oh best beloved

We were taking the same Renaissance Literature course and the same Visual Art course. It was first semester of sophomore year. I don’t remember the first day that I realized the quiet girl in the corner of my art class was the same one sitting across from me in our lopsided Circle of English Class Trust, although I do remember smiling at you in Art because I eventually realized we had the same English class and anyone who likes art and is an English major is good in my book, and wondering if you thought the English professor was secretly totally awesome and inspiring and totally batshit and terrifying the same way I did.

You must have thought the same thing, about people liking English lit and art, because one of those rainy days we spent painting the in the hallway you struck up a conversation with me. It was the start, just as Rick told Louie.

Relationships are interesting things, even more so when you consider the world around them. True, genuine friendships were sacred rarities all the way up to modern times. So often, relationships were driven by interpersonal needs – you have an actual relationship with the merchant who is going to buy your wares or lend you money or marry your daughter and friendships were based on such a value. If there was a friend who you loved and there was no political gain to be had from said relationship – that was a true friend, a sacred friend. In today’s world, we don’t have to have relationships with our bankers or our merchants, so in theory you should be able to choose your friends.

(But still, how often did people become fast friends, best friends in the whole wide world, with the people they lived with in college? It happened to you, it happened to me. It wasn’t by some miraculous all seeing head of housing that knew, just knew it in her BONES, that all of the people on my floor in freshman year were perfect matches for each other, even though we lived with each other all four years. We wanted easy, happy lives and warring with the girls down the hall over who stole whose belt (or boyfriend or blanket) was not going to help. It is true, though, that some of my best friends come from that floor, and I love them dearly.)

Today, we have Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and blogs (and you know I’m guilty of all but LinkedIn) and so many aspects of friendship have become accoutrements. Or maybe, maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe we’re so focused on being liked and valued and wanted that we use Facebook and Twitter to validate ourselves with how many friends and followers we have. And because we want as many people as possible to like us, to want us, we’re more afraid than ever to say something or be someone who will cause people to dislike us. We are all sweet and cute and craft careful personas of witty awesomeness, so that a lot of the relationships of today are just as political as the ones back in the middle ages. Just instead of being polite and sweet to your butcher, you’re being sweet and polite to the cute kid who sat in your class a couple of semesters ago and you still think is cute. Which, whatever, I’m not going to lambaste anyone for doing that. I think it’s part of the composition of today’s society and our particular generation – I’m careful about what I put out on Facebook because I care about how it’s received. I’m not about to throw any stones when I’m just as guilty. Glass houses, and all that.

It’s hilarious and ironic that you and I use the internet the way we do. Various and sundry are complaining that the internet and all its little ‘networking’ sites are all manifestations of the way interpersonal relationships are becoming less and less personal. No one sits down and has deep conversations for hours on end, they cry. Business writers caution that emails shouldn’t go on for more than a page, which means the letters Liza sent her sister Jane – pages on pages – really are a thing of the past.

But you are my soul friend, one of those sacred rarities “difficult to find but dearly beloved,” that summons me to the good, by offering advice and not being afraid to call me out, but still loves me unconditionally. You are the Dianna to my Anne and because you do not live down the street and through the grove from me, we cannot drink our tea and discuss every afternoon. Instead, The Constantine Papers is a series of love letters between us, that tide us over when you’re in your old city and I’m in my little city, until we can see each other and sit across from one another by a fireplace and drink tea and talk about everything.

where are you?

to: charlie
from: laurie

i miss you.

she speaks to my soul

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: ingrid michaelson

I don't wanna be the one to say goodbye
But I will, I will, I will
I don't wanna sit on the pavement while you fly
But I will, I will, oh yes I will

'Cause maybe in the future, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back around
Maybe in the future you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back

Oh, the only way to really know is to really let it go
Maybe you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back to me

I don't wanna be the first to let it go
But I know, I know, I know
If you have the last hands that I want to hold
Then I know I've got to let them go

'Cause maybe in the future you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back around
Maybe in the future you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back

Oh, the only way to really know is to really let it go
Maybe you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back

I still feel you on the right side of the bed
And I still feel you in the blankets pulled over my head
But I'm gonna wash away, oh I'm gonna wash away
Everything till you come home to me

Oh, the only way to really know is to really let it go
Maybe you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back to me, you're gonna come back to me
You're gonna come back to me

and that has made all the difference

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: a few crystallized thoughts

Advice is a funny thing. You get it all the time even if you don’t ask for it and you rarely take it. Even more rare is to follow the advice you give. I am no dr. phil but I like to think I give pretty good advice.

You and you alone are responsible for your own happiness (that’s an original) I can’t tell you how many times I have told someone that. Happiness really is within our reach and I think there is a lot to be said for deciding to be happy. There is always something in your life to make the glass half full – isn’t there? Living by this truism also prevents anyone (myself included) from allowing their happiness to be determined by the actions of others. I know it’s close to impossible – but recent events have reminded me that it’s the best way to go into everyday. I promise that if you try it, I will do the same.

