I had a dream that I had an opportunity to travel back in time. It's a recurring dream that I've had several times over the years. The scenarios and locations vary, but the scene is generally the same. They're nearly spot-on remakes of fights Rickey and I once had.
I "awake" suddenly in my 21-year old body, nearly ten years younger. I feel my legs storming away from where Rickey is standing about 30 yards behind me. It is dusk in Cullowhee. The street lamps are already on. I immediately remember this moment back in 2001. I know exactly where I am.
Rickey and I were arguing in the freshmen parking lot across the creek from the track at Western Carolina University. I was walking away, my arms swinging in anger. In actuality, I don't know how long he stood there, probably watching me walk away. Or maybe he had turned around and taken the long way back to Leatherwood Hall, as I had stomped to Helder.
This time, I am no longer upset. My 30-year old mind, grief-stricken from over six years of regret, slams my 21-year old legs to a halt. I spin my younger self to turn and face him. He is still standing there and initially appears shocked to see me stop. And then I run. I run and I run. I run like I have never run before. Tears streaming down my face, my hair whipping behind me. And I leap into his arms, nearly knocking him backward.
The dream is so real. I can feel the warmth of his body and the smoothness of his face as my cheek presses against his. I can smell him. A familiar mixture of cologne and laundry detergent. I can feel his arms wrap around me. His embrace is familiar, safe. I feel like I can't get close enough to him. I have longed for a moment like this for so long.
"Why didn't I do this before?" I sob.
"It's ok," he replies, in a calm tone. "You were angry."
I begin to shake uncontrollably as I cry. He hugs me tighter.
"It's ok," he says again. "I was angry, too."
"I'm so sorry," I cry. "I'm so, so sorry."
"We said a lot of things that we didn't mean," he says.
And then, the parking lot around us begins to fade, the street lamps become balls of fuzz. The world blackens around us.
As a dim light began to glow in the darkness, I awoke, blinking into the soft glimmer of a street lamp shinning through my bedroom window on West 51st Street. And behind it, I saw the twinkling lights of the Time Warner Center, towering silently in the night. A taxicab honked. A car door slammed. In the distance, someone shouted a quick farewell. And below my window, the sound of horse hooves clopped along the street as it pulled a carriage home from Central Park.
Showing posts with label love actually. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love actually. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Monday, November 24, 2008
Miracle on 34th Street
I was not permitted to blog about the great news until all pertinent parties had been informed. Now that the cat is officially out of the bag, I am celebrating in the blogosphere.
On Thursday, November 20, heretofore known as "HeSheIt" Day, I was standing on the southwest corner of 34th and Seventh with Tokii after dinner and a basketball game in Madison Square Garden (her husband is an assistant coach for a top NCAA team playing in the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs Cancer). Yawning through farewell hugs, I was bidding her good night when she paused and took my hand. Placing it on her belly, she said, "But first, meet your god child."
Suddenly wide awake, squealing and jumping up and down under the neon lights of Midtown, the curious stares actually blurred around us. I could not just go home after news like that. After regaining my composure, we went to get coffee and talk about the he/she/it forming inside of my best friend ... and more importantly, what an amazing God Mother I am going to be - the years ahead of cards and presents for Birthdays, Christmases, Graduations and HeSheIt Days.
She might not believe it - so I didn't tell her - but when I was standing in line for my ticket at the team will call and she waved from beyond the barricade to get my attention, I experienced nanoseconds in which I thought, "Wow. She is glowing." Yet within those mere seconds I assumed that either (1) the TV studio sure does take good care of their actors' skin and hair or (2) she is really happy to see her best friend. Looking back now, I want to believe that I had sensed something was different about her.
Over coffee in the lobby of a nearby hotel, we discussed how she might surprise her husband with the joyous news, how her family and our friends would react, and what challenges lay ahead in juggling her unplanned pregnancy with a significant role on a national television show. Her husband called periodically as the night grew later and his evening obligations to the team were winding down, and we giggled excitedly about the fact that he would soon be a father. I did not get home until after 2am and still had to pack for a weekend trip to DC for an Andrea Bocelli concert at the Washington National Opera. When I woke up a few hours later to get ready for work, it was the funniest thing ... the sky really was bluer.
A Year Ago Today: Back to My Life
Two Years Ago Today: When the Past Comes Back
On Thursday, November 20, heretofore known as "HeSheIt" Day, I was standing on the southwest corner of 34th and Seventh with Tokii after dinner and a basketball game in Madison Square Garden (her husband is an assistant coach for a top NCAA team playing in the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs Cancer). Yawning through farewell hugs, I was bidding her good night when she paused and took my hand. Placing it on her belly, she said, "But first, meet your god child."
Suddenly wide awake, squealing and jumping up and down under the neon lights of Midtown, the curious stares actually blurred around us. I could not just go home after news like that. After regaining my composure, we went to get coffee and talk about the he/she/it forming inside of my best friend ... and more importantly, what an amazing God Mother I am going to be - the years ahead of cards and presents for Birthdays, Christmases, Graduations and HeSheIt Days.
She might not believe it - so I didn't tell her - but when I was standing in line for my ticket at the team will call and she waved from beyond the barricade to get my attention, I experienced nanoseconds in which I thought, "Wow. She is glowing." Yet within those mere seconds I assumed that either (1) the TV studio sure does take good care of their actors' skin and hair or (2) she is really happy to see her best friend. Looking back now, I want to believe that I had sensed something was different about her.
Over coffee in the lobby of a nearby hotel, we discussed how she might surprise her husband with the joyous news, how her family and our friends would react, and what challenges lay ahead in juggling her unplanned pregnancy with a significant role on a national television show. Her husband called periodically as the night grew later and his evening obligations to the team were winding down, and we giggled excitedly about the fact that he would soon be a father. I did not get home until after 2am and still had to pack for a weekend trip to DC for an Andrea Bocelli concert at the Washington National Opera. When I woke up a few hours later to get ready for work, it was the funniest thing ... the sky really was bluer.
A Year Ago Today: Back to My Life
Two Years Ago Today: When the Past Comes Back
Friday, November 21, 2008
Phone Photo Op - 34th & Seventh
I received wonderful news here last night.
More to be revealed in due time.
A Year Ago Today: Aging, Not Wrinkles, Is Cruel
Two Years Ago Today: Small Big City
More to be revealed in due time.
A Year Ago Today: Aging, Not Wrinkles, Is Cruel
Two Years Ago Today: Small Big City
Friday, September 19, 2008
Stilettos Versus Strollers
My friends in North Carolina and other old connections from my days as a military brat have recently (and when I say recently, I mean within the past few years) begun posting pictures of their children on facebook and myspace. It often makes me wonder what I've missed over the past 10 years since high school (and the five since college). With Halle Berry and J.Lo having their first children in their 40s, I certainly do not feel old at 28 nor do I feel in any rush. But I still consider the conscious decisions I've made to redirect my course away from marriage and motherhood. For example, breaking up with Matt after high school instead of getting married like many of our classmates did. Pushing back Rickey's discussions of marriage proposals in 2002. Or moving to New York in 2006 instead of Atlanta, where Terrence lives in the off-season. Or choosing not to live abroad with him in the exciting foreign countries in which he has made homes.
I've had three serious relationships in 12 years and dozens of forgettable encounters in between, and I've always consciously fought to keep my own path. But am I subconsciously fighting something else? Am I afraid that I am too selfish to even fathom decisions between having my own space or incorporating His and Hers towels? Or researching family-size cars and learning how to make more than Ramen Noodles or my awesome signature salads? Or have I naively and stubbornly assumed that I've already had my one great love? Or have I just not found "the one"? Will "the one" understand my needs to be just a "me" and parallel my path until I'm ready to be an "us"?
Today the other executive assistants and I overheard our Executive Beauty Director scolding her children via the speaker phone in her office while reviewing RFPs. It was entertaining to witness a corporate woman, who is the epitome of grace under pressure while pitching advertising packages, unravel into a soccer mom right before our very eyes. Ah. The multiple hats we learn to wear.
Rather than pull out the mommy hat that I willingly allow to gather dust on the shelf next to my biological clock, I rounded out my week by dining at Buddakan and partying at Butter on Monday night, attending a New York Women in Film & Television screening of The Women at Clearview Chelsea Cinema on Wednesday (with my girlfriends, of course, where we sipped wine and ate tiny, crustless sandwiches). Then, I accepted a spontaneous invitation to join my secret service buddy and his friends for dinner at Brick NYC, a brand new Italian wine and antipasti bar that opened recently in Tribeca. Instead of calling a babysitter to tell her I'd be late - which is what mature, settled, family-oriented women my age do - I was sending "Gossip Girl" text messages to a few friends containing a phone picture I had just taken of Danny Masterson in his trademark bowler hat seated a few tables away.
For documentation purposes, of course:
Will K ever pack up her single gal city life and trade it for diapers and family packages of Hamburger Helper? That's one secret that is too soon to tell. You know you love me. XOXO ... Gossip Girl ...
A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: It Gets Late Awfully Early Around Here
I've had three serious relationships in 12 years and dozens of forgettable encounters in between, and I've always consciously fought to keep my own path. But am I subconsciously fighting something else? Am I afraid that I am too selfish to even fathom decisions between having my own space or incorporating His and Hers towels? Or researching family-size cars and learning how to make more than Ramen Noodles or my awesome signature salads? Or have I naively and stubbornly assumed that I've already had my one great love? Or have I just not found "the one"? Will "the one" understand my needs to be just a "me" and parallel my path until I'm ready to be an "us"?
Today the other executive assistants and I overheard our Executive Beauty Director scolding her children via the speaker phone in her office while reviewing RFPs. It was entertaining to witness a corporate woman, who is the epitome of grace under pressure while pitching advertising packages, unravel into a soccer mom right before our very eyes. Ah. The multiple hats we learn to wear.
Rather than pull out the mommy hat that I willingly allow to gather dust on the shelf next to my biological clock, I rounded out my week by dining at Buddakan and partying at Butter on Monday night, attending a New York Women in Film & Television screening of The Women at Clearview Chelsea Cinema on Wednesday (with my girlfriends, of course, where we sipped wine and ate tiny, crustless sandwiches). Then, I accepted a spontaneous invitation to join my secret service buddy and his friends for dinner at Brick NYC, a brand new Italian wine and antipasti bar that opened recently in Tribeca. Instead of calling a babysitter to tell her I'd be late - which is what mature, settled, family-oriented women my age do - I was sending "Gossip Girl" text messages to a few friends containing a phone picture I had just taken of Danny Masterson in his trademark bowler hat seated a few tables away.
