On not really remembering

I grew up observing Santa Lucia. What this means is that every year on December 13, my sister and I would get up before the sun had risen, don white robes belted with tinsel, carry candles and sing the Swedish Santa Lucia song to my sleepy but game father who would ooh and aah at all the right spots - one of those spots being when my mother would place on his lap the tray of Swedish saffron rolls we had baked the day before, the ones with a raisin placed very deliberately in each pocket of our carefully crafted infinity sign.

This year, I went to a Lucia concert at a Lutheran church on the Upper West Side. The choral singers poured into the church, candles and tinsel galore, and started singing the Lucia song, only it wasn’t. Not quite. It was the same melody but I didn’t recognize the lyrics. What was happening? Was there a different version of the song? I play the same Swedish Christmas CDs every year. Maybe the version I know went out of style?

Two weeks later I watched “Miracle on 34th Street” while addressing my holiday cards. I hadn’t seen it in years, but with a half an eye on the screen, I waited for the part where the lawyer figures out how to win the case proving that Edmund Gwenn’s Kris Kringle is, in fact, Santa Clause. You know the part: someone gives him a dollar bill and he sees the “In God We Trust” and realizes that’s his argument: we can’t prove there’s a God, yet we believe it so inherently that we print His existence on our country’s currency - wait, what?

Exactly.

That scene never happened. What actually happens is that the post office delivers all the letters addressed to Santa Clause to the courthouse. But... what was I thinking of? Did I make that dollar bill bit up? Had I spliced it from another movie onto the end of this one? (In my worst case scenario, I am now informed that the God scene I just described is from a Jim Carrey movie).

I am constantly reminded that my memory of an instant is just that: my memory. It’s one of the many reasons I’d be a terrible eye witness (I can picture it now. Me: “I know for a fact he had a beard and wore a green sweater vest!” Reality: She’s a blonde in a navy peacoat.)

Of course it’s natural that my version of events morphs with time, but the worrying part is that not so much time needs to pass before I alter reality. Never mind what I forget (which is a lot). I’m talking about the stuff I think I remember.

Not so long ago, my friend whom I’ve known since 8th grade brought over a rediscovered yearbook from our junior year of high school. I’m not in it. I’m on the list of people not pictured. I have no recollection of being a no-show. More to the point, this seems so unlike me. I am nothing if not vain enough to show up for picture day! And why was some other chick in the Class Secretary photo? That was my job! … oh, except it wasn’t. That wasn’t my job until the following year.

Facebook does wonders for shaking my confidence in my own memories. Reconnecting with former classmates can be jarring. “You were always (fill in the blank).” I was? “I’ll never forget when you (insert event here).” I have no recollection of that. “Remember how we always (active verb here)?” No. No, I do not remember that.

And yet, out of the blue, I can conjure up the name of someone’s ex-husband from a story told ten years ago. Oh sure, that guy!

There seems to be no method to what my brain decides to hang on to.

There are moments in my life when I know I thought to myself: “Remember this.” And yet my highlight reel is filled with those everyday non-events that didn’t seem worthy at the time of getting filed away, but for some reason, they’re the ones that passed the memory test. Those are the bits and pieces I return to when I play back my life on those sentimental evenings when I wish to wax nostalgic.

On evenings like tonight, for instance, when I want to think of New Year’s Eves past, and pay tribute to the years I’ve lived, celebrated, mourned and resolved to improve. If I allow myself no more than twenty seconds to contemplate them, I can come up with three memorable December 31sts. Maybe four. And of those, I am quite confident that were I to share my version of that night with those who had been present at the time, there would be a collective “what night are YOU thinking of?”

But these are my memories. That’s the way I remember the song. It might be the wrong version, but it’s mine.

Tonight I am celebrating my fourth New Year’s Eve with my O. I have been repeatedly told that it is an extra special night because it is my first New Year’s Eve as a married woman. That may be true, but I won’t know until I try to remember 2011 in a few years’ time and see if this is the one that sticks. I already have a memory bookmarked with him from an especially fun New Year’s Eve a couple of years ago, so there may not be room in my mental archives for this one. I’ll let you know in a few years. If I remember to keep you posted.

My forward-fold-breathe-in-the-space Christmas.

This is for you. You can hang it on your fridge. I used ALL the golden colors.

- B., 5 years old, as she handed me a picture of colorful scribbles

This is the first Christmas I remember in a long time that I’m spending on my own. In fact, I think it may be the first. H is in New York with O. My other siblings are gathered in Atlanta to be near their mother and each other. And others that are near and dear are, well...not so geographically near.

Later today, I won’t be alone. A couple friends will be gathering for eggs and coffee and pancakes in my kitchen. There will be Christmas Eve under the stars in a little church beside the sea. Christmas Dinner with paper crowns and brightly colored crackers. But each morning this holiday season, I have woken up alone. And so, too, this Christmas Eve morning. There is stillness in this, stillness and a beauty in This Moment where all is quiet, the tree is lit, and I sit in bed writing with a cup of hot tea nearby and Petey curled up beside me.

A dear friend told me recently that I write often and most about memory. And it is true. It comes from a place, I think, of wanting to remember what and who is no longer here; remembering brings them back for just bit. So, no surprise, I’m all about tradition - almost obsessively so. I literally cannot go to New York this time of year and not go see the tree at Rock Center. It pulls me to it like a magnet. And I've paid crazy money to have a bottle of Glogg shipped to Hawaii simply to have the smell fill my kitchen for an evening. But this Christmas has been different. I haven’t had a cup of glogg. Or Swedish meatballs. Or bitten into a saffron bun.

But I have walked on the beach plenty, even in the rain. Especially in the rain. And there have been rainbows. Rainbows everywhere.

This morning I am thinking of and missing the whirlwind that is being with my family in Atlanta for the holidays where someone is always making a new pot of coffee or pies or darting off to the grocery store. There's always a game going on or an animal caught in the Christmas tree. And I dare you to make it from wherever you’ve found a place to sleep to the bathroom without being shot by a foam dart.

But in the end, I think today is just the way it should be.

In yoga, after we’ve done a lot twists, the teacher always brings us back to neutral. We stand still in downward dog or in a forward fold taking in the effects of the work we just did and allowing ourselves time to breathe before moving onto what will come next.

This is that Christmas. My forward-fold-breathe-in-the-space Christmas.

This is the time to wake up on my own, to stand at the kitchen counter in silence drinking coffee and eating buttered gingerbread cookies on a rainy, tropical morning while looking at the picture made for me by B. She used ALL the gold colors, you know. And I feel them all filling me up.

This is that time between what came before and what comes next.

Zen and the Art of Personal Maintenance

For my 37th birthday, I pierced my nose.

I was on a fall vacation in Maui lying on warm rocks by a swimming hole listening to the friend beside me chat away, but all I could focus on was the small, sparkling stud that adorned her nose. I’d had a fascination with nose piercings for a while. There was something alluring to me about the women I knew whose delicate noses were bejeweled; each one seemed artistic, free-spirited, and exotic...a far cry from what I’d known as a little girl growing up in dark, cold Northern Europe.

My first real sense of Who Am I? in terms of fashion came in my late twenties when I became a teacher in a progressive school. I threw myself into that liberal world wholeheartedly; my students called me by my first name, instead of giving letter grades, we wrote long narrative reports on each child, and I wore overalls to work. I had at least four different overalls from corduroy to denim and wore them with my Converse or heavy work boots. And yes, I did think I was all that. Not that overalls are all that extreme, but there was a definite search for identity involved. After all, I was the one who couldn't wait to grow up and dress like my mother in her Swedish, middle class uniform of slacks, skirts, blouses, pumps, and an Hermes silk scarf knotted around her neck. This was not that.

