Kernels of Truth

2011-07-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

My legs brought me to the beach by bike, with a milky, coffee-colored iced-coffee tucked into the water bottle holder which, when I thought about it, made me smile smugly. I knew this place and knew where I was going (if only literally.) I passed people, the obvious tourists-- the Quebecois speaking their hard, unromantic version of French, the family of 4 all wearing as close to the same shade of green as possible.

"On your left," I announced because, if they lived here, biked this path weekly for four summers; knew the stops, the public-but-private beach where they used to meet a friend and former lover and acted naturally when he said how magical their eyes were-- if they lived here, they would know to keep to the right to let others pass. And I always pass; I never know what is my rush.

That day, I was planning on going downtown for errands: getting an iced coffee and reading some Jane Eyre in the park that the townies called home, until the cops told them not to. But prior to my iced coffee I had my tires pumped and couldn't get the phrase "You'll go a lot faster now," which the bike mechanic told me, out of my head. So I just left and headed to the bike path and went fast. When I approached my first possible sit-and-read beach stop, I kept going. And 5 miles later locked my bike up and went down the long wooden staircase leading to the beach where I used to meet J. We weren't sleeping together at that point; I was an over-eager texter and then saw him walking home with another girl on a night we were supposed to hang out, so it was over. A month later, I convinced us both that I didn't hate him and we met at the beach. I was hesitant to give directions-- I discovered it on one of my bike path adventures, craving a change of scenery which is a thing that happens on a regular basis in this town. I went down at 5 pm and was one of three people there and wanted to keep it that way, as any other option would involve Coors Light and Frisbee. We lay down on my blanket watching the sun set across the lake and behind the pointed mountains and he rested his head on my stomach and I tried to think of something to say, but silence was okay between us-- it always had been. We met when I was Arts + Entertainment Editor for our college paper -- a position I look back at and question in the pre-music-blog-reading-illegal-downloading version of myself. J's pieces were always past deadline but they were well written and didn't need much editing. I started seeing him out at the bar where everyone knows your name, but would never talk to you, and one night after some $3 pitchers of PBR he mentioned an old typewriter he bought but was now broken.

"Maybe I can fix it," I said, and we left the bar.

And at the same bar several years later I was saying goodbye to him and wishing him and his girlfriend of 1 year the best of luck as they joined the ranks of the brave and motivated who fled town for the throes of a city and some culture and anonymity.

"This town is so small," is a complaint often made but only grave enough for several who mean when they say they will leave. Others are in a constant state of "thinking about trying to leave, maybe. Someday..." and wonder if they've missed their chance and why would they leave if they have a job and the economy is bad and they're kinda sorta seeing this boy and do you even know how expensive rent is in Brooklyn?!

But the longer I wait for the time to be right to move, the more attached I get --though it sure feels detached!-- and my strings are being tied tighter and I'm holding onto them for fear of change and starting over somewhere else as a grown-up who will not use staring across a huge lake at the Adirondacks as a source of entertainment.

sunflower season

2010-09-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

i had a dream that i cut
down your tall sunflower
at its base, where the stem
is thickest and meets
the roots that have grown so
strong this summer and can
now hold the weight of bright
heads with round brown faces
perfectly centered and the landing
stop of bees yellow furry with pollen.
i cut it with a garden tool,
somewhere between a scythe and a saw
and let it fall by my feet;
it bounced slightly, cradled by the foliage.

in my dream there were rings in the stem
like the ones that determine ages of trees.
but this stem just had rings for the past three months
one per day
which told the day's story.
it wasn't much of a story, which is how i like my summer days.
some cold beers and a sweaty tee shirt;
finding grains of sand in my bed, in my hair;
the sweet tang of fresh tomatoes that had dirtied
my fingers and made me smile.

i lost track of how many times i said
the tomatoes tasted like candy,
but i meant it.
i popped an orange one into my mouth,
no bigger than a quarter,
and held it there feeling the roughness,
taking pleasure in imperfections.
(doesn't calling something "perfect"
make it less so?)
i used my teeth to break the thin skin
which held taught inside it the bursting
of flavor and seed and a
sweet messy juice.
i couldn't stop, so i had
two more
while i sat under your sunflower
which, when cut,
would later remind me of this day.