For documentation purposes, of course:
Will K ever pack up her single gal city life and trade it for diapers and family packages of Hamburger Helper? That's one secret that is too soon to tell. You know you love me. XOXO ... Gossip Girl ...
A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: It Gets Late Awfully Early Around Here
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Both Sides of the Moon
Ra cooked dinner tonight at her massive apartment in Brooklyn (or last night, depending on how you define the hours prior to midnight when you have not yet gone to sleep). I type massive because it is by my brainwashed Manhattan standards. As I sat at her kitchen table sipping wine, her boyfriend Brad walked in with his overnight bag and a fitted baseball cap cocked to the side. There was something familiar about the way he sauntered in, walked up behind Ra at the stove, knelt his 6'4" frame slightly to kiss her hello, and strolled back to her bedroom to put down his stuff. The familiarity of it made something tighten inside my chest. I'm not sure who it made me miss - Terrence or Rickey. Even now, I'm not even really sure whether Brad actually had on a hat or if I just recall it from my own memories of tilted baseball caps - a mannerism that Terrence and Rickey share. But I am beginning to think that part of me will just always exist in that place, where I see the past and the present simultaneously.
A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Bryant Park By Day & Night
A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Bryant Park By Day & Night
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Two Years Down; A Lifetime to Go
Today marks my first two years living in New York City. But that anniversary is secondary. Five years ago today. And the 3rd has fallen on a Sunday again. At this exact moment five years ago, that darkness did not yet exist for me. In another 12-13 more hours, his father would be calling to tell me that he was dead.
I'm still creating coincidences and searching for that connection, which logic tells me does not exist. But as August 3, 2008, drew closer, I was helping plan a baby shower for Mayra, and Natasha invited me to attend a Yankees game - a first for both of us - made even more special by the location of our seats.
Natasha and I spent the three days before Friday's game, bouncing around our apartment, giddy about the idea of sitting in the first row behind home plate for our first-ever Yankees game - and one of the last to ever be played in The House that Ruth Built. We giggled continuously and said corny things sporadically, like "Home plate, baby!" while passing each other in the kitchen. One evening, I walked in the apartment and called out, "Is there a home plate ticket holder in the house?"
And as Mayra's baby shower approached, I became increasingly busier with last minute preparations and shopping for gifts on her registry. Ra and I met at the Toys "R" Us in Times Square after work one evening and wandered aimlessly in the babies section. Sifting through the endless options of bottles, diapers, teethers and care kits was overwhelming, to say the least. I highly recommend it as an effective form of birth control. As we were exiting the store with our purchases (including a large, boxed high chair), Ra - slightly frustrated by the complicated shopping spree - mentioned that we should probably catch a taxi to my apartment. I replied that we probably wouldn't be able to catch a cab in Midtown at that hour, to which she exclaimed in horror, "Oh no! What are we going to do?"
I looked back at the genuine expression of repulsion on her face, her body hunched by the weight of Toys "R" Us shopping bags, and we both died laughing. Unable to catch an available taxi from 44th and Broadway, we ended up taking our first pedicab ride.
Mayra and Melvin's baby shower was a traditional Dominican shower, which included a lot of friends, food, music, dancing and alcohol. I ran around Midtown on Saturday morning, trying to find some of the last things I had forgotten to purchase for her shower games. And then there was the commute from Midtown to 111th Street in Queens, the set-up for the party, and Melvin's reassurance that we had plenty of time because Dominicans are never punctual. But what about all of the invited Americans, Ecuadorians, Puerto Ricans, and those who bubble in "other", I wondered? So many things to keep my mind occupied. And of course, I found more moments to add to my memory montage when Mayra was in the middle of opening her gifts and suddenly began to cry. We all knew it was partially her eighth-month hormones, but we also knew how overpowering it can be to feel so incredibly loved. As Melvin laughed and began to console her, his own eyes welled up and a few tears spilled over.
And this evening, Natasha and I are painting our living room and kitchen. Spiced Butternut and Autumn Orange while we order Thai take-out and sip Pinot Noir. It's the combination of the big and little things, after all, that make life go on.
A Year Ago Today: One Year At A Time
Two Years Ago Today: Temperaturely Speaking ...
I'm still creating coincidences and searching for that connection, which logic tells me does not exist. But as August 3, 2008, drew closer, I was helping plan a baby shower for Mayra, and Natasha invited me to attend a Yankees game - a first for both of us - made even more special by the location of our seats.
Natasha and I spent the three days before Friday's game, bouncing around our apartment, giddy about the idea of sitting in the first row behind home plate for our first-ever Yankees game - and one of the last to ever be played in The House that Ruth Built. We giggled continuously and said corny things sporadically, like "Home plate, baby!" while passing each other in the kitchen. One evening, I walked in the apartment and called out, "Is there a home plate ticket holder in the house?"
And as Mayra's baby shower approached, I became increasingly busier with last minute preparations and shopping for gifts on her registry. Ra and I met at the Toys "R" Us in Times Square after work one evening and wandered aimlessly in the babies section. Sifting through the endless options of bottles, diapers, teethers and care kits was overwhelming, to say the least. I highly recommend it as an effective form of birth control. As we were exiting the store with our purchases (including a large, boxed high chair), Ra - slightly frustrated by the complicated shopping spree - mentioned that we should probably catch a taxi to my apartment. I replied that we probably wouldn't be able to catch a cab in Midtown at that hour, to which she exclaimed in horror, "Oh no! What are we going to do?"
I looked back at the genuine expression of repulsion on her face, her body hunched by the weight of Toys "R" Us shopping bags, and we both died laughing. Unable to catch an available taxi from 44th and Broadway, we ended up taking our first pedicab ride.
Mayra and Melvin's baby shower was a traditional Dominican shower, which included a lot of friends, food, music, dancing and alcohol. I ran around Midtown on Saturday morning, trying to find some of the last things I had forgotten to purchase for her shower games. And then there was the commute from Midtown to 111th Street in Queens, the set-up for the party, and Melvin's reassurance that we had plenty of time because Dominicans are never punctual. But what about all of the invited Americans, Ecuadorians, Puerto Ricans, and those who bubble in "other", I wondered? So many things to keep my mind occupied. And of course, I found more moments to add to my memory montage when Mayra was in the middle of opening her gifts and suddenly began to cry. We all knew it was partially her eighth-month hormones, but we also knew how overpowering it can be to feel so incredibly loved. As Melvin laughed and began to console her, his own eyes welled up and a few tears spilled over.
And this evening, Natasha and I are painting our living room and kitchen. Spiced Butternut and Autumn Orange while we order Thai take-out and sip Pinot Noir. It's the combination of the big and little things, after all, that make life go on.
A Year Ago Today: One Year At A Time
Two Years Ago Today: Temperaturely Speaking ...
Monday, April 07, 2008
A Dime a Dozen or Once in a Lifetime
An ex-boyfriend in North Carolina sent me a text message recently, which read: "I'm watching Forrest Gump right now. It makes me think of us." I chuckled at this at first until his response to why was: "A man who spends his whole life lovin a girl who is out chasin her dreams."
It was almost Hitch quotable. Very Sweet Home Alabama-ish. The lives and the "Loves We Leave Behind." I didn't know how to reply to him, but it did spark self-reflection. Not that I ever had half the problems of Forrest's Jenny. It's just that I've always been kind of coming-and-going with men. I remember my mom once commenting about me in between boyfriends on different military bases, "It's 'out of sight, out of mind' with this one."
Very few men - like places - have been able to keep my intimate attention. I have wondered if it's because my youth was saturated with relocation of both people and homes. Yet this common denominator does not carry over to my friendships with my dearest girlfriends, to which I am fiercely loyal despite distance. So I don't know that being raised a military brat is a valid constant. Maybe because a truly sincere friend is slightly harder to find and keep than a decent man. The value I place on the latter is sort of a fish-in-the-sea philosophy while I've shared my innermost thoughts with my closest girls, whether in person or over a phone line. And looking back on my teens, I mourned the ends of friendships more than moving away from boyfriends.
If there is a personal correlation between men and environment, my infatuation with New York City could very well be the love affair of my life. Its constant familiarity and simultaneous change never cease to intrigue me. It gives itself to you in its rawest form and plays hard to get at the same time. It keeps me interested. Like the few who have gone the distance with me.
Yet I wonder - as we choose one life over another - if there will always be that one. Even for someone like me. I guess I'll cross that bridge if I ever have to make a choice that makes New York my "one that got away."
It was almost Hitch quotable. Very Sweet Home Alabama-ish. The lives and the "Loves We Leave Behind." I didn't know how to reply to him, but it did spark self-reflection. Not that I ever had half the problems of Forrest's Jenny. It's just that I've always been kind of coming-and-going with men. I remember my mom once commenting about me in between boyfriends on different military bases, "It's 'out of sight, out of mind' with this one."
Very few men - like places - have been able to keep my intimate attention. I have wondered if it's because my youth was saturated with relocation of both people and homes. Yet this common denominator does not carry over to my friendships with my dearest girlfriends, to which I am fiercely loyal despite distance. So I don't know that being raised a military brat is a valid constant. Maybe because a truly sincere friend is slightly harder to find and keep than a decent man. The value I place on the latter is sort of a fish-in-the-sea philosophy while I've shared my innermost thoughts with my closest girls, whether in person or over a phone line. And looking back on my teens, I mourned the ends of friendships more than moving away from boyfriends.
If there is a personal correlation between men and environment, my infatuation with New York City could very well be the love affair of my life. Its constant familiarity and simultaneous change never cease to intrigue me. It gives itself to you in its rawest form and plays hard to get at the same time. It keeps me interested. Like the few who have gone the distance with me.
Yet I wonder - as we choose one life over another - if there will always be that one. Even for someone like me. I guess I'll cross that bridge if I ever have to make a choice that makes New York my "one that got away."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Scents of the Past
I smelled Rickey on the subway today. It wasn't him, of course - but his smell. A subtle mix of cologne and laundry detergent.
It's crazy how a smell can take you back.
It's crazy how fast "far back" continues to get.
It's crazy how a smell can take you back.
It's crazy how fast "far back" continues to get.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Three L's for the Leap Year
My three L's were inspired by a lecture given by Professor Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University. Over AIM, I sent Terrence the link to view the reprise on Oprah.com.
After watching it, he IMed me back: "Wow. That really hits hard at the end. I teared up and everything."
Today I decided on three L's ...
Laugh more ... Love more ... Live more ...
Because I can ...
