We're half awake in a fake empire

listening: The National, "Fake Empire"

This has truly been a long absence from the blogosphere for me, but I've been doing a lot of thinking and doing and frankly, too much baking. The pursuit of just one of my dream jobs has kept me busier and much more exhausted than I'd anticipated, but it has been an unforgettable experience nonetheless.

The only reason I came here today to deposit my thoughts is that I've been listening to mix tapes lately, old and new, desperately remembering what I was trying to say, what someone else said to me and have been reflecting on friendships, failed relationships, new relationships. I've been in the Ssip now for several months and originally only planned to be here for a short term life, eight to nine months at most, before moving on to the next destination. And then I became nauseated from all the moving and realized I need some stasis.

This is a vastly different feeling than what I had a few months ago. Back in December, I could have sold off nearly everything just to go back to Portland. Granted, there are days I want to go back and those are the days I get stuck listening to mixes MJ made for me. Those are the days that all I want to do is dance with her and cook with her and holler at people on bicycles with her. Today suddenly became one of those days because every time I hear "Fake Empire," I think of her. In a minute, I'll move on to another song, but I'll still miss her.

All of that being said, I also had a really great couple of weeks that remind me of what I adore about being in Jackson and ease the heartache. I've had walks and talks and group television watching and Vagina Monologues and gym buddies and now, new mixes. The new mixes are hopeful and full of excitement, something that the mixes from 2008 didn't have. Those mixes were simply content and slightly shallow. These are made of motion, but this motion, while forward, keeps me in orbit here and now, just where I want to be.

yesterday don't matter if it's gone

listening: franco battiato's cover of "ruby tuesday"

I am about to leave for two weeks on various couches and in guest rooms on the East Coast. First I fly to Atlanta to see Ben & Amanda (and hopefully catch up with C's friends J&S). After spending Labor Day weekend with them, I will board a train to Charlotte, NC, where I will finally get to see my two loves Jolene and Mister A for longer than a meal. I will stay to harass them for about a week before taking another train to Washington, D.C. where I will commune with various friends from college and the museum and another, more recent friend. I'll also be saying hello to Mister Jefferson and keeping my ears open for response from the public school system. There is fantastic article in the DNC edition of Newsweek about the new chancellor taking on the teachers' unions. The nerd in me is stoked to see what happens.

To leave all three of my readers with a pleasant image, this is the pecan tree under which I spent naps when I was a little girl, sitting in a hammock until the ropes pressed into my skin. Unfortunately, after being struck by lightning many times and showing signs of dying, it either has to be cut down or it will fall on the house. House wins. House always wins.

It's never quiet as it seems, 'cause you're a dream to me

Listening: The Cranberries, "Dreams"


These arms belong to Casey. There have been a lot of days lately when I wonder what it will be like to be without her in my immediate environment. I try hard not to have those days. Unfortunately, moving will make this a reality for both of us. I really do believe that one day soon she and I will share the same city again, barreling down unfamiliar streets, discovering more "Little Saigons," learning more Jay-Z lyrics, fretting over what to cook for pot luck dinners. Casey has been the constant in my life since arriving in Portland. We separately planned to move here and somehow ended up here on the same day. Since January 1st, 2007, my life has changed for the better. I have learned so much about having adult friendships and it's due to my relationship with her. I have learned how to unabashedly say "I love you" and enjoy the embraces, the joyful grins shared over pretty drinks.

Friendship isn't the only gift Casey has given me. She's also shown me new ways to look at the world around me. While we both work in jobs that focus on education, we have different perspectives, a varying scope. Casey charges into the world with a roar, photographing, writing, reporting: this is the world to which you should focus your attention. She is going to shake the journalism world up more than she already has. Casey made a magnificent impact on the readership of the New York Times with her reporting from Africa. Rather than present yet another story full of anonymous statistics and incomprehensible disease names, Casey gave us heart, she showed us the people by relaying the plight of a woman named Prudence. Now she pours her heart and soul into stories about teenagers in Oregon, the entrepreneurs of their generation, the artists to watch and learn from, the struggles we forget about as adults outside their world.

I cannot wait to see the roads she'll take us on.
She's amazing and kind and so, so lovely. (thank you, thank you, thank you)
I'm so blessed to call her my B.

