“We Will All Be Changed”: Last Night Songs & Sentimentality

I get sentimental at night.

I’ve had lines from Sara Bareilles’s song “Breathe Again” threading through my mind throughout the day (“Car is parked, bags are packed/but what kind of heart doesn’t look back?”). The night before any new move (whether to a foreign country, back to college, vacation), all my childhood seems to twinge reminders into my heart about what I’m leaving. No matter how desperate I’ve been to get away from my parents, my tiny town, the monotony of a summer job routine, the night before, everything settles into a kind of dusky already-missing. I think it’s partly due to the fact that during these moments, I see how quietly proud my parents are of me, which just wrecks me every time.

But it’s been a lovely last week home. At the beginning of the week, twelve or thirteen of us from high school all got together at a friend’s house, out in the country. There is something about driving down empty, winding gray roads lined with trees & fields & the sun beginning to set behind you that makes me feel like everything is right in the world. The fullness & contentedness of the moment is precious to me. Everyone brought a dish to pass & beer & it was the perfect night to cram onto the deck & barbecue & drink & make cracks at each other from high school. We’re like family now. We feasted (grilled clams, shrimp, jalapeno poppers, steak, pork chops, potato, pasta, fruit, & green salads, & more!) & caught up & met significant others & gossiped about what our classmates were up to these days. Bullfrogs croaked their own conversations in the mirror-round pond a few feet away & when we made a bonfire, the smoke backdropped against the mountains & close-set trees. We set off fireworks with first a 66% success rate, then a 50% success rate, & then we stopped trying altogether. I drove home with a friend around 11, sleepy & sober, with smiles lanterning my entire inside.

Second summer bonfire of the season!

This morning, I got up at 6:45 am to go on a super early morning hike (a last adventure!) with a dear friend. She had called the previous night, asking if 8:00 am (& then 7:30) was too early. I’m realizing I like the early morning more & more, so I said that was fine (my 6:45 am self did not immediately agree with last night self’s assessment of that). At any rate, once I’m up, I’m up, so I ran over to her house & then we took about a 5 mile round trip hike up to Star Field, which I’d actually never been to. We took Oscar, her large, joyous Labradoodle, who set to chasing chipmunks & other various wildlife once Anna let him off the leash. The hike is mostly straight uphill on your way to Star Field, up a rather vertical road & then through the woods. 

Oscar in question. 

Naturally, as we worked our way up the hill, we panted out (okay, it was mostly me huffing) feminist discourse, book suggestions, gender/race discussions, & the usual things we usually talk about when we get together. Also lighter things, like laughing at Oscar & getting enthusiastically greeted by a hulking chocolate Lab & his owner, another early morning hiker like us. The view when you clear the woods is breathtaking:

And it just gets better when you walk down the hill & face toward town:

I dropped by her house for a cup of coffee afterward, greeted her father & watched her make muffins. There’s a certain comfort to being in a familiar kitchen & her kitchen is everything that I think of when I think of Cooperstown, with an earthy organic & elegantly functional feel to it. I took the long way home, down Brooklyn Ave., to be in the middle of a road that has wildflower fields bordering both sides of it. I’ve been soaking in wildflower fields & stars lately, thinking I won’t get many of those where I’m going.

My aunt dropped by after dinner & we promised to write letters to each other & my parents said that they would write back if I wrote. I can think of nothing better than handwritten correspondence from my parents (as something to treasure both now & in the future). I finished packing & cleaning & brought everything out to the car & there was an air of finality to shutting the trunk & turning back to face our candleglow house, with my parents’ figures only dimly visible in the dining room & the two cats milling about the steps of the deck.

My friend Alexandria sent me a song today–an “I love you, safe travels” song & I think I’ll close with lines from it & a link:

And we will all be changed/Oh, oh, oh, oh— /Oh, oh, oh, oh—/Speak now don’t carry on like it’s /Always gonna be/Hold child this expectation /But don’t forget to love /We can shape but can’t control/These possibilities to grow.