A decade later, I lay on a rock in Hawaii; I was about to turn thirty-seven and was again contemplating what was next for me. Before the day was over, my friend stood beside me in a tattoo parlor. Pain shot through my nostril. I started laughing hysterically in a panic as the blood rushed from my head. This was not what I had envisioned. First of all, my nostril was red and sore and stinging, and imbedded in it was a large, metal stud - - a starter piercing, if you will, that would need to stay in for at least a few weeks. Second, it hurt! And finally, I was told that I’d need to soak the piercing in warm, salt water every couple of hours for the next twenty-four. Flash forward to my ten-hour flight back to NYC the next day with my nose dipped into a paper cup for most of the flight. Really.

My process from this to the sweet, bedecked nose I had envisioned would apparently take time. And patience.

Enter Zen.

Now, I am a very, very patient teacher. In fact, I am at my most patient with my students, no matter their age. One of my assistant teachers, upon meeting H. for the first time, exclaimed, “I love your sister! She’s so Zen!” H. smiled politely, but no sooner had he left us than she turned to me and said, almost gritting her teeth, “Zen? When are you Zen? I’d like to see a little of that Zen!”

In all fairness, H. was at that time my roommate and that experience did apparently not spell Z-e-n to her. Most of my impatience is directed at myself. Give me a child who needs to redo a math problem five times. Piece of cake. Give a classroom full of five year-olds with glue sticks and scissors in hand? I can usually breathe through it. But give me a tough stain on my stovetop that isn’t gone Right Away? No can do. I imagined H. with a montage of my best unzenlike moments flashing through her head: Why won’t this printer just print ALREADY? Where are my keys? Where’s my f*#king wallet? I’M LATE! Why can’t I cook an artichoke without burning it – just ONCE?!?!

Back in New York, my piercing was received with varying degrees of enthusiasm and a few eye rolls. Unsatisfied with the metal stud, I - too soon - had it replaced with a small, sparkling bit. Within days, the stone fell out, so I walked around for a week or two with an empty, metal socket in my nose. I tried again. Alas, this stone fell out as well. It was promptly replaced by an obstinate pimple larger than the stud itself. I steamed it for what felt like weeks and weeks to no avail. I gave up.

Within three months of the initial piercing, I was standing in my bathroom naked drinking scotch. I was trying to twist out the metal nose screw (this is the technical term, by the way) but it was the Mary Poppins bag of nose screws. No matter how much I twirled, there was more to come. My nostril throbbed. I twirled. I sweated. I swore.

H. came home hours later to find me in a heap on the couch, nose screw on the coffee table.

Five years have passed. I believe I'm a more patient person now thanks to yoga, meditation, more yoga and, quite frankly, the simple mellowing out that happens over time. And the perk to aging, at least for me, is becoming ever more comfortable with myself.

I turn 42 tomorrow. In celebration, I painted my toes a muted purple. And just to appease my wild side, I painted my fingernails, too. That oughta do it.

A girl can dream

My issues with bicycles go way back. What’s the average age when children get their training wheels? Let’s start there. Our house had a large terrace in back with steps on either side leading down to the yard. The length of the terrace was lined with a cactus garden. Do you know where we’re going with this?
The day came when my father surprised me by removing my training wheels. He had such confidence in my ability to transition to a big girls’ bike that I did not want to disappoint him. I embarked onto the terrace and within seconds veered off the edge, straight into the cactus garden.
It gets worse. My parents had friends visiting. Witnesses not related to me watched as my mother laid me over her lap, pulled down my pants, and proceeded to pull out cactus needles one by one.
Oh, the shame.
It was downhill from there.
There was the time I discovered the difference between girl bikes and boy bikes by dismounting the wrong way. Even now, my girl parts wince at the memory.
There was the time I rode straight into a tree because I did not know until after the fact that sometimes there are no brakes on the handles and that the only way to stop is by pedaling backwards.
And let’s not neglect to mention the time I bicycled too close to the curb and when the wheel rubbed up against the sidewalk, I began to fall in slow motion, went over a fence and landed in some poor person’s tomato plant patch.
My ten year-old self had envied the skill of Jennifer Beals in the opening sequence of Flashdance as she cycled through steam and cobblestone streets with urban panache. I finally accepted I would never be Jennifer Beals.
And then I learned of in-line skates.
I watched an Olympic-related special on TV about an ice skater who trained during the summer months by skating up Colorado mountainsides. I can picture her now, Olympically-fit, cute as a button (as is the tendency of ice skaters), skating UP A MOUNTAIN on in-line skates.
Perhaps I couldn’t control bicycle wheels, and sure, awkward and unwieldy handlebars stymied my efforts. But wheels attached to my feet? This, I could manage!
I received a pair of Rollerblades for my birthday. It was as if the box alone would transform me into someone who could zip uphill without exertion. By now I was in college. I envisioned myself becoming one of those hip kids, weaving fearlessly in and out of traffic, zooming from school to job, the wind in my long, flowing hair. Of course in this fantasy, my tummy would be taut, as well.
That’s not quite how it turned out. You’re shocked, I know.
I wasn’t terrible. I could get from A to B. I wobbled but a little. I got the hang of it. I went rollerblading with a friend one night after we had been drinking. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The upside was that it made me less frightened of speeding downhill in the dark. The downside was that my inebriated confidence made me less cautious about the bump at the bottom of the hill. The upside was that it didn’t hurt so much.
The demise of my rollerblading dreams came when I was felled by a one-two combination of a loose ankle buckle and a bad-ass pothole. I still have the scars where the pebbles embedded themselves into my knee. I was miles from home. The pain of the fall, my inability to get home easily and my newborn fear that I would fall again sealed the deal for me. I was just not good at this whole wheel business.
I decided that I was an excellent pedestrian and I should stick with what I do well.
And anyway, I like walking.
Naturally, I married a man who treats his bicycle like an appendage. Completely uninterested in recreational biking, O. sees bicycles as the ultimate exercise in practicality. He regularly tries to convince me of this. Walking to a movie, “we’d be there by now!” Waiting for a bus, “we’d be there by now!” Explaining why he was late meeting me, “well, I couldn’t take my bike, so of course I’m late.”
On vacation in Berlin, we rented bikes for a day. It had been years since I was on one. I was trepidatious, to say the least. I pedaled behind O. cautiously, forcing him to stop and wait for me at regular intervals. And then we came to a large intersection where he headed into the far left lane without warning and turned left as the other light turned green. I had no choice but to follow as four lanes of traffic moved towards me while we cut across the length of the road to end up on the right hand side. O. nonchalantly continued on into a park and started to comment on the prettiness of our surroundings. In reply, I lit into him. I accused of him of trying to get me hit by a car. I had been terrified. I was shaking and crying. (Yes, yes, I was a total wimp, but in my defense, please refer to the aforementioned “not good at this whole wheel business.”) My dramatic tour de force petered out, and we ventured forth tamely.
I still want to be that woman who rollerblades down the Bowery and through Chinatown every morning to get to work. I want to whip through town with ease and a devil-may-care flair. Alas, such is not my fate. Not if I want to stay in one piece.
Nowadays, I get my dose of risk-taking by jaywalking. It’s no joke: those bike messengers come at you from every angle. They’re lunatics! (, I say with envy.)

Trusting the Hours

Wait, for now.

… trust the hours. Haven’t they

carried you everywhere, up to now?

- Galway Kinnell

Time.