Professor Randy Pausch's Last Lecture on Oprah.com
After watching it, he IMed me back: "Wow. That really hits hard at the end. I teared up and everything."
Today I decided on three L's ...
Laugh more ... Love more ... Live more ...
Because I can ...
Professor Randy Pausch's Last Lecture on Oprah.com
Thursday, February 14, 2008
"Things I Love" Thursdays - Anti-Valentine's Day Celebrations
In a city full of 20-somethings who'd rather be single in New York City than married in Ohio, I attended my second Anti-Valentine's Day celebration in row. I'm not entirely a romance antagonist, as I noted last year. In fact, I love genuine expressions of love. I'm just not a fan of consumer marketing-driven holidays. So I guess I don't like any holidays, but Valentine's Day in particular is the one that feels the most forced and insincere of all. It's the day when you say I love you because you have to.
I gathered with about two dozen friends and friends of friends at Divine Bar on West 54th Street. It was my second best Valentine's Day ever. This was the first.
"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).
I gathered with about two dozen friends and friends of friends at Divine Bar on West 54th Street. It was my second best Valentine's Day ever. This was the first.
"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Comparing Ends
Cullowhee, NC. 2003. Rickey and I had not spoken in two weeks. Following a fight over his attempt to illegally fill a forged prescription for pain medication, I had been ignoring his phone calls from Augusta, Georgia. I wanted him to feel like he was losing me, like his behavior was destroying all we'd ever had. And if he didn't get his life together, there wouldn't even be a friendship left. I wanted to make him suffer a little. How immature it seems now. How stupid it seemed immediately after the phone call.
When his father's name flashed the incoming call on my cell phone, I assumed it was Rickey. That his cell phone had been turned off yet again. That he was using his father's phone as he had numerous times before. I remember the last thought I had just before I heard the Earth crack in two: "Ok. I'll talk to him now."
The thing that perplexed me the most after Rickey died is that no one else's world came to a deafening halt. The Western Carolina Men's Basketball Team still left for their WCU Canadian Tour a few days later. My best friend still left North Carolina a few days later for her role in "Mother Divine," which WCU was producing in New York.
After the funeral in Augusta, our friends went back to their lives, and much to my amazement, life went on around me. And my mother temporarily moved into my apartment to fully devote her time to helping me get on with mine. Brushing my hair for me or running my baths whenever the simple act of looking in the mirror would bring me to tears. Giving me pedicures while I stared at the ceiling. Finding shows on television when the remote in my hand idled listlessly on the TV Guide Channel. Forcing me to eat when I actually valued the sharp hunger pangs that dulled the intense pressure crushing my heart. It's like my mind could only accept so much anguish at one time. As if soothing the throb in my stomach, allowed my mind to fully bear the agony in my chest. I preferred to feel hungry.
Much of the day after - and the days in the wake of - his death are blurred in my mind, but some moments are clear, defined in the creases of my memory. I remember laying in the bathtub and listening to a repetitive drip ripple on the surface above my feet. If I focused on the tiny sound of the drip and magnified the echo in my mind, I could make the bathroom tiles stop spinning.
I fought sleep because each time I awoke, I had those first fuzzy moments where I had to realize he was gone all over again. There are few things worse than having a dream where everything is alright and waking up in a reality where everything isn't. And then more tears. I cried so much that I began sobbing to my mother about how I didn't want to cry anymore. It is a painful thing to cry because you can't stop crying.
Terrence, a member of Rickey's former basketball team and a good friend of mine, held fast in his vigil by my side, literally and figuratively. On that first night of the rest of my life without Rickey, Terrence sat in the living room with my roommates all night long while I laid motionless in my bedroom between brief fits of tears and even briefer moments of restless sleep. He sent letters and postcards from Canada during the basketball tour. He called every morning and every night. And when the team returned a few weeks later, I could feel him reading my moods. He and I still wonder how that innate need to take care of me sprung out of no where.
That day, after I received the devastating phone call from Rickey's father and news spread across campus, Terrence was at the foot of my bed immediately after basketball practice. Unlike everyone else who tried to touch me, hug me or offer consoling advice that day, he sat there unmoving in the evening darkness of my room for what may have been an hour. I can't remember how long. I know that he listened to me cry. That he listened to me breathe. And then he listened to me cry again. I know that just before he left my room and joined the growing group of friends and a few university staff gathering in the living room that he said something I will never forget. I have carried it with me since.
New York, NY. 2008. As I walked to work this morning, the front pages of every newspaper featured Heath Ledger. The wake of the day after. And while the world is pausing long enough to read the latest news of his untimely death while they sip their coffee and google updates during breaks at work, I know that other headlines will take his place tomorrow. He'll have a few things that Rickey didn't, like memorial tributes at this year's awards shows, entertainment television documentaries chronicling his last days, and piles of flowers on his Soho doorstep placed delicately by fans. But all of the normal things will continue.
I remember wanting to scream at the world for all the things that I no longer felt mattered. Getting out of bed. Hearing the trash man on the curb. Seeing the postman deliver mail. Life went on.
That's life. It makes history. It repeats itself. It brings back memories. It is what it is, if that means anything at all. I don't always like where it takes me, but I try to hang on through the ride.
When his father's name flashed the incoming call on my cell phone, I assumed it was Rickey. That his cell phone had been turned off yet again. That he was using his father's phone as he had numerous times before. I remember the last thought I had just before I heard the Earth crack in two: "Ok. I'll talk to him now."
The thing that perplexed me the most after Rickey died is that no one else's world came to a deafening halt. The Western Carolina Men's Basketball Team still left for their WCU Canadian Tour a few days later. My best friend still left North Carolina a few days later for her role in "Mother Divine," which WCU was producing in New York.
After the funeral in Augusta, our friends went back to their lives, and much to my amazement, life went on around me. And my mother temporarily moved into my apartment to fully devote her time to helping me get on with mine. Brushing my hair for me or running my baths whenever the simple act of looking in the mirror would bring me to tears. Giving me pedicures while I stared at the ceiling. Finding shows on television when the remote in my hand idled listlessly on the TV Guide Channel. Forcing me to eat when I actually valued the sharp hunger pangs that dulled the intense pressure crushing my heart. It's like my mind could only accept so much anguish at one time. As if soothing the throb in my stomach, allowed my mind to fully bear the agony in my chest. I preferred to feel hungry.
Much of the day after - and the days in the wake of - his death are blurred in my mind, but some moments are clear, defined in the creases of my memory. I remember laying in the bathtub and listening to a repetitive drip ripple on the surface above my feet. If I focused on the tiny sound of the drip and magnified the echo in my mind, I could make the bathroom tiles stop spinning.
I fought sleep because each time I awoke, I had those first fuzzy moments where I had to realize he was gone all over again. There are few things worse than having a dream where everything is alright and waking up in a reality where everything isn't. And then more tears. I cried so much that I began sobbing to my mother about how I didn't want to cry anymore. It is a painful thing to cry because you can't stop crying.
Terrence, a member of Rickey's former basketball team and a good friend of mine, held fast in his vigil by my side, literally and figuratively. On that first night of the rest of my life without Rickey, Terrence sat in the living room with my roommates all night long while I laid motionless in my bedroom between brief fits of tears and even briefer moments of restless sleep. He sent letters and postcards from Canada during the basketball tour. He called every morning and every night. And when the team returned a few weeks later, I could feel him reading my moods. He and I still wonder how that innate need to take care of me sprung out of no where.
That day, after I received the devastating phone call from Rickey's father and news spread across campus, Terrence was at the foot of my bed immediately after basketball practice. Unlike everyone else who tried to touch me, hug me or offer consoling advice that day, he sat there unmoving in the evening darkness of my room for what may have been an hour. I can't remember how long. I know that he listened to me cry. That he listened to me breathe. And then he listened to me cry again. I know that just before he left my room and joined the growing group of friends and a few university staff gathering in the living room that he said something I will never forget. I have carried it with me since.
New York, NY. 2008. As I walked to work this morning, the front pages of every newspaper featured Heath Ledger. The wake of the day after. And while the world is pausing long enough to read the latest news of his untimely death while they sip their coffee and google updates during breaks at work, I know that other headlines will take his place tomorrow. He'll have a few things that Rickey didn't, like memorial tributes at this year's awards shows, entertainment television documentaries chronicling his last days, and piles of flowers on his Soho doorstep placed delicately by fans. But all of the normal things will continue.
I remember wanting to scream at the world for all the things that I no longer felt mattered. Getting out of bed. Hearing the trash man on the curb. Seeing the postman deliver mail. Life went on.
That's life. It makes history. It repeats itself. It brings back memories. It is what it is, if that means anything at all. I don't always like where it takes me, but I try to hang on through the ride.
Monday, January 21, 2008
The London Post
"... And all them other cats you run with, get dumb with, dumb quick,
How the f*** you gonna cross the dog with some bum shit?
There go the gun click, nine one one shit
All over some dumb shit, ain't that some shit
Y'all n***** remind me of a strip club, cause every time you come around ..."
On Sunday, January 13, I looked at Terrence and raised an eyebrow. Pointing upward at the speaker system in the Birmingham Indoor Arena (NIA), I said, "They're playing the unedited version of this song?"
On the court below, top seeded teams of the BBL Cup 2008 were warming up for the final game. Terrence had just finished shooting in the Molten Three-Point Shootout with nine of the other "finest 3-point shooters in the BBL," and we were sticking around to watch the championship match. He didn't win the grand prize, which we could have used for our trip to London the following Tuesday, but I'm sure he was honored to be among the 10 league players in the contest.
As children ran up and down the aisles of the arena, waving #1 foam fingers and team banners, Terrence replied, "Yea. I was shocked the first time I realized that, too. But it's kind of like how there is porn on regular TV."
We discussed how there seems to be less offense taken to arbitrary things over here. Americans generally seem more conservative, which is somewhat ironic given our basic freedoms. That's probably why things like alcohol, sex and swearing might be more appealing to young people in the U.S.; there is such a taboo attached to them. This could be argued either way, of course, but we chose to find humor in the afternoon.
"But that couldn't have been the issue,
Or maybe they just sayin that now cause they miss you
Shit a n**** tried to diss you
That's why you layin on your back, lookin at the roof of the church
Preacher tellin the truth and it hurts"
"They're playing DMX ... unedited ... at a sporting event ... with families ..." I said, half talking to Terrence, half thinking out loud. He nodded, "Yep."
"That's awesome."
Moments, later Dr. Dre and Eminem came over the loud speakers. Terrence and I looked at each other and just started laughing. With every curse word or inflammatory remark, we laughed harder and harder until I was almost in tears.