blogs of shame

2010-09-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

i came into work this morning to find Outlook, my email software, to be a bit bonkers. i think i did it yesterday on a mad dash out of the office for a job interview. anyway, it won't "send/receive" and therefore what good am i today?

i opened up google reader and settled in with my Polar seltzer (cranberry-lime, y'all) with the pervasive numbing hum of the air conditioner(s!!!) soothing my hangover (i had just rolled in from about 5 hours of sleep after bar-hopping to burlington's finest collection of jukeboxes, free popcorn and pbrs. the creme de la creme.) Two co-workers began some baseball chatter, which i easily made sound like the adults in Peanuts cartoons. because i don't give a fuck. i don't even know if they were talking about baseball! so i'm sitting there, paranoia of a future of a flat ass somewhere in the back of my mind, wondering if i'll barf today in the very forefront of my mind, trying to recount how many cigarettes i actually smoked last night and reasoning with myself why i didn't spend that money on a savings account instead of that last 4 beers. and i'm feeling anxious for a time when i'll do something meaningful with myself and, when i do, if i'll just want something more meaningful after that and that first meaning will cease to be enough for me as if i'm building up alcohol tolerance. i'm trying to remember a facebook invite i wrote in my head last night for a dance party that should have happened 10 times already this summer (because we're feeling rough we're feeling raw we're in the prime of our lives) but has not and i'm hoping i didn't drink my wit away like i did any hope for a good decision. elissa said "make sure it says _____. don't forget!" "i won't forget," i said. and that's the only part of it i remember.
i was snapped out of this typical wednesday morning (see also: typical thursday, typical tuesday) suddenly not by pangs of responsibility or by the who's who of athletes who have been accused of rape, but by some fuzzy sounding guitar coming from my external harman/kardon speakers, a kind of validation of myself in this place, and HEY LOU REED DID YOU JUST SAY SOMETHING? i can't stand it anymore more either. thanks for always being there for me, though i'm sorry to be listening to your music in such an unsavory environment. (there's white out on my desk.) and i can't stand it anymore.

Spare Razor? Spare Time!

2010-07-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

watch this film.

hey yall,
can we talk about leg hair for a sec? oh, you're sick of talking about leg hair? sry.

I don't shave my legs. Haven't shaved my lower leg for probably 2 years. I hate the process. I hate the price. I hate that it took me so long to realize that shaving cream wasn't a necessity, and neither were all the other "shaving products". I hate when it grows back THE DAY AFTER, and that I have to start the process over again. So i stopped shaving. At first it was weird; my leg hair was so dark that it was completely noticeable. if i wore a skirt, i looked like a man in a skirt (from, say, the knees down). this was some real fuckin' leg hair. but it was not a statement (other than letting my leg hair say "meh" for me). i was not expressing my womanhood or telling men that i don't have to shave to live up to society's views of beauty, which they happened to define as an unrealistic virginal pre-pubescent whore -- among other things, completely hairless. wtf? i can usually relate ideals of beauty and attraction back to our homo sapien uncles (no homo), i.e. men are attracted to women with big hips because it signifies fertility. women are attracted to men with big noses because they signify virility. so it would make sense for men to be attracted to women whose pubes are super long so that their vaginas are kept toasty and release pheromones. no?
but wait, i'm not even talking about pubes. i promise! come back!

so i stopped shaving but felt that it still looked kinda weird and i didn't feel feminine at all. and i like to feel feminine sometimes. but i like to feel it when i want to feel it. and i like to feel it for me. i guess i kinda think of it more as a time saver. like my time is more important than to be spent on hair removal, then subsequently obsessing over said hair removal. so i started waxing! i remove it when i think of it, or when i have time. or when i'm going somewhere exotic [i have a waxing appointment in half an hour that i made in time to go to NYC.] my mom has been waxing for like 30 years and she could probably count on one hand how many leg hairs she grows now. it's so awesome. expensive? yes, but so are all those venuses. painful? shit hurts so good. but it lasts longer! and eventually (as proven by my Mama Wolf) it grows back finer! also, think of the time yr saving!

in fact, here's a list of things you could do with all the time you've saved from shaving every other day (WWWTTTTTFFFFFF??!?!!111!?!??):

1. get waxed once a month (or less, depending on how little a shit you give)
2. spend your shower time deep conditioning. or masturbating.
3. write a blog post!
4. cut a pair of jeans into short shorts to show off your sometimes-smooth-sometimes-hairy-depending-on-what-your-schedule-has-been-like legs!
5. hike up yr skirt a little more (and show your world to some bro)
6. bake a zucchini bread! or, if you're shaving the whole legs, bake a yeast bread!
7. brush up on politics using wikipedia.
8. read a list! and then comment on it!

