scents.

I woke the other evening to the stench of gas in my apartment. And, it was freezing. My landlords, those people that own the backyard I am living in, have been having inner alterations done to their house. There is a chute coming out of at upstairs window that I have been tempted to climb upon, and then slide down, for the past two weeks. That is the fun part of the construction. The other part is when the men that have the licenses and certifications and stuff like that shut the water and gas off, with no thought given to the poor girl living in the backyard.

I had come home from a depressingly delightful evening with two beautiful ladies. There was wine with the smell of garlic and roasted vegetables, brownies and conversation; talk of drugs and God and the things in life we lack, but wish we didn’t. I came home with the feeling of empty weighing heavy on my esophagus, and the above mentioned smell of gas greeting me at the door. When the licensed men shut off the gas, it also shut off my pilot lights. The emitting gas had no flame to burn. I had no matches to make a flame. I went to a sketchy convenience store at eleven, bought a lighter, a book of matches, and a wrench. The clerk looked at me quizzically. I smiled, went home, and lit the pilot lights on my stove. I hoped this would fix the smell, and also that I would wake in the morning. I did, to the same above mentioned stench of gas in my apartment. I neglected the pilot light on my gas heater, which meant it neglected to make heat.

I tried. I really did. I removed the metal panel and read the instructions. I identified all of the parts. I read it again. I got frustrated because I couldn’t find the pilot to light. I turned the switch to off, opened the window to let the gas out, and the thirty degree air in. Then I rearranged my living room, put my TV back in the closet, hung up my clean clothes, put my dishes away, and went back to sleep, waking every once in a while to fresh, frigid gas free air.

The TV was out of my closet because of the impromptu Japanese martial arts movie I had watched the previous week. While crouched behind the TV in a dress and hoodie, plugging the red cord into the red socket, I commented on how I felt sorry for all of my friends who are married with babies. (No offense married friends with babies. I don’t really feel sorry for you. I am deeply happy for you. And some days I want to be you. I was just making light of the fact that it would be difficult for you to watch a japanese martial arts movie late in the evening with two young men at the apartment you live in alone, and trying to remind myself of the aspects of my reality that I have to be thankful for). Anyway, the ironic aspect of my comment is that, reading this story, my married friends would likely feel sorry for me. They may not have the same strange late evening movie experiences as me, but they would have someone in the house to help with the heater and the pilot light.

Post pilot light episode, and extra thought, I decided that the feeling of sorry isn’t really necessary. There is goodness in it all. My married friends have a lifetime companion. Mothers and fathers are blessed with the astounding responsibility of caring for another human life. And I have much too. Freedom is not something to cast aside and lament. It can be a beautiful thing. I also receive help from unlikely places. A random neighbor that knows my father came and lit it for me the following day. He didn’t know me, but he traipsed through the snow anyway. I watched him, asked him questions, and can do it myself next time. I was reminded that sometimes I just have to ask for help.

I closed my windows with gratitude and fell asleep alone, breathing in cozy and warm gas free air.

efterklang.

I saw a real band last night. I saw them right after watching some other guys in a band play music. The (first) guys in the band had pretty vocals and a trendy guitar. They made me want to move my feet a few times, to the left and the right. But they were empty. The BAND that followed was something all together different.  

I have never ever been musical. The only instrument I have attempted playing was a handbell, and only that because I knew how to count. 1·2·3 ding! I do, however, attempt to seek out authentic and sincere people in my life. This is a language I sort of understand. And even though I can't tell you how good the musicians were last night in a technical sense, I can tell you that they were sweating sincerity from their pores. This paved the way for one of the most authentic and phenomenal musical experiences of my life. 

The beauty in what they were offering us transcended the purely musical, and flowed into they why behind all the things we humans do. The experience left me shaken, jarred. I saw plain old regular people play the most affecting beautiful music I have ever heard live, with so much intuition and precision, authenticity and gratitude. This made me want to be a better person. 

I don't wish for them "success" overpriced oversized stadium sense. But the world needs to hear their music. 

sunroom.

I don’t know exactly where my aversion to stuff began. I just know that, over the years, I just grow even more from the little seedling that started when I was a wee one.

My parents are wonderful and giving and also, keeping. They have a lot of stuff. Not in the gross pack rat sense. More in the...we are just running out of place to put things sense. They combat this with a mini-storage space that they pay rent on each month.