It reminded me of when I studied in Spain for a semester in college, and my American classmates and I were amazed that an extremely erotic sex scene of a movie was playing on every television screen in the electronics section of a high-end department store. We were the only ones in the crowd who actually stopped and paid attention.
Since landing in London on the afternoon of January 12 (following a 3-hour delay the prior evening at JFK because of suspicious luggage), I had already experienced a handful of eyebrow-raising moments. After Terrence's home game that Saturday evening, the team gathered for the post-match meal and cocktails at a nearby hotel restaurant and bar. While I mingled with some of the other players and their wives and girlfriends, Terrence was sitting across the room with the head coach and his wife.
"I know what was wrong tonight," she said to him (the team had just lost). "When was the last time you saw that young lady over there?"
"September," Terrence replied.
"No wonder," she said. "That is what you should have done before the game."
Other things I noticed while in England:
- The British take basketball very seriously.
- The F-word is roughly equivalent to "damn."
- Sidewalk is pavement, bathroom is toilet, game schedule is fixture, call is ring, cell phone is mobile, trunk is boot, gasoline is petrol, pants are trousers, french fries are chips, potato chips are crisps.
- The exchange rate from U.S. dollars to pounds sucks.
- A lot of people drive Bentleys (Leceister and London), Maseratis and Aston Martins (London); Mercedes and BMWs are common; generally a smaller, practical car is preferred.
- 90 miles an hour on the highway is slow.
- The English may be second in alcohol consumption to the Irish.
- Chicken Mayo Bacon & Sweet Corn (breast of chicken & Dutch bacon mixed with sweet corn & bound in rich mayonnaise) is my new favorite sandwich filling.
- Sometimes round-abouts make sense, but often they don't.
- The wide staircases and hallways of The Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly [where we stayed for my (early) birthday present: a sightseeing trip to London on Tuesday, January 15] are almost like those in The Shining; and it's an old building so it's creepy and fun (T took pictures of me at the end of a long hallway with my hair hanging over my face like the girl from The Ring).
- Leicester has a severe addiction to stop lights; I challenge anyone to drive through the town without hitting red lights within 50 feet of each other.
- It rains a lot.
I turned 28 on Friday (January 18) - my second year into my Late 20s. Twenty-seven in New York City and 28 in England. Not so bad for this life. A year ago tomorrow, I had a conversation with a coworker about life decisions, specifically my long distance relationship with Terrence and the separate lives we were choosing.
For a few days last week, I felt like I could drop my New York life entirely and follow Terrence around the world on his overseas adventures. But when I saw the halos over Manhattan glowing under the purple night sky on the return descent into JFK, I was reminded of why I chose to become a New Yorker.
As I disembarked from the plane, I thought about how Terrence and I have become a commuter couple in a relationship filled with last looks. New York-Atlanta; New York-Sacramento; New York-Seattle; New York-Florida; New York-Leicester (England).
I passed through customs, claimed my bags and looked toward New York.
How the f*** you gonna cross the dog with some bum shit?
There go the gun click, nine one one shit
All over some dumb shit, ain't that some shit
Y'all n***** remind me of a strip club, cause every time you come around ..."
On Sunday, January 13, I looked at Terrence and raised an eyebrow. Pointing upward at the speaker system in the Birmingham Indoor Arena (NIA), I said, "They're playing the unedited version of this song?"
On the court below, top seeded teams of the BBL Cup 2008 were warming up for the final game. Terrence had just finished shooting in the Molten Three-Point Shootout with nine of the other "finest 3-point shooters in the BBL," and we were sticking around to watch the championship match. He didn't win the grand prize, which we could have used for our trip to London the following Tuesday, but I'm sure he was honored to be among the 10 league players in the contest.
As children ran up and down the aisles of the arena, waving #1 foam fingers and team banners, Terrence replied, "Yea. I was shocked the first time I realized that, too. But it's kind of like how there is porn on regular TV."
We discussed how there seems to be less offense taken to arbitrary things over here. Americans generally seem more conservative, which is somewhat ironic given our basic freedoms. That's probably why things like alcohol, sex and swearing might be more appealing to young people in the U.S.; there is such a taboo attached to them. This could be argued either way, of course, but we chose to find humor in the afternoon.
"But that couldn't have been the issue,
Or maybe they just sayin that now cause they miss you
Shit a n**** tried to diss you
That's why you layin on your back, lookin at the roof of the church
Preacher tellin the truth and it hurts"
"They're playing DMX ... unedited ... at a sporting event ... with families ..." I said, half talking to Terrence, half thinking out loud. He nodded, "Yep."
"That's awesome."
Moments, later Dr. Dre and Eminem came over the loud speakers. Terrence and I looked at each other and just started laughing. With every curse word or inflammatory remark, we laughed harder and harder until I was almost in tears.
It reminded me of when I studied in Spain for a semester in college, and my American classmates and I were amazed that an extremely erotic sex scene of a movie was playing on every television screen in the electronics section of a high-end department store. We were the only ones in the crowd who actually stopped and paid attention.
Since landing in London on the afternoon of January 12 (following a 3-hour delay the prior evening at JFK because of suspicious luggage), I had already experienced a handful of eyebrow-raising moments. After Terrence's home game that Saturday evening, the team gathered for the post-match meal and cocktails at a nearby hotel restaurant and bar. While I mingled with some of the other players and their wives and girlfriends, Terrence was sitting across the room with the head coach and his wife.
"I know what was wrong tonight," she said to him (the team had just lost). "When was the last time you saw that young lady over there?"
"September," Terrence replied.
"No wonder," she said. "That is what you should have done before the game."
Other things I noticed while in England:
- The British take basketball very seriously.
- The F-word is roughly equivalent to "damn."
- Sidewalk is pavement, bathroom is toilet, game schedule is fixture, call is ring, cell phone is mobile, trunk is boot, gasoline is petrol, pants are trousers, french fries are chips, potato chips are crisps.
- The exchange rate from U.S. dollars to pounds sucks.
- A lot of people drive Bentleys (Leceister and London), Maseratis and Aston Martins (London); Mercedes and BMWs are common; generally a smaller, practical car is preferred.
- 90 miles an hour on the highway is slow.
- The English may be second in alcohol consumption to the Irish.
- Chicken Mayo Bacon & Sweet Corn (breast of chicken & Dutch bacon mixed with sweet corn & bound in rich mayonnaise) is my new favorite sandwich filling.
- Sometimes round-abouts make sense, but often they don't.
- The wide staircases and hallways of The Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly [where we stayed for my (early) birthday present: a sightseeing trip to London on Tuesday, January 15] are almost like those in The Shining; and it's an old building so it's creepy and fun (T took pictures of me at the end of a long hallway with my hair hanging over my face like the girl from The Ring).
- Leicester has a severe addiction to stop lights; I challenge anyone to drive through the town without hitting red lights within 50 feet of each other.
- It rains a lot.
I turned 28 on Friday (January 18) - my second year into my Late 20s. Twenty-seven in New York City and 28 in England. Not so bad for this life. A year ago tomorrow, I had a conversation with a coworker about life decisions, specifically my long distance relationship with Terrence and the separate lives we were choosing.
For a few days last week, I felt like I could drop my New York life entirely and follow Terrence around the world on his overseas adventures. But when I saw the halos over Manhattan glowing under the purple night sky on the return descent into JFK, I was reminded of why I chose to become a New Yorker.
As I disembarked from the plane, I thought about how Terrence and I have become a commuter couple in a relationship filled with last looks. New York-Atlanta; New York-Sacramento; New York-Seattle; New York-Florida; New York-Leicester (England).
I passed through customs, claimed my bags and looked toward New York.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
I Know How You Like [It]
Regarding a clean bathroom, that is the sweetest thing a man can say to a woman with undiagnosed mild OCD. I called Terrence this evening to let him know that I could not find the XXXXL items from Foot Locker that he wanted me to bring to England. I had been to two different Foot Lockers in the city and could only find up to XXXL on the days that I went.
“That’s because all the short dudes, who don’t really need them, want to wear big clothes,” he said. At 6’9” with a 7’1” wingspan, clothes shopping can often present a challenge. After some brief chitchat regarding my travel preparations, I said, “Let me call you later so I can enjoy this pedicure.”
A few minutes later, he called me back, “Are you ok?”
It is generally easy to gauge my moods, but I was reminded of how he can read me like no one else can – even from across the Atlantic Ocean, “Just a little stressed.”
“Why?” he asked. I replied that I was just trying to wrap up everything at work, run my own errands and get the list of United States items he had requested [e.g. Texas Pete hot sauce, a framed photo collage of me (a belated-Christmas/birthday present per his specific request, which I have felt like a total narcissist creating), Lupe Fiasco and Cassidy’s newly-released CDs, in addition to the long-sleeve thermals].
“Let those be the last of your worries,” he said, “If you can’t get it all, don’t worry about it. Enjoy your pedicure and relax. I’m going to go clean this bathroom (he shares a 4-bedroom house with three of his BBL teammates).”
“Don’t forget to scrub under the toilet seat,” I laughed.
“I’ve got this,” he replied. “I know how you like the bathroom to be. I’ll call you later.”
I spent the rest of this evening at my apartment with Ra (a shoe designer from Orlando) and Mayra (an international manufacturing, research and multimedia supervisor from Ecuador by way of NC – yet another Carolinian up here), who came up to Harlem to enjoy cheap manicures and pedicures, a large bottle of Trader Joe’s wine and take-out while I packed for my trip. At some point during the random girl talk, Mayra said in her gorgeous South American accent, “I am so glad I found good friends in New York. I was so afraid I wouldn’t.”
I thought of my blog and all the young, unmarried women like us, striving to make it in New York City because we couldn’t find the life we wanted anywhere else. Queue cliché quote from my favorite episode of “Sex and the City”:
"It would be childish of us to deny that our lives weren't changing. But for this night, none of us were going anywhere. That's the thing about really good friends and a really great Manhattan."
~ Carrie Bradshaw
New York knows how I like it.
“That’s because all the short dudes, who don’t really need them, want to wear big clothes,” he said. At 6’9” with a 7’1” wingspan, clothes shopping can often present a challenge. After some brief chitchat regarding my travel preparations, I said, “Let me call you later so I can enjoy this pedicure.”
A few minutes later, he called me back, “Are you ok?”
It is generally easy to gauge my moods, but I was reminded of how he can read me like no one else can – even from across the Atlantic Ocean, “Just a little stressed.”