Carried Away by Consumerism

2010-06-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

It only took several months after Obama was elected president for many countries to restore their faith in the American people, or at least one dude sitting in an office in D.C. We were not, after all, a nation of stupid consumer-driven sheep who would re-reelect an incompetent man-boy as our leader.

Then Sex and the City 2 was made. I had a love/hate relationship with the HBO series, perhaps because I don't "get" shoes and I consider myself more of a country mouse. However, Miranda was a highly-functioning professional woman, and Samantha reassured that women can be (and are, duhhh) just as sexual as men are expected to be. [I've always thought Charlotte was obnoxious as hell, and Carrie made good jokes but I got distracted by that weird pouty horse-fish face she made.] I could enjoy this show from the comfort of my own living room, with or without 'tinis, knowing that there's was not a reality and that I could still be a woman even if my closet looked less like a 2nd bedroom and more like a closet.
So, even though I laughed when I probably wasn't supposed to laugh, and really wanted to shake the hell out of the fab-four, I went to see this atrocious abomination of cinema (read: Hollywood) with my former SATC-obsessed roommate. For the record, I will say that she does not play the part of a typical SATC fan and lives a normal female life like me.

This movie represented everything cringe-worthy about our country. It took place in Abu Dabi, though it was filmed in Moroco, and what brought the ladies there was an all-expenses trip that they took full advantage of to get them out of the mediocrity of wealth, family, work, and life. Woe are they that are the haves. Seriously. Carrie complained about Big not going out to soirees and galas and bashes with her and getting take-out so they could spend time together in. This is when I knew I was a spectator of this movie from some other planet. So they fly 1st class to one of the wealthiest, most extravagant cities in the world. The ladies are greeted by their own personal servants (like, one Indian man each), and luxurious transportation (like, one car each). So, World, if we didn't strike you as oil-obsessed, insensitive, over-privileged half-humans, what say you now?
Anyway, Miranda quits her job so she can spend more time with her fam. Charlotte realizes that just because she's threatened by her nanny with huge tits, she still needs her to make her kids shut the fuck up. Samantha is probably banned from Abu Dhabi due to shouting at Muslim men during prayer that she has lots of sex while wearing short shorts; she also fellates a hookah hose. Carrie 'gets over it,' but only because Big changes, so essentially she changed him, so she didn't get over but instead is a big baby. Liza Minelli performs "Single Ladies," there are some gays who get married probably only because they are two gay men, and we all know that my gay best friend and your gay best friend would be perfect for each other because they're, like, both gay.
I sat through this 2+ hour disrespectful fashion show for over 2 hours. Maybe it's the English degree talking (it doesn't get this opportunity too often), but this movie lacked a thesis/story/plot/point/gist. Was it an excuse for director Michael Patrick King to play with real-life Barbies with an arguable modern feminist twist, to go balls-out commodification? Or was it an opportunity for him to take a stab at cultural competency? The image of Charlotte trying to get service on her iPhone to call her husband from atop a camel makes me think it's probably the former. I had to ask myself...wasn't there something better they could have spent this money on?

srsly.

2010-06-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

You said that your insides were falling out and that you wanted to "be somewhere" and I knew exactly what you meant. Though, not exactly since, if there's anything we learned from James Agee, it is that I know you only as I can know anyone...as a person, and that is my truth, albeit subjective. "It is simply an effort to use words in such a way that they will tell us as much as I want to and can make them tell of a thing which happened and which, of course, you have no other way of knowing...It is one way of telling the truth: the only possible way of telling the kind of truth I am here most interested to tell." But that made me feel sad then to think about these things with you, (as it makes me feel sad now to remember) you and me frequently blowing our minds as they grew to grasp notions of reality and cultural constructs and college education revolving around Franzia mixed with orange juice and how, no matter how well we can know another person, and know ourselves, we still never know exactly the truth of "the other," no matter how many times we sat on the porch with that other, or even if that other saw us cry.

