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5:30AM Is Not an Acceptable Hour for Kickboxing Class

By on January 22, 2010 in humor, true story
This morning I watched the sun come up over the ocean.
I tried, anyway.
I had this merry idea as I was driving back from the gym. Look, it’s 6:40 and the sky is still that purply shade of blue. The pre-dawn color! You could make it!
As my odometer crept past the speed limit, I began a series of mental handshakes. What a great idea this is! You’re gonna love it! Don’t you always lament the fact that you live on the Eastern coast and never see the sunrise? Isn’t it one of those things you should do at least a thousand times before you die? So that you can know you really LIVED? How many sunsets has anyone seen? Oh, wow, this is gonna be GOOD for you.
Sigh.
It’s endless, this monologue. It’s as if there’s one super-energetic, cracked-out part of my brain that is constantly cheerleading, doing back flips and handstands and encouraging the team to GO GO GO! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!
Meanwhile, the team tries to decide how best to strangle her.
She even piped up during class the morning. The one time of day I am completely focused on my physicality, lost in flesh and sweat and the effort it will take to gut out just twenty more minutes, seven more push-ups. But this morning I was tired, and my defenses were low. She pounced.
How many times have you been to these classes? she asked. How come the instructors don’t know you by name? All the other regulars are on a first-name basis with each other. Why are you shutting yourself off to the world like this? Shouldn’t you make an effort if you want to get to know people? How do you ever expect to expand your social horizons if you don’t make the time to say hello? What, are you nervous? Is it because you’re here ALL THE TIME and NO ONE KNOWS YOU? Come on, don’t feel like a loser; it’s your own fault.
I doubt anyone noticed my muttered curses and punching exhale as we held in plank for an extra 30 seconds.
But now I am buoyed by serotonin, ephedrin, flooded with chemicals that make workouts addictive and tri-athletes psychotic. I zip over the bridge into town and note with glee that the sky is still blue, save one strip of pink near Manhattan.
Yes, I can see the Manhattan skyline from my window. And I do NOT envy any of you. Or your commute.
I pulled into the parking lot just as my favorite song ended. I shrugged up my W&M hoodie like a real badass white girl and leapt into the morning.
I should probably mention at this point that I’ve become a little deluded about the cold. Remember when I was complaining about the freezing wind and the snow and the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to turn on my heaters? (Whoops.) Well, I’m over that now, and these 50-degree days are absolute ambrosia for my wearied and frostbitten soul. At one point, I almost considered taking a beach day, but then the breeze blew the hood of my thermal coat into my head and I reconsidered.
So now I am prancing toward the beach, but it is only through sheer force of will that I ignore how chilly it is. The wind is blowing right through my sweatpants, and although it’s a far cry better than it was when all those people died from avalanches in the Midwest or whatever, it’s still awfully nippy.
I stare at the ground and stalk past the children’s playground, along the sandy slats under lamplight and over the final cresting dune. There’s the ocean–frothing in it’s new day glory–
WHAP. The wind smacks me upside the head. Involuntary tears begin rolling down my cheeks. I sniff and look at the horizon, scanning for the red and orange that burn with the sun, but purple prevails. Even the pink over Manhattan has slumped into a soft shade of yellow. I fill my lungs with all this fresh oxygen, try to smell the salt spray despite my runny nose. I consider settling in, curling down to watch the day progress.
Aren’t we having fun?
Then, the voice of Reason. She rarely speaks to me, so when she does, I listen.
Elizabeth, this is your life. It’s only as necessary as you need it to be.
Within seconds I am sprinting back toward my apartment, tears streaming into my sweaty shirt. As if 5am kickboxing wasn’t insult enough.
Even the cheerleader is silent.
Soon I am sitting on my couch, folded into a bathrobe and a big furry blanket. I cup the first mug of coffee between my hands and watch the seagulls hang in the gray air above the phone lines. Their wings flap slowly, even lazily, as they caw into this (ironically) sunless dawn.
Below, a flock of little black birds–sparrows? finches?–zip past, pumping their little bodies furiously through the air. They look exhausted, but seeing as how birds rarely emote, I may be projecting with that one.
I sip my coffee and reach for my computer, letting my mind linger beside the seagulls. Sometimes, the path of least resistance is the best for everyone involved.
The sparrows can have this morning. Let them fly to the sunrise if they can.
Or were they finches?
Maybe I should brush up on my ornithology.
Sigh.

