i don't know how to start this post because i haven't "started a post" in some time. i described it recently as a muscle that has atrophied. i've replaced writing with talking, and thus, my phone bill has become unreasonable. i burned through all of my rollover minutes. life was disordered, and i found it helpful to say the same things, out loud, over and over, to a rotating cast of friends, through the telephone, all summer. now i am tired of talking, tired of worrying, tired of the past, tired of the future. the present is the only place i can really be, and i have to say... i love figuring out what i'm going to do today. there's a simple and profound joy in living day to day, unencumbered, unfraught, independent, self-sufficient. i have a little notebook that i carry around where i write down things i need as i remember them. here's what the most recent page looks like:
i know that other people's shopping lists are boring. but there is something about these shopping trips that give me such pleasure. for example, i like the way groups of things coincidentally need to be bought at the same time. yesterday was soap day: i bought hand soap, dish soap and laundry detergent. other days are dominated by paper products. tissues, paper towels, tp. the shopping list is a place where practical things like "compressed air" live right next to fanciful things like "sleep masks." and there are little sparks of joy that run through the heart when you write certain things, like "purple eyeshadow," especially when you only ever wear one kind of eyeshadow but you saw someone on the teevee wearing purple eyeshadow successfully the week before and start thinking that you, yourself, could maybe pull off purple eyeshadow, and so you open your little notebook and you write, purposefully, "purple eyeshadow," and then you get to the store and you put a few practical things in your little basket, and then treat yourself to a little meaningless deliberation about what exact shade of purple eyeshadow to get, and you feel strange and excited about this small, simple variation. because you thought it and wrote it and bought it and tried it and it looks... nice. it's such a small act, but at certain moments of life, it feels like the perfect expression of self-creation, of nudging yourself into your own future.
being broken up with really takes it out of you, is what i'm really trying to say. but what's good about it, what's really excellent, is the new version of yourself that gets spit out at the end. i have this exalted sense of sturdiness, of indestructibility, of accepting everything as it comes, of taking chances, of accruing mad social capital, of making awesome lists and buying household cleaning products before i need them. somehow my ability to notice that i am low on conditioner and making a point to buy more before i run out makes me feel triumphant. self-reliant. comfortable. i suppose part of that, too, is that i have been in portland for 18 months now, and now, finally have a beautiful home and a sustainable income. i have things. i have friends who call me. i have tangible proof that i have settled here. i live in portland. i have a life. (one that includes a new chaise lounge that i really dig.)
i was putting a curtain up in my room yesterday, across the doorway of my closet because there is no door, and it was so superfluous. it wasn't something i needed, just something i wanted. a finishing touch. and i was screwing the curtain rod hardware into the wall and thought about how pleased i am that all the big things - couches, plates and glasses, a microwave and bathmats - had been acquired and now i was doing something silly and needless, like putting up a curtain where there was absolutely no demand for one. freedom in the details, self-determination wrapped in desire, the happy feeling of nesting on one's own terms. purple eyeshadow.
i suppose that's all for now. come on atrophied muscles.
edit: i realize that i haven't written in this blog for over a year. i also think it's because i was forcing myself, before, to write with capital letters and be really witty.