And so when you said that your insides were falling out, I imagined you feeling scared and excited; panicking against your better judgment, but being excited against your will and longing for your connections, friends already cultivated and growing and reaching. "Wait, what?" you might have said. I imagined you sitting lonely at the Bangkok International Airport (isn't it strange how we can feel our loneliest surrounded by thousands?) with your things you had packed for the next four and a half months -- a journal and a pen, books, some sensible shoes, a dress you made, maybe, and some hand-crafted jewelry your sister made -- and i wanted more than anything to share that mindfuck with you. Maybe our insides would have fallen out together in, what I can only hope would be, a similar fashion.

A Feminist Looks at Bourbon Street

2010-05-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

You find yourself in this city in the south, post-Katrina and not during Mardi Gras-- a time when New Orleans goes ignored like a pet during its owner's pregnancy. But even though it is not Fat Tuesday and you plan on keeping on your bra, you go to Bourbon Street.

You turn off Canal St. toward a neon pink "Hustler" sign and get a drink from the closest bar, one called Krazy Korner (or was it Utopia?) where a woman in a bra top and booty shorts is selling "shots,"artificially colored alcohol standing upright in what looks like a syringe. You opt for a margarita, with salt, to go, and sip down quickly from your green plastic cactus-shaped cup. You are shouted at by men on 2nd and 3rd stories of short hotels and lofts and think "ugh" but as you continue down the (surprisingly short!!) street, you begin to feel slightly overdressed. Not that you're not wearing your "goin' out" clothes, but that you haven't got much skin showing and these women selling themselves to sell a bar seem so confident and you want that.

But they also seem so sad.

"Do you think her mother knows?" you ask your friend, but you don't wait long enough to realize the unfortunate reality.

For a second you envision pushing through the crowd of men swarmed around her, taking her hand, and running away; maybe to a cafe somewhere where you could talk about how repulsive those men are, whose blue eyes glaze over and morph into venomous snakes (oh, those Biblical references!). Or maybe to France, to the real vieux France. Vive la verite!

Is this a positive step for our country? That our women (girls, really, as one "barely legal" sign informs you) can stand outside with their inner thighs and cleavage, sometimes asses, exposed and not worry about genital mutilation or being sold into sex slavery (god, you're naive). They use their sexuality as a tool and means of power over the men and women who expect them to be easy based on how they're dressed, and the more you and your friends go and stare and drink and stare and spend and stare, the more praise they get from their manager--maybe a slap on the ass for being good for business. But nothing is ever what it looks like--water is not blue and money is never just money, and this is not real confidence in these women. Bourbon Street is dirty and what many would call sinful but that doesn't stop you from having what you think is fun. This is a place where you can have your tits and eat them too because that's what it is known for, and this is America, and it's not like you're doing anything wrong, right?

Gone Beyond

2010-02-19T17:53:00.000-08:00

i've been trying to figure out the difference between mindfulness and self-consciousness. i've tried to decipher and control the differences between thinking this is me!! and this is me??

but then i remind myself that It Is What It Is. but is "it" the same for everyone? i know the answer is no and i try to remind myself that, walking down the street and yearning for some kind of eye contact with someone that says "This Is 'It'" but that never happens. not sure if this is some normal type of social anxiety or some weird type of self-aware normalcy and maybe what i want is right in front of me and i can fulfill the thing i am wanting to receive from looking into someone's pupils.

then i got to thinking about psychology and the study of the brain and how, yes, it's a 'science' but how can you measure and compare the heated activity of one person's grey matter with that of another person's. especially when you're trusting lab rats to solve a puzzle for you.
so that when i say "i'm not happy," how do i know for sure that the feeling i'm feeling is different from depression or anxiety, as labeled in the form of a survey [I sometimes feel this way; I often feel this way; I never feel this way.] because when i was younger i thought that maybe my emotions were measured on a dial and at one point the needle would flicker into the green/yellow/orange, anywhere away from those blues, and that was when i would know and feel what it seemed like everyone around was all feeling simultaneously as happy.

and then i smelled saffron. and then i saw rabbit tracks in the snow. and then i heard a banjo. and the question is not solved but my needle peeked and i felt bursting and goosebumps and wondered why this is not a drug advertised by pfizer with side effects being that you are left wondering why you didn't know about this feeling sooner.

