Progress?

I didn't understand that it would be a physical pain too. A shrinking of the organs or a pressure, piano keys or door bell ringers or a pendulum, against my gut. The feeling of loss that comes across endlessly repeating. I didn't feel this way when my grandfather died, even though his was real death--gone, finished, over. This was only a partial death. Of what I thought could be. Potential.

But then again it is about movement, this loss of mine. Not of the inner organs so much, because that does go away, or lessen, ease up with time. It's about movement of myself, that 91 cm (http://vimeo.com/6913172). My own personal meteorite.

I am terribly afraid to lose it. This sense of loss. How small minded, how limited of me, to fear loss of loss. But if I don't feel loss over what I've lost, then maybe I didn't have it in the first place? It didn't exist? Maybe Nathan, the man I told, quite convincingly, that I love him, didn't exist as I thought. Or maybe I didn't love him. Or maybe those 14 months were an imagined life.

I'm left with a burn on my left inner arm and a cut on my right pointer finger and a feeling that, though I think I'm losing weight, I'm sure I'm gaining it. The feeling that if I control my out, I'll satisfy my in.

Too much thinking, that's what I'm doing. Dear friend Andrew invited me to roller skating. Wonder if that's still a thing.

Movement. . . and thinking about writing again. Moving toward moving again. Through and around and toward something new. Trying not to compare myself to others (ex girlfriends!) and letting go, slowly, of small things (holes, hair, exercise). Trying to write more. Starting now.

What's Moving

These days it's tough getting things moving. Tough thinking about how words fit together and how all those words fitted together formulate a whole vehicle that moves entire essays, works, novels. I am not creating a vehicle as we speak. I'm watching an engine sputter, a window crank rust. I'm not doing much moving.

But Ida is. 100 year old Ida Fasel. Poet Ida. Sent me home three weeks ago with a book of her poems, All Real Living is Meeting. Sent me home two weeks ago with another, The Difficult Inch. She said she would really like to hear what I think of the books.

What I think of the books.

I've decided, in a completely premeditated act of spontaneity, to use a pencil to underline the parts of the poems that get me. Like "runners passing deep in purpose" and "the flesh of grass." But those lines are both from the same poem--Carlo. I'm having trouble reading lately. It's not difficult to read so much as it's difficult to move myself to read. And to write, for that matter.

I'm perfectly capable, have two hands to hold the book, two hands to type the letters, two eyes to read the words, and I can't seem to motivate. Ida, on the other hand, can't stop thinking about working. 100 years old, fell and broke her nose, suffers from heart failure, weak hips and swollen calves, needs constant oxygen supply, and she is always asking when she'll be able to write again. She said once that sometimes she stays up all night writing. I wonder if it's true--that she still does. 100 years old and up all night writing. Or does she perhaps confuse her present self with a former, younger self?

It doesn't entirely seem to matter. She wants to write, but for me that feeling is, sadly, fading.

I want to want to write.

Where does this leave me? Stalled. Busted. Broken down, but looking, jump-start seeking. Bubbling. Refilling.

Not worried. Or, worried, but hopeful. Hopeful and ready.

Preface to a Long Thought

How does my future transportation affect this moment?

On Monday, Nathan and I are embarking on a road trip. A month of van riding and music listening, hiking and the building up and breaking down of my parents' old purple tent, eating trail mix and tuna fish and canned soup and seeing the ocean.

Future transportation. Sitting in the passenger seat. Mostly. Because I love sitting next to Nathan while he does something as simple as driving on the highway. He's just so good at it. One of my mom's friends said this trip will either "make or break" my relationship with Nathan, a comment I've heard more than once, and I wonder what exactly that means. Talitha said today, as she transported me via her white Toyota to my grandma's house, that the trip can't "make" Nathan and my relationship, because the relationship is already sort of made, and furthermore, does surviving this trip with Nathan mean that the relationship can't break after just because we lasted a month sleeping on hard ground together? The answer to that, as unsettling and honest as it is, is of course no.

But yes, this month of transportation could definitely break us.

And there's not much to be said of that. Going on a trip as intense as this could be asking for a break up, but here's the thing: I still went to Israel even though there are constant car bombs, I still went to Spain even though I could have gotten mugged, I still went to New York even though I could have gotten lonely. And there were bombs in Israel, I was robbed in Spain, and I got lonely as hell at times in New York.

So, you go. You go on the trip, take the risk, hope you're a better person because of it. Hope you come out stronger.

I'm so ready to move on, out, around. So ready to travel, I can barely stand it. My heels are itching. And this is the first time I've traveled with anyone. I mean, as an adult, a full human being, this is the first time. And I don't think I could have chosen a better partner for it.

If I Had a Nickle

Back to the bus. Yeah I know I promised big things. We were going to move to a strict diet of walking, longboarding, van-riding, but tonight I bolted to catch the 10. Eastward home. Left the comedy club downtown where Talitha's friends were trying their hand at improvisation, and paid my $2 fare. Yes, Wendy, I paid this time; didn't use my expired pass. Used cash, sat in the fifth row on the left, kept to myself. A man got on around Corona Street and told the driver he didn't have enough money. Brought out a roll of nickles and dropped a few in the cash box. He lingered at the front a moment too long and the driver pushed him back. He sat near the front, and spoke to every single person around him, eyes wide open. "I know you, sister," he said to the women, and "We are brothers," he said to all the men. He said to the young man reading his book, "Brainiac. Hey brainiac, how'd you learn to read?" No one around him made eye contact, but I kind of couldn't help it. He didn't look at me for a minute, but then, once he caught my eyes, he wouldn't let go. We had to stare at each other. He said, "Sister, I know you, and you goina be okay. Just let it happen, sister, don't have to worry about it, trust me, sister, you goina be okay." He kept talking, I got up to exit, and walking down dark 12th Street, I thought, Yeah, crazy man thinks everything's going to be okay. Also, he knows me. He knows. Everything is going to be okay. So yeah, I got my $2 worth. No wobbling on the way home--total confidence.