“Why?” he asked. I replied that I was just trying to wrap up everything at work, run my own errands and get the list of United States items he had requested [e.g. Texas Pete hot sauce, a framed photo collage of me (a belated-Christmas/birthday present per his specific request, which I have felt like a total narcissist creating), Lupe Fiasco and Cassidy’s newly-released CDs, in addition to the long-sleeve thermals].
“Let those be the last of your worries,” he said, “If you can’t get it all, don’t worry about it. Enjoy your pedicure and relax. I’m going to go clean this bathroom (he shares a 4-bedroom house with three of his BBL teammates).”
“Don’t forget to scrub under the toilet seat,” I laughed.
“I’ve got this,” he replied. “I know how you like the bathroom to be. I’ll call you later.”
I spent the rest of this evening at my apartment with Ra (a shoe designer from Orlando) and Mayra (an international manufacturing, research and multimedia supervisor from Ecuador by way of NC – yet another Carolinian up here), who came up to Harlem to enjoy cheap manicures and pedicures, a large bottle of Trader Joe’s wine and take-out while I packed for my trip. At some point during the random girl talk, Mayra said in her gorgeous South American accent, “I am so glad I found good friends in New York. I was so afraid I wouldn’t.”
I thought of my blog and all the young, unmarried women like us, striving to make it in New York City because we couldn’t find the life we wanted anywhere else. Queue cliché quote from my favorite episode of “Sex and the City”:
"It would be childish of us to deny that our lives weren't changing. But for this night, none of us were going anywhere. That's the thing about really good friends and a really great Manhattan."
~ Carrie Bradshaw
New York knows how I like it.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Quote of Whenever - Side Order of Life
"You know my advice to you has never been terribly maternal so I'm not going to start now. But I just want to say, make opportunity for yourself. Don't jump on someone else's and go along for the ride because then you'll always be in the passenger's seat. And you, my dear, need to drive."
- Jenny's Mom in "Side Order of Life," the First Loves episode (aired Sun, 9/26).
Her mother's advice is exactly what Terrence and I chose for ourselves and for each other a little over a year ago. Funny how you can realize your own moments through someone else's ... even if it's just primetime TV. That generally explains the success of shows like "Sex and the City," "Friends," and most of the programming on Lifetime.
Terrence and I are not first loves, but in our current lives, I think T and I have found a way to have our cake and eat it, too.
Not a quote of the day, week or month. Just of whenever. Until the next quote that moves me.
- Jenny's Mom in "Side Order of Life," the First Loves episode (aired Sun, 9/26).
Her mother's advice is exactly what Terrence and I chose for ourselves and for each other a little over a year ago. Funny how you can realize your own moments through someone else's ... even if it's just primetime TV. That generally explains the success of shows like "Sex and the City," "Friends," and most of the programming on Lifetime.
Terrence and I are not first loves, but in our current lives, I think T and I have found a way to have our cake and eat it, too.
Not a quote of the day, week or month. Just of whenever. Until the next quote that moves me.
Friday, August 03, 2007
One Year At A Time
This is it. One year has passed for me in New York. It's a meaningful day for me in two very contrasting ways. I go on in rememberence and with some regret, but always in anticipation and with hope of better tomorrows. The important thing is that I go on. The personal triumph is that I go on in New York City.
In Memoriam of Rickey
Remember me on quiet days
When raindrops whisper on your pane,
But in your memories have not grief
Let just the joy we knew remain.
Remember me when evening stars
Look down on you with steadfast eyes;
And when your thoughts do turn to me,
Know that I would not have you cry;
But live for me and laugh for me -
When you are happy, so am I.
Remember in a joke we shared;
Remember me when spring walks by;
Think of me when you are glad
And while you live, I shall not die.
By Sibling Lyn Bryant
TCF Bayton, Texas
In Memoriam of Rickey
Remember me on quiet days
When raindrops whisper on your pane,
But in your memories have not grief
Let just the joy we knew remain.
Remember me when evening stars
Look down on you with steadfast eyes;
And when your thoughts do turn to me,
Know that I would not have you cry;
But live for me and laugh for me -
When you are happy, so am I.
Remember in a joke we shared;
Remember me when spring walks by;
Think of me when you are glad
And while you live, I shall not die.
By Sibling Lyn Bryant
TCF Bayton, Texas
Thursday, June 07, 2007
June 7, 1976 - August 3, 2003
There are two dates that strike a nerve with me every year: June 7 is the day Rickey was born; August 3 is the day he died.
Rickey and I had a conversation sometime in 2001 or 2002, where we mused over the fact that not only do you pass your birthday every year, but every year you also pass your deathday. It wasn't a groundbreaking revelation, of course. And though I have wondered about it - like I am sure everyone has - I'm not generally one of morbid nature, where I regularly mull over what date I will die or what day of the week it will be. Rickey and I just didn't realize - as if you ever could - back when we had that conversation regarding the earnest curiosity and wonder of the one inevitability faced by all, that his death year would be so soon.
It was 2003, and it was a Sunday.
Life without Rickey has been what I had realized that it would eventually be. On some level, I realized it that day in August when I learned he was gone. That day and over the subsequent weeks and months, I could not mentally grasp the idea of not being able to see him, touch him or talk to him ever again. But I also could not comprehend a world where months and years would go by in which he did not exist, and I would be in that world, and I would be ok.
I would eventually be ok, and that is what pissed me off so much after he died. I would imagine a time when I hadn't seen him or talked to him in years. I knew a time would come when I would be able to remember him without crying. And I hated knowing that this would become my world. And as I had imagined it back then, it is the world I live in now. I have not seen him or talked to him in years. And though I have accepted this in order to exist sanely in this new world, it still doesn't feel natural to live a life in which he has no fundamental influence.
The most common parts of my life were suddenly unfamiliar, even from just brushing my teeth or my hair to simply driving down the street. Everything seemed magnified, more deliberate, and required more effort as if immense pain hones all of your senses and blurs the big picture at the same time ... because I distinctly remember patches of moments from those weeks immediately following his death, but my general recollection of those weeks overall is hazy ... and dark. Like I remember opening my eyes once - a few days after the funeral - not knowing how long I had been asleep, and seeing the evening shadows cast across my room. Then, it seems like only moments later that my mother was coming in to ask if I wanted to eat a little breakfast.
Maybe I will live to be a very old woman in this world without Rickey, and I hate the idea of his life becoming more distant. Decades may pass in which I will have existed in this unnatural place, where every time something new or exciting happens, I will have that instantaneous urge to tell Rickey about it before I realize I can't. That's the part that makes me simultaneously appreciate and loathe being in this place where I knew I would eventually be - where I am actually ok and Rickey is a memory.
The strength eventually came to get out of bed every morning and put one foot in front of the other - without my mother's sympathetic embrace. And I learned to accept that the darkness would linger. And time began to help me remember that I love this life despite the circumstances. I would eventually know that there were still good times to be had, and I truly believe that as long as I live, so does he.
Today Rickey would have been 31. And I want to write about what life was like with Rickey.
When I spoke on behalf of Rickey at the Memorial Tree Planting Ceremony for students at our university who had passed away during that academic year, I had wished that I had some words of wisdom to vindicate the meaning of life and to soften the tragic blow of an untimely death such as his. But at that time in my life as a recent college graduate entering a "real world" that suddenly felt like a fifth dimension, I was still trying to simply understand that if I dialed his cell, he was not going to answer it.
Instead I decided that day to share some of my favorite memories, and I balled all the way through it. I could not look at any spot on that campus and not see a memory of Rickey. Some days it was comforting and other days, it could be quite maddening. As college sweethearts, we were probably among the goofiest of couples, with a lot of characteristics that might seem unlikely of a college basketball player and a sorority chapter president. Common acquaintances might have often been surprised to discover that we were both big dorks. Needless to say, there are a lot of silly memories from which I could chose.
Next to a tree in front of Brown Cafeteria is where Rickey was chasing me and I tripped over my own two feet and twisted my ankle; we had only known each other for a few days, and I had been teasing him in a botched attempt to be sexy and flirty. And if you walk about midway up the stairs from Brown Cafeteria to Buchanan Hall, Rickey and I once sat there and looked for four-leaf clovers. Under the Alumni Tower, there is a little square plaque in the bricks, and we would race to see who could step on it first. When it snowed, a few accomplices once joined us in stealing lunch trays from Dodson Cafeteria and went sledding on the hill behind Helder Hall. There was a huge snowball fight that same night in the lobby of Leatherwood Hall, which is just adjacent to that hill.
Our first kiss was also in Leatherwood. When I kissed him the first time, he leaned his head back with his eyes closed and a little grin on his face. He took a deep breath and paused. Then, he looked back down at me and said, "Kiss me again." After having chased me for seven months, he acted as if that one little kiss was the ultimate grand prize. And it was kind of romantic even though we were hiding in the first floor unisex bathroom (in the main lobby) from the twins, Jonas and Jarvis. They were his college basketball teammates, who later transferred to Georgia, and were well-known throughout campus for their pranks. The twins and other friends were involved in whatever silly cat-and-mouse-ish diversion we'd come up with that day, and when we finally came out of hiding, the twins kept asking Rickey why he had such a goofy look on his face.
Cullowhee is in the middle of no where so we had to be creative in entertaining ourselves. We had water gun fights. We played pranks. The men’s basketball team once got in trouble for playing hide-n-go-seek in the basement of Hunter Library during study hall. Another time, some of his teammates caught us playing follow-the-leader around Reid Gym. After being witness to this game, they never let Rickey live it down. However, one of the things that his teammates never knew was that he once let me apply a complete line of cosmetics to his face. After one look in the mirror, he demanded that I immediately take it off.
We took a chessboard on every road trip, whether it was to the waterfalls just beyond Cashiers (NC) or to the beach at Tybee Island (SC). We had our own rule for playing Scrabble. The rule was that you couldn’t make real words, but the word had to sound like it was real. We had a dictionary handy just to make sure that certain words we came up with didn’t actually exist. One time I created the word “W-A-R-P-T-H” and Rickey disqualified it because he said it was just Captain Kirk with a lisp.
We sat on the bricks outside of Dodson Cafeteria. We ate our lunches on the balcony of the University Center. We once ran out of gasoline in front of Scott Hall. We took long walks and sat on many of the benches sprinkled throughout the grounds, and there are so many memories all over that university that sometimes the random conversations we once had sort of echoed in my mind from different corners of campus.
Our favorite movie was "Stir of Echoes" because we liked to laugh at the part where Kevin Bacon tells his wife that the water is softening up the dirt. We used to rewind that part over and over. If one watches that movie and has the same corny sense of humor that Rickey and I share, then it is apparent why we think it is so funny.