Can't Stop the [Innate] Beat

2009-12-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

Things set to music look like dance
The seagulls are folk dancing--
moving quick feet while
keeping head still
And reminding us of
constant rhythm.
And we are fluid
and we are liquid
and, when left to nature,
we are motion.
And it is only when
we encounter structure and solidity and self-consciousness
that we question our
singular
inherent movement.
And laws of physics beyond that book
and theories of life beyond religion
are best left unexplained
and always moving.

work dream

2009-11-20T06:33:00.000-08:00

Last night I had another work dream. This one needs no Freud to deconstruct:

I was sitting at my desk, in front of my computer, "working." My office is on the basement level of a building, so there is a window next to me that looks out to ground level.
I was doing some 'office chat' with my coworker whose desk faces mine when i noticed that I started feeling funny. She started feeling funny too. Then things started getting cloudy and i looked out the window and there were people working on the building and right when i looked over a huge gust of chemical gas vapor cloud puffed in my face and i did a slow-motion "noooooo!" with a side dive out of my chair and some coughing and belly sliding to escape but i was too late and i had inhaled the chemical and my dream self imagined that they would find me curled up next to my desk and my computer and my files (paper). may my dream self rest in 9-to-5 peace

(more eerie photos here )

self-congratulatory farewell: i feel important.

2009-10-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

To the Mentoring Community:

I am writing to inform you that I will be leaving my position as Recruitment Specialist at Mobius in November. I started in August 2008 as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and while my time serving with Mobius was measured in months, what I learned over the past year is immeasurable.

Whether we recruited mentors together, improved opportunities for youth, or networked at an event, I am grateful to have been able to share this time with many of you as we put in a tremendous effort to serve children in our communities.

Mobius and 19 partnering programs reached 800 mentor matches this year for the first time ever. In this economic climate it has been a challenge for most of us as non-profits, but this proves that when we are all seeking to serve children, and to serve them well, through volunteering, donation of money or goods, and resourceful recruitment, we can accomplish the unexpected!

At the end of November, the Mobius VISTA torch will be passed on to Benji Thurber, a Middlebury alumnus who has mentored in the past and, along with Tracy, will add so much to recruitment efforts, mentoring advocacy and public awareness. His email address is benji@mobiusmentors.org; say hello! He will be taking over referrals at the end of November. You can also contact tracy@mobiusmentors.org if you have any other questions.

Thanks, everyone, for helping me find my way throughout the year and for sharing what you know.

All the best,
Meredith Rivlin

workplace haikus

2009-10-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

I was an hour late

But didn't miss much; I was

dream-working from home.

Reward is not felt

through updating a spreadsheet.

Can numbers change lives?

Remembering Now

2009-10-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

I'm crossing the rocks where we once tried to make our way, once took long awkward steps to avoid towels and legs and Bud-on-ice.

And i tried to imagine when it was Then: my bare skin, arms out falling forward, staring at the bottom of the moody water; remembering months ago when only the falling snow dove in, and the gray and white geese, squawking, had all flown over head, pointing their Vs toward Connecticut, maybe, or did they go as far as Florida? Farther?

And I tried to remember back to Before Then and I can't remember what the slippery algae felt like under my feet, scrambling to get back up to the rock, making fungus jokes just to hear you laugh ("I would lichen this to a great day!").

And bundled up in a black hoodie Now, hair welcomingy touching my neck, I barely remember the smell of or skin all together, as we sat out on the lawn. Our skin was perpetually sticky with sweat and bug spray; tempted sometimes by that gruesome DEET to avoid scratching at our ankles in the sleepless night when the mosquitoes rested their round, red bellies.

And Now i can't imagine anything but Now: the quiet of the lake, void of its boats like a face without blemishes and I'm held to the present by the sloshing of the soft water onto the rocks and into every crevice.