Long Ride

I've decided to expand the blog. Listen, all of you hardcore fans, we're busting out of the bus world bounds. We can't be held back, we won't be detained by more promises of quarter-hour pickups and rainy day disappointments. We've moved on to bigger and better transports. Here are my latest new modes of transportation:

Foot. Well, feet. I have two, I've been using them. New shoes, moleskin, iPod, warmer weather.

Snowshoes. Cold, beautiful scenery, makes Nathan really happy when I go. Have started to love it independent of him, but I’m not sure that I would ever go alone.

Longboard. Requires a bit more explanation. Am still not officially a Dude Bro, but edging closer, I suppose. Nathan and I found that we both have longboards available to us for free (roommates/landlords), and have been taking advantage of that. Not so much like a skateboard. Longer. Bigger. Bigger wheels, a wider wooden platform that wobbled the first time I put all my weight on it. No--it wobbles every time I lose confidence or go down a hill too fast. It wobbles and I wobble and I have to remind myself to give up on the idea that I won’t fall. The idea that I can control it, myself, everything. I went longboarding with Virginia the other day. Peruvian Virginia: small, wears her thick, short black hair in two small pig tails, speaks with a slight Peruvian accent. She wants to teach me to longboard mostly, I’m told, because she’s been desperate for a longbaord partner. Before last month I would have had no idea what that meant, but I sort of get it now. It’s not a solo sport, it’s something to be shared. She is a magnificent longboarder, albeit at times still the tiniest bit shy of steady. This only makes Virginia more delightful.

Nathan. Transports me in his 1997 Dodge Caravan. Never thought I would love a minivan, but I kind of do. White, dented, battered, slowly falling apart from the ceiling cloth to the electric locks. Here’s the thing: it smells like cinnamon because of this novelty cinnamon-scented broom that’s been in there since Nathan and I started dating. The first time I got in the car, I commented on the smell, and since then I’ve gotten to mostly ignoring it. It’s mixed in with all my other associations now. There’s a story behind the broom—something about his roommate and Christmas, but it doesn’t really matter. Here’s another thing: Nathan never cleans the van. He’s messy. There are piles of trash and dirty clothes from snowshoeing and tools and our longboards and blankets and ski poles and. The van transports me. To being with Nathan. To letting go of the need to gather food wrappers in some sort of receptacle (though I’ve tried on more than one occasion. He hates that, and pushes the bag and trash out of my hand, back to the floor. He has a system, he assures me). To being in an adult relationship that involves moving myself, moving him, allowing him in and out of my life.

I haven’t had as much need for the bus lately. Other modes of transport. New modes, old modes, finding ways to get around. New ways. Erin is getting a motorcycle, and Nathan and I are going on a road trip this summer. One way or another I’m transporting. Don’t worry about me, I’m getting around.

Who's Hand Is This!?!

A more eloquent and entertaining blog post about riding the subway than I could ever muster. Plus: there's a picture! http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/04/china_v_japan_the_packed-train.php

(i can't figure out how to post a real link here. it just shows up as invisible, or rather, not at all. any clues?)

I don't worry about getting groped, although when the train gets packed people do stand unreasonably close. When in line, I used to give the person in front of me a little of what I deemed "personal space". in the us, no one would dare jump in there. this was my weakness for awhile; i kept getting budged as "personal space" means no space here.

The iPod Shuffle

The truth is, dear Sarah, when it comes to moving around this city, I rely on my iPod to an almost pathetic extent. I take one earbud out of one ear before boarding the bus, to show the driver that I'm "making an effort" to be a part of the bus culture, but I put it right back in when I'm seated, and generally try to ignore all that goes on around me. Generally.

I find my curiosity occasionally wandering beyond the constricts of my tiny music machine, but my world is often so self-contained, so tightly packaged, that I have enough to think about on a Colfax bus ride. The feeling of my leg touching my neighbor's is almost too much information, the wrong kind of information, and I prefer not to process it. Prefer to let it go unnoticed. Prefer to lose my thoughts in something less immediate. The lingering feeling from earlier that morning of Nathan's leg against mine. The electricty of it still makes me squirm. It's so distant and overwhelming that it erases the bus entirely.

The reality of riding the bus is mundane. Inane. Pungent. Dull and unnecessary. Most often, riding the bus is not a metaphor for the possibilities and beauty of this great metropolis, but a morsel of the ugliness. Vague cigarette fumes, boredom, obesity, overcrowding, handicaps and poverty.

We don't all fit in the bus. Not all of us together. It's too crowded, too hot, too much.

But these are just the bad days. When I need to be somewhere else. In Beijing. On the subway. Back in New York City for the briefest of moments, just to catch my breath, to remember why I love it here, in Denver, Colorado.

Sometimes I need breaks from my own unrequited idealism. Sometimes I just need to be the deep-sigher. I need to be the one who gets on and off the bus without thanking the driver. I need to be the one who hates the routine of it, the absence of control, of personal space. Of sitting next to someone so beautiful or plain, so lonely or so tired.

Apparently F Scott Fitzgerald took his notebook to the park and made notes about all the people he saw, and created entire biographies and curiosities to match each. Sometimes it's just too much. I don't want to imagine a life for any of these people. I want to be alone with my iPod, my life, the same dumb songs I've heard a million times already. Really bad pop songs and old podcasts turned all the way up.