It’s been eleven weeks since I posted a blog. Eleven weeks ago I met someone and time changed for me for a while; it became hazy, elastic, boundaryless, and filled with swimming and playing and lying beneath the stars talking story. Afternoons were lazy, evenings were candlelit. He was on island indefinitely. We had time.

Three weeks ago in New York City, my sister and O walked hand in hand under rain-heavy clouds, the sky ribbons of slate and silver. Bagpipers led the way as H and O, followed by friends and family, guided the way from their home to the venue where they would soon marry. Old men came out of barbershops to applaud the procession. People waved from restaurants, and H and O beamed happiness. I sidestepped friends blowing bubbles and ringing little bells to stand alone for a moment. I stood and watched H and O as they walked up the stairs and into their future.

The next day, my dear friend Katie’s mother had a stroke.

In the muted predawn hours that followed on that Manhattan Monday morning, I flew back to Maui. I flew across the continent and hours across the Pacific. I flew until I was home in my little house far far away. I flew until I was home with Petey my dog and the man I had met. That night, he told me it was time for him to leave the island; it was time for him to go back.

On Tuesday, Katie’s mother died.

When my mother died, Katie drove to Rhode Island and spent days with me and H in that shocked silence that follows death, in that time when comfort is found in the busyness of choosing music for the service and hors d’oeuvres for the reception. On my first birthday after her death, Katie showed up at my doorstep in the morning with lattes and croissants, much earlier than was her usual waking hour, so that I wouldn’t have to be alone.

The most I could do for Katie from 10,000 miles away was listen to song options for her mother’s funeral on iTunes and rate them with her over the phone. I savored every moment.

Fall has come to Maui. To visitors, it may be imperceptible. The sun still shines, the sky is blue, the sand is warm. But to those of us who live here, there is a clear shift. The air has a chill to its edge and the water is cooler. Ubiquitous guava stew along jungle paths, the air sweetened by the warm earth and the fruits' steeping juices. Were there no calendars, no iPhones, no newspapers, this is how I’d know that time was passing.

These days, I am drinking tea and eating chocolate covered marshmallows. I am spending time with friends. I am finding comfort and wisdom and magic in favorite poems by Billy Collins, Kahlil Gibran, Mary Oliver and Galway Kinnell. I am regrounding in downward dog. I am writing. And I am holding onto the possibilities of the future. And I am loving. And I am trusting.

The other week, my Kindergarten students walked into the classroom. The lights were off, and as the children came around the corner into the rug area, they froze, eyes wide, mouths open. On the far wall hung one short string of orange lights, a nod to the month of October. In the unlit corner, the orange lights cast a warm, amber glow. One child whispered, “That’s beautiful!” And then together, like a little Greek chorus, the others joined in, “Yes. That’s beautiful!”

They reminded me of all the tiny Beautifuls. Even when the Beautiful is not within reach. Even when it is a memory.

I spent this morning with Petey at a waterfall. For a while, we had the falls to ourselves. I sat and breathed in air infused with eucalyptus and ginger… until others found their way through the thick greenery and I let them take my place.

Aftermath

I spent 450 days, give or take, thinking about my wedding. The celebration surrounding the act of getting married lasted about ten hours. The part where we actually said “I do” took approximately three minutes.

The process of getting married is like being in a play: There’s a production that takes months to develop. It involves a collaboration of players all of whom are focused on the opening night. An audience is present.

One of the ways it differs: opening night is closing night.

Even a showcase has a longer run.

I have now been married for 22 days and I’m still trying to get out of the mindset that there must be something else that needs to get done.

In fact, the show’s over. I can’t help but think, “Well... now what?”

I recently read of a writer who said every time he finished writing a novel, it felt as if a grand piano had been removed from the center of the living room. The room in my head that I had set aside for all things wedding-related is now sitting vacant.

I should stress that I am not unhappy about this. I’m simply adjusting.

Now I can put my attention to … cleaning up that wedding stuff piled up on the chair in the bedroom. My new husband is very curious as to why this has not yet happened. I don’t have an answer for him. I, too, thought I’d have gotten around to it by now.

I may be suffering from a case of Re-Entry Reluctance. When I was in the throes of the countdown and all of those never-ending To-Do lists, I couldn’t wait to get back to my “normal routine,” but from this vantage point, that routine includes laundry and filing. These tasks have never been my forte, admittedly. When I envisioned my newlywed status, I thought of all the reading I’d have time for again. Did I honestly forget that I have always struggled to set aside adequate time for reading? My good old days have never been chock full of quiet evenings and hot bubble baths.

It’s time to tackle all the boring chores I have never enjoyed. And while I'm busy sorting my cold wash from my warm, I'll think about the next project I have in mind. The one that takes up all my time and will fill my head with dreams for the day when I have time to do laundry again. That’s how I’ll know I’m back to my routine.

The Vortex, A Play in One Scene

Cue: De Grieg’s “Morning”
Lights fade in slowly to reveal silhouette of woman standing on a bare stage.

Woman: Oh…

Lights continue to brighten until the audience is illuminated.

Woman: Oh! Hello. Was I…have you been here a while? I feel like I’ve been away for a very long time. Let’s see, I remember the Fourth of July, and then… it’s all a bit fuzzy. And now, it’s – I’m sorry, what’s the date?

The audience remains silent.

Woman: Oh, dear. It’s been ages since I was last here, isn’t that right? You must be quite annoyed with me. After all, I asked all of you here, and then – whoop! I vanish. But it seems I’m back. If that’s any consolation to you. Thank you for being here still! No, really, I do truly appreciate your patience.

It seems I entered the wedding vortex. Have you heard about it? I hadn’t. Well, not really. There are rumors, you know. There are always rumors. But there I was one day, preparing for my wedding, things moving along as they do – and then, Poof! I could feel a flurry of wedding preparation pick up speed, and I tried to shift into a higher gear to better tackle the approaching tasks, but there was a gravitational pull that was stronger than I was. And then, yes, it’s all coming back to me now, I woke up one morning to a whooshing sound and then suddenly I was getting sucked into the vortex. It’s all a blur when I speak of it now, but I am certain that’s where I was. Quite certain…

And – oh, yes! This I remember quite clearly! There was an earthquake! Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing? An earthquake in New York City! It seems so implausible, doesn’t it? But there I was in my office on the 31st floor when the walls started wobbling. My brain didn’t know what to make of it, so it suggested perhaps I was underwater. I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t rule out that option nearly as quickly as one might expect. When the vase began to teeter on its pedestal, I swear, it was something right out of a movie!

I know it was nothing at all compared to what others have experienced. But I was an earthquake novice, you see. I’m not accustomed to my ceiling buckling. When the announcement came over the P.A. system to evacuate, I did not hesitate, not even long enough to grab my purse and phone. That was very silly of me. I would like to think I’d be much more clear-headed in an emergency situation, but to walk away from my money and means of contact? I’d have to give myself a failing grade on that one, don’t you agree?

An with each floor I descended, one of the thousands of employees working our way down the stairwell, I thought of more things to concern me. I didn’t know how bad the earthquake was on a city-wide scale, so my fear got the worst of me. O was scheduled to be on the subway; had his train derailed? Was he all right? My sister would learn of the earthquake and try to reach me; I envisioned my phone ringing incessantly on my desk.

And before I realized it, I was having some odd, pseudo-flashback experience to September 11, 2001.

I say ‘pseudo’ because I wasn’t downtown on September 11. Yes, it’s true that I work across the street from where the towers fell, and when I say that aloud, I realize it brings a level of sustained awareness of vulnerability to my everyday. But I didn’t think it affected me. Go ahead and laugh, I don’t mind, I know it sounds absurd. But I mean it! I don’t have a personal connection with the geography of my office building. And the crowds of tourists lend themselves to the feeling of being in the middle of a giant attraction, and that’s how I feel in Times Square, too.