I’m ready to take NYC by storm–to see how these possibilities to grow will make me grow & shift & put down roots in sidewalk pavement. A writer friend recently asked in a letter what things we would write down to make sure we don’t forget later: I am writing down this expectation & this rollercoaster thrill & all this love, brimming, brimming all around me.  I will be changed.

Lucky-Penny Blessed & Apple-Blossom Bursting

My heart has been apple-blossom bursting right along with all the rest of the spring flowers this month.

Spring is always a signifier of goodness barreling down a dirt road to bowl me over with warm breeze happiness & a sunshiney temperament. This spring though, the goodness has been overwhelming. Everyone remarked on what a long winter it had been & how ready they were for spring. I always rabbit-hole into myself during the winter & this one was no different (but tempered by a beautiful close-knit group of friends & professors, good food, & poems). Still & all: warm temperatures & hints of sun were a blessing to breathe in.

I feel like I’ve just been spinning in a dizzyingly vibrant & merry vortex, stretching out my hands to collapse all the good into myself–saving up for winter months ahead. I will be in NYC this summer (follow my NYC blog to keep up-to-date on adventures!) interning at a literary agency, something that felt planets away last summer. Last July I informed my parents that this was my last summer home & proceeded to pack the entirety of my high school room up & tetris it into my mom’s art studio. I reflected on how easy it was to consolidate a life into cardboard & plastic & left for junior year empty-shouldered & terrifyingly free. I had, of course, no idea how I was going to manage not coming home next summer. I was thinking loosely about moving to NYC but had no idea how finances would work out. But here’s the funny twists of the universe: it worked. One of my friends wrote to me this summer about employing the idea of “thoughtful recklessness,” quoting something one of her professors had said. There are moments when it is impossible to do anything but shut your eyes & leap, praying that someone or something will catch you, that the universe has decided to safety-net you. I have noticed a strange & beautiful pattern in my life: for all my worrying & nail-biting & journal angsting & midnight sobbing that precedes an act of thoughtful recklessness, things work out. 

Paying for senior year was like a screw turning at a bad angle in the back of my mind, especially upon finding out that I wasn’t going to get a college-wide scholarship from the Geneseo Foundation for next year–money is tight everywhere. I was blowing my savings on this city summer & already trying to put a good spin on finances for my mom, just to avoid tongue-clicking & worried eyes about going deeper into college debt. But then: a scholarship from the English department for a substantial amount, because God bless my mentor, who had taken time out of her crampacked schedule to nominate me, knowing my financial difficulties. I think I teared up when I got that email, pressed my hands to my mouth in overwhelmed gratitude & stared in shock. It’s not covering everything, but it’s helping so much. Every little bit helps.

Frantic poem submissions in mid-March flowered open to inform me in May that all three of my poems had been accepted for next March’s issue of The Susquehanna Review, an international undergraduate literary magazine. All three. It was another hands-to-mouth moment & feeling like a million balloons were swelling inside me.

And then, like a final flourish on a four-tiered wedding cake: a heart-soaring boy dropped into my life by casually dropping into a seat across from me at a Starbucks table. A surprise so strange & lovely I still don’t quite believe I get to call him every night & share a part of his intricate & new world.

It’s been a spring of surprises & feeling lucky-penny blessed. I described junior year as a wildfire: chaotic, warm, encouraging new growth, something overwhelming & beautiful. I am thrill-scared, like I’m waiting at the top of a rollercoaster to plummet into the new things waiting, thinking about rolling more of my life into suitcases & wandering down city streets with wide eyes & open hands. Thinking also about the people I have yet to meet–invitations into complex & thrumming life stories, paths winding together for awhile–the words waiting to be discovered in sidewalk cracks, subway performers, a summer downpour, the swelter of summer heat & a six-story walk-up apartment, in getting lost & becoming found. I envision myself at this crossroads, touching hands with a multitude of people & trying to choose which path to walk.

Spreading my fingers wide today to send my love to everyone who holds a piece of my heart in their hands. I couldn’t do any of this without you.