You know, there is nothing greater than deciding in your life that things maybe really are black and white! (drew baylor) I think we may be the only people who love this movie and cry every time we watch it. So how could I not include my most valuable piece of wisdom gleaned from drew. I don’t think I really understood what he meant here until a few weeks ago. Something is this or that – there are literally no BUTS in life. If you have to explain or justify then something is wrong. Someone is a good friend or their not, a good boyfriend or a crap one, a person who respects you or doesn’t. Once you eliminate the in-betweens life gets a little less complicated. And making life less complicated and being pragmatic is pretty empowering. Especially when you can finally put certain people in that bad friend/boyfriend category and begin to clean up the in-between and move on.

He who breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom. (j.r.r. tolkien) this man is so smart, so how could we ignore what he tells us. Sometimes you have to break something right open, shatter it to find out how is really worked and more importantly what it was made of. For me this meant literally breaking me. Breaking apart who I thought I was and who I thought I was going to be. Oddly enough one crack lead to another and I started understanding other relationships in a different light. I would never call myself wise but I would like to think that since breaking things apart I have gotten to know others and myself a whole lot better. And consequently been able to take the previous piece of advice.

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else. But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself (the weepies). How could a song not inspire me? First of all I could go on for hours with all the lyrics that have made met think or all the songs that have lived on repeat. But at this particular moment in my life this one applies the most. First, it’s the weepies – and you know how we feel about them. Second, it gets at the challenge I am facing right now. Taking steps forward – alone. My friends are my life. They are the people who have challenged me celebrated me and more important simply been there for me. However, for all their outstanding and marvelous effort it has always been me who had to make the tough decisions and follow though. I can only make these steps, however, knowing they are there to catch me. Knowing that I can’t step back but if I waver they keep me steady. And this love, because that’s what a great friendship is, love, allows me to follow 1-3. I now know that I will never really fail as long as I have quality people around me.

Not sure why I am listing out all this advice for you, not that you need it at the moment. But a few things have crystallized for me in the past month and having you there has made all the difference. I am sure that I will read this in a few years and laugh at myself thinking I had it all straightened out. When I know I have tons more heartbreak and happiness to live though. But maybe knowing, knowing I don’t know what coming – but that I am ready for it, maybe that will help. More importantly knowing that whatever it is I can take it with you.

the chosen ones

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: invisibility cloaks and backpacks

I was 12 when Harry Potter started at Hogwarts, only a year older then the young wizard himself. Except unlike Harry I was not so quick to embrace the magic of his word. My parents came home from a trip to London with the first two books in hand raving that Harry was simply all the rage across the pond. Did I mention I was 12, and in SEVENTH GRADE – you know the grade where you get a real full-length locker, with a real lock, like the eighth graders. So, you see, someone that cool could never be caught reading a children’s book. Not to mention I took the bus, a girl from my class, my Malfoy if you will, rode with me. We never got along and I lived in fear that she would discover my love for Potter and I would be the laughing stock of the entire seventh grade. It was bad enough I was growing my bangs out and had to wear the same purple headband everyday for a year! I digress. Point was, when I finally decided to dive into Harry Potter I hid it in my backpack. It wasn’t until the third book when I was comfortable to read them in public.

After three I was hooked, I remember wanting to bring my book everywhere to sneak in a few pages here and there. I reread one, two and three so many times to ease the pain before the arrival of four. I remember exactly how I pictured the maze in the Goblet of Fire and how horrified I was when I first read an Avada Kedavra. A few years later, I remember reading Entertainment Weekly’s list of 200 new classics, on which they included Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. “Sure Rowling was all fun and games in the first three but she took it up a notch in Goblet, when she killed a kid.” So she did. By this time I was in College and actually waited until Christmas break to enjoy number five. Then it stopped. For no particular reason that I can remember I “look time off” from Harry and held off picking up six. Seven came, I saw everyone on the subway, in the office, on the train, on the street, in every Starbucks, young, old, EVERYONE was reading Harry Potter. Not me. I had morphed back into that disinterested seventh grader who wouldn’t be caught dead in Diagon Alley.

Senior year of college, the night before my last final of the semester, instead of studying Irish history I ate pancakes and watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And sure enough as Fudge put it “He’s back!” Harry was back for me. There was something about enjoying Harry with my piers that made me remember what I loved about him in the first place. I even remember one of my friends coaxing me to blow off studding, saying “you will remember this night for the rest of your life, you won’t remember your essay question next week.” He was half kidding, but he ended up being 100% right. As soon as I was home for break I cracked open six and didn’t leave my room for days. Christmas Eve I started seven and a few days after that I had only pages to go in the entire series. As Harry made his way though the woods, I paused. The real reason I had been putting this off was staring me right in the face – it was going to be over. The series complete the journey finished. The end. By some mystery or magic I had been able to resist skipping to the final paragraphs or even hearing from another, if Harry had lived or died. We had already lost so many I really convinced myself that Rowling could go either way on this one. I really didn’t know how it was all going to end.

When I think of that moment I savor it. Never again will a generation be able to grow up with Harry. To hid books in backpacks instead of under invisibility cloaks. However, perhaps of even more consequence, never again will anyone live in a world where we don’t know if Harry Potter will live or die. We are the chosen ones. Chosen for nothing more than our imagination, our ability to see beyond the page and imagine a word of broomsticks and butter beers. I feel sorry for this next crop of Harry fans, as they will inevitably catch a Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family and have the entire saga played out for them in a mere eighteen hours instead of a little more than a decade. How fortunate I was to become so intimately acquainted with, the boy who lived.

tuesdays are no mondays

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: puddles they are tricky like that

Running never takes away more than it gives back. Thank you Nike – because if I hadn’t read that billboard in some part of LA I may have stopped running last Tuesday morning.