Mind you, the looming ten year anniversary has brought with it a renewed level of attention to That Day. And yes, the articles recollecting personal experiences from back then have revived some of the emotions. But I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that my own response to a little itty-bitty earthquake surprised me.

Once they let us back in the building, I tried to go back to work, but my boss told me he’d never seen me so pale and to go home and have a drink. I walked home for fear of being on a subway should an aftershock come. I canceled plans to see a play lest an aftershock bring the roof down of the old theatre building.

… and now here I am. When you think about it, there’s nothing quite like a natural disaster (or fear of one) to shake off a wedding vortex, that’s for sure!

A stage assistant runs on stage.

Oh - pardon me -

Whispers in Woman’s ear and runs off.

Well, if this doesn’t take the cake!

Woman begins to laugh.

A hurricane! A real, live, honest to goodness hurricane! (Laughs) I mean, now, really! An earthquake AND a hurricane in one week? Who on earth has ever heard of such a thing?! (Continues to laugh) What’s next? Locusts? No, flying pigs! (Collects herself) Whew. I needed that laugh. Oh, dear. You must all be quite ready to go home.

The audience begins to leave.

Stock up on candles and batteries! See you again soon, I hope! Thank you for coming!

Woman exits stage, muttering “A hurricane! Of all things...It’s practically farcical... Where’s my umbrella?”

The Stand Beside

As of tonight, there are forty-five days left until H and O wed. As maid of honor (or best woman, or – as a colleague called me today – The Stand Beside), I’ve been working on my toast. Most of my brainstorming takes place as I drive up and down the slopes of Haleakala on my way to and from home. I envision myself standing before a crowd of family and friends, H and O beside me, and as I imagine what I'll say first, I inevitably begin to cry. That’s as far as I’ve come. Clearly, I have my work cut out for me.

There is not one particular reason for my tears. I suppose the most obvious explanation is that I feel I’ll be standing in, so to speak, for both of my parents. There’s no getting around that one. But also, it is a rite of passage, and rites of passage by definition mark milestones and reveal what is valued in a culture and to a people. As I envision H's and O’s celebration, I can almost see the silhouettes of those people, our people, who have come before them to this particular rite; they gather around H & O, smiling, nodding encouraging, welcoming them. And in 0 to 60...my tears.

Three years ago on the Ides of March, H and I, on our separate islands, each went out with friends. That evening, I met my young, sweet man as I ordered a Cosmo in my little surf town by the sea. H. ventured out into the chilly night to a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for a friend’s birthday; O was there with his own friends. When H and I called each other the next morning for weekend updates, we shared our news.

H and I had lived together for three years as single women in our early and mid-thirties, respectively. Life was good back then. Many a night, we'd meet after work at one of our neighborhood haunts, order the endive salad and pumpkin ravioli..and a couple of dirty martinis, to boot... and revel in the comfort of it all. We also understood that at some point we'd have to break out of that comfort zone. We joked that if we weren’t careful, we'd find ourselves in our eighties, shorter, wrinkled and still clambering up on the same old bar stools.

Some new moon evenings, we’d wander down West End Avenue to a beautiful church on the Upper West Side. As people strolled their dogs past us, and as the food delivery guys squealed by on their bikes, we'd stand by the curb, sheltered by trees or scaffolding depending on the season, and whisper our dreams for work, creativity and love just loud enough for the other to hear and support. And then we'd walk home arm in arm envisioning those futures, the city's apartment lights and lives surrounding us.

This past July 27^th marked the one-year anniversary of the first Heffalump post. At that time, I was living on the volcano’s slopes with that same young man. Though we lived together and loved each other, our lives were slowly but steadily growing ever more separate. Back in New York, O. had just proposed to H.

One year later, I am living on my own with Petey the dog, a stone’s throw from a stunning, wild, rugged beach. I have just begun to dip my toe back into the world of dating. One year later, H is about be married. One year later, or many years later - depending on when you start counting- life is good. It’s different, but it’s good.

There isn't anything I'd rather be doing in forty-five days than be standing beside H and welcoming in O.

Officers and Gentlemen and Questions

This past week, while on Oahu for a class, I happened upon a strip mall that backs up to Hickam Air Force Base. I was looking for lunch when I realized I was actually looking at men and women in uniform. Everywhere. I was awestruck and feeling as though I’d stepped onto a movie set; any minute now Richard Gere would pass me, heroically carrying Debra Winger in his arms. A woman in my class is married to an officer. Her husband is currently on a submarine. She won’t see him again for a year. She tells me that in the fourteen years they’ve been married, she has probably spent a total of three to four years with him. I try to wrap my mind around this. Maybe I’m fascinated by their lives because they

seem so different from my own.

And yet, I remind myself, it’s not completely unknown to me. My grandfather was a general in the Army. Growing up, our summer trips always took us to Falls Church, Virginia, to visit our grandparents. By then, my grandfather was retired. I don’t remember ever seeing him in uniform. Still, every Sunday, we went for supper at the Army Navy Country Club. But the name of the club had little meaning to me. While the grown ups lingered in the bar, ice clinking in their bourbons, I focused on my Shirley Temple and eating as many ruffled potato chips and creamy onion dip as my mother would allow before we were shooed away to play before dinner. H and I would explore the outdoor lawns and indoor corridors, always ending up in the ladies' restroom. The front room was a lounge with couches and floral pattern covered chairs where ladies sat before mirrors reapplying make-up; the room smelled of grandmotherly powders.

For dinner, there was a long buffet and I remember little of what we ate; I do, however, remember the dessert buffet. A creature of habit, I always had vanilla ice cream with butterscotch sauce. But my favorite part was after dinner when the buffet tables would be cleared, and a big band would strike up Chattanooga Choo Choo. I would dance with my grandfather, my feet on his shoes as he sashayed me around, the scent of his sweet, smoky cigar dancing with us. This is what my memory digs up for me when I hear the words Army and Navy.

And then this. My father attended Staunton Military Academy and had a stint in the Korean War. But when I think of my father, this never comes to mind. He rarely, if at all, spoke of his early days in the military.

This June, H and I spent twenty-four hours in Washington D.C. and visited our parents in their little corner of Arlington National Cemetery. Per usual, we had trouble finding our way along D.C. roads. H. had inadvertently chosen “walking directions” on her GPS even though we were in a CAR. We knew we were thoroughly lost when we turned down a deserted road toward the Pentagon past signs that read - something along the lines of - You Are Not Supposed To Be Anywhere Near Here – Stay Away! When I saw stern looking officers put their hands up in the universal Halt sign, I stopped instantly and refused to budge. I’m not good with authority figures. This meant H. had to get out of the car and walk to them for directions. One U-turn and just a few minutes later, we passed through the cemetery’s main gate.

The down side of having parents die is, well, the dead parents. The upside is that if they’re lucky enough to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, you get a special pass to drive right on in. I know it pleases my mother to know her daughters are gestured in with a guard’s respectful nod of the head.

Every time I visit the Columbarium, where those who were cremated are kept, I have trouble finding them. I know they’re in a corner somewhere in the middle of the wall, but there are many walls with many corners and many middles, and I can never quite remember if it’s a corner with a tree or not. The irony is not lost on me that I can never easily find my parents, who - even when I do find them - aren’t really there. Just like a dream; it all makes sense, and yet you know that none of it does.