I remember going into the kitchen and looking for a screw driver. I was probably seven. “Look in the junk drawer”, my mom said. It was in the kitchen, positioned next to the drawer full of hot pads and wash cloths. I opened it. It was a mess. There were markers that didn’t work, pens that were missing lids, twistie ties from trash bags that had already been used, broken watches and dead batteries. This made me feel frustration. I wasn’t able to completely articulate it at that age, but I distinctly remember thinking about how absurd the idea of a space created and reserved for junk was. “I will not have a junk drawer when I am old,” I told myself. That was the seedling.

When I was in high school and status started to matter, I began to want stuff. I wish I could say that I have always been above that. I haven’t. I didn’t realize that the desire came from what I wanted others to think of me, and not from a genuine place within. Doc Martins. Sandles and boots and the brown wing-tip looking ones with the buckle. Guess jeans and Lucky Jeans and even a sweater from Abercrombie. Sigh. I would come home after my mom had taken me shopping and try on all of these clothes. I would love to imagine myself wearing them out. And then I would pile them on my bed, look at the excess, and feel frustrated. I didn’t know exactly why, but I could articulate that whatever I was seeking through the things wasn’t actually there, on my bed, in the pile. It was lacking, and I felt frustration.

This past summer, despite real life frustrations that came from a social person getting used to spending an excessive amount of time alone and a blatant language barrier, I felt weightless. This was a feeling that, I believe, has been chasing me all of my life. I was living a life that I had wanted to live since the junk drawer revelation and the dissatisfaction of a pile of clothing resting on my mattress. I walked places, not dependent on a vehicle that carries with it either a monthly payment or a need for gasoline or collision insurance. And if it was too far, I took the bus, with other people that didn’t have the weight of metal parked in their garage.

I also had just enough clothing to get me through my time there. I didn’t have a closet, but instead a little cabinet that I turned into a faux wardrobe. My things were folded, not dependent upon hangers. And I didn’t have many options when I felt like I had “nothing to wear”. I just wore what was there. I wasn’t above the feeling, however. I remember lamenting to my friend the fact that “I feel like I wear the same thing over and over.” “You do,” he said, “but it’s not a bad thing. It’s nice not having to bother with having too much to choose from”. And that was key. It’s not that I didn’t have the desire to have more to choose from, but the weightlessness of my situation didn’t leave me much room to make it a bigger deal than it needed to be.

I had been living in the house on the corner that isn’t mine. This house has been there since almost the beginning of time, and the stuff that it holds inside speaks of that almost-truth. It carried with it affordability, and also, a way of living that goes against all that is true inside of me. It’s not weightless at all. I was thankful for the opportunity to have a place to live when I didn’t have anywhere else to go. But something inside of me was sort of being squashed each time I walked through the rooms of stuff to the other rooms of stuff to get to my room that was both full of my stuff and the stuff that was there before I arrived. It was exceptionally full and exceptionally empty, all at the same time. On Saturday, I moved into the garage apartment that I found the day after I started looking for a garage apartment. It’s a big room with a kitchen and a bathroom, and almost more space than I need. This morning, I walked to a place that would have normally driven to. It’s that close. I can ride my bicycle to work. My kitchen has very little cabinet space, and that is something that makes me happy. My clothing takes up one-eighteenth of the closet.


This garage apartment occupies the backyard of one of those lovely large stately homes that I imagine was built with oil money in the twenties. This is the neighborhood that I live in, and these kind of homes surround me, which will supply much material to ponder on my walks. I passed by one this morning that was exceptionally old and raw and wonderful. The paint on the trim was dingy and worn, and it spoke of generations past. I imagined the parties that took place in the ball room over the years, and something lit up inside of me. And then I passed the sun room. Sun rooms are such a wonderful space for bringing people together. When springtime comes and the breeze catches you, bring the outside in...adding such a joyful layer of peace to an engaging conversation with friends. This sunroom, however, was full of junk. There were piles of papers and boxes and things that the homes occupants had accumulated over the years, stuff that they ran out of room for, stuff that they threw into the beautiful sun room because they didn’t have anywhere else to put it. This made me feel frustration. 