6:02 – seriously is that my alarm
6:03 – unless I have moved a third roommate into my studio who shares a love for R.E.O Speedwagon as a wake up call – “I wanna keep on loving you”… that is indeed my alarm
6:08 – raining, not enough to go back inside – but enough to make me dream of my shower when this punishment is over
6:15 – 25th and 2nd, a herd of huskies round the corner by my familiar fruit stand – I swear everyday that I will bring money to buy a banana from that sweet man, anyway I digress… these huskies have in effect taken over my imagination.
6:22 – 25th and the FD, by the time I get to the water I have named my husky – Cullen, and imagined bounding through feet of fresh powder and or Frisbee on the beach, and or having such a beautiful dog to snuggle up with in heavenly bed in my NYC apartment.
6:30 – it crosses my mind that my new running playlist is a little Hanson heavy
6:32 – I am okay with it
6:35 – or a little tween heavy for that matter
6:37 – I am also okay with that
6:40 – puddles
6:41 – bigger puddles – blocking the entire path to the Williamsburg Bridge… I see the pretty blond running Barbie in front of me turn around. Out of spite I will not be defeated by this puddle… you need to know how big this puddle is – it really is more of a small pond or lake in the middle of my otherwise barren route.
6:42 – wonder if this would be easier with a husky
6:43 – made it 60% across running on the brick sidewalk – that turns to puddle. There is only one choice now, I lift myself onto the guardrail of the FDR Drive, (still on the park side don’t worry) and inch my way down the fence past the puddle.
6:44 – wonder if anyone has called the police thinking I am trying to throw myself in front of traffic
6:45 – misjudge the depth of the water – think I am in the clear and in fact submerge my entire foot in muck
6:46 – wonder if this would have been less painful with a husky
6:55 – return to the puddle after looping to the bridge. This time I stop. I lovely gentleman from Parks and Recreation is wading into the middle of the puddle, appropriately dressed in wellies I might add and has removed the grate from one of the drains.
6:56 – the puddle is draining
6:58 – the puddle is not an actual puddle
7:00 – the puddle is not more
7:01 – I head for home with a spring in my step
7:06 – realize that due to lack of flashing lights no one has called the police in an attempt to thwart my would be suicide attempt on the guardrail.
7:08 – try to make sense of what the puddle means – does it mean that life would be better with huskies? Or that problems, like puddles are here one minute and gone another? (they are tricky like that) Or that life comes with a little rain? Or does it simply mean that everything in life is relative… how badly I wanted to get the bridge out weighted by concerns for getting wet and doing some highway off roading… since when did running 4.5 miles every am becomes a necessity? Wasn’t there a version of me not too many mornings ago that would have snoozed it till 7 when the alarm went off? Was I becoming my Dad?
7:16 – these thoughts have taken me all the way to the shower, and I remember what I was thinking about an hour ago – how much I would deserve these 5 minutes under the scalding hot water.
8:15 – the apocalypse rolls into town and NYC is hit with a thunderstorm the likes of which would make Jim Cantore’s hair stand on end.
8:17 – I think to myself “I am glad I got my run in before all of this”
8:20 – I realize this running thing is not so bad – I also remember that huskies make great jogging companions, I open up eclipse on a crowded M34 – raindrops fall steadily only my foot – through the cracks in the roof off the bus – somehow I am not phased as I open up an email from Charlie.
8:33 – I reply about my love of huskies, and my gratitude for her presence in my life.

some things will always fit

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: 389 days later

1. Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe: this was one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings, and I have to say in this first year out of school I have found it be true. In college there was an illusion, perhaps delusion that it the last two months of senior year would be what the rest of your life would be like. That you and your 15+ closest friends would stay in constant touch and talk about how much you loved your school and all the things you missed. You would get together for very adult gatherings like weddings and destination weekends that would rival any casino night or boat cruise. I was in – what might be described as a depression/detox for the first few weeks that I was home from college. Convinced that things would never be this good again and that I may have just flew threw the best years of my life. NOT SO… this first year out of school has been just as rewarding as the previous four. I am paddling my own canoe, with a few close friends, old and new along for the ride. I have learned more about who I am, as cheesy as that sounds – and more importantly how I deal with ever evolving relationships.


2. Your job is what you do not who you are: in this economy I am lucky to have a job – HOWEVER – I have had to learn to challenge myself outside my daily activities. Such as, going back to school – even if it means I spent half the year without a lazy Sunday – it was worth it! Taking time to travel, see friends and family and most of all explore beyond the island of Manhattan. These are the experiences that define me – not where I am 9-5.


3. Vampires have more fun: you would think that I would be embarrassed to say that after spending the better part of three years tearing through every great in Victorian literature I would be embarrassed to admit that the only books I have really enjoyed since college are about vampires. Now I could chalk that up to my recent inability to focus on anything with a comprehension level above an episode of 90210 or Dawson’s. Or I could simply admit that I enjoy a little escapism, a little fantasy in my otherwise ordinary life. Harry got me though high school and elves got me though college so why shouldn’t the Cullens get me though these even more formidable years?


