Name it, read it, tune it, print it, scan it, send it, fax - rename it,

I've received, today, a couple of really comforting emails (and a blog comment), all of them about loneliness, about how heavy it is, how there is hope and relief from it, and I guess mostly about how it's on everyone's backs. I guess what stood out to me most was not so much what was said, but the people who said them - these are people who aren't in Boston- people I don't see every day or even talk to with any regularity, but it's a weird thing, that loneliness, or maybe it was just me whining about it so much, but other human beings get it. And oh how quickly I forget that. How quick I am to assume that the guy who delivers my crepes from the place down the street isn't plagued with a damn thing, or that the woman who sent back her salmon has never felt hopeless in her entire life (fascinating that my references for the world are all food-based). I just liked hearing from other parts of the US that a) no one who is feeling lonely is actually alone and b) it passes. That was the theme, I guess. That everything passes- the peace and calm too. And I hate that. I have only few of those steady perfect moments that I would cling to with all my strength if I could, of these feelings of peace and resident happiness that I believed couldn't be wrestled away from me. At brunch at Lowes with Michael, Lucy, Peter and Mom after the Sunday meeting, where not only was there a 'make your own omelette' station but an entire dessert bar with waffles and cream puffs...fine...laugh at me...but my point is that I had everything I could have needed at the age of twelve at my fingertips at at that moment: an intact nuclear family, and an open buffet. Really, I remember that as a moment of unadulterated happiness. Another was a day at The Wedge after I'd been sufficiently pummeled by the waves and dragged out of the surf by Clint and Lucy where I fell asleep face-down on my hot towel with sand in my hair and Clint's warm body beside me. That, I'd keep. Or the first Sunday I sang at the North Prospect Church as a soloist- for pay- discovering the "our endless story hymn", and learning the music with the other choir members and hearing my clear voice resonate and being unable to believe that someone was paying me to do this. Rehearsing the Lauridson "O Magnum" for the first time. Struggling through e.e. cummings. Every Friday morning before school when Mum made blintzes. Playing Barbie with Lucy. Driving into Marlborough belting "Walking In Memphis" on the 10 fwy and believing I was profound. Rollerblading on the beach path while listening to techno thinking I was truly badass. Driving out to go Paintballing with Justin Parco and Kevin, also feeling truly badass. The left-footed goal against Marymount into the upper left corner (that one really was badass). Staying the night at Eva and Charlie's knowing I was going to be allowed to have donuts for breakfast. Singing on the street corner in Spain. Concocting very poisonous magic potions from Mum's spice rack when I was 6. Dressing Peter (willingly!) in drag for a play he and Lucy and I wrote and performed about an elf that falls into a well that leads to the human world that Mum and Michael watched and hooted at and loved. Their wedding and my perfect blue dress. Carrying Abigail piggy-back all over the parking lot while we ate peanuts and waited for a table. Realizing I'd actually stopped when I was full. "Accidentally" slamming Cami Marcus to the ground in a game of soccer at Mirman. Waking up early Saturday morning's at Dad's house to an english muffin with butter and peanut butter that he'd left for me, and likely a poem, and taking it to my red velvet chair where I could watch the beach wake up and see who was walking their dogs that morning. Finding out I'd gotten into Tufts. Falling asleep to "O Brother Where Art Thou". Sorry, these things are flooding to me and I'm writing them all down because the act of recalling them and typing them in detail is reminding me, as Dad is always hammering home to me, that I. Have. Good. Stuff. These are moments I would have chosen to keep. I guess I have.
Sierra Tucson was really the longest moment of all- afternoons spent running laps around the dry track or evenings by the fire. Those moments stretched into 45 days where I was untouchable by anything other than centered self-certainty and happiness. I'd hang onto that, too. So in knowing that those things pass (and thankfully return as they do when I'm writing, or when I'm fortunate enough to discover another one), I can find comfort in that, and in believing that the loneliness will not hang like this thick blanket all of my life. Maybe just this day, or just the rest of this month. Maybe for years it will be here, but it cannot cannot stay all the time. It, too, will pass. It will be interspersed with pockets where I will be okay- better than okay, and they'll be made of cream puffs and family and waves and my own internal kiva. And I guess that's faith, believing all that. Believing it'll be better.
My Gawd this is self-indulgent sometimes.


Ok, quick recap of my day thus far, this morning I had an egg and cheddar cheese sammich on cibatta from Au Bon Pain, went to Kelly's, and then to Andy's where I conducted the two excerpts of recitative from Messiah for him, with an awful lot more mistakes in them then I'd had last night. He sent me home with an even more terrifying ten pages of Magic Flute recitative that requires so much subdividing and careful counting that I don't know that I can tackle it without a lot of hand-holding. And then I blogged for like a bajillion hours about myself and loneliness and good memories and actually felt better.

I'm going to meet Kate for a Yoga class, and then likely to her house for Christmas Cookies and, with luck, Marx Brothers. By the way, last night she didn't call and ask me over, so I called her and invited myself over and I rehearsed my music and then she Eric and I watched The Matrix. Sometimes what this fish needs is to take initiative.