Watch her jumpstart.

Old habits die hard when you've got a sentimental heart

Listening: She & Him, "Sentimental Heart"

After a few failed tries at syncing our busy schedules, I finally got to meet Mister Abe. I met Lori and the Boy at the Tin Shed for brunch this past Sunday. While we had to wait for about an hour in a chilly morning to be seated, we finally got a table and settled into scrambles, grits and biscuits. I got to see a lot of his personality while we waited in the form of some of those delightful faces only babies can make (and this baby takes the whole cake) and his changing moods. A sleepy face gave way to half smiles and determination to squirm out of arms.

This was exactly what I needed, a smiling and hilarious baby. This amazing creature (Lori and Ted know they've hit the jackpot with this kiddo) reminded me of the goodness in this world, the happiness and glowing warmth that exists. What Lori didn't know going into this breakfast date (or even leaving it) was that my family suffered a tragic death this past week. The death alone is enough to cast a wide gray cloud over anyone, but the nature of it suppressed any smiles and joy we had left. I've been conflicted and confused in my grief, but I will say that seeing that slight dimple in the Boy's left cheek brightened me for days and days.

Lori and I talked a lot through our two hours together (a boy needs his sleep in his mama's lap, after all) about community and how that community can become your family. This past week for me has been frustrating in addition to being grievous. I immediately looked for plane tickets to go to Mississippi and was constantly on the phone with K$, trying to figure out a million different travel plans. Time and cost ended up hindering my attempts to get to Jackson, to embrace my parents and help where I can. It has been so infuriating to be so far away and feel helpless about the entire situation. I don't know how to handle this grief really. What I needed was my family, to see their faces. My friends here have asked what I need, offering to take me out for drinks (and my housemates cried with me over a 6-pack of Mothership Wit), hug me, love me.

When I've needed to be with my family most, I realize that some of that family is here. They are here and I need them. They are willing and able to hold me up and for that, I am truthfully and wholly thankful. This brings me back to sitting with Lori and Abe. The image is burned in my mind of a slack-mouthed baby boy sleeping soundly against his mother's form. It was enough to remind me how family grows just as theirs did, a mother and a father gaining a son, a son gaining parents. It reminded me of how family evolves, how the meaning of "family" changes over time. My heart, in its shroud of grief and conflict right now, is glad to remember that.

I rest my head on a pillowy star and a cracked-door moon that says I haven't gone too far

Listening: Wilco, "Via Chicago" (Thanks, Jeff Tweedy, for the subject title)


I'm still stuck on the ideas of "home" and returning South after being way up here in the Pacific Northwest and what all of this means, etc. So, bear with me, it's what I'll be writing about quite a bit with breaks in between to review things like The Mountains Goats' Heretic Pride (waaaaaaaay overdue), The Master Butchers Singing Club, talk about new projects like the review writing exchange. There won't always be such heavy talk here.

When I left Mississippi I knew in my heart of hearts (what does that expression mean anyway?) that I was doing exactly the right thing at the exact right moment in my life to pick up and move so far away. I needed space and time to sort my thoughts, to start my life again after surviving a broken heart, to challenge myself. I've always been at ease in social situations, but the thought of starting all over again, building community in a place I'd never been (truth be told now: I'd never set a foot in Portland, Oregon, before I arrived here last January) truly frightened me and in the outcome, made me more self-aware and confident.

Fast forwarding through the last year+, I've managed to gather some kind of surrogate and wonder family. After a hiccup of a try at living with my landlord, I moved into a yellow house with two soon-to-be great friends. I found a home with them: community dinners, dancing in the kitchen, having kitty friends and learning to chase chickens. I've spent time with this amazing lady (and her equally amazing and hilarious husband) and will be fortunate to meet their son, for whom they've fought so hard these past few months. I found something of a soulmate (as much as I don't know what I think about such things, I do think that souls recognize each other, a la Plato, but that's another entry altogether) in a lady who moved here when I did, independently of me. She has become a favorite fixture in my life and it will surely shatter my heart the day I leave her here. I found a job I really love and has helped me learn more about what my life's work will be. I made great friends at that job, exploring the city's many happy hours through laughter and sharing of lives with them.