4. Van the Man: I have never underestimated the value of music, however, I don’t think I have ever been so dependent on it. I wake up to it, I commute to it, I run to it, and chances are if I am quiet for any period of time I am singing it in my head. Never one to say, “Dave Matthews is my favorite band ever” or “I swear I loved Coldplay before XY” I have decided to embrace a classic. Some who could be indisputably loved by all – Van Morrison. Stepping Out Queen was not only the anthem to my first year in the city, it changed me, admittedly extreme – but have you heard the song?!?

In conclusion, I have learned – never underestimate the value of a best friend, a paying job, a devastating book, and truly great song.

Hunt For The Real World

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
Re: Anniversary of Graduation

It is the last night before they graduate; the house has become a bizarre composite of bright eyed adults dancing and soon to be graduated students wandering, a little shell shocked, through the rooms. My cousin and I are waiting for the second table to be set up, and I shamelessly listen to the earnest conversation going on next to me. It's not, the girl is explaining seriously, that I know what I want. I just know what I don't want.

Oh sweetheart, I think, as I help wrestle the table on top of the air hockey setup, you'll be so more than okay. You're already well on your way to figuring this shit out if you know what you don't want.

Later, another girl brushes by me to scoot up next to my cousin. She looks upset.

I don't want to graduate, she tells him as she clutches her solo cup a little too tightly. Her boyfriend is hovering next to me, with the half embarrassed, half resigned look that tells me my cousin is not the first person she has approached like this.

Aw, we'll be okay, he says reassuringly, and pats her on the shoulder. Her chin does that wobbly thing that only happens when you're trying not to cry, and he notices.

Come on now, he says gruffly, don't cry.

She does anyway, and he enfolds her into a rough hug, and rocks her a little, with his cheek resting on the top of her head. We'll be okay, he says over and over, until she hiccups and says, I didn't even cry at a funeral, why am I crying now?

I didn't say anything, but I couldn't stop thinking about the two different girls all through the night, and the gabajillion hours it took for everyone to filter into the stadium the next morning.

I wasn't upset when I left college. I remember being bewildered by my lack of sentimentality, particularly since as a general rule I tend towards maudlin. But it felt like a natural progression, and, despite the crushing awfulness of getting that terrible job rejection the morning of graduation, it felt right to cede my place on the hill to next year's class.

And anyway, I had already said my goodbyes to the school, in the weeks of finals, when I would lock myself in the oldest parts of the school, and spread my books around me under the eaves, and I would leave smelling like old books and filled with an odd, all encompasing affection for everything, but particularly the school.

When I was a freshman and miserable and wanted to transfer, I only called my parents just to hear their voices once. It was a late weekday afternoon, probably around five, I remember the thick yellow light that comes right before it sets, with people wandering all over campus, so when my father answered and my voice disappeared and I started to cry, I had to tuck myself under the old lilac bush that grows next to the library so no one would see me. There are old columns that terrace the hill the library’s built into, and when you sit on them you’re completely hidden from everyone walking by, with the added bonus of an amazing view of the hill and the city beneath it.

Four years later, coming out of the library after it closed, and before I went back to the eaves, I crawled back into those bushes and onto the little columns and spent a good hour, just breathing in and looking at the orange city lights (and I’ll say now I was realizing that it was time to move on and begin Life After College, but to be honest, I probably wasn’t thinking of much of anything besides 'thank god that's done' or 'only ten more pages').

Despite my Zen attitude towards leaving, when I first got out of school, I sort of lost myself. Theoretically, I could do anything I wanted, which was the problem since just about everything interested me. Except that paralyzed me and besides, I wasn't feeling so hot on account of going through seven rounds of intense interviewing and getting rejected at the end while someone else from school got the job instead.

And I took some time off, and I realized all the stress I was feeling –panic along the lines of: NEED TO GET A JOB, NEED TO KNOW WHAT I AM DOING, WHAT DO I WANT, THE REST OF MY LIFE NEEDS TO BE ORDERED RIGHT NOW, HOW CAN I DO THIS, HOLY SHIT PEOPLE ARE GETTING MARRIED I CAN'T GET MARRIED, EVERYONE HAS A JOB AND THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING WITH THEIR ENTIRE LIFE AND I DON'T – was all in my head. Granted, with my ups and downs, it's taken me practically a year before I managed to get myself sorted into anything resembling alright, but it's been kind of exciting.

I'm not going to lie, the real world kind of sucks. You can't blow off work because you had a late one the night before (and while I'll admit I haven't blown class since sophmore year, there was always the possibility), and everything costs so much and work sucks pretty much the whole day from five to seven out of you and meeting people is hard and they're different and play by different rules you don't know and there's not a lot of buffer space between you, your actions and the consequences. You're tired all the time and there's no summer break and Mondays will always be Mondays and it's awfully hard to find someone to pick apart the newest news about the findings on the Dead Sea Scrolls without people thinking you're some sort of fundamentalist, or dissassemble this book or that book intellegently.

