Okay, so it’s been a few weeks since we got back from Puerto Rico, but I figure since we hadn’t been there in three years, it’s still well within the acceptable time limit to post about it. Why it took us so long to get back to one of the places we love most on earth, I don’t know. Life. It gets in the way of taking time for what’s truly important. And considering we hadn’t actually taken a trip of any sort that wasn’t business- or family-related in all that time, we were due. We were ready. Oh so ready.
One of the great pleasures of discovering a place you love is getting the opportunity to share it with other people you love. Of course, for a massively codependent people-pleaser like myself, it can also be nerve-wracking. Will they see the beauty that you do? Will they appreciate the non-glossy aspects of Puerto Rico as being part of the true experience? Will they like the quirks? Hell, will they like the food.
On this trip, we met up with our amazing friend Denise. In fact, she’s the one who kicked off the whole affair, announcing her plans to spend 10 or so days in Puerto Rico in between leaving her fellowship here in Ann Arbor and moving to San Antonio. On a whim, we decided to join her and uncovered the adventure of seeing a familiar place through new eyes.
We met up in Old San Juan the first night of our arrival. At the risk of offending anyone, San Juan proper doesn’t have a lot to offer visitors, unless you’re looking for high rises and night clubs. I think it’s safe to say we’re not. Old San Juan, on the other hand, is the oldest settlement within the territorial United States, at least according to Wikipedia, so you know it has to be true. It’s a lovely place, dating back to 1521, founded by the Spanish, teeming with 16th & 17th century colonial architecture, and surrounded by El Morro and the old city walls.
Chris, master of crazy travel bargains, managed to swing us a stellar deal for staying at El Convento, a former Carmelite convent we’vewalked past many times and coveted from afar. Let me tell you, it was charming and delightful. The rooms were comfortable and well-appointed and — although likely not in keeping with its historical state — air conditioned to an icy-cold state.
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August 10th, 2009
No posts about Puerto Rico today. My laptop wireless card is ailing and the poor thing’s in the hospital, complicating my posting options. So stay tuned! All is not forgotten! My word may still be worth something!
August 7th, 2009
Recently, I asked a very dear friend of mine — who is suffering from some health issues — what I could do to help her. She said, “Write something on your damn blog for a change.” Which seems to be just the kick in the pants I needed to sheepishly crawl back here and make, at the very least, this good faith post.
Secretly, I’d been hoping that my blog would just start updating itself. It seems the least it could do after all these years. I figured it would post some photos from our trip to Puerto Rico last month, maybe fill you in on the progress of the novel (none).
Alas, no. So I suppose I’m going to have to do all that. And I will. Starting with tomorrow, when I will post about our Puerto Rico trip with our good friend Denise. Then you won’t be able to stop me! I’ll be posting, you know, semi-regularly. Maybe.
August 6th, 2009
Oh, man, it’s been a while since I posted — and it’s probably not a great sign that half my posts this year (or so it seems) have been ruminations about how I haven’t posted in a while. I know it’s not interesting to write, so it can’t be interesting to read.
If I weren’t stubborn, I might just put this blog out of its misery. But I am stubborn and I’ve invested years in this blog and it’s just…it’s just that… right now…
I don’t know.
I would like to tell you that all my energy is being taken up by volunteering to work with orphans and/or working diligently on the second draft of The Novel. (I still cringe when I write the “n” word. It seems so … so… ostentatious or something.)
But the truth is, I haven’t been doing those things. The first one not at all, and the second very intermittently. It’s just that going over the first draft, shyly and scared-ily showing it to people and getting their feedback, is proving a very difficult and trying process. I read whole chapters and just want to cry because it’s just…not…there. Or it feels like too much, insurmountable.
I don’t know.
I feel like I said that already. Sigh. But I guess my point is (if I even have one) that I’m floating out here somewhere, thinking often of this space, wondering why my brain seems to give me no inspiration to share something wise and witty here. Maybe it’ll happen again soon. What I really mean is that I’m here. I’m still here.
Are you?