And now I am choosing to leave this all behind.

I knew when I moved to Portland that it would be a tenuous existence and that something else would propel me forward again. For all the reasons I could move back to Mississippi (admirers, Eudora Welty, my family, the way the Delta feels to my skin, 930), there are a million reasons why I cannot and should not right now. I have more to find out about this great big world and as a child I'd dream of seeing what else is out there. I know that I need to be back in the South, if for nothing else than to get a refill on the hopes and dreams that only Southern air can inspire. I hope that a stay in Austin will soothe my need to know about living in Texas, the romanticized version inspired in my childhood by reading and watching Lonesome Dove. My next stop will be North Carolina to see if I can wrangle a teaching job in Charlotte, where two of my other life's loves live currently. Maybe one day Mississippi will be in the cards for me. I will spend time with M&P, pay visits to gravesites, bask in sunshine and then say goodbye. I think right now it would take something catastrophic to get me to plant my feet back there. I have a lot of love and fierce adoration in my heart for the Ssip, but there's more out there. There will be a lot of travel and moving and shifting in the next six or so months, but it comes down to this:

Some people find stability in staying in one place for decades, content with stasis. Today, my stability comes in the form of momentum, changing my orbit, always moving forward even with a few steps back.

with a little help from my friends

i've been housesitting this week for friends (and kitty sitting 3 odd fellows). the differences between their house and my house are great, but the one that has impacted me the most is the cable. i haven't really watched television (aside from watching TV dvds--Freaks & Geeks, Pete & Pete, 90210...the classics, y'know) in about 9 months. i watched a bit when i visited K$ in austin, but this, friends...my goodness.

i've been watching 2 episodes of the wonder years before i go to bed around 11 pm. and then this morning i heard joe cocker crooning the theme this morning on the radio. i really, really love that show. i was so young watching it when it was on TV the first time and now have watched it all again through reruns and am counting on the day that the music rights can be secured and all seasons will be released onto DVD so i can get my grubby little hands on them.

the 2 episodes last night were just 2 examples of how awesome and poignant this show is. the first episode i watched with midge and scrat was about the English teacher who tried to buck the system--getting rid of letter grades in favor of Pass/No Pass, reading Catcher In the Rye, opening up the world of literature beyond the uninformed intentions of a disconnected school board. it was such a cool episode and made me wistful for high school English, really the only thing about high school i truly loved in retrospect. (there was this great moment in 11th grade when we watched Hamlet and our ditzy teacher wanted to fast forward through naked parts, but was so inept at technology that she paused it instead.)

and then the joni mitchell played. i realized from the beginning how important music was to this series, but last night, the episode "Kodachrome" reminded me in waves of memory. in the background we could hear the tinkling of "both sides now." it's so funny how one song can be recorded by the same artist twice in her life and sound SO different. this led midge and me to discuss how heartbreaking that scene in Love Actually is when accompanied by the gravelly breaths and slowed phrasing of a much older joni singing 'both sides now.' in this particular episode of TWY, however, the song makes the experience of opening your mind up to possibilities hopeful, rather than hopeless.

the second episode is the one where wayne really feels his inadequacy academically and makes the misguided attempt at salvaging himself by joining the army (if i say what happens and you don't know, then i've ruined some stuff for you. do yourself a favor and catch the reruns)--it's 1972 at this point and Vietnam is still raging with war.

and that leads to the sadness to come from Vietnam. from the beginning of my life i was taught about war, mostly just through the lens of an academic historian, examining battle tactics of the respective wars, the impact on my own family (my grandfather as a paratrooper in WWII and then deployed again in Korea, coming back a very different man), the political tug-of-war and responsibility. so there i sit watching this episode knowing what might loom in wayne's future and flashing to every page of textbook in college that covered post-1950 history. i remember seeing these episodes as a kid wishing i was that age at that time and could somehow talk wayne out of it, talk all of those boys at it, screaming for their salvation from a war that did nothing but leave a lot of grieving parents and spouses and children. i was an inflamed child, aware of what Napalm was and what protesting meant, but not really. i wouldn't really know the weight of protest until i was in college.

how is it that television of all things (remember, it rots your brains!, parents say) reminds you SO MUCH of your own life?

thank you for being in my life, kevin arnold.