But for all the reasons it sucks, the real world is also kind of awesome. You're finally out there and you have the opportunity to learn things and see their application in real time, rather than just academically. There's new people to meet and so many things you can do -- you're not stuck in one place, and going to the same places over and over again -- you can finally dress up in the clothes you have and no one's going to think you're overdressed, and there are so many opportunities if you just look and are open to them.

And I still don't know what I want, not really. I want everything, and some days that overwhelms me. But more and more I know what I don't want. That's the best place to start. And I'm beginning to find out definitely some things that I do, and what is really important and which things are both

all men have secrets

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
Re: Four Snapshots of Life At Home

1.
I like being under the covers with my sister, with my cold feet curled up under her hot knees, and her hands tucked under my head. Most nights there isn't much talking - we're too tired -- but some nights she'll ask a question that's a lead in to a much bigger issue. Take last night:

I wonder what so and so's doing now, she muses.

(So and so is one of her favorite topics of discussion. He made seventh grade sort of miserable for me and I don't know why we couldn't get along at all. He was one of those incredibly cool kids who had most people either hating him or wishing he would like them, or both, because he was mean and funny and quick. I think he was a jerk to me a couple of times, and instead of scrambling to make him like me, I didn't hide my distaste for him. For the longest time, he was the only person I would get in fights with, and the reason I learned to raise one eyebrow.)

Probably being some hobo, she continues in a satisfied tone, shifting in bed until the pillows are right where she wants them.

I wouldn't want that, I interject mildly.

Which then leads to a talk about how people can change and, speaking of jerks, there's this one kid at school making her life miserable sometimes and suddenly it's clear why we're talking about so and so.


2.
It’s been a good day, but a long one. By eight, I am sprawled on the bottom half of the couch, barely staying awake. I’ve finally, finally gotten into the book that I’m reading, mostly through sheer bloody mindedness because when do I ever have a hard time getting through a book?, so I read a chapter of that before I really start to drop off.

Except, my phone rings. There’s a stupid little flutter in my stomach I can’t squash, even though I know it’s probably just Caleb calling to say hi.

I knew it wasn’t going to be him, but it’s not Caleb either. It’s my sister.

She is down the hall, and her voice is soft, snuffly.

Can you come in, she asks.

I don’t answer, putting the phone down instead, and creep down the hall into her room.

I slide in; her shifting is the only acknowledgment. She is buried under the covers and her head is turned away from me, towards the wall. This isn’t like her. I wait, quietly, and turn gently so I am on my stomach and our legs are twisted together. She is hot. I begin to worry.

What, she begins and then stops. She tries again.

What happens to us after we die? Science says- and her voice is still sticky from the scared tears she won’t show me, but the words come faster now- science says we’re just made up of atoms and particles and when we die we break down into just atoms and particles again.

I take a breath, unsure. This is a little harder than when someone’s making fun of her at school. She interrupts before I manage to get myself together or say anything.

There’s no proof of anything, she says miserably, and – and –I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to be without Mum and Daddy and you-

When her voice breaks, I recognize the same terror of the unknown future as the one that used to keep me up at night and I know what I need to say.

Even though I normally leave once her breathing becomes regular – she’s a terrible kicker and she has exams tomorrow morning – this time I don’t leave. Especially not after Mum comes in and tells me, with unusual gentleness, to get into my own bed; under the hot covers my sister clutches at my arm with sharp desperation.

We spend the night leaning against each other, her body tucked safely against my side.


3.
The manager who sometimes works behind the coffee counter starts chatting with my dad, as he's ringing up the afternoon coffee.

Man, you're awesome! he says to my dad. Walking around all the time with beautiful women!

There is a pause.

That's my daughter, Dad says finally.


4.
Coming in from dinner with Scott, I creep into my sister’s room. She is asleep, and I will be too, soon. Compared to the hours I used to keep, it is hardly late at all, but times are changing and I am tired. She has kicked off all of her blankets, again, until there is only a corner of one hanging over her foot. The rest are on the ground. I shake them out one by one and lay them over her, until she is covered, and tuck the snoring little dog in next to her. Leaning down to kiss her forehead, I whisper what I always whisper, and instead of rolling over or sleepily responding, she puts her arms up for me to hold her, a sign that’s been the same since before she could talk. I take off my shoes and slip quietly under the covers. Uncharacteristically, she throws one leg over me and clings with both arms to mine, and buries her head into the space between my chest and my shoulder. She does not let go.

Roller Queen

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
RE: Jimmy Eat World

I blame it on my entrance:
It may seemed too much like confidence.
Let me start it over.
Help me get to what I can from when I did.

All that I know is how I can hold on;
All that you see is how I let go.

I had to leave; my reasons,
it may have seemed too much, the consequence
and in your busy, dizzy life
you will become everything you said you would.

All that I know is how I can hold on;
All that you see is how let you go.

So how about once around?

grateful for you

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
RE: We are not long here

I was thinking about poetry this morning, which isn’t surprising, considering April’s poetry month. Sometimes, when I’m feeling out of my mind, I like to repeat to myself little quotes from poems, the kind that are small and self contained and soothing:

and you feel your heart taking root in your body,
like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.

or something even more contained:

A cicada shell;
It sang itself
Utterly away


Of course, this sometimes backfires. Yesterday was a terrible day, and I was quietly reciting

We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I said, What do you want, sweetheart? And you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

under my breath in the hallway. Two or three people passed me, and each on gave me these incredibly weirded out looks; I didn’t realize for ages it was because I was quite seriously, if quietly, talking to myself. I must have looked like such a ninny. An insane ninny.

