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22 June 2009 : Evening on the ground.
Somewhere between sleep and waking, between the frustration of knowing I wasn't going to get enough sleep no matter how hard I tried and the end of the book I'd started only a few hours earlier, somewhere between hot and cold and the noise of the fans and the pile of the sheets and the hyper awareness of my own moist summer skin, I realized I'd been waiting.
Waiting is an old chestnut here, a theme I've revisited time and again since I became self aware.
The storm broke, and I'd been waiting my entire life for just that moment. The ravenous sound of lightning cracking through the night, the deep satisfaction of the low following of thunder. I can't say for certain what really went on; between my need to rest and my terror of the drop in pressure, I was suddenly exactly where I wanted to be.
Ready, I think. Ready and waiting. And though there was no relief, though I woke the next morning to the same oppressive heat and the heaviness that only the air of an Indiana summer can muster, there was something just slightly different enough to tilt my world to a new angle. Slide it right into my pocket.
I'll be here, then.
posted by lindsay at 00:39 :: 0 comments
18 June 2009 : Like a teacup on the counter.
Every now and again I take stock of the people in my life and have no recourse other than to just breathe; the kind of breathing you do when in the throes of any painful physical exertion, the kind of breathing that fortifies your muscles for the next step forward.
Only I don't breathe to force myself onward, I breathe to find the strength necessary to muster all the appreciation these blessings deserve.
But every now and again, I take stock of a certain few people in my life and wonder how there can be so many things I do not understand. I know it is about this, this girl, who I have become: loved, and loving, unable to hold back once I've started even if it takes a million tries to turn the engine over.
I live in constant terror of this: forming so many ties that I can't possibly untangle myself long enough to start walking. And there are so many footfalls I need yet to hear. Despite these footfalls, despite the specific green light of middle America and it's mountains, the heat of the low country, the striations of a million bones dusted to desert, I can't put a stop to it.
Welcome, whoever you might be. I will love you fiercely, and I will never stop.
It is quiet, this need I have, quiet in a way you won't understand. Maybe I am transparent, I don't know, but I speak truths that have been forced upon me, rather than truths I have cobbled out with my hands.
So every now and again when I stop to consider the people in my life, I have to consider how we even got here: you will live an eternity without ever knowing how lucky I am, and I will never know why you can't just have the same.
posted by lindsay at 00:39 :: 0 comments
14 June 2009 : Note to Self
Just go ahead and get over it, okay?
You're ready.
Love, Self
posted by lindsay at 13:13 :: 0 comments
10 May 2009 : Fess up.
I've been laid out all weekend with a variety of ills - first, the crabbiness. Oh my god, the crabby. The kind of crabby that makes you cancel plans, not because you don't objectively understand that going out with your friends will make you feel better, but because you're afraid at evening's end you just won't have any friends left. Alive.
After the crabby came the sore throat, which, miraculously only lasted about 12 hours. It did, however, engineer a night of wasted sleep, after which I rolled out of bed at 4:10 am, after spending the entire night in terror that I was going to awaken with H1N1 or the plague, and have to go into work anyway (because there is no one to call when you wake up at 4am with projectile vomiting).
Somewhere before the wasted six hours of not sleep, I ate some crackers and a bowl of soup, which somehow made me violently ill. The kind of ill where you are walking around and you suddenly realize that your stomach muscles are sore. Sore from hurting so badly, since you've kind of ignored your abs in favor of your triceps at the gym this week (fyi: 45 pound tricep extension? I am a badass. A badass without bingo wings).
So, I'm still there with the violently ill, though there is a lack of actual violence involved. My stomach hurts, and when my stomach doesn't hurt, I am nauseated, and when I am neither nauseated or hurting, my stomach is sore from the memory of the pain. On the bright side, I have a new appreciation for sourdough toast and rewatching Grey's Anatomy.
I hate that I'm not outside gardening today.