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I Display My Artistic Genius

By on January 11, 2010 in humor, quarter-life crisis, true story

My coffee table looks like a craft store.
Hundreds of magazine clippings, Mod Podge and an X-Acto knife scatter across the particleboard. These are images torn from global publications: spectacular landscapes, curious objects, women fraught with couture and impossible beauty. I’ve collected them over months like seashells, bits of color and shine to a magpie eye.
In other words, I love making collages.
God, I’m such a nerd.
Here’s the thing. I lay in bed yesterday, watching the sun creep above the rooftops, and considered all the possibilities of the day before me. I am determined to find space in my days for everything that matters to me—family, friends, physical prowess—and am prepared to use all my planning, wit, and determination to achieve it.
Granted, I didn’t get out of bed until 11AM, but sloth is a priority, too.
As I stood by the stove eating cereal at the ambitious hour of noon, I felt an overwhelming urge to do something. (Go figure.) Not just wash my face and brush my teeth, either. No, I was overcome with the urge to actually create something, to build with my hands or mind a thing of beauty, a carefully woven concept, to stretch my thoughts and shake the cobwebs out of the corners of my musty worldview.
Time for a road trip!
I zipped up the Parkway with a burgeoning sense of joy. I sang along with the radio and watched the river slip by, the choppy waters of tidal strait frothing past and away. Shifting to fifth and sailing through the sky, I rocketed into New York with all the hope of a wide-eyed pilgrim.
I wanted art, you see; I wanted a creative stimulus. On my way to visit a grade school girlfriend, I felt sure we could come up with something. Grace is a kindergarten teacher with a penchant for opera and foreign languages. No doubt she’d think of a craft to entertain our Saturday night.
I crossed my fingers for macaroni necklaces.
Four hours later, we’d sat in her Brooklyn walk-up with Thai takeout and no plan.
“The night’s really getting away from us,” she said.
I speared a chunk of eggplant and nodded. “Most places will be closed by now, right? Museums and art shops and things?”
“Yeah.” We looked at each other. “We could always just go to a bar now and make paper snowflakes in the morning. Or something.”
“True.” Then inspiration struck. “Let’s dress up!”
We squealed and ran to the bedroom. The night was a flurry of cute dresses, high heels and camera poses.
What? You were expecting artistic genius?
The morning was sunny. We sat at the kitchen table facing each other, drinking tea and wearing matching nightgowns that we bought in high school. In our twelve years of friendship, every single sleepover included a moment like this.
As we prattled along, I became aware of tiny ripples in the room, our words echoed silently by the ghosts of conversations in our past, our younger selves hovering at every angle like bright spirits in the dust motes. The rooms changed, the length of our hair and the flow of our limbs, throaty speculation now textured by violent experience. But we sat in the crosshairs of our whole lives, in a tunnel of a thousand instants just like this one, these parallel windows stretched to past and future. The room pulsed with energy, vibrant and flaring like a frame of imperfect film.
Tonight, memory floods a blank canvas. I have lived the new artistic impression, walked the shifting stage of history.
I sort through the scattered images on my table and pull what draws my eye. Fingers linger over certain attitudes, a tree with familiar leaves, a black and white screen. I draw and build, arrange and rearrange, and listen carefully to the murmur of a story, indistinct but drawing close as I search with these new eyes.
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Who Do You Want to Be?