H and I eventually do find them, and we sit and lie on the cool ground staring up at their marble tile. It is peaceful in the open-air corridor. Silent. I read and reread the engraving. Morris Robert Nelson, Jr., 1930-1992 and Margreth Nelson, 1943 - 2002. Below my father’s name, or maybe beside it, is his ranking of 2^nd Lieutenant. I can never remember if he was in the Army or the Air Force, and I feel like a lousy daughter for not knowing. His ranking explains to anyone perusing these walls how he came to be buried in the nation’s cemetery. But it is not the whole truth. It is not even his true ranking. It is, if you will, the cover story. I wonder how many people have a cover story on their tombstones.

A writer, a mentor of mine, once said to me of her parents, “I am the daughter of a writer and a lawyer. It has helped form who I am.” And then she posed this question to me, “If you don’t know who your parents were, who your father was, then how do you know who you are?”

That is a question I ponder.

The Cleanse

The Monday before the long holiday weekend, O decides he’s going to do one of those lemon-maple syrup-cayenne pepper cleanses. He hasn’t been feeling up to par and has decided that a detox is in order. It takes me about 3 seconds before I graciously offer to lend support and join him in solidarity. I, too, will cleanse. See what a great fiance I am?

Not quite. In truth, I have been curious about cleansing for years. I’ve come close to considering it, but I wimped out each time. Recently, I read an article lauding a certain juice cleanse in NYC. I bookmarked the web site. O’s initiative was the push I needed to jump into this purportedly Über Healthy terrain.

The next day, I pored over the site’s information on cleansing, the benefits, the deliciousness of their product, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was all great and fine, but - what’s this? They deliver? To my door?? Sold. I signed up for three days of juice as well as - oh, why not - the Day-Before and Day-After recommended “transition” menus, comprised of a combination of juices and raw, vegan food to help me ease into and out of my food-less foray.

The night before I was to begin, I drank wine until midnight. I felt like Cinderella right before her carriage turned into a pumpkin. Eat! Drink! Be Merry!

Day One: Pre-Cleanse
7:00am - My alarm goes off. I await the delivery of my raw, vegan Pre-Cleanse Prep. Normally, this is when I make my coffee and toast and read the paper. Today I just read the paper and drink water. My doorbell rings. Game on.

9:05am - My stomach growls. It’s way too soon for this. It must be anticipatory hunger.

9:30am - Time for my first juice: Pineapple and Ginger. Yum! Must remember to sip slowly. This puppy’s got to last two hours.

5:20pm - My tongue feels funky. I suspect all that raw ginger and pineapple played a role.

9:30pm - I have wolfed down my surprisingly delicious raw, vegan collard-green “enchiladas” and am moving on to the raw, vegan chocolate-coconut pudding. At first spoonful, I surmise that vegans may have forgotten what chocolate-coconut pudding is supposed to taste like. Then I realize this probably IS what it’s supposed to taste like. It’s just that my sugar-addled taste buds don’t recognize that. I appreciate my pudding anew.

Day Two: Juice
7:30am - my 3 days’ worth of juices arrive. I’m relieved to see nary a pineapple juice in the lot. I don’t think my tongue could handle another one. I am a little peeved to see that two of my six daily juices are the same. I’m spending 72 hours not chewing. At least don’t give me repeats.

4:00pm - I have a workout session with my personal trainer. He is not happy to hear of my cleanse and warns me I won’t replenish the nutrients I am about to expend in the next hour. I rebut that the website approves moderate exercise. He gives me a look and tells me my workouts with him don’t fall in the “moderate” category. I think I just insulted him. He warns me I’ll be wiped out tomorrow.

5:00pm - I survived my very-not-moderate workout and chug down my coconut water. Only two more hours before “dinner.” Walking home from the gym, I see people eating everywhere I look. In cafes, on the street, in the park, in their cars. I feel like I have a new appreciation for how this city looks to hungry people. I note the irony of being privileged enough to opt for self-deprivation.

8:00pm - O and I are eager to fill the time that would normally be spent eating dinner and drinking wine. We grab our beach chairs and beeline for the Tompkins Square Park’s Films on the Green Festival. Watching Jacques Tati in “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” distracts me from the beet juice I nurse for the duration of the film. We go to bed early. It seems easier to sleep than not eat.

Day Three: Juice. Again.

The morning gets off to an unexpectedly good start. I’m in a great mood. The sun is shining. I’m feeling clean and pure. I recall my trainer’s words of caution. I don’t feel wiped out at all! I must be in better shape than I thought.

2:00pm - I am so tired I can’t keep my eyes open. I take a two hour nap.

7:00pm - O and I practically run to the movie theatre to keep ourselves preoccupied. We talk about food all the way there. When our movie lets out, we decide to sneak into the next feature one theatre over. We have successfully filled another dinner-less night.

Day Four: Juice. Juice. More Juice.

11:00am - I hear O yell from the other room, “God, I want breakfast!”

The act of eating takes up a lot of time. Without it, our day stretches out before us like a wide horizon. I countdown how many hours before I get solid food. 26, is the answer. I spruce up my beet juice by pouring it over ice and spritzing it with lemon. It’s marginally more exciting that way.

Day Five: Post-Cleanse

2:00pm: I’m chewing! My raw, vegan “couscous” is real food! It’s also... not so great. But I’m chewing!

4:00pm: O and I take a walk on the Highline. We stop at the beer garden below the 30th Street entrance, just to “check it out.” We survey the menus of the taco trucks. We pore over the wine and beer choices on tap. I think we are reminding ourselves that good food and drink are within reach. It’s just that we are choosing otherwise. We take comfort in knowing that it’s there. We have crossed over into pathetic.

6:00pm: O has roasted vegetables for his dinner. He offers me a beet. I tell him in no uncertain terms that I am not eating another beet for the foreseeable future. He insists that this is worth tasting. I relent. I regret. Seriously, no more beets.

Day Six: Return to Food

7:00am: The coffee grinder won’t grind. I have no coffee. A week ago, this would have fallen into the Catastrophe category, but today, I calmly reach for my decaf green tea.

9:00am: I order scrambled eggs, a coffee (small) and a banana from my corner deli. The scrambled eggs are completely tasteless. The coffee is bitter. The banana saves the day.

My cleanse has made an elitist of my mouth.

What have I taken away from all this? Well, for starters, I’m shocked by how little I suffered from lack of caffeine. I’m surprised (and relieved) by how little I missed wine. I am more committed to eating less meat. But mostly, I confirmed what I already knew: how much I enjoy the flavors, textures and varieties of food. I like eating.

And without question, I am definitely more resolved to select quality over convenience. You can rest assured that from now on, I’ll take the long way to work so I can get my morning joe from the good coffee place. That is, if I decide to drink coffee that day. It seems I don’t really need it, after all.

Cogito ergo blogum

Last week about this time, I started a blog entry. I didn’t know where it was going, I couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say, and then I put the computer away to be distracted by something I could figure out. Crossword puzzle, anyone?

Now, here I am again.

Earlier this month, my sister and I assessed the state of our blog. I was concerned that I haven’t said anything new. I voiced my fear that I’m not interesting, that I’m stuck in the past, that my entries are not contributing adequately to the Blog World. And then in my paranoid tantrum, I screeched, “I don’t even remember why we’re doing this!”

Perhaps your next entry should start there, my sister suggested calmly. It wasn’t true. I did remember the impetus for the blog, but I am quite good at being dramatic and my outburst seemed to fit the moment.

This whole blog business began with a desire to explore the question “how did we get here?” The fact is I am daunted by the notion that we all end up where we are simply by taking one step in front of the other. There are decisions we make in our lives that we know are life-changers. Choosing my college, for instance. I knew that was a defining moment. I can’t help but wonder on occasion how different my life would be today if I hadn’t gone to the Midwestern university that prompted my move to Chicago after graduation, thereby determining my first major relationship, career path, friends, and so on.

