our way to fall

I've always wrapped my arms really tightly around the past. I have an old pizza box I made in Mrs. Levitt's fourth grade class that still holds every movie ticket, playbill, love letter I've ever gotten. It's April 25, and the familiar thunder outside brings me back to one year ago. I still remember exactly where I was. We were still a we and we were sitting on the floor of our empty new apartment and the air outside was getting warmer and stickier. It was drizzling and so I pulled out my copy of "The Secret of Nimh" that I had gotten from that five dollar bin at Walmart we spent so much time digging through. It was not even ten minutes into the movie when I had already picked out all the m&ms from the trail mix we were sharing and you were so mad at me but said you still loved me despite my neuroses (and no, adding a new pack of m&ms in there wouldn't be the same). And the rain was pitter pattering harder than it had been and before we knew it we were falling asleep on that pile of blankets we made and we were really happy.

Sometimes a year seems like forever, and other times, like tonight, it feels like the blink of an eye. It may seem strange that the details of a day like that would come to mind so effortlessly, but then again it doesn't seem that strange at all because why wouldn't you want to remember a time when you and he were a we and the we of you were happy?

I believe in innocence, little darling, start again

yesterday the city was mine again and the sky was so blue and i wore a blazer that was also blue and everyone said i looked good, like an english grad student should. i taught a class on hamlet and the students were affected like i always hope they will be and then i had a surprisingly nice coffee date with a ghost of boyfriend's past. i haven't seen drew in probably a million and a half years but i guess there are some people who can easily come back into your life, if only for an afternoon. i rode the shuttle back and forth and back and forth all day between georgetown and dupont and a cat in a window seemed to look back, knowingly, at me and for some reason that made me feel like the world was on my side, but also that i am a little crazy. at night i heard a good friend perform some awesome tunes and i took so many pictures because i wanted to capture all of it because everything and everyone was beautiful. walking home, a soft breeze hit my face and i could feel summer rounding the corner. yesterday i smiled so much and my heart didn't hurt once.

old blue eyes

Some dates and some days are impossible to forget. Like last Monday when I woke up and looked at my calendar and then looked outside and thought to myself how I hoped you would have the best day ever because how could you not with the sun as high as it was and me by your side? And it felt like a dream with you here and laughter and tears and things which remind you that you're human and still feel. The words spilled fast and easy because I’d drank too much and my heart was pounding and the room was spinning. The room is always spinning. Sitting close enough to touch but never touching. "You always make me feel so good about my sleep deprived ramblings." But now, one week later, twenty-three and a face I sometimes don't remember right anymore, I will always remember you twenty and twenty-one and twenty-two, and how I hugged you the tightest I could for all those years.

Yesterday was also a date I will not forget, when the hope of you finally slipped away. And then today I walked outside and everything looked different and strange the way it does when your heart is broken. The blue was beautiful but it didn't touch me and I floated through the day but not in a good way and tonight I drank too much but the room never spun once.

you are the most incredible person i've ever known.

worth sharing

I have immortal longings in me

Some mornings, like this morning, I wake up with big ideas whirling around in my head. I walk to the bus stop and Shakespeare is running circles through my brain and I recite lines to myself like a sountrack to a movie, and I look out the window as townhouses whiz by, although it is really the other way around, and I feel like I could live in that place inside my head for forever. And I don't sleep as much because all I want to do is write down these ideas that are swimming around just as they come up to the surface for air. I've found something that I love and that compells and inspires me and every day that I teach, I am also learning new things about myself and what I can accomplish through sheer love. And on mornings like this morning, with the sun shining and my heart beating fast and wild, I realize that the good life is an easy thing even for those with little else but a full heart.

a lovely love story

The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice. Although it was cold he was happy in there. It was, after all, his cage.

Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.

I like this Dinosaur thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny.
He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.

I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur, thought the Dinosaur. She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice.
She is also a free spirit which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.

But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
He is also overly fond of things.
Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of things?

But her mind skips from here to there so quickly thought the Dinosaur. She is also uncommonly keen on shopping.
Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?

I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for things, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. For they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.

I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping, thought the Dinosaur. For she fills our life with beautiful thoughts and wonderful surprises. Besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either.

Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old.
Look at them.
Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.

And that, my friends, is how it is with love.
Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together.
For the sun is warm.
And the world is a beautiful place

Manhattan – Woody Allen, 1979

I always forget how much I love this film.

It seems to perfectly capture those first moments of falling for someone. That patter, the banter of neuroses colliding, but also those quiet moments where the world does the speaking for you. And no city could do a better job of it than New York.

Woody Allen’s Manhattan is a beautiful place, his roaming stills doing all of the description for him. I love the opening sequence where Isaac (in narration) is trying in vain to find the right words to open his story, to introduce his city, and these brief moments are doing more than he’s capable of capturing with words.

And I really love how so many of the shots are composed. I read that no full screen version of this movie exists, and it’s no wonder – there are some great off-centered shots (like the iconic bridge one), and so much of it is filmed from afar, giving the film a real sense of place and lingering relations. It feels like this film unfolds in human time, of bonds developing and maturing even as it happens in one of the busiest places in the world.

And I can’t help but admire how much Allen has done for geeks. He’s a bumbling man-child riddled with neuroses who shows little to no growth throughout the film, and you can’t help but be charmed by him.