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diaryland

dandelion seeds

04 November 2004 - 22:40

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>

Election Day was the final day of my job. Before I went to work, Kale left for Minneapolis. I missed the election party after work to spend time with Becky, who gave me lovely presents for my twenty-fourth birthday (thank you again). We obsessed about the election until midnight, when I took a nap. I woke up at 4AM, packed my suitcase, hugged Becky and told her the election still wasn't decided, hopped on a bus then the MAX, then a plane to Philadelphia. I found out during my layover in Cincinnati that Kerry conceded the election.

It seems as if airline customers are getting ritzier. Everyone had leather jackets, fur hats, expensive luggage, laptops. I was wearing mauve stockings, a black skirt, Becky's birthday shirts -- a sea-green t-shirt with cats & butterflies, a red hoodie with the St John's bridge on it, a froufy pink scarf, and my black coat.

This is what it was like to walk though the metal detector:
"Miss, will you take off your coat?"
"And your shoes?"
"Now take off that other coat."
"You mean my hoodie? Okay."
I start to walk forward.
"Oh, and your scarf."
I raised an eyebrow, placed it in the bin to be x-rayed, spun in a circle, and said, "Anything else?"

(I felt so safe on the plane! Don't you feel safe?)

I am with my family for two weeks. The decisions that will affect the next few months of my life are essentially out of my hands right now, so I'm here to find out what is in my hands.

Someday everything that means so much to us now will dissolve or transform or transfer or die or ... I try to understand longing, and its place. I long for so many things, at the same time knowing I may someday yearn for this moment. I long so much -- for all those nights with Becky wandering around Portland when everything was new, when we were innocent, for the first time I fell in love with Kale, just to see Becky and Kale's faces and to hold Foo, for the night before the election, when I still hoped Kerry would win, for Redding and the Sacramento river. I long so much -- for a future where we're all dealing with making our dreams come true instead of avoiding our nightmares, to go to England and meet Nicholas, to live in China and teach. I long so much I almost don't long for anything. Every feeling is its own resolution, if you're brave enough to follow it; it's just that time makes it all seem so slow.

For some reason, this helped me understand: Months ago, I treated myself to a bottle of Crabtree & Evelyn Rose lotion, and Kale and I have been putting it all over ourselves, each other, our hair, our clothes. His father even noticed that he smells like roses. I started to worry the lotion would be gone too quickly. And then Kale left. I offered it for his trip, but no. I thought of taking it with me on my trip, but no. Then the thought that saddened me most was that it might not get used up at all (Becky, please help yourself!).

There is always more of everything, of life, and of longing.

My desert island in Pennsylvania, where things seem so easy, where I grew up taking for granted a house and a full refrigerator and a car. My desert island in Pennsylvania, where I feel so far removed from my life but, at the same time, know that my life is exactly where I am.

Our country is divided, and Becky, Kale, and I are scattered, just as the house where I grew up will soon be scattered as well. I pray that wherever there are rifts, there will be healing balm, something magical, winds of change. My comfort is that no matter what I long for now or am lead to long for, somehow we will all grow.

Fulfillment opens a wider chasm, and we are beams of light, shooting to the distant edge.

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>