I don’t believe everyone needs to get rid of everything and live in a 600 square foot space. It comes in varying degrees, and means different things to different people. I just think that life is too short and there aren’t enough days to let things that aren’t really vital to authentic happiness keep us from living life, for real. I think that some people have to work too much at jobs they abhor to pay for more things than they don’t really need or have time to enjoy. I think that too many people let junk and paper and plastic and boxes occupy their sunrooms, or parlors, assuming they will get to it later, and then they die. I think that the more stuff we have, the easier it is to ignore what’s really going on, or what we are really lacking, and then before we know it, we don’t even know who we are anymore. I think that today, you should get rid of something.

a little dirty laundry.

It's the little things in life that make days so enjoyable. The sunset on Wednesday evening was simply spectacular. The sky was glowing and subtle and on fire all at the same time. The well dressed man at the counter today that was also friendly and engaging and conscious of the fact that I am a human too, even though I had roasted red pepper bisque soup on my forehead? That was a good little thing. The man that I almost hit yesterday in my car, who didn't flip me off and threaten to end my life because I carelessly rolled through a stop sign, but instead, kindly waved? That was a wonderful little moment that I was exceptionally thankful for. Yesterday morning when my boss (at the nearly thankless and deathly job which requires me to wake at an incredibly unearthly hour) said that I was doing so good because so many people were buying my treats and also, that I should give myself more credit...That was a dear little thing to hear. On Wednesday, after about sixty plunges and many moments of sad desperation, the plunger finally did its job in the toilet. This means that I took care of my own shit instead of having to drag someone else into the mess. That was a life giving little thing. 

It's also the simple things in life, however, that I have so much difficulty with. Soap? Purchasing it? So incredibly difficult. Toilet paper? I wait until I can't wait anymore. This summer in Korea, when I lived by myself and not with others that just kept it there, rolling, all of the time, my toilet-paper-buying-incompetence shone brightly. My one good friend there was hesitant to share his, knowing he would be enabling my childish and irresponsible behavior, seeing as though all I had to do was walk across the street, grab a roll or two, pay, and walk back home. Now that I do not have a washer and dryer in my house at my disposal, this makes it even more difficult for me to complete an already difficult task. Laundry. I have been wearing cute dresses each day with no real desire to look cute. Why? Because all of my jeans have coffee and cookie dough stuck to them. They have for a few weeks now. 

I must take control, I told myself. I must get clean and start wearing underwear again. TMI? Oh well. So I took the dirty pile of wrinkled body coverings with me to my parents house last Sunday. But then my mom did various inconsequential and silly things to annoy me, and I didn't like the idea of my laundry being in her washing machine, heavy and wet, tying me to staying there longer than I knew I would desire. So, I left my trunk of dirty clothes in the car, ate, watched LOST and left with the trunk-o-clothes, still very, very dirty. 

Problem still unsolved and messy and out of control, I decided the laundromat would be my best solution. They have many washers there, as that's the nature of a laundromat, and I also have fond memories of the baskets on wheels from my mustard-colored-washer-is-often-broken childhood. This won't be so bad, I told the butterflies that were starting to gather in my stomach. Relax. Stop flapping your delicate little wings! Parked in front of laundromat #1, I sat and looked and watched and waited, unable to exit my car and enter. Intimidated, as if I was in a foreign country, speaking a different language than the locals, unaware of unmentioned and under-the-cover customs, I was incapable of getting out of my car. What will they think of me? Will they know that I don't know what I am doing? How do I pay? Will I know where to put the coins? Do they take coins? Do you have to be a member? Is there a secret password? Do their washing machines take a special kind of detergent? I drove away. 

To laundromat #2. Scoping it out. Their windows were tinted. Damn-it. The man sitting outside on the bench was definitely intimidating, unaffected, with a cigarette carelessly hanging from his lips. He looked laundromat confident, like he could see right through me, could see my desperation. I winced. “Seriously”, I told myself. We are all just people with dirty laundry, right? I mustered the confidence, or will, or whatever, and stepped from my car to scope the situation out, and see what was happening on the other side of the tint. Awkward. Small space. People staring. No room to think or make mistakes or even, at this point, pretend like I knew what I was doing. Yikes. Out of the tint I go, to the open space and clearness of the sunshine, and yes, to the reality of filth and no clear and safe way to find a remedy.