Despite all that, I can’t help but retreat back to poetry when things are rough.
It’s the recovering English major in me, I think.

I remember Professor Chapman's lectures -- the ones held in the oldest part of the college and where the walls were all darkly panneled wood and the whole class ended up practically sitting in each others' laps because, even though there were only a few of us, we were being taught in the old dormitories -- and finding out how incredibly fond he was of talking about poetry, even when he was teaching literature or fairy tales. Do you remember?

Silly question. Of course you do.

There was one particular time, where it was dark out and we were discussing how incredibly important it was that Tolkien used stylisticly formal language throughout The Lord of the Rings-- I had just gone on a tear about the stylistic elements of the King James' Bible and its importance to a primarily CofE audience, when Chapman stood up and lifted his arms and went on such a tangent. 'Language,' he practically bellowed, 'is the response to the fall of man!'

We'd all heard it before, but this time something felt like it snapped inside of me. Everything he was saying made complete sense in a way it never quite did before.

Before the fall, everything was perfect enough that there was no need of language. Man existed without it. Once, however, the divorce between man and grace occurred, something was desparately needed to express the grief and the wonder of the world, of everything, and in that instant, language was born. It was created in a fractured world, by a creature similarly flawed and broken. And, as such, language, too, is an un-whole and incomplete thing. No matter the effort, there will never be a complete bridging between language and experience.

That's the glory of poetry, that there's an experience, an inexpressible feeling, something you know can never going to be properly described or depicted, but it doesn't matter -- you’re going to try your damnedest to do it anyway. That’s what poetry actually IS – that attempt to bridge the real and the ideal, the untouchable with some sort of tangibility.

And even though you won’t ever confuse me with Yeats or Plath or anyone famous --and most of the time I’m not even writing any of my own, but merely taking comfort someone else’s – I completely agree. It’s in that failure to ever reach the goal, the knowledge of the gap that will never be crossed, that the artistry and the genius of poetry comes to life – when it makes the reader, and the writer all over again – aware of the strain to reincarnate something that is impossible andtranscendent and so much more sublime than can ever be expressed with the limited tools of language.

All of which to say, I am homesick for you.

and when I write you and say I miss having tea and toast with you and Judy while we watch something with James McAvoy for the millionth time, or when we’re picking apart the latest political decision or driving home from a concert and my feet are up on the dash and it’s dark out and we’re eating pop rocks, none of it is going to adequately describe anything. All it will do is recall those memories, which is really nice and helps a little when life is overwhelming me, but it doesn't properly get across how grateful I am you're always there for me, even if it's just to let me call you up and moan about how terrible boys are lately and how much I don't understand them. It makes me seem sentimental and maudlin, both of which I am pretty sure are true, but it doesn't show how important you are my friend.

parsons work

movie poster - atonement


type squares


album covers x3


toys


colored pencil boxes


green power


book cover and pages


au- value magazine


type terms





madison to go - logo and menu


emily derosa - exhibit invite


white teeth - book cover


aiga poster

poetry?

gotta have you

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: the weepies

Gray, quiet and tired and mean
Picking at a worried seam
Itry to make you mad at me over the phone.
Red eyes and fire and signs
I'm taken by a nursery rhyme
I want to make a ray of sunshine and never leave home

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.

The road gets cold, there's no spring in the middle this year
I'm the new chicken clucking open hearts and ears
Oh, such a prima donna, sorry for myself
But green, it is also summer
And I won't be warm till I'm lying in your arms

I see it all through a telescope: guitar, suitcase, and a warm coat
Lying in the back of the blue boat, humming a tune...

madame joy

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: van morrison

All the men would turn their head
When she walked down the street
Clothes are fine and hair that shine
Smiling oh so sweet, smiling oh so sweet

Got a taste of all religion
Comes on with the new
In her hair a yellow ribbon
And she's decked out all in blue
Oh yes in, decked out all in blue

Steppin' lightly, steppin' brightly
With her books in hand
Going to the university to teach them
Help them understand
And are helping 'em understand

And all the kids would love to see her
Follow in her steps
And tell her stories and adore her
Climb in through the fence
Climb in through the fence

Here she comes walking
Here she comes talking
I do believe it's Madame Joy
Walking past that old street corner
And she's looking for her boy
Oh yes she is, looking for her boy

Steppin' lightly, steppin' brightly
With her books in hand
Going to the university to teach them
Help them understand
Yeah, help them understand

I was looking at the way she moved me
And I was seeing every side
Tell me, can I learn the language
Have you got the mind, have you got the mind

Here she comes walking
Here she comes talking
I do believe it's Madame Joy
She's walking by that old street corner
And she's looking for her boy
Oh yes looking for her boy

And all the men would turn their head
When she walked down the street
Clothes refined and hair that shine
And smiling oh so sweet, oh yes, she's smiling oh so sweet
Smiling, smiling oh so sweet, yeah, yeah, yeah
Smiling, smiling oh so sweet