When I think about how choosing one thing over the next, all the time, every day, has led me to where I am this very minute, I feel like rewinding my life and playing it back in slow motion just to see where I might have done something differently. Sometimes I wish there was a little flag next to what seems like a small decision, alerting me. “Pay attention to this one. This one’s going to matter.”

I’m not speaking about regret. I don't dwell on mistakes I have made. It’s more that I’m thinking of the wanna-be writer who makes a point to get up at 5 a.m. so he can spend an hour working on his novel before he leaves for his day job. I think about the woman practicing Tai Chi at 6 a.m. every morning outside my window. She reminds me that I, too, could get up before work and do something that matters to me. And then I consider how much earlier I would have to get up. Then I think about how much earlier I would have to go to bed, and conclude it’s just not realistic for my lifestyle. In a matter of seconds, I have dismissed a potentially desirable pursuit. See? A Choice.

I go through phases when I fixate on the possibility that one might miss their true calling. Consider the fate of the world-renowned concert pianist had they not had a piano to plunk away at when they were a toddler, garnering the attention of over-attentive parents. Would they instead have never known that they had it in them to be a concert pianist? Or would fate have intervened and thrown a piano in their path?

Never mind the pianist. What about me? Do I have a true calling, and if so, am I ever going to know what it is? Or worse: what if I don’t have a calling?! What if my uninspired means of employment is just going to have to suffice, because maybe there isn’t something better for me out there?!?

And now I spin into my Woody Allen in Therapy mode, which is clearly a bad headspace to be in.

I digress.

Let’s get back to the beginning of this entry. It seems I am not without things to say, nor am I done exploring my initial query. I definitely haven’t figured it out yet.

And so, I blog.

Dating: 1927 -

The other day, a friend’s phone rang and she asked me to answer it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how. Yesterday evening, I arrived at another friend’s home to dog sit. I went to turn on the water tap, but it’s all hooked up to an alkaline machine and I could not figure out which buttons to push, what the digital number on the screen should read, or which faucet the water is supposed to be coming out of. Don’t even get me started on T.V.s these days.

It has come to this. The only phone, t.v. and water filter I can handle is my own. I sometimes long for simpler times. And yet, not everything has become more complicated. Dating, for instance, seems to have stayed just as complicated over the decades. Lying on my bookshelf is my grandmother’s diary from 1927. That year, Miss Lucile Flannery, was a twenty-four year old southern belle living in San Antonio, Texas. My grandmother’s dating life was quite full it seems. Allow me a few excerpts:

January 2^nd.

Ak! I could cry and cry tonight I feel so awful. Nelson and I had it out tonight. He finally told me I either loved him or it was a case of pure necking. When he said that…I nearly died! Told him I was never going to let him kiss me again.

January 3^rd

I had a date with a new one tonight. Paul is real nice and awfully funny in a droll sort of way but he didn’t make so much of an impression on me. I hope he asks me for another date though because he is a date.

January 6^th

Ah me. I had indeed a wonderful date tonight. Mr. John Joseph Burns. My heart simply fails me when I think of it. He took me to a movie and when we got home, didn’t say, “When can I see you again?”

January 16^th

Margery and I sat at home tonight without dates, but I really didn’t mind and I hope she didn’t.

February 27th

Tonight I have been crying and crying until I am exhausted. My faith in Nellie just crumpled up like paper. I feel like I hate all men! Everything has been so beautiful up to now but it's all ruined now.

March 20th

Nelson is the sweetest thing on earth. I love him.

There are many other tortured moments that year, with my grandmother crying enough tears “to fill a bucket” more than once. Most of this torture was tangled up in her love for Nellie, also know as Morris Robert Nelson, a pilot in the air service. Nellie, whom she would become engaged to later in November and to whom she would be married for over fifty years. Nellie, my grandfather.

1927 vs 2011? Not so different. It doesn’t matter whether we get to know each other over mahjong or pool, via letter or telegram or text. The questions and confusion remain the same. If he didn’t end his text with a question, is it okay to write back? I thought we sparked…maybe we didn’t spark? Did we spark? He seemed so present. Then he wasn't. What if? Would he? Did I? AK! Ah me!

And let me tell you, making it all that much more confusing is the plethora of advice that comes my way, sometimes requested and sometimes unsolicited. Flirt more. Flirt less. Be open. Not too open. Care more. Care less. You’re not ready. You’re too ready. Negotiating the world of dating is kind of like an obstacle course, only the obstacles are set-ups, single's tables at weddings, and mixed signals. If at all possible, avoid parties where you are the only single person and where the game de jour is The Newlywed Game, only… “Oh, sorry, YOU can’t play.” (This happened to me once. Really.)

Dating is not simple. Figuring out what others are thinking, or not thinking, is not simple. It wasn’t in 1927 and it certainly isn’t now. And I like the simple things in life. A phone I can figure out how to use. A good glass of wine with friends. Beach walks with Petey the dog. But the truth is, a good story doesn't usual come from simple alone. You need twists and turns and detours. And when you hit that unexpected dead end in a cul-de-sac, U-turn and try again.

- - - - - -

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM: 1928

TO LUCILE NELSON.

DELAYED BY RAIN BE HOME WEDNESDAY MUCHLY DISAPPOINTED LOTS LOVE

NELLIE.

Big Love

My own heffalump has been love, big love. I'm not sure what it looks like or sounds like; I'm sure it's a bit scary and I'm hoping I'll see it before it sees me.

I have loved and I have been loved. But of Big Love, I have been afraid. I have been so afraid, that I have left some loves because I was not ready. My parents, they had a Big Love. It began as an old-fashioned love affair. They met in Stockholm in the 1960s. He was a handsome, American diplomat, thirteen years her senior with three small children. She was a young, Swedish, green-eyed, fiery secretary working at the American Embassy. He was the son of a Southern belle and a Major General. She was the daughter of a prominent businessman and blonde beauty. It was a time of men in suits and hats, of cocktail parties, of elegance, of manners. They married in the city's cathedral, the surrounding grounds covered in February’s snow. To me, it always seemed a magical love.

When I was fifteen, I woke up late one night to the sound of crying. Crouching at the top of the steps, I peered down into the lit kitchen where my parents sat, dinner plates pushed back on the table, glasses of wine half full, my mother smoking, talking, crying. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their voices were gentle. It was my first memory of what real love looks like.

Back then, I wasn’t afraid of love. I wasn’t afraid of love until my early twenties when my father died. My mother did not want to be without him; it took ten years, but at age 58, she literally gave up living. I have been afraid. I have been afraid to love so much that I will want to give up living if, when, I lose my big love.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. I am not a mother, nor do I have a mother anymore. But over the years, I have been mothered. I was read to, sung to, nursed back to health when my face swelled with mumps and when my body scabbed and itched with pox. I sat at the kitchen table after my first heart-break, comforted with tea poured from an earthen pot and words of empathy. When I wore the very wrong outfit, an - ugh!- dress, to a school dance, my mother – though quite annoyed – showed up in the rainy, dark evening with jeans, a blouse and sneakers, so that I could change. For many years after she died, I had a clear image of my mother flying below my plane, her red hair frizzy in the wind, her pointer finger gently holding my plane safely in the air. From my mother, I learned love.

The other day, I talked to my mother in the car. I explained that I wanted her beside me, but I needed to figure this love thing out on my own. I imagined she was sitting in the passenger seat, listening while gazing out at the passing sugar cane fields. I'm pretty sure the corners of her lips were turned up in a small, satisfied smile.

