to being OK. When things were just starting to clear. When the fog began to lift in the slightest and you started to peer out of the cabin on the ship and realize you didn't know where the storm had taken you.]

That was further along than 6 months before that. Two years ago- July 2007. Returning to Queensbury, NY with my head hung, not understanding why I couldn't find a job. Or take care of myself. Or face people. Or dress myself properly. Or find my lost confidence.

Where was 2005 Amanda? Where was the girl who kissed a stranger at the top of the world in San Francisco less than a year and a half before? She was missing. She was packing a UHaul with tears in her eyes, tail between her legs, begging the roommates she was leaving to try and understand. But there was nothing anyone could understand at that point.

Confusion had escalated or morphed or gained momentum since 6 months before that. When I was letting my lip (and my friendships) heal from a major tumble...and trying to grow out my 2 inch long platinum blond hair. Stacking soda cans in pyramids. Drawing pictures in finger paint on my rented walls. Running off to Albany to binge drink a week away in the snow and NY to spend my student loan money freely on unnecessaries. Not understanding how denying myself healthcare could possibly lead to another trip to the hospital.

The place it had seemingly begun a little less than a year before. March 2006. Defined as the beginning of the end to me when I reflected on it three summers ago, I can see it now more as a beginning of something bigger. Not an end at all, but a deeper understanding of my own brain and consciousness. And of how my own personality flaws or quirks could spiral into a massive web of madness that just knocks me down flat and out like no other person could do to me.

The most intriguing part of that crippling madness is that it felt like a privilege at the time- a flight with the gods. I felt I was privy to secret knowledge, secret dimensions in the everyday that others didn't see or know or even comprehend. I painted grass gold. I stole Bibles and buckets of change, leaving my own books and shoes and poems and drawings and clothes in exchange. I proudly presented a purple sign I'd bought [that said "Pimp Street"] to the 18 year old rental car staff member who helped me clean the junk out of my car while we talked politics. I wore 6 layers of scarves and dresses and t shirts, but no undergarments. I spoke almost only with strangers and wandered through different streets in California, ripping down flyers that I believed held great truth for my future. I did all of this as though I was doing the work of something greater.

I believed I was blessed; able to rhyme lines and lines and lines of poetry and prophecy, which, though it didn't make sense, was mildly entertaining to others. I felt I was blessed to be so happy, so powerful, so indestructibly full of life. Until something, from the smallest thing like hearing a beautiful song up to a big scary thing like being strapped down to a bed, made me feel so tiny and insignificant and young and scared that all I could do was cry and cry and ask [my kind young boss or my mother or the doctors] to be let out of my own head.

Seeing my loved one's reactions to my illness was hard. At first fulfilling- getting more visitors than any patient at McLean made me feel oddly popular and like I owned the place. I'd tour my friends and coworkers around to meet the locals. The man who spoke to his cane, which had the head of a dog (Gerard from South Boston). The girl who wanted me to share everything I owned, who traded me an Alanis Morrissette CD and disc man for my toothbrush (Arlainne from Armenia). The young man who promised to send me his screen play to share with my BU film maker friends (Scott, from Waltham...who did send me that screen play. I think I threw it out with a sigh.) I wheeled my friends and family around the wings of McLean as they came in and out, dropped by with gifts, only to leave sad and scared. I spoke nonsense, I didn't understand why it was nonsense and I was, in many ways, relatable to people I didn't know more so than those who were looking to recognize the old me- the intelligence or sense of humor or, at the very least, the honesty they had known before.

These three things are what I feel it has taken me over three years to get back. It took months of mis-medication, over-medication, numbness, mindless eating, lying awake in bed for hours, drugs, alcohol, learning how to think, talk, write, breathe, enjoy life; it took weeks of working out my own mind, something no therapist helped with in the least. It took years to get me to a place where I cared about myself enough to put my pain to good use and then shake it off like a cold chill or a summer shawl.

But now, July 2009, I have a job and a house in a city I love, see people I adore, try new things, branch out daily, travel, paint, dance, sing, walk everywhere, solve problems, make plans, socialize, stay in touch, maintain a busy schedule, extending and retracting my limits of time and space and constantly remembering at the back of my mind just how long it took to get here. A reminder that keeps me on track.

I feel revived. And though still challenged by things each day, I haven't struggled so far this month. With any of it. Any of it at all. It's like someone pulled the book down from a shelf I hadn't seen, handed it to me and walked away. And I'm flipping through it, looking up incredulously every so often wondering, "why the hell didn't I get this book 10 years ago?"

Maybe next month will be a different story. But for now, I thank the gods for their flight. It was longer and more enlightening than I ever could have imagined. And I'm pretty sure we're still on the tarmac.

Stay tuned.