In front of friends and even acquaintances, we would randomly act as if we could communicate with each other using this high-pitched alien language from the movie "Galaxy Quest." We would try to finish each other’s sentences in random ways that didn’t make any sense at all, and we loved to purposely use erratic vocabulary completely out of context or just plain wrong. For example, he once referred to a tasty hamburger as being so comatosed.
Rickey’s mom was always telling us how crazy we were, but there aren’t only memories that just make me laugh. I remember sitting on the hood of my car overlooking the view of campus from the Cullowhee Airport and talking for hours. He was one of very few people who would listen to me talk for lengthy periods about astronomy. We debated political and social topics. We talked about our families. We talked about our dreams. We talked about life.
Rickey and I dated for over three years, but we fought a losing battle to the long distance (after he left school) and an addiction to prescription pain medication that started after a basketball injury in his senior year and would ultimately take his life. We had a trying fourth year in which we struggled to salvage our relationship, and my biggest regret is that we spent a majority of that last year arguing and saying things to each other that we didn’t really mean. I know that we never meant any of the things we said because we always called each other back within a day - or even an hour - to apologize.
There are certain people that you love in such a way that you feel like you can say certain things to them – no matter how hurtful – but you would not tolerate it coming from anyone else. I guess that is why no matter how hard things got, we wouldn’t let our bridges burn. In some ways, you feel like you can say anything without doing permanent damage, which you never realize is more wrong than when you can no longer say you're sorry.
However, during the months following Rickey's death, I began to see that the true heartbreak of those arguments is not so much that we argued, but that I realize now that he was right over half the time. I was just so selfish with this tunnel-vision ambition that made me too self-absorbed to notice. I was also naïve about the frailty of life and even though I thought I knew a lot, I did not truly understand the old cliché of not appreciating something until it is gone. Despite all of this, I also realize that I am so lucky because I had some great years with Rickey.
Rickey loved me more in four years than some people ever love anyone in a lifetime, and it seemed like everyone knew it because he threw it out in the open and hid it from no one. During the seven months it took him to get me to go out with him, he used so many random, public tactics to get my attention - these tactics often involved the recruitment and participation of his teammates, friends or even fellow students he barely knew. He once picked flowers off of the university lawn and dropped to his knees at my feet in front of a packed student quad. I don't know if he felt no shame in rejection or if he was just so sure he would eventually get me. After awhile, I knew that he would, too ... and, I don't know if this will make any sense, but he had made the chase so flattering that the "foreplay" of a relationship was almost too much fun to give in to being "caught."
One of the last two memories that I wanted to share at the Memorial Tree Planting Ceremony was right around the time that we had first met. I was walking past Simply T’s on my way to class, and Rickey was walking from Brown Cafeteria. He had on some baggy jeans and a dark green sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his wave cap. He walked along, bobbing his head to the beat of the music in his headphones, and in passing, we stopped momentarily and I asked him what he was listening to. I had expected him to mention someone like Pastor Troy or his favorite rapper, Tupac, but when he pulled the headphone away from his left ear, I heard the boys of N’Sync singing “Bye, bye, bye …”
Rickey looked at people the way he looked at music, with an open-mind, acceptance and appreciation.
The other memory was when he wanted to try my roommate’s cereal. He had never had Waffle Crisps before, so he poured himself a bowl, added the milk and took a spoonful. He immediately got this wide-eyed, astonished look on his face and exclaimed, “I have been looking for a cereal like this my whole life!”
Rickey enjoyed the little things even more than the big things, from the taste of cereal to lying in the grass by the creek or creating special ways to say that he cared. I know, because not only did he notice when the little things happened, which is a knack that few people have, but he also went out of his way to do the little things for those he loved.
After sharing these memories at the Memorial Tree Planting Ceremony in 2004, Rickey's father thanked me for introducing him to a side of his son that he had never known. Rickey took with him a side of me that others may never know, but I suppose the only thing that matters for us in the end is that we once existed.
Rickey and I had a conversation sometime in 2001 or 2002, where we mused over the fact that not only do you pass your birthday every year, but every year you also pass your deathday. It wasn't a groundbreaking revelation, of course. And though I have wondered about it - like I am sure everyone has - I'm not generally one of morbid nature, where I regularly mull over what date I will die or what day of the week it will be. Rickey and I just didn't realize - as if you ever could - back when we had that conversation regarding the earnest curiosity and wonder of the one inevitability faced by all, that his death year would be so soon.
It was 2003, and it was a Sunday.
Life without Rickey has been what I had realized that it would eventually be. On some level, I realized it that day in August when I learned he was gone. That day and over the subsequent weeks and months, I could not mentally grasp the idea of not being able to see him, touch him or talk to him ever again. But I also could not comprehend a world where months and years would go by in which he did not exist, and I would be in that world, and I would be ok.
I would eventually be ok, and that is what pissed me off so much after he died. I would imagine a time when I hadn't seen him or talked to him in years. I knew a time would come when I would be able to remember him without crying. And I hated knowing that this would become my world. And as I had imagined it back then, it is the world I live in now. I have not seen him or talked to him in years. And though I have accepted this in order to exist sanely in this new world, it still doesn't feel natural to live a life in which he has no fundamental influence.
The most common parts of my life were suddenly unfamiliar, even from just brushing my teeth or my hair to simply driving down the street. Everything seemed magnified, more deliberate, and required more effort as if immense pain hones all of your senses and blurs the big picture at the same time ... because I distinctly remember patches of moments from those weeks immediately following his death, but my general recollection of those weeks overall is hazy ... and dark. Like I remember opening my eyes once - a few days after the funeral - not knowing how long I had been asleep, and seeing the evening shadows cast across my room. Then, it seems like only moments later that my mother was coming in to ask if I wanted to eat a little breakfast.
Maybe I will live to be a very old woman in this world without Rickey, and I hate the idea of his life becoming more distant. Decades may pass in which I will have existed in this unnatural place, where every time something new or exciting happens, I will have that instantaneous urge to tell Rickey about it before I realize I can't. That's the part that makes me simultaneously appreciate and loathe being in this place where I knew I would eventually be - where I am actually ok and Rickey is a memory.
The strength eventually came to get out of bed every morning and put one foot in front of the other - without my mother's sympathetic embrace. And I learned to accept that the darkness would linger. And time began to help me remember that I love this life despite the circumstances. I would eventually know that there were still good times to be had, and I truly believe that as long as I live, so does he.
Today Rickey would have been 31. And I want to write about what life was like with Rickey.
When I spoke on behalf of Rickey at the Memorial Tree Planting Ceremony for students at our university who had passed away during that academic year, I had wished that I had some words of wisdom to vindicate the meaning of life and to soften the tragic blow of an untimely death such as his. But at that time in my life as a recent college graduate entering a "real world" that suddenly felt like a fifth dimension, I was still trying to simply understand that if I dialed his cell, he was not going to answer it.
Instead I decided that day to share some of my favorite memories, and I balled all the way through it. I could not look at any spot on that campus and not see a memory of Rickey. Some days it was comforting and other days, it could be quite maddening. As college sweethearts, we were probably among the goofiest of couples, with a lot of characteristics that might seem unlikely of a college basketball player and a sorority chapter president. Common acquaintances might have often been surprised to discover that we were both big dorks. Needless to say, there are a lot of silly memories from which I could chose.
Next to a tree in front of Brown Cafeteria is where Rickey was chasing me and I tripped over my own two feet and twisted my ankle; we had only known each other for a few days, and I had been teasing him in a botched attempt to be sexy and flirty. And if you walk about midway up the stairs from Brown Cafeteria to Buchanan Hall, Rickey and I once sat there and looked for four-leaf clovers. Under the Alumni Tower, there is a little square plaque in the bricks, and we would race to see who could step on it first. When it snowed, a few accomplices once joined us in stealing lunch trays from Dodson Cafeteria and went sledding on the hill behind Helder Hall. There was a huge snowball fight that same night in the lobby of Leatherwood Hall, which is just adjacent to that hill.
Our first kiss was also in Leatherwood. When I kissed him the first time, he leaned his head back with his eyes closed and a little grin on his face. He took a deep breath and paused. Then, he looked back down at me and said, "Kiss me again." After having chased me for seven months, he acted as if that one little kiss was the ultimate grand prize. And it was kind of romantic even though we were hiding in the first floor unisex bathroom (in the main lobby) from the twins, Jonas and Jarvis. They were his college basketball teammates, who later transferred to Georgia, and were well-known throughout campus for their pranks. The twins and other friends were involved in whatever silly cat-and-mouse-ish diversion we'd come up with that day, and when we finally came out of hiding, the twins kept asking Rickey why he had such a goofy look on his face.
Cullowhee is in the middle of no where so we had to be creative in entertaining ourselves. We had water gun fights. We played pranks. The men’s basketball team once got in trouble for playing hide-n-go-seek in the basement of Hunter Library during study hall. Another time, some of his teammates caught us playing follow-the-leader around Reid Gym. After being witness to this game, they never let Rickey live it down. However, one of the things that his teammates never knew was that he once let me apply a complete line of cosmetics to his face. After one look in the mirror, he demanded that I immediately take it off.
We took a chessboard on every road trip, whether it was to the waterfalls just beyond Cashiers (NC) or to the beach at Tybee Island (SC). We had our own rule for playing Scrabble. The rule was that you couldn’t make real words, but the word had to sound like it was real. We had a dictionary handy just to make sure that certain words we came up with didn’t actually exist. One time I created the word “W-A-R-P-T-H” and Rickey disqualified it because he said it was just Captain Kirk with a lisp.
We sat on the bricks outside of Dodson Cafeteria. We ate our lunches on the balcony of the University Center. We once ran out of gasoline in front of Scott Hall. We took long walks and sat on many of the benches sprinkled throughout the grounds, and there are so many memories all over that university that sometimes the random conversations we once had sort of echoed in my mind from different corners of campus.
Our favorite movie was "Stir of Echoes" because we liked to laugh at the part where Kevin Bacon tells his wife that the water is softening up the dirt. We used to rewind that part over and over. If one watches that movie and has the same corny sense of humor that Rickey and I share, then it is apparent why we think it is so funny.
In front of friends and even acquaintances, we would randomly act as if we could communicate with each other using this high-pitched alien language from the movie "Galaxy Quest." We would try to finish each other’s sentences in random ways that didn’t make any sense at all, and we loved to purposely use erratic vocabulary completely out of context or just plain wrong. For example, he once referred to a tasty hamburger as being so comatosed.