On Mother's Day

During the years that my family lived in Belgium, we lived in a Flemish area of Brussels. I was barely aware of the country’s deep, cultural and political ‘Flanders vs. Wallonia’ rift. In fact, the only way it touched my life was that street signs were posted in two languages. My mother, on the other hand, ran up against the problem at least once, when she called our local police station after an attempted burglary at our home. Our local police station, as it happened, was also in the Flemish district. My mother did not speak Flemish. The police officer refused to speak French. Then, in English, with no room for misunderstanding, she pointedly told him that she could speak English, French, Swedish, German, Spanish or Italian. In which language was he going to help her?
He assisted my mother in French. Miraculously, the police officer’s command of a language he claimed not to know was quite strong.

If my mother had a motto, it would be: Get it done. As she often reminded us, a job half-done was a job not done at all. The reciting of this maxim was especially annoying when the job at hand involved polishing silver or the annual chore of pulling up weeds from between the stone slats of our terrace (a task that invariably left little callouses to form on the side of the forefinger).

On second thought, perhaps it would be: Suffer no fools. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of one of her steely gazes, especially not when accompanied by a swift tongue-lashing. She could - and would - cut hubris with a single comment. She had a knack for turn of phrase. When my sister was born, the doctor saw her resemblance to our dad and said, “Well, there’s no question who the father is!” to which my mother responded, “There never was.”

When I was 15, I held a party on a weekend my parents were out of town. The following Monday, my mother surprised me by picking me up from school. Immediately, my guilty conscience told me I’d been found out, but instead she chatted pleasantly with me about her day and I breathed a sigh of relief. As we pulled into our driveway, she remarked casually that she had run into our neighbor earlier.
“Phil said he was sorry he wasn’t invited to my party. It looked like quite a success.”
My stomach flipped.
“I had to tell him I didn’t know what he was referring to.”
I had trouble hearing for the pounding in my ears.
“And that I was away for the weekend.”
The jig was up.
And it was then, and only then, that she turned to look at me. There was no reason to speak. The look on my face said it all.
My mother, the tactician.

My fiercely loyal, silly, loving, beautiful mother passed on to me the importance of the Golden Rule, being a good friend, choosing a mate I could laugh with, making time for myself, and finding a doctor I liked. I'm proud to say she also passed on to me her withering gaze.

Not Exactly Eat, Pray, Love

The very same year that Elizabeth Gilbert ate and prayed and loved her way through three countries, I high-tailed it to Maui to do the same. Gilbert’s journey from divorced and depressed to finding love, as anyone who has read Eat, Pray, Love knows, took about a year by way of spaghetti a la carbonara in Italy, yoga and meditation in India, and the temples and blossoms of Bali. By the time she left Bali, she'd found true love. My version of Eat, Pray, Love could be titled Eat and Drink While Loving the Wrong People, Pray Meditate Manifest, On Line Date, Confuse Love with a Slew of Other Issues, Crash and Rebuild Slowly. It has taken me eights years and counting. Allow me to backtrack.

New Year’s Eve, 2001, I lay in the porcelain tub of my Manhattan pre-war apartment. Candles were lit, Ella Fitzgerald was playing, and a glass of Sherry was within arm's reach. As my skin warmed and softened against the icy wind that blew outside, I knew that this was it; it was time to leave my marriage. I was young still, thirty-one. But I’d married much younger, before I’d grown into myself and out of this particular life. I did not know what I wanted exactly, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that there was more out there for me, more of life. My husband and I separated in the early weeks of January.

I did not know then that my mother would be dead in less than three months. I did not know then that my still-husband would drive to Rhode Island and play Amazing Grace on his trumpet at her memorial service. I did not know then that H and I would laugh at stupid things at the post-memorial reception in my mother's living room. We laughed at how many of H’s prom dates and ex-boyfriends were in attendance. At “friends” of our mother’s who cornered us in the supermarket aisles to offer condolences peppered with comments like, “So sudden. So sad that she died without having any grandchildren.” At how much Hawaiian Punch we’d bought for the reception even though we didn’t know anyone who liked it, and no one drank it.

That frigid, final eve of December, I did not know that eighteen months later I would have put everything in storage, found a rental on craigslist on the north shore of Maui, and flown to an island I knew little about to live on my own for six months.

The first time I came to Maui, it was to escape. This is where I began to heal, gasping at the clean, sweet air through the heavy exhaustion that enveloped me. I extended my ticket and stayed even longer. I, a northern European/ East Coast girl, slipped into a sweet existence of guava scented hikes, nights lit bright by the full moon, breezes scented by plumeria blossoms. I lived in the space of not being known, other than what I was willing to share. I danced at parties dressed in angel wings or beaded hats or whatever the theme of the night required. I drank too much and woke up hazy in the early morning hours, dipping myself in the cool ocean to wake up and refresh. I flitted. I flirted. I feigned nonchalance. I fell hard. I learned to surf baby waves, but was most content sitting in the ocean on my board looking back at the emerald green mountains. Instead of teaching, I picked protea on a small flower farm Upcountry for Auntie Ruth, a seventy-year-old Portuguese lady who'd be born in the house next door, the one with the red tin roof. Auntie Ruth swore a blue streak.

The first time I lived in Maui, I created a new life for myself far from home. It wasn't necessarily a life I recognized, but that was what I wanted. Ironically, I had moved from a city of 8 million people to a small island of 150,000 for the sake of anonymity.

Only later did I begin to connect the dots: my grandparents had lived on Oahu - one island over - in the early 1930's when my father was a toddler, my grandfather flying planes from Pearl Harbor. And my half- brother, my father’s son, had backpacked around much of the world after college, passing through this island. He’d camped on these very same beaches, sitting in the sand and playing guitar, watching the Kona storms blow in. I'd flown 10,000 miles to an island in the middle of the Pacific to get as far away from what I knew as I could manage, only to realize that part of me had belonged here all along.

In the past eight years, I've moved to Maui, moved back to New York, and then again to Maui. The second time I moved to Maui, I wasn't escaping. I was returning. Eight years, and I’m still eating, praying and loving. That's just the way my story has unfolded.

Unresolved

For several years now, two friends and I have shared our New Year resolutions with each other. The tradition includes somewhat regular updates to keep ourselves on track. I was deemed overly vigilant one year when I initiated quarterly check-ins, but somehow the practice stuck, and last week was Check-In Time. I couldn’t remember what my resolutions were. This was a bad sign.
I dug through my email to find the original January exchange and quickly realized why I had blocked mine out.
Resolution #1: Do not let my wedding take over my life.
Status: Fail.

Small talk serves as a constant reminder that I have a wedding to plan.

I had no idea how many veritable strangers would take such interest in the details of “My Big Day.” Then again, I wouldn’t have guessed that dozens of co-workers love wedding-based reality TV shows. Have you heard of “Say Yes to the Dress?” “Bridezillas?” How about “My Fair Wedding?” I have now.

Prior to my wearing an engagement ring, occasional pleasantries would be limited to the weather and vague discussions of weekend plans. Now, all bets are off.

I frequently get asked a question about the wedding to which my answer is usually “I don’t know”, “I haven’t gotten that far yet” or “I’m not sure.” Watching their reaction to my lack of clarity is like that part in a job interview when I know I flubbed the clincher.

I attended a Wedding Expo recently thanks to a friend who works in events. If anyone has ever ventured into IKEA without a game plan, they know how I felt walking into this place. I started to panic a little. I headed for the bar. Fortified with a glass of wine, I started making my way through the giant room. I cannot tell you how many times I heard a bride-to-be tell a vendor that her wedding was in 2012. 2012! How much advance planning did one need? How behind was I??
A photographer told me this is the most “joy-full” time of my life.
I headed back to the bar.

