So this is my first letter that I will never send. I enjoyed the process, so I think I will write more of these.
--------------------------------
I like you. I like it when I am killing time between the early morning animal feeding and starting work and you show up with your big dog and open all the blinds in my room so the sunlight will come in.
I like it when we talk about things that are very complicated and when we play at pretending to be puppies or goats and then we do puzzles and stay quiet in the same space. When we're quiet, I try not to think in words. I like it when we brush the horses and talk to them more than we do to each other.
I like how you always try to scare me when I'm working by myself somewhere. I like how I get nervous when I'm coming to a place where I know you are. I like that actually being with you doesn't make me nervous.
I like it when we wrestle on the floor of my room, and when we kiss there, too.
I liked the day that we agreed that maybe it's important to be sweet to people to protect them from the real world, to offset all the terrible things out there, and I liked the way you kissed me after that and told me that was to make up for what was happening out in the world.
I probably won't ever say these things to you, because I'm too shy and anyway the way things have worked out between us makes me feel like you wouldn't really like it if I told you any of these things, let alone all of them in one single saccharine and ridiculous overture, the written equivalent of furiously batting my eyelashes at you. Which maybe in another universe there exists a Nicole who bats her eyelashes, but I can only do it in a self-deprecating way and I suppose that is also the way that I like you: in spite of myself and how terrifically insecure liking you makes me feel.
And so I write this letter to you, boy, not just as a letter but as a meditation on sweetness in general, on breathing it in and out and letting it flow through me and hoping I can make other people feel as good as they make me feel and not expecting a single other thing to come of it.
Hmmph.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
how to speak forgotten language
so much of this blog feels to me like a letter to the people that i love. this entry is playing catch-up, but it is the response i've been wanting to write to you, j.
life just changes so quickly sometimes!
when I first got your email, i was delighted and complacent. my life had just fallen into a funny rhythm on the farm. i was planting things and digging holes and sanding lead paint off of boards (wearing a pair of motorcycling goggles to keep the paint out of my eyes). i was coming home at the end of the day and making crazy cooking projects with a boy. hustling random little jobs to do nothing more than tread water, slowly propelling forward. you know this life.
i guess i was spending every night satisfied or drunk or not alone, and the bliss of those weeks in retrospect reminds me of konstantin levin in anna karenina, what with his "special feeling" that he was afraid of ruining by sharing with others.
well, those weeks are over and the farm is over and i've been living in my brother's house in spartanburg for the past couple of weeks. suddenly, my life is altogether different. i also didn't want to write to you during the bulk of the shuffle because what does a person facing uncertainty in all main areas say? "i just lost my job, my home, and a boy, but i've got other stuff goin' on!" the truth is that, while the uncertainty was exciting and daunting and depressing in turns, i didn't know what to say about it.
for the past few weeks my life has been like a vacation. i miss my farm schedule and so i wake up and run. you know i am a terrible runner. after the run, i come home and do a couple of half-assed yoga poses. you know i get distracted so quickly! i hang out with my brother's kids and when they start to say or do things that i say or do, i am both embarrassed and unbelievably flattered. sometimes i cook very simple things. (variations on the theme of bean salad? anyone?)
now, it seems the pieces are beginning to fall again, tired from fluttering for now.
but the shuffle has made me misplace so many of the other things i wanted to tell you! i wanted to contrast the sparseness of hemingway and the lushness of garcía márquez, i wanted to tell you about the potential for goat cheese-making and flowers, and surely there were other things, too.
and past lives! for some reason, this pattern, which seems so good and effortless and right when you do it, doesn't make sense in my clumsy hands. instead, i find myself thinking of the implications of this silly life i'm living now. a woman who went on one of our delegations to mexico suggested i write a series of vignettes and call them "stories of a nonprofit girl", and the idea quite appeals to me. i feel like so much of this life is so absurd and other people can relate to aspects of it, which is even more absurd, if you think about it.