Back to laundromat #1. Why? Perhaps because after leaving #2, since I had already spent a few minutes in the parking lot of #1, it seemed like it could be familiar. And I started to remind myself of the time that I purchased eye glasses in Korea, and how I walked passed the window multiple times, frightened of the language barrier and the foreign, unfamiliar. And how it came down to me making a choice, opening the swinging glass door on the corner, and going in. Yes! That’s it! I just need to open the door, walk in, clean the clothes, and then reflect on how fulfilling of an experience it will turn out to be. Then I could sit down to write about how much I love challenging experiences because of how they make me grow. Oh glory.

I unlocked my dented car doors, grabbed the cumbersome brown trunk from the passenger seat, and ventured in, clothed in shaky confidence. I sat it down next to a row of the white clothes-cleaning-appliances, and yes, they stared. The woman in the corner wearing red. The man behind me. The children. The could sense my intimidation and watched as I fumbled miserably through the steps. I went to a coin machine and attained four dollars worth of quarters, after losing one dollar in the wrong machine. I glided down the stairs with a quizzical look on my face, passed the woman that works there, and realized I couldn’t put quarters in the washer because the washer doesn’t take coins. It takes a plastic card with a strip that you have to add a balance to which, I learned from the exceptionally unhelpful laundromat monitor, has a minimum of ten dollars. 

I put all of my silver change in my pocket, picked up the trunk full of filth, and marched out.

Now, instead of sitting here writing about how it was an incredible growing experience in which I am grateful for, I am writing about how awfully unfulfilling it was, and how it made me lean toward the glass is half empty approach to humanity. Nearly a week later, my clothes are still dirty, except for the underwear that I washed in the sink, and the only thing that has been washed clean would be my fond childhood memories of laundromat.

flowers.

The Valentine’s Day blues began for me in Mrs. Mack’s second grade classroom. {Side note: I loved her class. She told wonderfully irrelevant stories about her sons; we knew the questions to ask that would successfully divert her from the lesson.} That was my first real memory of the day of love, and the first time I remember boys bringing gifts to the girls they liked. It was the first time I remember my heart sinking a little in grotesque disappointment because I wasn’t one of the those girls. The wonderfully ironic and sickening part of this story is that the girl that received the cubic zirconia heart necklace in a plastic display case from, say, John, also received a teddy bear and chocolates from Tyler, a hand made card from Jim, and another cubic zirconia heart shaped necklace from JT, identical to the one from John. She went home with all these things and all of that attention, and I went home with homework that I didn’t finish in class because I was so distracted by all of the girls opening their gifts. And the funny thing is, even though I have gotten older, at twenty-six, it’s the same kind of sad.

This could seem like I am beckoning your pity. I am sure in some deep and meaningful way, these experiences have made me a more interesting and thoughtful person. So don’t pity. Just read.

I thought to myself, “maybe next year!” Maybe I will be that girl in the third grade. I wasn’t. Maybe it was the perms that I sported thanks to my former beautician of a mother, or the fact that I was insanely self-conscious and incredibly hard on myself. But the gift-less Valentine’s Day stayed with me until high school, when a boy we will call Ed, who was a foot and a half shorter than I was, and had the same amount of hair as the the ever elusive big foot, purchased a heart shaped balloon for me, from me. That’s right. I was in every club imaginable, and one of those clubs sold balloons to help adolescents show their love to their fellow classmates. I entered his American History class. He held up his dollar. I gave him the form to fill out. He addressed it to me and wrote something that I was supposed to be flattered by. I blushed in embarrassment, not flattery and I ran, fast. This experience was not redeeming.

The following year I was an office aid. Valentine’s day in the office was all shades of red. There were flowers covering every available surface, and you had to make your way through the maze of balloons just to get from the desk to the counter. My senior year of high school, I finally received the flowers. My heart skipped a beat. Who could it be?! The card read: “love you. -Dad”. If you knew my father, you would know how momentous this gesture was. He has forgotten eighty percent of my mother’s birthdays and maybe ninety percent of their anniversaries. She is exceptionally lucky if she gets a card on the day of love. I immediately asked my mom if she told him to do this. “Was this your idea?”. “No,” she said. “I had nothing to do with it”. I will admit that I walked much taller out to my car at around three that afternoon. I paused and looked around with anticipation as I unlocked the door, flowers resting on my car's hood. Maybe I took extra time with the unlocking in hopes that someone would notice the roses, and maybe ask me who they were from. Maybe. And maybe I would say, with a sweet kind of grin, “they are from my dad”. Though his gift meant the world to me, and I will forever hold on to the card, despite the fact that I throw most things away, it’s not the same as from someone that loves you because they are choosing to and not because you carry their genes.