July 2nd, 2009
I’m not generally a superstitious person. Except when it comes to the power of jinx and when it reinforces my deepest, most paranoid theories of impending doom. I bring this up only because I think I’m sort of in the throes of it right now.
I should explain that I’ve always been a pretty fearful person. I spent much of my childhood, most of my adolescent and a grand chunk of my adulthood with my stomach in a knot, constantly afraid of horrible things happening to me and those around me. I had actually made good progress on my fear and anxiety (sobriety helped not a little) when my mother died in 2003. That seemed to spark my fear and anxiety a thousand-fold. I reeled with the sense of being completely out of control, being unable to stop tragedy. I became absolutely terrified that more of my loved ones were going to die, especially my husband Chris. To the point that I would lie awake at night, watching him, unable to sleep for trying to stem this giant tide of panic that wasn’t constantly threatening to undo my world.
I know. Maybe not so healthy.
I don’t live in that place of intense, uncontrollable fear anymore, but I get wind of it every once in a while. It pokes at me occasionally, trying to get my attention. Reminding me that all is not safe and stable. Clearly, I’m sort of there now, tonight, which explains this post after a long absence, written late at night.
I wrote here not too long ago about an old friend of mine who died entirely too young and entirely too tragically. I’m not ready for dying friends, just as I wasn’t nearly ready for my mother’s death. It unsettled me and I’ve been unable to shake entirely that feeling of insecurity.
A few weeks ago, I learned that my uncle in Scotland has cancer. And today, I discovered that another much-loved friend of mine has also been diagnosed with cancer. The good news (we hope) is that it has been diagnosed early in each case. The rest is up in the air and I don’t know what it will mean for either of them in the scheme of things. I do know that it’s scary and it has me very uneasy right now.
A more superstitious person might note that these things tend to come in threes, sending her mind racing, worrying about who’s next. A more superstitious person might knock on wood to try to stave off that possibility. A person like me might do it anyway. Just in case.
June 10th, 2009
Yesterday, I did something kind of strange. Maybe strange isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s just more…remarkable. (As in the literal sense: worthy of remarking upon.) What did I do? I finished the first draft of my novel.
Don’t let me get ahead of myself here: there remains a ton of work ahead. In fact, there are fewer parts of the novel that don‘t need work than do, if that poorly constructed thought gives you a bit of perspective. (It will probably also give you pause about reading anything I’ve written, but so be it.)
But it’s there — more than 200 pages (250 book-size pages, give or take). In a row! There’s a narrative thread that runs from beginning to end. I know what happens and I know how it happens and it’s there on the page. It’s a story. A whole story.
Despite how it may sound, I’m not exactly patting myself on the back here. It’s just that I’m not sure I really thought I could even get this far. And whadda ya know — I have. That feels like something.
That counts for something, right?
May 29th, 2009
…I married Chris at the bottom of my parents’ garden in Louisville. There were a lot of things about that day that the perfectionist in me would change. All but one string of the fairy lights I’d envisioned strung around the backyard failed. The floating candles for the pool sunk. The small set of steps we built so that I could gracefully navigate the steepest portion of the hill in the yard nearly weren’t wide enough for my father and me to descend together. I know now that these are minor details, but it’s funny how they’re the ones that stick with you.
What I wouldn’t change, nearly without exception, is everything that has followed for Chris and me. I’m not saying the past eight years have been without difficulty. Obviously, they haven’t. We’ve had a number of changes, moves and transitions. There has been conflict and confusion, but very rarely about us, as opposed to the world around us. We have weathered unbearable sadness when my mother died just two years into our marriage — and, yes, that’s one of the few things I’d change if I could.
The sum total of it, though, has been good. It has been more than good. It has been an exceptional experience. When you get married, you’re so smitten that you imagine the big challenge ahead will be to maintain that level of interest and emotion and passion for the years ahead. What you don’t know is that it gets so much better than that. That it gets weird and hard and deeper and more resonant and the attachment and respect and fondness grows so much stronger than you’d ever guessed possible. You fall in and out of love a million times, sometimes in the same day or week, but you always land in a better place. Who knew? I didn’t.