By on January 8, 2010 in mindfulness, quarter-life crisis, true story

Somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee, I forget who I am.
Dropping between peaks, we mirror the sun. Amber light hurtles through each crevasse, blinded and blinding in layers of snow. The car flashes, a streak of steel.
I wonder where this girl is going.
We fly down a ribbon of asphalt as it unfurls through the valleys, descending past small towns, single homesteads. Lights in a window are eyes of a home on a cliff far above.
She could be anyone. Look up and marvel. These moves feel new; the air is strange.
In the parking lot of a gas station, my legs are impossibly long. I stand, taller than expected, and buoy on my toes.
Who are you? I ask.
My breath rises in clouds that follow the infinite ascension of twilight.
Who do you want to be?
Back in the car, we whistle upward.
Stars climb craggy surfaces, find their footholds in the sky. Beneath the black and open universe I sit, cradling a memory.
A fireside with an open chair, the chatter of happy voices. A promise in gentle words.
Tonight the mountain is a giant sleeping. I curl in his heart, deep in the pulse, and sleep between two streams. Snow falls on wind chimes outside my window, and silver sounds twist like a dream in the night.
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Y2K(10)

By on January 4, 2010 in quarter-life crisis, true story
Hey guys! It’s 2010!

Did you get the memo?

I, apparently, did not, considering I failed to join the rest of the world in going “live” on the internet this morning. But thanks for letting me run off on vacation like that. I’m sorry I disappeared with so little warning or explanation.

Did everyone have a nice break? See a few friends, open a few gifts? Are you well-rested? Bright-eyed? Excited by the promise of a new decade and your resolution to craft it as your own?

If so, congratulations. That makes one of us.

I lay in bed this morning, staring at the ceiling and kicking my feet under the sheets. Cocooned in the warmth of two blankets and cripplingly expensive heat, I watched sunlight play on the ceiling and tried to trick myself into feeling excited. Going back to work–it’ll be just like Christmas!

Um.

OK. It could be like the first day of school!

Nerd that I am, this encouraged me to get up. Ignoring the fact that I should have showered 15 minutes ago, I pranced to the bathroom across icy floors and considered myself in the mirror. Not too shabby, considering I got two hours of sleep and drove through four states on Friday. I went heavy with the foundation. New year, new face!

Outside my window the sun shone merrily as waves roiled in the distance. I trotted down the freshly-carpeted steps of my building and fixed a smile on my face, ready to greet the big, beautiful—

UGH! What IS this, Arctic tundra?

Smile shattered, I hauled tail across the street to my car. Drivers screeched to a halt and glared angrily out their windows.

Oh, come ON, Housewife-in-Mittens-and-a-Land-Rover. YOU aren’t losing skin cells to this freezing wind.
My car door moaned as I wrestled it open. I narrowly avoided losing my foot as the wind slammed it shut again.

Heart beating furiously, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had lived.

As I peeled down the highway, I began thinking about all the hopes I have for myself this year. To write more, to volunteer, to forge meaningful impact in word and deed. To remember to take my car for inspection.

I began thinking, and thinking, and thinking some more, and as the list grew longer my heartbeat ratched upward. There’s no time! I’m not strong enough! My eyes are bigger than my stomach!

My brain launched into a whiny monologue that hasn’t stopped since. (I probably should have resolved to be less self-indulgent, or to simply do less and pursue a Zen sort of existence. But like every twenty-something with a job and an ego, I finally set my sights on a more rigorous gym schedule. Self-betterment through bolstered vanity.)

Ever notice how the first day after vacation feels like the day after a nuclear attack? People rush around making hurried small talk, offering watery, insincere smiles. I thought I saw someone flee past with a blanket and a frozen meal.

Really?

Well, I wasn’t much better. I never got above two syllables at a time.

Eventually I shuffled into the cafeteria for a coffee. The sun set against the windows as I moped, my stabbing headache punctuated by the odd sneeze.

“Elizabeth!”

I blink heavily.

“What’s up, man?”

I look up and weakly return Timothy’s high-five. “Not much. You?”

“Aw, I’m good.” He shakes his head, tucking a smile into his chest. He has a way of pulsing when he talks, moving with the loose, fluid energy of a former basketball player. “Did you have a good vacation?”

“Sure.” Decades ago. “Did you?”

“Oh yeah.” He bounces on the balls of his feet, nearly elevating. There is a strange lightness about him, an (almost) contagious happiness in his words. “It is just so good to be here. Isn’t it?”