And all the men would
And all the men would turn their head around
When that woman walked down the street
When that woman walked down the street
When that, when that woman walked
When that woman walked, when that woman walked
When that woman walked, when that woman walked
When that woman walked, what she wore
When that woman, when that woman, when that woman
When that woman, when that woman, when that woman
When that woman, when that woman, when that woman
When that woman, when that woman walked
She just walked
Just kept on walking down the street
When she walked, when she walked down

tender are the words they choose

To: Laurie
From: Charlier
RE: Don't Go Far Off, Not Even For a Day; Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

not the cruelest month

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
Re: The First Dream; Billy Collins


The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowel,
for this was long before the invention of sonsonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near the water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

making friends with ibuprofen

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
Re: “Fat Chance”

So quitting coffee during the week was supposed to jump start another effort to live a healthier life. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting – that maybe without the delicious, wonderful taste of coffee in my system, I would wake up one of these days a completely changed person – you know the kind -- who don't crave sweets or drink coffee and who feel unfulfilled if they don’t get their daily five mile run in before work, who happily snack on celery sticks, don't drink coffee andwho's outfit is always effortlessly coordinated with hair that's always smoothl and perfect no matter what they've been doing.

Have to admit, hasn’t really happened yet. Still just as likely to slurp down extra chocolate-y hot chocolate in the morning as I am to look distrustfully at the celery sticks, and my hair has not been smooth OR perfect once this week, even without the coffee. But I’m working on my running! I still haven’t woken up in the morning excited for my run, but I’ve been trying to brainwash myself so I feel guilty and sad if I skip a run.

NOT ANYMORE.

Got up early the other morning, to fit in the run before work, and about halfway through I stopped to take off my sweatshirt. Managed to lose my balance and, Laurie, long story short? I dislocated my shoulder.

It is almost enough to drive me back to drinking (loving, sweet, darling, delicious) coffee. It might make me a caffeine junkie, true, but it doesn't cause me bodily harm. Think I’m done with feeling guilty if I don’t run every day, and might even be done with it for good. Bring ON that extra chocolate-y hot chocolate!

25

To: Laurie

From: Charlie

Re: "25"

I KNOW you already know practically everything about me, but indulge me -- the "twenty five things" list going around lets me make a list that isn't about chores!

1. I have given up drinking coffee during the week, on account of the fact that the number of times I refilled my mug throughout the day was creeping from two or three up to ten or eleven. I thought that quitting cold turkey would help jump start attempt number fifty to live a healthier life, but all it's done is let me know how much I miss the taste of coffee.

2. Coffee is now a treat I let myself have only on the weekends, and it makes doing anything -- lying in bed, curled up over the newspaper in the morning, walking around downtown, hunting for antiques -- that much better.

3. For a very long time I hated "Classic Victorian Literature," and actively avoided anything I decided that fell under that category. As my mother was constantly was constantly trying to have me love anything and everything Austen related, I became an indiscriminate reader in retaliation -- I would read biographies, historical fiction, textbooks, ridiculous fiction, science fiction and lots of fantasy, all provided the book in question wasn't written by a celebrated Victorian author. It wasn't until the summer going into my junior year of high school that I had a terrible ear infection that kept me up all night. Desperate for something to distract me from the pain in my head, I read the only thing in the entire summer house I had not even touched before -- "Sense and Sensibility."

4. Reading the book didn't make me an instant fan of Austen, but I grudgingly began to admit that maybe all that nonsense about the Victorian Classics might be based on a grain of truth. The beginning of the end.

5.I think one of the reasons I love Bronte so much is that there's a similar sense of wildness and imagination in her work as there was in the science fiction and fantasy novels I grew up trying to live out in the woods behind my house.

6. During high school I tried my hardest to prove religion wrong, and develop a clear and concise reasoning that would convince everyone I knew, including the nuns, as to why the Catholic Church was a bunch of crap.

7. I ended up graduating college with two degrees -- one in English, as a Victorianist, and one in Religious Studies, with a double focus on theology and scripture.

8. Sometimes I worry that the reason I don't travel much is that I am afraid I will fall in love with a place so much I won't ever come back home.

9. I have countless tubes of red red red lipstick, but there is almost nothing on earth that has yet to convince me to wear them out in public.

10. I do not particularly enjoy going on boats in the deep ocean (cruise ships are completely out of the question), but I do not think I will ever get enough of being close to the ocean.

11. I think autumn is my favourite season because my birthday falls in the middle, and because I am incapable of seeing the combination of a fall blue sky behind autumn leaves and not smiling.

12. You can measure my stress levels by how clean the house and bathrooms are, and by the number and type of baked or cooked items strewn about the house.

13. Even though I fall in and out of love with songs very easily, my very top favourite song ever has stayed the same since the hot, sticky summer afternoon when I was fifteen and walking the five miles to my best friend's house in a pair of ridiculous new flip flops. I had just made a mix CD of completely new songs I had never heard before and had it playing on loop. I remember looking at the clouds over my head to distract me from the blisters that were developing on the top of my feet (I still have the scars!) when the song came on. I never even heard the rest of the CD - that song was on repeat for the rest of the summer, and for the rest of high school, I would play it every morning before I got out of the car. My father says when he hears the song, he cannot not think of the summer I was sixteen and learning to drive, because that was the only thing I would play in the car. He doesn't know it, but that is the song we are going to dance to at my wedding. I think we will both be crying.

