cat-bird.
in Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as blond hair, brooklyn oh, Cat-bird, christmas gift list, cinderella, day in my life, dressing room, everything, favorite shop, gift, homemade cards, pair, room downstairs, shop, store, time, today, unicorn, vintage store, way, Write
I took myself out tonight. Put a dress on and everything. By everything, I suppose I mean boots and a jacket, too. I don’t know, really. It just felt right to add the word everything.
Anyway, I ended up in Brooklyn. Oh, who am I kidding–I knew I would end up there. See, it’s just because my absolute favorite shop in the whole wide world is there. Cat-bird. That’s what the shop is called. And it holds such wonderful little unique treasures and interesting things. It’s where I found this today.
They always have something unicorn in it. Which is part of why I love the place, I guess. Unicorns and I go way back. To when I was four, I think. Four and sick in the hospital with scraggly blond hair never cut evenly a day in my life, if the pictures tell me anything about it. My two best memories of the hospital are when my brothers all marched in to visit and handed me homemade cards, one after the other. Just dropped them into my lap while I was laying on the hospital bed. I still remember it and it still makes me smile. And the other best memory was my parents, bringing me down to the gift shop and telling me I could pick out anything I wanted from the whole store.
Whoa.
So, I found the unicorn stuffed animal, and he moved from the gift room downstairs to my room somewhere upstairs.
I bought a tiny gift for one of my nieces who’s on my christmas gift list this year. I love to buy something from Cat-bird for someone I love. It’s like inviting them into a very good, very warm place, giving them something from there.
And then I found a vintage store. Of course. And the lady who works there–Francesca–had all kinds of fun dressing me up. “It’s just you can fit into everything, so it’s so fun to finally see these clothes on a body!”
And it was so fun.
Until she made me try on the World’s Tiniest Pants Ever.
“You’re a size ___, right?” she asked me.
“Yep.”
Then she sticks something into the dressing room while saying, “Great. Try these on.I can’t wait to see them on you!”
And then they wouldn’t go over my thighs, so I had to let her down gently. She’s still searching for someone to put those pants on. So, really, if you have exceptionally skinny thighs and no butt to speak of, pay her a visit on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. Make her day.
She also stuffed my size 8 feet into a pair of size 7 boots.
Which made me feel like one of Cinderella’s step-sisters trying to squeeze into that magical glass slipper.
And I was always hoping to be Cinderella in that story, see, so it wasn’t the best feeling for me.
But I did find a pair of pants that fit like a dream, have this amazing tailored look, and the plaid ain’t too shabby, either. Done.
It was a good time tonight. I enjoy my company. I enjoy other people’s company, too. Like a nice guy I met, who bought me some pizza. I was starving, so it really came in handy. We had a good conversation. We realized that were both in South Korea at the same time. How weird is that?
And now look what I’ve gone and done–totally written a whole blog post. I had told myself I was only gonna post the unicorn card, and be done with it. Maybe say a thing or two about Cat-Bird. Ugh. I am a lost cause when it comes to writing less.
I suppose there are worse lost causes out there.
Oh, but one more thing about Cat-Bird. In it, I saw this apron, fitted with a whole row of pencils on the front of it, with large letters across, saying,
WEAPONS TO FIGHT FASCISM
I like it. Use those pencils. Write. Write your thoughts down. Don’t be like everyone else. Don’t form a government with no factions. Let us continue to sharpen each other with our pointed ideas, friends.
Okay, that’s really all now. Promise.
50 minute hour, here I come.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as Christian, God, homemade cards, idea, intonation, kind, oil change, room, Rosie, rosie the riveter, Somebody, staple gun, therapy
I have the feeling that some people keep what I am about to say a secret.
Which is totally fine.
But, see, I grew up with the idea that this is the kind of thing that is very normal. Like getting the oil changed in your car. Or maybe even, God forbid, changing it yourself (which is something that I need to learn to do, if I am really gonna be like Rosie the Riveter. Does an oil change perhaps take a staple gun? Cause I am handy with one of those, you know).
But since my mom has her master’s degree in counseling and my pop, being a pastor, counsels on the regular too, I am not at all embarrassed of the fact that I am about to get some real good therapy.
And I can’t wait.
See, I haven’t been able to afford it, so I was just trusting that God would take care of my bruised up heart and funny little thoughts, but turns out, he’s doing that and letting me get some therapy.
And it’s one of those kinds of things in which I cannot help but keep going over the scenario in my head. I walk into a room and there he or she is: my counselor. Or even advocate, which is a fancy and nice word that my friend Christian used to describe this person. And he will probably be proper enough to use all three syllables of my name and he will say it with the kind of intonation that isn’t quite musical but certainly makes you think of warm things like fires. But contained fires, you know. Cause it’s real safe all up in this room. And he will ask me why I am here and I will have at least a thousand things to say but I will start at the beginning, just as soon as I figure out exactly where the beginning is.
Is it my first memory? When I was three and my brothers were visiting me at the hospital? Traipsing into my little room like the smallest boys orphanage there ever was, giving me homemade cards and telling me that they hope I get better soon.
Or was it when I was turning 13 and terrified at the idea of growing up? I thought that if I hadn’t disappointed my parents by now, then becoming a teenager surely would; that growing up was something that I didn’t know how to do, but knew how not to do even less. And there it was, inevitable. While there I was, scared. But then I turned 13, and I was still me, and that has been a lesson that I’ve learned over and over again–that no matter what happens to me, nobody can take me from me, if that makes any sense at all.
Or was it when I came home to a husband that was no husband at all? To the news that everything I held sacred had been put up for sale and bought by a cheap story that was supposed to make somebody feel better, but that somebody was far from me.
ding ding ding ding
I think we may have a winner.
But then again, I think all of my story is worth talking about to a professional. I think that people benefit from sharing their heart in safe places and, like I said, ooh, somebody pinch me, cause this girl’s going to therapy.
And I couldn’t be happier about it.