“Um.”

“Another year. A whole other year.”

“Sure.”

“We gotta be grateful, don’t we? We get put on this earth and now–well–look at us, man. We get a whole other year of life.”

He grinned at me, shining with joy, and I felt for a minute all my dark brooding thoughts fumble. Because this is the truth. This is it. Another year passed, another year just begun, and we have this whole life to live in it.

Happy New Year, and cheers to us. We made it.
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This Is What Happens When You Sniff Candles For a Living

By on December 18, 2009 in humor, true story
I’ve been wrapping presents for about 45 minutes now, and my brain is starting to liquefy. Too much holiday spirit, perhaps.
It is pretty nice, in some ways. I am pleasantly surprised by the techno music on my iTunes, for example. Granted, I have no idea how it got onto my computer. For all I know, it could have been uploaded by elves in the middle of the night. But I like these beats.
Then again, I just spent a full thirty seconds considering the merits of double versus triple ribbon curling. (I settled for double. I’m not crazy.)
It’s about 3 degrees outside, and the wind is howling along the sea. But my little apartment is cozy; I’m baking, and I’ve got candles burning.
For those of you who don’t know, candles are kind of my thing. I work for a fragrance company, and I am deeply—emotionally, psychologically, the whole kaboodle—invested in scented candles. These two happen to be pine- and fireside-scented. And they both just ran out.
I stand up, and scraps of silvery wrapping paper fall to the floor like so many snowflakes. The bottom drawer of my desk/dining table is the designated candle drawer—I had so many I needed a place to keep them all.
Autumn Wreath? No, too much apple cinnamon.
Coconut Bay? Not exactly a winter wonderland.
Citrus Green Tea? This isn’t a yoga studio.
I sigh and rummage and rummage and sigh. My bathrobe hangs on my shoulders like a quilt, swinging gently against my giant plush sneaker-shaped slippers. Look at me, a big baby swaddled in cotton fuzz and hilarity.
My life isn’t that complicated. Choosing a candle shouldn’t be so hard.
Oh. Here we go.
Vanilla Cupcake. I hold it up to my nose, inhale the delicate smell, the sweet play of sugar with warm cream. Perfect.
I grab the matches, and that’s when I realize.
I’m baking vanilla cupcakes.
Against my desire, I shut the drawer. I sit back and pull up my next skein of silver ribbon. I’m almost finished; things could be worse.
Besides, I love this song. Those elves have good taste.
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My Longest Relationship Has Been with My Car

By on December 17, 2009 in humor, true story

It’s complicated.


Did you ever have a conversation with a car?

I have had about a million: with my car, on long trips; with parked cars, especially those akimbo to actual parking spaces; with moving cars, in almost every circumstance imaginable.
Just last week I had a heartfelt conversation with a moving car that took off my driver’s side mirror when it passed.
Cars are like pets, in a way; they grow to mirror their owners, sometimes to a freakish extent. It’s hysterical.
Today, for example, I drove home on my lunch break. As I approached the new span bridge descending from the hills to the spit of land sandwiched between river and ocean, the sun shattered across the water and blinded me. In the half-second it took to blink and refocus my hopeless eyes, a and silver Versa zipped past, skimming ahead and swerving like a dragonfly, only more dangerous. The bumper sticker said 26.2. As I trundled over the crest, eating Marathon Man’s dust, I caught sight of the behemoth behind me. A massive blue truck, sporting a face full of chrome and a set of roof tracks that made it look 12 feet tall. As he revved approximately three inches from my exhaust system, I noticed a series of pipes and frames covering the bumper. Somebody pull this guy over, he’s about to rear-end me with a church organ.
Most car conversations are friendly, though. A scene from last week:
After I slug a recycled suitcase into the trunk, I hear my Civic sigh. “Again?”
“Yep.” I swing into the passenger’s seat like the saddle it is, well-worn and essentially molded to my ass. “Looks like it’s just you and me again, hoss.”
“Don’t you have any friends?”
I kick into gear and pretend not to hear; I won’t dignify that comment with a response.
(For the record, YES, I have lots of friends. They just don’t live near me and refuse, for some reason, to visit. If Jersey strip malls and suburban watering holes aren’t a draw, I don’t know what is.)