14. I cannot stop collecting quotes. Not even the trite little sayings at the end of tea bags ("Sing from your heart," "Share your strengths, not your weaknesses") are safe.

15. Starting this year, instead of cutting my hair whenever I get bored with it, I plan on dying it.

16. I am nervous about this, since the last time I did anything dramatic involving both my hair and dyes, my hair was bright fuchsia for a couple of couple of months. While I absolutely loved the bright pink color, I also accidentally bleached all the hair underneath the pink, so once the pink color was gone, I had streaks of big, brassy blonde everywhere. I did not love that.

17. Along with my deep and secret (not anymore) love for red lips, I have a penchant for lovely liquid eyeliner. Provided it has some shade of pink, I do not think I have met a blush I do not like and I collect lip glosses as though they were pennies. I am trying to cut down on my makeup collection because --

18. I hardly wear any makeup.

19. I refuse to spell the word 'grey' with an 'a.'

20. I tend to crush more on literary characters than I do on people in real life. So far, every time I meet a person who resembles Francis Lymond of Culter, my One True (Literary) Love, we end up screaming at each other. I haven't figured out what this means, other than I am unlikely to run into a blond Scottish lord with entitlement issues anytime soon.

21. The rest of my literary loves (I am all for free love! Lots and lots of literary free love!) tend to be some combination of the aforementioned Lymond and Dickon from The Secret Garden.

22. I think the smell of warm hay and horses is one of, if not the, sweetest smells I've ever encountered.

23. I am a terrible hypocrite and although I am absolutely pants at spelling, it drives me up a wall when other people do not spell simple words correctly. Even worse, though, is when people forget the rules for differentiating 'you're' and 'your.' (Now that I've written this, I am bound to mess up and use 'your' and 'you're' incorrectly, I just KNOW it.)

24. The summer spent in England with you was the best summer of my life.

25. When I am homesick, I miss the smell of the English countryside, the smell of the ocean, the feel of my dogs lying on my feet, the gingery, garlicky smell of my kitchen, my family and having tea and scones with lots of jam late in the afternoon with you.

to know her is to know yourself

to: Charlie

from: Laurie

RE: "To know her is to know yourself."

SO I was doing some thinking and I realized, everything we need to know about life we learned from Jane Austen. We can look to her for almost every one of life’s problems. I should say this really came from a pep talk I was giving Judy the other night and then another one I was giving Wendy last night. The thing is at the end of the day its about relationships. The people who will be in your life when you are 90 – Jane got that.

She knew that it was about who you are as a person and the people you let into your life that reflect your character. Think about it Emma, Ann, Elizabeth, Marianne all had FLAWED relationships before their happiness (well Ann was alone the entire time but that is besides the point). Their happiness was of their own making, when they abandoned conceptions of what they knew of themselves and others. I have heard a friend complain, “when I look at myself a year ago I am disgusted, how could I have thought this or done this.”

I thought to myself don’t you think that Elizabeth wanted to chalk her episode with Wickham up to a weakness for men in uniform. Or Emma would have explained away her romance with Frank Churchill as result of too much leisure time in Box Hill. Marianne would have absolutely considered her infatuation with Mr. Willoughby a side effect of a sprained ankle. Bottom line, Austen knew that we would enter relationships that would break us – hurt us in some way, distorting our perceptions not only on ourselves but also of those around us.

Each of these heroines only achieved happiness once they acknowledged that they themselves knew nothing about those around them. It was true for Austen and its true for us - the only person you can really know is yourself. So this year I resolve to think like Jane and get to know me, and chances are the people I surround myself with will follow suite.

So really I was right that night in The Oak… to know Jane is to know yourself.

laurie

Laurie enjoys all things British, particularly tea, jane austen, james mcavoy, the smiths, sting (and the police) and most recently friendly fires. She has often wondered if her acceptance letter to Hogwarts was lost in the mail and considered moving to Forks WA more than once. She is always in search of a good book and a bad TV show. There are few things that make her happier than gummy bears, champagne, and James Bond. She often wonders if there will ever be enough of the world for her to see or if she will ever see enough of it.

Laurie does not particularly enjoy snakes or most reptiles for that matter. There was an incident with a deformed/genetically-modified strawberry that she would prefer to forget. Man-dals make her almost as nervous as excessive hair gel does. She doesn’t like fake people – but fake people would probably say the same thing.

She believes in karma.

charlie

Charlie was one of those kids who read books under her desk at school. Not much has changed.

She does not like peanut butter or vacuuming, struggles with being on time and gets travel anxiety (probably because of her issues with punctuality).

She likes pearls, the sound of snow falling, the color red, peonies, every sort of dog, even the ones that don't ever shut up and eat things they shouldn't, tea with milk, chapstick and owns at once too many and not enough pairs of high heeled shoes. She likes making lists, even if she seldom follows through with them, baking complicated desserts no one ever eats but her, playing songs on repeat for days on end, overcoming her travel anxiety to explore new places, hockey and the ocean.

She believes in the importance of reading books under your desk, and that everything worthwhile will leave a bruise.