So here I am. Twenty-six, telling the same story as I did in the second grade. Except this time, the feeling in my heart isn’t sinking quite as much, as most days I am at peace with my singleness. And this year, I got a rose.

Ken is one of our regulars. He lives at the YMCA across the street, and in the beginning, I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like the way he asked for his tea. I didn’t like the fact that he came to the side counter instead of the register, as if he was something special. Apparently he used to go to Berkley. Perhaps that’s where he cracked. There are moments that he speaks with such intelligence, such know. And then there are other moments when his sentences run together, and very little sense is made. My attitude changed on the day of chocolate covered strawberries. He saw me washing the fruit, and asked if I was dipping them. I told him I was, and he let me know immediately that he would want one. This annoyed me a little. “OK,” I said.

I began dipping. This is one of my favorite things to do. I get down right giddy. They get covered in chocolate and then drizzled with white...swirls and zig zags and dots and squares. I finished, put them in the case, and up he jumped. He wanted just one, he said, and I haphazardly chose one from the case. He was telling me something about how coffee leads to flagulence. “And if you drink too much coffee”...he looks down at the strawberry...”I was reading a study”...he looks up at me...”You Make Beautiful Food! Did you know that? This is too pretty to eat!” That’s the moment when our friendship began. He had no idea that he had just given me the best compliment one could give.

On Friday the thirteenth, he walked through the door in his bouncy sort of way, smiled his bright, so-much-about-the-world-is-good sort of smile, and greeted me with, “Hey! Happy Valentine’s Day!” “Thank you,” I said, holding back the fact that it wasn’t quite Valentine’s Day. “You know what I do?”, he said. “I go to all of the chocolate shops on the day after Valentine’s Day when they discount all of their chocolate and I buy it and give it to all of the beautiful ladies...and hey, here, you can have this!” He walks over to his back pack, takes out the plastic rose with the miniature dove glued to its stem, and hands it to me to keep. I smiled my bright, so-much-about-the-world-is-good sort of smile, and said “thank you”.

I've got nothing. 

blah.

I am tired. Of getting up at four. And for the day in general. I am not sure if I can do this baking/two jobs thing. I seriously thought this morning of giving up. Just walking away from what I have and into the land of working twenty-five hours a week and running when I want and not needing naps to get me through the week or day or afternoon and being able to stay up late with the people I like staying up late with and leaving the house when it's light outside instead of dark and having the mental capacity and desire to read stimulating pieces of literature; fiction and non-fiction alike.

Instead I will stick with it and be worn down and frustrated because of this thing we do in life that involves enduring something now so that something in the future will be more likely to come to fruition. What a good word. Fruition.

Soooooo. In moments like this...Where the downs are so much more apparent than the ups and life seems to be fraying more with each passing day, as opposed to, well, the opposite of fraying, I think it's important to remind myself of the ups. Like. 

new friends, like my nerdy and wonderful neuropsychological kindred spirit that is a frequent and natural reminder of the ups. 

the texan living in Korea, who used to be a new friend but has subtly shifted into the old friend category, and for face to face time with him, over coffee. 

americanos made by my climbing friend who dates the neuropsychological friend. 

the shins playing when I am feeling unattached and self-involved all at the same time. 

naps in general. 

skirts on sale for $1.99

not being completely-scraping the barrel-will I be able to eat this week-broke.

poley. 

baking delicious and wonderful treats for the world to enjoy.

honesty. 

being at a coffee shop and also being the only woman, surrounded by men, while drinking the delicious americano...no words. mmm.

learning, through years of insecurity and self-loathe, to be more of myself and less of something different, and still being liked by really wonderful people. 

DANCING. 

birthday bashes, and celebrations with good food and good people and laughs galore. 

Not all encompassing, but enough for now.