Sometimes, on road trips, I cheat on my car. I feel terrible about this.

Cars have been my closest kin for many of my incarnations. When I flee to new cities or far-flung states, only the chariot witnesses my transformation. I become talkative, vivacious, ostensibly dangerous and cool. Sometimes I’m nerdy (Boston ivy league campuses); sometimes I’m a ditz. But I’m never quite me. I’m never quite the same mass of twisting curls and seafan capillaries. I am nameless, roaming, a blank canvas waiting to capture the world.
When I leave, fraught with the color and play of light on foreign sidewalks, glittering facades, my car is my closest friend. I climb inside and close my eyes, breathe for a minute familiar air. I feel experience crackling against my skin, pinwheels of excitement when old meets new. I am alive, brilliantly, truly.
On the road, I am just another ’98 Honda, scuffed at the corners and slightly worse for wear. But I too am a rocket, a ship’s wheel, a ticket to anywhere. And in this moment—like all good Civics—I could go on forever.
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The Evolution of Hipsters

By on December 14, 2009 in creative writing, humor, true story
Hey there, Dear Reader. I can’t stop to chat–am busy having awesome adventures that I fully plan to detail on this blog just as soon as I have the time–which is to say not tonight. However, you MUST enjoy this Evolution of Hipsters provided by the creative and oh-so-accurate editors at Paste Magazine.

It begins with the Emo, a personal favorite due to the unfortunate misrepresentation of my sophomore year-self to a visiting soldier from Mississippi. Apparently in certain circles a simple pair of glasses leaves one labelled for life.

Also I am terrifically emo.
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A Very Happy Apocalypse

By on December 7, 2009 in humor, true story
Squish.

Good afternoon. I just stepped on a piece of brownie.
Lovely. I look down at my bare foot as my sleepshirt slips down my shoulder. Sunlight streams through my windows, slanting against a golden table runner, watery rings from cocktail glasses.
In the bathroom, I rub my eyes. Nothing like curls to look a hot mess in the morning. My cell phone beeps forlornly, lost in a tangle of couch cushions and garland frills. Beneath my Ikea-inspired Christmas-tree-in-a-vase (ornaments looped onto Torka decorative stalks), a dozen peppermint cupcakes wait like little toy soldiers.
Why cook for your guest list when you can cook for a hundred?
I flop down on the couch and stare out the window. The ocean twinkles in the distance, throwing merry sparks of blue sky. So different to yesterday, the misery of cold, rain and sleet and wet-eared snow slapping across the windows. But this room had been an island, a cabin of warmth and lamplight inside the groans of a ship in a storm. We were a bunch of girls in little black dresses, giggling, gossiping, garnering eliciting well-timed eye-rolls from the only man in the room. I was told my Chex Mix tasted like crack. Everybody liked the punch.
I daresay my first party was a womping success.
Affairs in order, I crawl back into bed. 600-thread-sheets, the first Harry Potter–this feels like something to celebrate.
***
Hark, hear the bells, sweet silver bells…
The choir sings with high quavering voices, vibrato shimmering in the night air. I can see my breath, but I can’t feel my toes. 
All seem to say, throw cares away…
My family and I watch the annual hometown Christmas tree lighting, surrounded by hot cocoa and school kids in hats. A tradition in the riverside park, a reminder that winter is here to stay.
My sister stands tall in the top row, a senior soprano with snowy skin. Her classmates crowd the steps of the bleachers, jaunty scarves and shivering hands clutching sheet music like muffs. Mom and I hop from foot to foot, dancing like nutjobs in the bitter cold. Scanning the crowd, my sister looks toward us. “Patty!” we shriek. A couple of starstruck fools.
When the show is over, we flee the scene. The entertainment will continue–local rockers and the like–but nothing tempts like reclaiming extremities.
Back at home, Mom builds a fire. I curl in a ball on the couch and turn on a movie about the apocalypse. It takes me a minute to realize the explosions I hear are real. Fireworks. Calamety and catcalls echo from the end of our block, sounds that shatter above the choppy river.
I turn off the TV and hustle to the window. Noses pressed against glass, we see fiery streams blossom high in the sky. The show is dramatic, larger-than-life. Probably larger than technically safe.
“They really get the point across, don’t they?”
I look at Mom. “What do you mean?”
A staggering KABOOM as light flowers the heavens.
“It’s CHRISTMAS!” she thunders, and we laugh and laugh. The fire hisses.
“Bet ash is landing on some of the revelers.”
“Surprised the actual fireworks haven’t hit anyone yet.”
Just then my sister bursts in through the door. “I can’t feel my toes,” she wails.
I pull out a blanket. She sits by the fire. “We were just remarking on the killer display.”
“CHRISTMAS!” Mom yells. We nearly lose it.
“One of the fireworks hit a tree,” Patty says. All casual.
 “What?! Was it bad? Was anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“Killed?” Patty gives me a look. OK, so maybe this is not the apocalypse.
The three of us watch a blinding finale, our bodies brushed by the heat of the fire. I resist the urge to poke at my sister; she’s almost 18, after all. And when the show’s over we stare for a minute, at smoke still swirling through the dark sky.
This winter may be frigid, but the cold is outside; the weather is frightful, but our fire’s delightful. We are warm and close and happy together, for a moment a family lost in good cheer. 