other than that, i am still committed to my bad cooking projects and worse art projects, though i am somewhat understandably feeling discouraged about my photography for the moment. the other day, i went ramp harvesting and then we made pickled ramps and i think harvesting ramps induced in me one of the happiest feelings i have ever had.
all that, and also, someone who stayed on the farm told me she often writes letters she never even intends to send. in a weird heartachy time i was having a few weeks ago, i wrote one of these to a boy and dang! that shit feels good. has anyone done much of this? am i discovering something super-obvious? i think i might post the one i wrote next post.
so. all this to say, that even with the craziness and uncertainty and big, bad feelings, i am amazed by how many times recently i have had the fleeting assessment that i am happier right now than i have been in years, or maybe ever. the older we get, the more like ourselves we become, and when i can settle and breathe into those dark, tight spaces in myself, especially in scary, horrible moments, the more aware i become of my capacity for tolerance and survival, and damn. it's a relief.
life just changes so quickly sometimes!
when I first got your email, i was delighted and complacent. my life had just fallen into a funny rhythm on the farm. i was planting things and digging holes and sanding lead paint off of boards (wearing a pair of motorcycling goggles to keep the paint out of my eyes). i was coming home at the end of the day and making crazy cooking projects with a boy. hustling random little jobs to do nothing more than tread water, slowly propelling forward. you know this life.
i guess i was spending every night satisfied or drunk or not alone, and the bliss of those weeks in retrospect reminds me of konstantin levin in anna karenina, what with his "special feeling" that he was afraid of ruining by sharing with others.
well, those weeks are over and the farm is over and i've been living in my brother's house in spartanburg for the past couple of weeks. suddenly, my life is altogether different. i also didn't want to write to you during the bulk of the shuffle because what does a person facing uncertainty in all main areas say? "i just lost my job, my home, and a boy, but i've got other stuff goin' on!" the truth is that, while the uncertainty was exciting and daunting and depressing in turns, i didn't know what to say about it.
for the past few weeks my life has been like a vacation. i miss my farm schedule and so i wake up and run. you know i am a terrible runner. after the run, i come home and do a couple of half-assed yoga poses. you know i get distracted so quickly! i hang out with my brother's kids and when they start to say or do things that i say or do, i am both embarrassed and unbelievably flattered. sometimes i cook very simple things. (variations on the theme of bean salad? anyone?)
now, it seems the pieces are beginning to fall again, tired from fluttering for now.
but the shuffle has made me misplace so many of the other things i wanted to tell you! i wanted to contrast the sparseness of hemingway and the lushness of garcía márquez, i wanted to tell you about the potential for goat cheese-making and flowers, and surely there were other things, too.
and past lives! for some reason, this pattern, which seems so good and effortless and right when you do it, doesn't make sense in my clumsy hands. instead, i find myself thinking of the implications of this silly life i'm living now. a woman who went on one of our delegations to mexico suggested i write a series of vignettes and call them "stories of a nonprofit girl", and the idea quite appeals to me. i feel like so much of this life is so absurd and other people can relate to aspects of it, which is even more absurd, if you think about it.
other than that, i am still committed to my bad cooking projects and worse art projects, though i am somewhat understandably feeling discouraged about my photography for the moment. the other day, i went ramp harvesting and then we made pickled ramps and i think harvesting ramps induced in me one of the happiest feelings i have ever had.
all that, and also, someone who stayed on the farm told me she often writes letters she never even intends to send. in a weird heartachy time i was having a few weeks ago, i wrote one of these to a boy and dang! that shit feels good. has anyone done much of this? am i discovering something super-obvious? i think i might post the one i wrote next post.
so. all this to say, that even with the craziness and uncertainty and big, bad feelings, i am amazed by how many times recently i have had the fleeting assessment that i am happier right now than i have been in years, or maybe ever. the older we get, the more like ourselves we become, and when i can settle and breathe into those dark, tight spaces in myself, especially in scary, horrible moments, the more aware i become of my capacity for tolerance and survival, and damn. it's a relief.
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