All of this is a preamble to telling you that my roommates (who are out at a bar and out with a new boy) and myself blinked into the realization at approximately 9:27 last night that the three of us, 25, 26, and 27, were all at home on Saturday evening, sitting in the living room.
Brushing each of the cats in turn and exclaiming over the disgusting efficacy of the furminator.
And I'm just saying that my stomach bug has to get me out of claiming ownership of that one.
posted by lindsay at 19:08 :: 1 comments
04 May 2009 : grace in small things, inaugural post
So, I've been going back and forth about jumping on the whole grace in small things bandwagon, and have officially come to the conclusion that at the very least, it will keep me posting on a semi-regular basis, thereby making all y'alls happy, thereby making me happy. So it goes. Plus, some stuff happened today that seemed necessary material for sharing. Plus, I seem to be getting very...angry...in my latter years. Whatever. Here are my five things for today:
1. Having a handsome man show up, randomly, to mow your lawn at the landlord's behest.
2. Having said handsome man weedwhack through wild onions on your front lawn, leaving behind a pleasant scent for seven hours (and counting).
3. Studying on the front porch.
4. Brazil Ipanema Bourbon.
5. The human brain.
posted by lindsay at 21:30 :: 0 comments
24 April 2009 : Tiny graces
My insurance guy retired recently, a fact I discovered when I got a phone call from my New Insurance Guy about some papers that I needed to sign. On the phone, after his delightfully man-voiced spiel about I CAN SAVE YOU MONEY PLEASE GOD LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY Oh by the way do you need homeowner's coverage? he casually mentioned it. By the way, Gary's retired, did you know?
Why no, I did not. I kind of assumed you were Gary's overly enthusiastic new intern. But okay.
Most people, I know, aren't particularly attached to their insurance guys, but most people have not spent the entirety of their driving years being insured by Gary. To clarify, Gary is an old Army buddy of my dad's. Gary was not only the guy who paid for my rental car, but one of the guys who'd drink beer in the garage, one of the guys whose daughters I played with on the front lawn while the sun faded in the distance and our parents laughed inside.
Every time I had an accident or a ticket, my phone would ring a predictable three days later, and on the other end, you guessed it, was Gary: Lindsay Marie, what on earth were you thinking?
So to be fair, I pretty much had the best insurance guy in the whole entire world. And finding out that he had retired and my business had been handed to some stranger (well, arguably, considering that his office was just down the way in a town of 4000 people (when I called for directions today I got "Oh, sure, hon, just come north two blocks from the Harvest Market!")) was a little depressing. End of an era depressing.
But change comes, and men get older and want to play golf instead of selling insurance policies, so I accepted what was given me and drove up to my hometown today to sign a new policy (one that, indeed, is saving me a ridiculous amount of money) and to meet Gary's replacement, a man with whom I have no history.
Or so I thought. Until I mentioned my disappointment over the loss of Gary (and yet another connection to my long gone dad), and New Insurance Guy kind of looked at me anew, head cocked to the side, and said "Wait, who's your dad?"
The second the name crossed my lips the response was in the air, sunshine and daffodils and furry puppies everywhere. "Sure!" New Insurance Guy said, "Sure! He was the readiness NCO here at the armory - I served under him until 1992. He was such a good guy." He shakes his head. "So you're Bob's girl. I never would have guessed." Truthfully, I look so much like my mother I may as well have never had a second DNA donor.
Turns out, my New Insurance Guy is...an old Army buddy of my dad's. And no, he's no Gary, but you take what you get, right? Lemons, lemonade, and suddenly someone who knows that you're Bob's girl, an identity you used to shine up every day and wear proudly like a badge, an identity you haven't worn in so many years that it's no longer contoured to your body.