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Adulthood = Achieved

By on December 4, 2009 in humor, quarter-life crisis, true story
It’s official: I am a real person.
How, you ask? Simple, really: I hung a picture for the first time ever. Like on a wall, with a hammer and a nail.
Maybe that’s not a big deal to you, but it’s something I seriously never thought I would do. Much like planning my dentists’ appointments. Or turning 25.
Grown-up things sneak up on you like that.
One minute you’re eating peanut butter and jelly and jockeying for seat space with the same girls you’ve eaten in the school cafeteria with for years, and you’re all stressing about your hair and your skin and the boys sitting at the table behind you punching each other; the next minute you’re eating peanut butter & jelly and stretching out your legs because you’re sitting by yourself in the work cafeteria, and the boys behind you are men talking in hushed voices (and they’re older than your father).
And you sit alone and wonder—the voice in your head as loud as a companion’s would be—if this is actually how it’s supposed to be, if you’re really supposed to cross your legs at the ankles and concern yourself about things like the delicacy of inter-office politics and makeup that merely keeps up with the Joneses, so to speak, because you finally know that you are pretty enough to get by without it, and does that make you vain or does it make you vapid, and if you’ve really devoted all this mental energy to a conversation that isn’t happening in real time does it even matter at the end of the day because no one is there to judge you. But you judge yourself, anyway, and it’s worse than someone with answers because the questions never end. You want to be the person you thought you’d be now, back when you were awkward and young and dreaming, that girl who was smart and funny and racing the wind for the next adventure. And you look around and think of all you’re still wanting, all the things you planned, and you feel your hopes crowding, galloping against your ribs like horses, and you try to soothe them, to calm them with platitudes like sugar cubes, the sweetness of your small and ordinary victories. Eventually they settle, lower their proud and beautiful faces, nose softly at the fence and one another. They shuffle around the fields of your heart, magnificent and waiting, and you vow that one day you’ll throw the gates open, that you will finally set them free.
And for now?
Well, for now you’ll achieve a variety of firsts. Your first cavity, your first paycheck, your very first quarter-life crisis. You will hang a painting for the first time, and you will come to work with a new sense of self. The cafeteria will be a little bit brighter, the conversation a little more certain.
And that peanut butter and jelly sandwich will be just as delicious as you remember. 
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Happy 25th Birthday to Me