I think back to that night eight years ago, when a relatively small group of our friends and family gathered and celebrated and danced the night away. I think of how everyone else’s lives have evolved. Two of the people there died suddenly and too young, which seems statistically significant for a gathering of less than 50 people. But — and here’s the beauty part — there were also two brand new lives there, even though we didn’t know it at the time. Both my friend Beth and my sister Jane were pregnant. They have seven-year-olds now. Seven-year-olds!
Among our guests, some relationships lasted and others split apart. Some friendships slipped into the ether. Sadly, I’m no longer in touch with a handful of the people who attended, some of whom drove all the way from St. Louis to be there. So much has happened and so much has changed. We have been loved and supported by our families and friends and we couldn’t have done it without you. So I thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart. Eight years. Can you even stand it?
May 19th, 2009
A few months ago, I got an email from Crate & Barrel thanking me for my purchases over the past year — in other words, giving me props for snapping up the clearance page stuff other people passed on. They offered me a $25 gift card to spend how I saw fit at DonorsChoose.org. At first, I thought it might be a bit of a bogus cross-promotion where I’d click a button and wind up inadvertantly agreeing to buy an $800 patio loveseat. So, of course, I did it anyway. (I’ve since learned that this is an award-winning effort Crate & Barrel’s been making for the past few years, issuing these gift cards so that customers can help direct how the company spends its charitable contributions. Which I think is very cool. Would that more companies follow suit.)
Anyway, I followed the DonorsChoose.org link and was intrigued to find that this is a website where teachers, mostly from high poverty schools, post pleas for financial help purchasing specific supplies — books, teaching tools, etc. I picked a project somewhat randomly. It was near the top of the list and it caught my eye. A teacher in Northern California needed $24 more to meet her goal of buying copies of Judy Blume’s Superfudge for her class.
I love this one from my pal, Sal. Why does he like books? “Maybe because some are funny.”
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May 14th, 2009
Taken 05.08.09
May 12th, 2009
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Chris was heading to NYC on a business trip last Wednesday and we had a spare ticket we had to use up before too long. So I decided to tag along, despite the fact that heading to New York always puts me into a bit of a panic. I get overwhelmed just by the idea of the city and its offerings. I get consumed with the idea that I’ll do the wrong things and I’ll miss out on all the good things and wind up catatonic on the subway, rocking back and forth, unsure where to get off.
That didn’t happen. It never does. I didn’t say it was a rational fear. I’m just not a very good decision maker — I have trouble picking something off a menu — and there’s so, so much to do and see in New York. I feel like I’m supposed to go to museums and take advantage of the culture but the truth is that what I really like to do in the city, in any city I visit, is wander. Aimlessly, sometimes. Operating with a vague idea of where I might want to end up or which neighborhoods I might like to see. A boutique or craft store I might want to check out.
I like to punctuate my wandering with frequent stops — sitting at an outdoor cafe and people watching. Pausing in a park and people watching. Standing dumb-struck on a street corner, people watching. You get my drift. And, boy, did the weather cooperate. Beautiful days stretching into one another just tailor-made for doing not much of anything and covering a lot of ground doing it. Thus, the trip I was reluctant to go on turned out to be (of course) one of my favorite to NYC yet.
We stayed at Le Parker Meridien in Midtown, about a block south of Central Park, thanks to my husband’s amazing acumen at finding stellar hotel deals. This one didn’t disappoint. If you have a partner who enjoys the mind-numbing and crazy-making task of developing complex strategies for bidding for hotels online — or, you know, an expense account — I heartily recommend it. Compared to our last visit, our hotel room this time was practically cavernous and at 28 floors up, afforded us a nice view into Central Park and onto the outdoor living spaces of those in buildings shorter than ours. Not that it mattered a ton, considering we spent most of our time wandering the streets of Manhattan, trying to ignore aches and blisters. (more…)
April 21st, 2009
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