I'll go ahead and take the New Insurance Guy, and his smiling reminder that I'm still that little dark haired girl with the palm tree obsession who held Daddy's hand whenever possible and was known around town as Bob's girl. Yeah, I'll take it.
posted by lindsay at 21:35 :: 0 comments
Somewhere between sleep and waking, between the frustration of knowing I wasn't going to get enough sleep no matter how hard I tried and the end of the book I'd started only a few hours earlier, somewhere between hot and cold and the noise of the fans and the pile of the sheets and the hyper awareness of my own moist summer skin, I realized I'd been waiting.
Waiting is an old chestnut here, a theme I've revisited time and again since I became self aware.
The storm broke, and I'd been waiting my entire life for just that moment. The ravenous sound of lightning cracking through the night, the deep satisfaction of the low following of thunder. I can't say for certain what really went on; between my need to rest and my terror of the drop in pressure, I was suddenly exactly where I wanted to be.
Ready, I think. Ready and waiting. And though there was no relief, though I woke the next morning to the same oppressive heat and the heaviness that only the air of an Indiana summer can muster, there was something just slightly different enough to tilt my world to a new angle. Slide it right into my pocket.
I'll be here, then.
posted by lindsay at 00:39 :: 0 comments
18 June 2009 : Like a teacup on the counter.
Every now and again I take stock of the people in my life and have no recourse other than to just breathe; the kind of breathing you do when in the throes of any painful physical exertion, the kind of breathing that fortifies your muscles for the next step forward.
Only I don't breathe to force myself onward, I breathe to find the strength necessary to muster all the appreciation these blessings deserve.
But every now and again, I take stock of a certain few people in my life and wonder how there can be so many things I do not understand. I know it is about this, this girl, who I have become: loved, and loving, unable to hold back once I've started even if it takes a million tries to turn the engine over.
I live in constant terror of this: forming so many ties that I can't possibly untangle myself long enough to start walking. And there are so many footfalls I need yet to hear. Despite these footfalls, despite the specific green light of middle America and it's mountains, the heat of the low country, the striations of a million bones dusted to desert, I can't put a stop to it.
Welcome, whoever you might be. I will love you fiercely, and I will never stop.
It is quiet, this need I have, quiet in a way you won't understand. Maybe I am transparent, I don't know, but I speak truths that have been forced upon me, rather than truths I have cobbled out with my hands.
So every now and again when I stop to consider the people in my life, I have to consider how we even got here: you will live an eternity without ever knowing how lucky I am, and I will never know why you can't just have the same.
posted by lindsay at 00:39 :: 0 comments
14 June 2009 : Note to Self
Just go ahead and get over it, okay?
You're ready.
Love, Self
posted by lindsay at 13:13 :: 0 comments
10 May 2009 : Fess up.
I've been laid out all weekend with a variety of ills - first, the crabbiness. Oh my god, the crabby. The kind of crabby that makes you cancel plans, not because you don't objectively understand that going out with your friends will make you feel better, but because you're afraid at evening's end you just won't have any friends left. Alive.
After the crabby came the sore throat, which, miraculously only lasted about 12 hours. It did, however, engineer a night of wasted sleep, after which I rolled out of bed at 4:10 am, after spending the entire night in terror that I was going to awaken with H1N1 or the plague, and have to go into work anyway (because there is no one to call when you wake up at 4am with projectile vomiting).
Somewhere before the wasted six hours of not sleep, I ate some crackers and a bowl of soup, which somehow made me violently ill. The kind of ill where you are walking around and you suddenly realize that your stomach muscles are sore. Sore from hurting so badly, since you've kind of ignored your abs in favor of your triceps at the gym this week (fyi: 45 pound tricep extension? I am a badass. A badass without bingo wings).
So, I'm still there with the violently ill, though there is a lack of actual violence involved. My stomach hurts, and when my stomach doesn't hurt, I am nauseated, and when I am neither nauseated or hurting, my stomach is sore from the memory of the pain. On the bright side, I have a new appreciation for sourdough toast and rewatching Grey's Anatomy.
I hate that I'm not outside gardening today.