By on November 27, 2009 in mindfulness, quarter-life crisis, true story
My birthday is a shock of brightness, a slap of cold like a wave.
Wind washes down the streets of New York, blows through empty tables at Herald Square. Daylight billows with full sails, running fast as a ship before the wind.
I float in the chill. Warmth saps from my skin into the chair like ice beneath my thighs, this table a griddle of frozen iron. I lament my forgone jacket, the pointed idiocy of wearing heels. I wipe watery eyes and discover last night’s eyeliner all over my hands.
Welcome to age 25. You look homeless.
I chug a bottle of water and consider the hazy final hours of my life. (That’s right, it’s all over. Goodbye, beauty; goodbye, joy. I’m pretty sure adulthood is nothing but a maudlin prognostication of misspent youth.) Dinner + friends became wine + food + friends, then just wine + friends, and eventually one smeary mess of winefriends. I woke up on the floor of someone else’s apartment, stepped over the body of a close winefriend and thought about food. 
My stomach growls. What a vicious cycle.
Time to go. Time for a winding train ride, a sinuous hour of self-reflection. Alone with my thoughts and unbrushed teeth.
I stand up in a gust that takes my breath away.
When I come home, I’ll be shiny and new. I’ll bring fresh-minted wisdom to past perspectives. I’ll touch the life I am steadily building and greet the ocean through my window. I’ll make my bed and finally acknowledge that my refrigerator contains nothing but cheese.
You have to start small, I think to myself. Have those meager beginnings before you find greatness.
“You will find greatness.”
“What?” I turn around with hair on end. 
“Your success. You’ll find it.” An unassuming woman, middle-aged and mousey, rubs her hands together. “Where’s your jacket?”
“It’s at home.” An uncomfortable pause. “Thank you.” I grab my bag and prepare to flee.
“I’m getting very strong vibes from you,” she says. Oh boy. “I wouldn’t normally bother you. I am here with a friend—“ a man at a nearby table waves to us—“but my sense is so clear for you right now. This must be a special day in your life.”
My stomach twists.
The jury is out on my belief in psychics. Facts from my freshman seminar, Pseudo-science, still trail me like shrieking skeptics, but I don’t believe in continued coincidence. To me the world should be read like a book, a series of metaphors and beautiful images, and it’s up to us to distinguish auguries from minutiae.
And every so often, on special days, the universe grabs us by the shoulders and shakes us around a little.
“So do you have the time, my dear?”
I look at her face, the lines on her forehead, the papery skin of her hands as she twists them. I wonder how far those gray eyes can see.
I wonder if I want to find out.
“I am not sure that I do right now.” I sniff, quelling my desire to blow my nose on my sleeve. “I’m afraid I have a train to catch.”
“Alright, my dear.” She smiles and shrugs. “I wish you’d let me. But you should know I see good things, a long and happy life.”
“Thank you.”
“Go put on a coat.”
“I will.” I raise my hand and turn into the wind.
Let this tide sweep me into the future. Let’s leave the far shoreline unseen. For now it’s enough just to be here, wrapped in the brightness of this day.
* * *
I’ve almost made it the whole way home. Then the universe tries one last time.
“The next book I read is going to be yours.”
I look up in surprise. The man on the seat next to me smiles, eyes kind under a cloth cap. His fingers brush the cover of a novel etched with colorful Spanish.
I noticed this when he sat down, of course. Trains are designed for people-watching, rickety boxes that fly like theaters down the line. We are suspended in stage lights, shifty-eyed among exaggerated action and censored conversation.
Now the fourth wall has crumbled, and we are face-to-face.
“Are you a writer?”
I blush and close my journal. “I hope so.”
“You are passionate.” In the voice of a narrator: “That’s why you will be successful, why I saw you cry.”
I had been writing about the past and the future, fear and desire and a soothsayer’s call. My eyes became full when my heart overflowed. “This matters so much to me.”
“Then good luck,” he says.
“Thank you.” Our train shudders into the station. “I need it.”
He stands and proffers another small smile, the universe veiled behind his eyes. “I don’t believe you do.”
As I watch him walk away, a gust of cold air skims down the aisle. Hello, beauty; hello, joy.
The train rolls forward, slowly at first. I move with it into brightness, into the windswept future.
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