Rickey’s mom was always telling us how crazy we were, but there aren’t only memories that just make me laugh. I remember sitting on the hood of my car overlooking the view of campus from the Cullowhee Airport and talking for hours. He was one of very few people who would listen to me talk for lengthy periods about astronomy. We debated political and social topics. We talked about our families. We talked about our dreams. We talked about life.
Rickey and I dated for over three years, but we fought a losing battle to the long distance (after he left school) and an addiction to prescription pain medication that started after a basketball injury in his senior year and would ultimately take his life. We had a trying fourth year in which we struggled to salvage our relationship, and my biggest regret is that we spent a majority of that last year arguing and saying things to each other that we didn’t really mean. I know that we never meant any of the things we said because we always called each other back within a day - or even an hour - to apologize.
There are certain people that you love in such a way that you feel like you can say certain things to them – no matter how hurtful – but you would not tolerate it coming from anyone else. I guess that is why no matter how hard things got, we wouldn’t let our bridges burn. In some ways, you feel like you can say anything without doing permanent damage, which you never realize is more wrong than when you can no longer say you're sorry.
However, during the months following Rickey's death, I began to see that the true heartbreak of those arguments is not so much that we argued, but that I realize now that he was right over half the time. I was just so selfish with this tunnel-vision ambition that made me too self-absorbed to notice. I was also naïve about the frailty of life and even though I thought I knew a lot, I did not truly understand the old cliché of not appreciating something until it is gone. Despite all of this, I also realize that I am so lucky because I had some great years with Rickey.
Rickey loved me more in four years than some people ever love anyone in a lifetime, and it seemed like everyone knew it because he threw it out in the open and hid it from no one. During the seven months it took him to get me to go out with him, he used so many random, public tactics to get my attention - these tactics often involved the recruitment and participation of his teammates, friends or even fellow students he barely knew. He once picked flowers off of the university lawn and dropped to his knees at my feet in front of a packed student quad. I don't know if he felt no shame in rejection or if he was just so sure he would eventually get me. After awhile, I knew that he would, too ... and, I don't know if this will make any sense, but he had made the chase so flattering that the "foreplay" of a relationship was almost too much fun to give in to being "caught."
One of the last two memories that I wanted to share at the Memorial Tree Planting Ceremony was right around the time that we had first met. I was walking past Simply T’s on my way to class, and Rickey was walking from Brown Cafeteria. He had on some baggy jeans and a dark green sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his wave cap. He walked along, bobbing his head to the beat of the music in his headphones, and in passing, we stopped momentarily and I asked him what he was listening to. I had expected him to mention someone like Pastor Troy or his favorite rapper, Tupac, but when he pulled the headphone away from his left ear, I heard the boys of N’Sync singing “Bye, bye, bye …”
Rickey looked at people the way he looked at music, with an open-mind, acceptance and appreciation.
The other memory was when he wanted to try my roommate’s cereal. He had never had Waffle Crisps before, so he poured himself a bowl, added the milk and took a spoonful. He immediately got this wide-eyed, astonished look on his face and exclaimed, “I have been looking for a cereal like this my whole life!”
Rickey enjoyed the little things even more than the big things, from the taste of cereal to lying in the grass by the creek or creating special ways to say that he cared. I know, because not only did he notice when the little things happened, which is a knack that few people have, but he also went out of his way to do the little things for those he loved.
After sharing these memories at the Memorial Tree Planting Ceremony in 2004, Rickey's father thanked me for introducing him to a side of his son that he had never known. Rickey took with him a side of me that others may never know, but I suppose the only thing that matters for us in the end is that we once existed.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Phone Photo Ops - Date Night
So I finally fell down some steps in the city - a day after my coworker Victoria fell up some stairs in Bryant Park during her lunch break. My fall looked so bad that Terrence spun around and came jogging back to me with a look of horror on his face. He didn't even laugh. Well, we laughed later as he recalled how he had heard me slipping as I tried to break my fall, then had turned just in time to see me slide down the steps on my knees holding my ice cream in the air like a drunk determined not to spill a glass of whiskey. I was going to fall, but - damnit - I was not going to drop my ice cream in Central Park!
So enough about that ...
After I got off work yesterday, Terrence was waiting for me on the steps of the New York Public Library, and I snuck a quick camera phone photo as I approached. I call it "My Boyfriend on Some Steps."
Walking along Fifth Avenue, I was able to coax him into posing for the below photograph and asked a passerby to take a picture of us with my camera phone.
As we viewed the digital picture, I said, "Awww ... look we're in love." I wasn't looking at him when I said it, but I'm pretty sure he rolled his eyes.
I noticed an elderly man (seated below) on Fifth Avenue at the corner of Central Park, who had just had his portrait drawn by a street artist. As we passed by, there was something about the look on his face as he watched the artist sign the completed drawing. He just looked so happy and proud as he waited to receive his portrait. I found myself hoping that he wasn't lonely and that he had someone to share it with. I don't know why I notice things like that or why they stay with me that way, but they do. And, of course, I thought to turn around and take a quick camera phone photo op. Below the artist is holding the drawing and seemed to be looking for a frame as the elderly man waits patiently.
Central Park South (on the east side) - In the distance is the bench on which we sat while I recovered from my fall. Terrence had to help me hobble to another bench after we realized we were sitting near a babbling homeless man with his pants - and his underwear - pulled down below his hips.
Dinner last night at Mobay Uptown in Harlem before Terrence flew to Ohio today to meet Kevin for this year's Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament in Zanesville.
So enough about that ...
After I got off work yesterday, Terrence was waiting for me on the steps of the New York Public Library, and I snuck a quick camera phone photo as I approached. I call it "My Boyfriend on Some Steps."
Walking along Fifth Avenue, I was able to coax him into posing for the below photograph and asked a passerby to take a picture of us with my camera phone.
As we viewed the digital picture, I said, "Awww ... look we're in love." I wasn't looking at him when I said it, but I'm pretty sure he rolled his eyes.
I noticed an elderly man (seated below) on Fifth Avenue at the corner of Central Park, who had just had his portrait drawn by a street artist. As we passed by, there was something about the look on his face as he watched the artist sign the completed drawing. He just looked so happy and proud as he waited to receive his portrait. I found myself hoping that he wasn't lonely and that he had someone to share it with. I don't know why I notice things like that or why they stay with me that way, but they do. And, of course, I thought to turn around and take a quick camera phone photo op. Below the artist is holding the drawing and seemed to be looking for a frame as the elderly man waits patiently.
Central Park South (on the east side) - In the distance is the bench on which we sat while I recovered from my fall. Terrence had to help me hobble to another bench after we realized we were sitting near a babbling homeless man with his pants - and his underwear - pulled down below his hips.
Dinner last night at Mobay Uptown in Harlem before Terrence flew to Ohio today to meet Kevin for this year's Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament in Zanesville.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Creating Coincidences
We can find profound coincidences in strange places (even more so if we're looking for them). And events in our lives that coincide with fictional television stories are like daily horoscopes. Everyone can relate to them because they're generic enough to provide a connection. Ironically tonight's episode of "Desperate Housewives" asked questions that have been recently prompted in my own life.
"From the moment we wake up in the morning till our head hits the pillow at night, our lives are filled with questions. Most are easily answered and soon forgotten. But some questions are much harder to ask because we're so afraid of the answer: Will I be around to watch my children grow up? Am I making a mistake by marrying this man? Could he ever truly love me? And what happens when we ask ourselves the hard question and get the answer we've been hoping for? Well, that's when happiness begins."
- Mary Alice's voice from wherever she's watching her friend's lives on Wisteria Lane
I made the choice to move to New York and let myself fall deeply in love with the city in a matter of months. What was once a loose plan to live here for a few years is shifting into a strong desire to remain here for the rest of my life. There are questions that follow this shift and that I am not ready to ask, but I have begun to feel them looming.
"From the moment we wake up in the morning till our head hits the pillow at night, our lives are filled with questions. Most are easily answered and soon forgotten. But some questions are much harder to ask because we're so afraid of the answer: Will I be around to watch my children grow up? Am I making a mistake by marrying this man? Could he ever truly love me? And what happens when we ask ourselves the hard question and get the answer we've been hoping for? Well, that's when happiness begins."
- Mary Alice's voice from wherever she's watching her friend's lives on Wisteria Lane
I made the choice to move to New York and let myself fall deeply in love with the city in a matter of months. What was once a loose plan to live here for a few years is shifting into a strong desire to remain here for the rest of my life. There are questions that follow this shift and that I am not ready to ask, but I have begun to feel them looming.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Odd One Out
Last night I went to a single's party at Stitch, a bar in the Fashion District, to celebrate Valentine's Day. I'm assuming that I was probably the only person in a relationship in the bar, but I'll never know because I spent the evening drinking Apple Martinis and chatting with Eileen and about two dozen of her female coworkers, friends and friends-of-friends.
Eileen had forwarded me the following evite last week, and she informed me yesterday that my Valentine's evening would not be best spent in the spinning class at my gym.
Host: Some good looking single people
Location: Stitch Bar & Lounge, 247 W 37th Street (b/w 7th & 8th Ave)
When : Wednesday, February 14, 6:00pm
Bring on the single and the booze. t is Valentine's Day and Wednesday so what better to do then gather with like minded singles post-work to lift up some drinks and get your party on. Pass on to other single people you know and maybe you might just get lucky on Vday. Thursday mornings are great for a walk of shame.
So I ditched the gym and engaged in bar talk and empty calories for a few hours, which is how I would come to meet Iris, Renee and Miriam. A few guys tried to loop themselves into our conversation from time to time, but for most of the evening Eileen, two other girls and I were engrossed in absolutely hilarious banter covering a wide range of topics: past lives before New York City (which included North Carolina, California and Ireland), ex-boyfriends, myspace, a weekend spent in Florida with an heir to some Louisiana fortune, fashion design (Eileen's line of work), advertising (my line of work) and Brazilian bikini waxing.
Before the night was really over, three of us headed out of Stitch and walked down to Penn Station, where we had a laugh at my tipsy nonrecognition of the Empire State Building because - and I quote myself, "it looked too skinny." From Penn Station, we went our separate ways - Harlem, Hoboken and Brooklyn.
It wasn't the most romantic Valentine's Day ever. I mean, I'm in a long-distance relationship, and I was home in time to catch what I missed on LOST (thanks to DVR technology), do a little blogging and be in bed by midnight. But it was my first Valentine's Day in New York. The great thing about falling more and more in love with Manhattan is that there is no walk of shame the morning after.
