11:37 a.m. - 05/01/03
//..this train rocks steady...\\-
I've returned to a region neon in its greenness - barely distilled by the steady scrims of rain. Here, rain has all its beauty and far less of its inconvenience. Here, I have my music and my crochet hooks, my sketchy-journal and my space. Here also, I have parents like wild animals - (are they killing each other or is that just how they love?) - homework, and complete isolation. But now there's a sign at the end of the driveway and a telltale lock on our screen door, saying we're for sale. I'm willing to barter stars for streetlights, my bike path for a bus route. I'm willing to bargain based on aspirations, not anxiety this time. I'm willing to pack up all my red-things if I can put them up again somewhere one step closer to the promised land. I'm willing to stay with my parents and not go to college right away next fall, to succumb - temporarily - to uncertainty while the path clarifies itself, if it means I will be better prepared to take it. I'm willing to take the wrong path, if I truly believe in it at the start, and if I'm strong enough to start out knowing I won't die should I find cause turn around. I'm willing to jump from branch to branch, until I'm flying tree to tree. I'll go through the pain of finding wings and learning how to use them, independently.
I went to NYC for nearly a fortnight (I continue to hate American English for not having a one-word term for that time period), and I saw several very different and very wonderful lives being lived there. I saw a lot of pain also, some of it mine, and some of it not, and I did my best to take care of myself. I ate almost well (in many situations, it was easier to eat there), I had a few migraine days, I worked hard against the pain of not feeling understood or given proper credit. I enjoyed a once again tear-provoking talk with the doc in which he told me I am not a gerbil; no matter how much I want to believe it, I am not that small. And it scared me because up until now the opposite of gerbils have been monsters, and I didn't know how to be a non-gerbil without being a monster, but he clarified that it's only my power (not some supposed monstrosity) he means. He said I took the actors' reactions to my comments as a confirmation of my theory that I wasn't allowed to speak there, that they didn't see me as someone allowed that amount of voice - when truthfully, what I said would not have effected them if my opinion didn't carry weight. He said it must be terrifying to be Alice, one moment smaller than a borrower, the next big enough to flood a room entirely by tears.
Less than two days later, I was in a thrift store listening to White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and watching Elflings search for short black skirts and Draco-fanciers discover blue vinyl pants. I met new people, some of whom had fuzzy heads. I saw my play produced and beautiful; I saw my play open to an overflowing house and close with its finest production. I hugged Shannon in the subway and told her this would happen again. I was hugged by Julian in a matter rather rib-crushing, I had her head on my shoulder, I had herself on my lap. I discovered so much of Delancey not overt in her journal, the bouncing air-intake which precedes her gorgeous exhalations. I saw how (espeically) beautiful Shannon's (most recent) tattoo is, and I blistered my feet wickedly with a pair of combat boots not made for walking. I slept in the bed of a girl I could likely never meet, slept the best I had all week, in the room of a Writing Fellow, after a good two-hour discussion about high school, learning, education, and the identity-sucking methods which slurp up student's souls. I saw Sarah's favorite building, Sarah and Julian's favorite Subway musician (who grins with shining eyes when we partake of his Beatles covers), and tasted Bubble Tea. (Review: Very, very good minus the scary tapioca balls, which my stomach decided were some sort of reptilian egg not intended for digestion.) I heard compliments about my depth, my dimension, the age of my soul (which they say is old, but I think in such a way that I'm approaching the wisdom of oh-so-early youth) and tried Indian food. (Intensely spicy, but not evil-ly so. And I must admit, the mango lassi is the nectar of the gods. This must be said.) I saw Mattise and Picasso until my cells were saturated with the paint, and then exited through a room with the original Starry Night. I nearly went into an art-overdose-induced seizure at that point. Definitely a reason to visit Queens, if you don't have the excuse of knowing my sister or her very cool boyfriend who gave me a copy of Rushmore, paid for taxi rides home on cold, late nights, and supplemented the money missing from my parents' provisions.
I dipped into my internal cauldron to find the necessary magic. I survived constant, distorted awareness of the thinness around me (and the superiority that thinness supposedly defines); not seeing Ruth (who certainly would have come, or at least contacted, if she'd gotten the message...oh drat); not seeing Cami (whose absence stems from reasons I can feel myself reliving in my memory) - although I missed her muchly; unsteady sleep schedules; throngs of unknown people; sincere and lovely compliments; a perilous set of stairs; pornographic paintings (in the bathroom of the theater); the lack of gridding in the West Village. (Which one must love anyway, specifically if one's first rehearsal and performance -as a playwright - took place, respectively, at the Cherry Lane and Lucille Lortel theaters.)
I dipped into myself and found the necessary names. I am more than Mary Brave inside here, though that fits nicely, as well as any tailored English name has ever fit. I have a steaming sea of names that I call up; their connotations flip visceral switches to find patience, confidence, creativity, coy smiles, and the like. Some of them have visible features, would-be characters stored away. We are a flock of fledgling critters, and we move well together. We know how to inter-depend.
I rode the subway again, the closest to a rollercoaster my anxiety can handle. I enjoyed the turbulence of plane rides, and especially the take-offs. I finished rereading Jane Eyre and flipped back to Erica Jong's impressive introduction to it. I returned to a place I can never call home, which I will soon be leaving piece by piece. The move is perhaps most evident, but it isn't the most important, or the first step I will take. I'm already moving, redirecting life.
I'm already able to see my magic in its afterglow; I'll find the necessary senses to stay aware of it presently. I will myself toward witchcraft, toward my own wizardry.
chord
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