All of this is a preamble to telling you that my roommates (who are out at a bar and out with a new boy) and myself blinked into the realization at approximately 9:27 last night that the three of us, 25, 26, and 27, were all at home on Saturday evening, sitting in the living room.
Brushing each of the cats in turn and exclaiming over the disgusting efficacy of the furminator.
And I'm just saying that my stomach bug has to get me out of claiming ownership of that one.
posted by lindsay at 19:08 :: 1 comments
04 May 2009 : grace in small things, inaugural post
So, I've been going back and forth about jumping on the whole grace in small things bandwagon, and have officially come to the conclusion that at the very least, it will keep me posting on a semi-regular basis, thereby making all y'alls happy, thereby making me happy. So it goes. Plus, some stuff happened today that seemed necessary material for sharing. Plus, I seem to be getting very...angry...in my latter years. Whatever. Here are my five things for today:
1. Having a handsome man show up, randomly, to mow your lawn at the landlord's behest.
2. Having said handsome man weedwhack through wild onions on your front lawn, leaving behind a pleasant scent for seven hours (and counting).
3. Studying on the front porch.
4. Brazil Ipanema Bourbon.
5. The human brain.
posted by lindsay at 21:30 :: 0 comments
24 April 2009 : Tiny graces
My insurance guy retired recently, a fact I discovered when I got a phone call from my New Insurance Guy about some papers that I needed to sign. On the phone, after his delightfully man-voiced spiel about I CAN SAVE YOU MONEY PLEASE GOD LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY Oh by the way do you need homeowner's coverage? he casually mentioned it. By the way, Gary's retired, did you know?
Why no, I did not. I kind of assumed you were Gary's overly enthusiastic new intern. But okay.
Most people, I know, aren't particularly attached to their insurance guys, but most people have not spent the entirety of their driving years being insured by Gary. To clarify, Gary is an old Army buddy of my dad's. Gary was not only the guy who paid for my rental car, but one of the guys who'd drink beer in the garage, one of the guys whose daughters I played with on the front lawn while the sun faded in the distance and our parents laughed inside.
Every time I had an accident or a ticket, my phone would ring a predictable three days later, and on the other end, you guessed it, was Gary: Lindsay Marie, what on earth were you thinking?
So to be fair, I pretty much had the best insurance guy in the whole entire world. And finding out that he had retired and my business had been handed to some stranger (well, arguably, considering that his office was just down the way in a town of 4000 people (when I called for directions today I got "Oh, sure, hon, just come north two blocks from the Harvest Market!")) was a little depressing. End of an era depressing.
But change comes, and men get older and want to play golf instead of selling insurance policies, so I accepted what was given me and drove up to my hometown today to sign a new policy (one that, indeed, is saving me a ridiculous amount of money) and to meet Gary's replacement, a man with whom I have no history.
Or so I thought. Until I mentioned my disappointment over the loss of Gary (and yet another connection to my long gone dad), and New Insurance Guy kind of looked at me anew, head cocked to the side, and said "Wait, who's your dad?"
The second the name crossed my lips the response was in the air, sunshine and daffodils and furry puppies everywhere. "Sure!" New Insurance Guy said, "Sure! He was the readiness NCO here at the armory - I served under him until 1992. He was such a good guy." He shakes his head. "So you're Bob's girl. I never would have guessed." Truthfully, I look so much like my mother I may as well have never had a second DNA donor.
Turns out, my New Insurance Guy is...an old Army buddy of my dad's. And no, he's no Gary, but you take what you get, right? Lemons, lemonade, and suddenly someone who knows that you're Bob's girl, an identity you used to shine up every day and wear proudly like a badge, an identity you haven't worn in so many years that it's no longer contoured to your body.
I'll go ahead and take the New Insurance Guy, and his smiling reminder that I'm still that little dark haired girl with the palm tree obsession who held Daddy's hand whenever possible and was known around town as Bob's girl. Yeah, I'll take it.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 21:35 :: 0 comments