Eileen had forwarded me the following evite last week, and she informed me yesterday that my Valentine's evening would not be best spent in the spinning class at my gym.
Host: Some good looking single people
Location: Stitch Bar & Lounge, 247 W 37th Street (b/w 7th & 8th Ave)
When : Wednesday, February 14, 6:00pm
Bring on the single and the booze. t is Valentine's Day and Wednesday so what better to do then gather with like minded singles post-work to lift up some drinks and get your party on. Pass on to other single people you know and maybe you might just get lucky on Vday. Thursday mornings are great for a walk of shame.
So I ditched the gym and engaged in bar talk and empty calories for a few hours, which is how I would come to meet Iris, Renee and Miriam. A few guys tried to loop themselves into our conversation from time to time, but for most of the evening Eileen, two other girls and I were engrossed in absolutely hilarious banter covering a wide range of topics: past lives before New York City (which included North Carolina, California and Ireland), ex-boyfriends, myspace, a weekend spent in Florida with an heir to some Louisiana fortune, fashion design (Eileen's line of work), advertising (my line of work) and Brazilian bikini waxing.
Before the night was really over, three of us headed out of Stitch and walked down to Penn Station, where we had a laugh at my tipsy nonrecognition of the Empire State Building because - and I quote myself, "it looked too skinny." From Penn Station, we went our separate ways - Harlem, Hoboken and Brooklyn.
It wasn't the most romantic Valentine's Day ever. I mean, I'm in a long-distance relationship, and I was home in time to catch what I missed on LOST (thanks to DVR technology), do a little blogging and be in bed by midnight. But it was my first Valentine's Day in New York. The great thing about falling more and more in love with Manhattan is that there is no walk of shame the morning after.
The Love Drug
All the chronic in the world couldn't even mess with you
You are the ultimate high ...
... Take my money,
My house and my cars
For one hit of you
You can have it all, baby
Cause makin' love
Every time we do
Girl, it's worse than drugs
Cause I'm an addict over you
- Jodeci, "Feenin"
The 1990's R&B group may have been stumbling across scientific grounds defining the feelings of love when they released their hit "Feenin" in 1993. AM New York reprinted an article from The Washington Post in today's paper that was some interesting food for thought in the post-Valentine's Day hangover.
"Feelings of new love are only temporary" from
An Affair of the Head
They Say Love Is All About Brain Chemistry. Will You Be Dopamine?
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
It's all about dopamine, baby, this One Great True Love, this passionate thing we'd burn down the house and blow up the car and drive from Houston to Orlando just to taste on the tip of the tongue.
You crave it because your brain tells you to. Because if a wet kiss on the suprasternal notch -- while, say, your lover has you pinned against a wall in the corner of a dance club -- doesn't fire up the ventral tegmentum in the Motel 6 of your mind, well, he's not going to send you roses tomorrow.
Dopamine.
God's little neurotransmitter. Better known by its street name, romantic love.
Also, norepinephrine. Street name, infatuation.
These chemicals are natural stimulants. You fall in love, a growing amount of research shows, and these chemicals and their cousins start pole-dancing around the neurons of your brain, hopping around the limbic system, setting off craving, obsessive thoughts, focused attention, the desire to commit possibly immoral acts with your beloved while at a stoplight in the 2100 block of K Street during lunch hour, and so on.
"Love is a drug," says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love." "The ventral tegmental area is a clump of cells that make dopamine, a natural stimulant, and sends it out to many brain regions" when one is in love. "It's the same region affected when you feel the rush of cocaine."
Passion! Sex! Narcotics!
Why do we suspect this isn't going to end well?
Because these things are hard-wired not to last, all of them. Short shelf lives. The passion you fulfill is the passion you kill. The most wonderful, soaring feeling known to all mankind . . . amounts to no more than a narcotic high, a temporal state of mania.
"Being in love, having a crush on someone is wonderful . . . but our bodies can't be in that state all the time," says Pamela C. Regan, a professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and author of "Mind Games: A Primer on Love, Sex and Marriage." "Your body would fizzle out. As a species, we'd die."
Some of these love chemicals in the brain, scientists measure by the picogram, which is a trillionth of a gram.
How fragile, this thing called love.
Just about all writing about love stinks, maybe because so much of it begins with something like "O!" or maybe because people are (a) in love when they write it, which makes for a lot of senseless mooning the rest of us couldn't care less about; or (b) they have just been Kicked to the Curb of Romance, in which case they would rather be pinned to an insect board and labeled than live another minute on this godawful Planet of Hate.
Sigh.
Stendhal was onto something in the 19th century when he observed that "The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears," because passionate love is also partly about terror. Bill Shakespeare had it down cold, when he had Friar Laurence warn young Romeo of the perils of passion: "These violent delights have violent ends."
And did Romeo listen?
Shucks, no! Wise counsel, patience, foresight, prune juice -- who wants that? Is there one among us who, at least once in this life, does not want to throw everything out the door and sprint to the Disco Ball of the Brain, where there are big white piles of dopamine, where a hot and sweaty Barry White is always on stage, thumping out "You're My First! My Last! My Everything!" And there's that new girl in class! Scantily clad! She's on the floor, beckoning you! Yes, Bubba, you! Out you go, and she's saying your name and her hand slips to the small of your back, and this is going to last FOREVER AND EVER!
Regan, the California researcher, notes that such cases are rare, and may have more to do with existing mental issues than simple unrequited love. Still, she says, passion is destined to end, whether mellowing into long-term love or blowing up on the freeway at 4 a.m. Given this, she wonders if "we do our self a disservice by glorifying passionate love so much."
"The search for eternal passion is very misguided," she says. "It's the search for the perfect high that keeps people discarding relationships right and left . You don't feel the same way you did; people want to break up, instead of seeing it as normal."
And so, alas. Even neurologists, to go with Shakespeare's priest, now tell us passion is true love's fool's gold, a flamboyant dead end on the evolutionary chain of primate happiness.
The only problem with this insight is that no one pays it any mind. Doomed passion may not make us right, and it may not even make us very happy.
It only makes us human. It only makes us who we are.
THE WASHINGTON POST, FEBRUARY 13, 2007
Final thoughts from Katie: In summation, love really is dope.
You are the ultimate high ...
... Take my money,
My house and my cars
For one hit of you
You can have it all, baby
Cause makin' love
Every time we do
Girl, it's worse than drugs
Cause I'm an addict over you
- Jodeci, "Feenin"
The 1990's R&B group may have been stumbling across scientific grounds defining the feelings of love when they released their hit "Feenin" in 1993. AM New York reprinted an article from The Washington Post in today's paper that was some interesting food for thought in the post-Valentine's Day hangover.
"Feelings of new love are only temporary" from
An Affair of the Head
They Say Love Is All About Brain Chemistry. Will You Be Dopamine?
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
It's all about dopamine, baby, this One Great True Love, this passionate thing we'd burn down the house and blow up the car and drive from Houston to Orlando just to taste on the tip of the tongue.
You crave it because your brain tells you to. Because if a wet kiss on the suprasternal notch -- while, say, your lover has you pinned against a wall in the corner of a dance club -- doesn't fire up the ventral tegmentum in the Motel 6 of your mind, well, he's not going to send you roses tomorrow.
Dopamine.
God's little neurotransmitter. Better known by its street name, romantic love.
Also, norepinephrine. Street name, infatuation.
These chemicals are natural stimulants. You fall in love, a growing amount of research shows, and these chemicals and their cousins start pole-dancing around the neurons of your brain, hopping around the limbic system, setting off craving, obsessive thoughts, focused attention, the desire to commit possibly immoral acts with your beloved while at a stoplight in the 2100 block of K Street during lunch hour, and so on.
"Love is a drug," says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love." "The ventral tegmental area is a clump of cells that make dopamine, a natural stimulant, and sends it out to many brain regions" when one is in love. "It's the same region affected when you feel the rush of cocaine."
Passion! Sex! Narcotics!
Why do we suspect this isn't going to end well?
Because these things are hard-wired not to last, all of them. Short shelf lives. The passion you fulfill is the passion you kill. The most wonderful, soaring feeling known to all mankind . . . amounts to no more than a narcotic high, a temporal state of mania.
"Being in love, having a crush on someone is wonderful . . . but our bodies can't be in that state all the time," says Pamela C. Regan, a professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and author of "Mind Games: A Primer on Love, Sex and Marriage." "Your body would fizzle out. As a species, we'd die."
Some of these love chemicals in the brain, scientists measure by the picogram, which is a trillionth of a gram.
How fragile, this thing called love.
Just about all writing about love stinks, maybe because so much of it begins with something like "O!" or maybe because people are (a) in love when they write it, which makes for a lot of senseless mooning the rest of us couldn't care less about; or (b) they have just been Kicked to the Curb of Romance, in which case they would rather be pinned to an insect board and labeled than live another minute on this godawful Planet of Hate.
Sigh.
Stendhal was onto something in the 19th century when he observed that "The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears," because passionate love is also partly about terror. Bill Shakespeare had it down cold, when he had Friar Laurence warn young Romeo of the perils of passion: "These violent delights have violent ends."
And did Romeo listen?
Shucks, no! Wise counsel, patience, foresight, prune juice -- who wants that? Is there one among us who, at least once in this life, does not want to throw everything out the door and sprint to the Disco Ball of the Brain, where there are big white piles of dopamine, where a hot and sweaty Barry White is always on stage, thumping out "You're My First! My Last! My Everything!" And there's that new girl in class! Scantily clad! She's on the floor, beckoning you! Yes, Bubba, you! Out you go, and she's saying your name and her hand slips to the small of your back, and this is going to last FOREVER AND EVER!
Regan, the California researcher, notes that such cases are rare, and may have more to do with existing mental issues than simple unrequited love. Still, she says, passion is destined to end, whether mellowing into long-term love or blowing up on the freeway at 4 a.m. Given this, she wonders if "we do our self a disservice by glorifying passionate love so much."
"The search for eternal passion is very misguided," she says. "It's the search for the perfect high that keeps people discarding relationships right and left . You don't feel the same way you did; people want to break up, instead of seeing it as normal."
And so, alas. Even neurologists, to go with Shakespeare's priest, now tell us passion is true love's fool's gold, a flamboyant dead end on the evolutionary chain of primate happiness.
The only problem with this insight is that no one pays it any mind. Doomed passion may not make us right, and it may not even make us very happy.
It only makes us human. It only makes us who we are.
THE WASHINGTON POST, FEBRUARY 13, 2007
Final thoughts from Katie: In summation, love really is dope.
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