Theknot.com sent me an email telling me it was time to order my invitations. But I have almost six more months to go – how long can it take to ship paper? Theknot.com will now be telling my junk mail folder that I’m behind schedule for everything; I don’t want to hear it.

I dreamed my wedding was happening the next morning and I didn’t have a dress and I had forgotten to count my RSVPs and had no idea how many people were showing up.

If my resolution is any indication, a part of me must have known there was potential for turning into a stress ball. But that’s the point of these check-ins: to assess and re-resolve.

I’m amending my resolution.

New New Years Resolution #1: Accept that the wedding will take over my life and stop fighting it.

After all, as theknot.com so thoughtfully pointed out today, I only have 175 more days to go.

Moving.

I’m moving.

I abhor moving. More specifically, I abhor packing. Actually, when I come right down to it, what I really cannot bear is the act of disassembling my home.

Home. Where the heart is. Where you hang your hat. And so on. All of my life, and to this very day, the most disconcerting question posed to me by strangers or new friends is, "Where are you from?" or "Where's home?" I never know quite how to answer and that fact, in and of itself, feels unsettling. I, the daughter of a Swedish mother and American father, grew up in Copenhagen, Rome and Brussels. Though I didn't know it at the time, there is a term for people like me. I'm a Third Culture Kid. According to the government's website, a TCK has spent some or most of their childhood growing up in foreign countries. The first time I lived in the United States (or 'America' as I used to call it in awe), I was 16 and just about to begin my senior year of high school. Until then, my time had been limited to a few weeks every other summer. East Coast humidity, the stale smell of air-conditioning, and Bubble Yum made lasting impressions.

I'm not complaining. Having had the chance to grow up in various countries, to be exposed to different languages, customs and ways of life is not something I would easily trade. Still, growing up, I never lived in a country where the street signs, billboards, or t.v. shows were in my native tongue. I negotiated public transportation, grocery stores, and the like in a foreign language. And let's be clear: my ability to understand what They were saying was always better than my ability to express myself.

Add to this the amalgam of cultures in my family: Swedish, French and American. The only person fluent in all languages was my mother. When we came together for the holidays, all of us (except my mother) butchered grammar – no language was spared, used hand gestures and overly dramatic facial expressions in order to make our points, and by the end of the holiday no one could muster a word in any language, including their own.The feeling that clung to me for years was that I belonged everywhere at once, yet nowhere. I felt European in the States, and American in Europe. And honestly, I felt neither truly European nor American.

My point is this: wherever I end up these days, I like to feel settled. I like to walk in the door and know that this is where I belong. I don't have tons of stuff but what I do have comforts me. The painted water pitcher that my parents bought when we lived in Italy. My grandmother's diary from 1927, the year she dated my grandfather and the year he proposed. My father's bookcase, and on it, the copy of Winnie-the-Pooh from which he used to read to me at night. Some may call it stuff, but to me it is home.

Which is why I've been procrastinating and have yet to pack a box. Because the moment I take that first painting off the wall and those books off the shelf, this home will no longer feel like mine and I will, again, be neither here nor there for a little while.

But packing also means moving forward, and this I love. Soon enough, I will be in my new home, a lovely one right beside the sea. I'll place the painted pitcher on the kitchen counter and Winnie-the-Pooh back on its shelf. And if someone asks, "Where's home?" I'll be ready to respond. Right here.

On Enlightenment, Sister Mary and Cosmos

"The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines."

— Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

It hasn’t the been easiest start to a year ever. (It hasn’t been the hardest either. Still…) In the past weeks, each time I arrived at a fork in the path of life, instead of the way widening and becoming clearly lit as I hoped, it seemed I was faced with a multitude of signs that declared STOP or SLOW or You'd Better U-Turn Here. Were I French, I’m sure I would have run into my favorite, ubiquitous French street sign seen at roundabouts: Vous n’avez pas la priorite. You do not have priority here!

A dear friend of mine turns to meditation and prayer in times of extreme stress. This would be a Maui friend. My Maui friends turn to the heavens and shamans and prayer and angel cards more often than my New York friends -they turn more to cosmos and The New Yorker. I go back and forth.

I believe meditation can be helpful and I mean to do it first thing in the morning, but I’m always halfway through that first cup of coffee and New York Times website before I remember. By that point, the caffeine has shot the potential benefit of mediation straight to hell – sorry – so I think, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll start.” The truth is I have trouble sitting still, and I have yet to get comfortable with prayer. My religious upbringing was almost nonexistent and only relatively recently have I begun to figure out how I fit into the whole Believing thing.

When I was 6, my family moved to Italy and I began 2nd grade at the St. Francis International School of Rome. My teacher was the thin, stern Sister Mary. As family lore goes, I took quite keenly to the strict Catholic teachings. My religious frenzy peaked one morning over breakfast as I stood beside my father and sang a hymn about “eating his body” and “drinking his blood." I then pontificated on how the rest of my family was headed straight to hell. My father yelled out to my mother something to the effect of FIX THIS! She promptly called the Swedish Lutheran Church of Rome and a nice pastor drove to the outskirts of the city to go many rounds with me on the topic of religion, or rather, Catholicism. He apparently left in a sweat, but victorious nonetheless. I remember none of this.

The rest of my youthful years contained virtually no religious or spiritual guidance. As a family, we only went to church on Christmas Eve and the rare Easter. My mother claimed claustrophobia in churches, and once a year was the best she could do. At age thirteen, I was sent to confirmation camp in Sweden because my mother had gone. Tradition. Mostly, I remember making friends, biking to the mini-golf, and eating soft pear ice-cream. On our confirmation day, everyone handed out the religious version of business cards - little, white cards with our names and Biblical pictures. Kind of like Pokeman cards, only with small doves and Bibles. When my family moved to Rhode Island, we lived in a lovely house on Elm Street encircled by churches. Sitting on our deck eating Sunday breakfasts, we could see the churchgoers arrive. My father would yell out, “Give my regards to God!” and then settle in with his coffee and pancakes. Watching my parents die did nothing for my spiritual growth. If anything, it sent me reeling in the opposite direction.

At age 32, I moved to Maui for a short respite from life. I fell into an almost dream-like state and before the plumeria blossoms could flutter to the ground, I was at new moon gatherings, soaking paper in the full moon glow, and sitting in circles as powerful entities were channeled. I experienced shamans and intuitive readings and swam with wild dolphins - a spiritual experience if I've ever had one.

Back in New York, I continued the exploration, even visiting a shaman in a post-war apartment building; his den was full of nature, crystals and magic, and his eyes were the color of clouds. One particularly odd night, I found myself sitting on a metal folding chair in a West Side townhouse, chanting sanskrit while the image of a yogi was projected onto a screen.

I'm not sure yet where all this has led me, nor can I clearly define my belief system. I do believe that sometimes yelling, "What the fuck!" feels really, really good. I also believe that if something feels good, be it a shamanic session, playing pool in a dark, dank bar, downward dog or, yes, a Cosmo, then I'll do it. I believe in gathering, reading, listening and learning, and taking in any and all snippets that inspire and have meaning for me. I believe in my friends. I believe in the power of waterfalls, laughing until my stomach aches, a good red-faced-nose-dripping-blubbering-cry (even in an unfortunately public place) and, of course, snacks. And I know that nothing stays one way forever; somewhere around the corner is the street sign that reads This Way, For Sure, or Nothing but Smooth Roads Ahead.