the growing room.
in Thoughts and Feelings
as brim, decision, delicious bowl, hesitation, house, life, life is a house, nice thing, peanut, peanut butter and jelly, person, pistachios, purpose, Randomly, sole purpose, sort, special person, strange room, time
Some decisions are blessedly not that difficult.
Take lunch, for example. It’s probably peanut butter and jelly. Or crackers and peanut butter. Or pistachios and grapes. Or a bowl of peas. Just kidding, that was actually dinner one time. It was a huge bowl of peas, and may I add: it was a delicious bowl of peas.
Another easy decision for me was a little over a year ago. It wasn’t lunch, but it was just as simple, if not more so. I was basically always hiding back then. I wore hats to church for the sole purpose of pulling the brim down low over my eyes, so as to avoid having to really look at people. And it didn’t hurt that the hats were cute, either. But Shane came up to me one day in church and asked me if I’d like to sing with him for one of his upcoming shows. And honestly, at that point in my life, it was slim pickings concerning what I felt like I knew about myself, but I knew the answer to his question, at least. Without hesitation, I simply said yes. That was one thing I knew undoubtedly: I love to sing. At least there was that, another blessedly simple decision made.
And now I feel pretty ambivalent sometimes. Just sort of unsure of a lot, and I have been for a little over a year now. And no, that’s not exactly coincidental. But lately, it’s strange, because I am in this place in my life where I am just not really hesitating over much. Today I ran into a friend at the mall. We’ve not hung out often, but you don’t need to spend a lot of time with her to realize she’s a special person. Randomly, she asked me if I’d like to take a trip down to Charlotte with her. Right away, I said yes. It was simple. Like eating a large bowl of peas, just not hard to do (for me, anyway).
And so, that’s one nice thing about here. See, if life is a house, I find myself in this strange room right now. It’s a room I didn’t even know existed, and I’d like to try to see what makes this room special. What makes it beautiful. What makes it valuable and why it is that I am here. I think that this might be the room in which I learn to become better at making decisions. Like, on my own. Look mom, no hands! style. A good friend kindly pointed out to me that I might be more than a little influenced by others’ opinions concerning that age old question, What the heck should I do?! And he might just be right.
Read: shoot, he noticed.
But I think that I am in a growing room. It’s not always comfortable, but man, I think I might come out of it more like a butterfly than a caterpillar. I hope, anyway.
Um, no offense to the caterpillars.
lost. really pretty lost.
in Thoughts and Feelings
as blank expression, call, corner, everything, expression, google, google maps, home, house, kirkwood soccer club, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, phone, quitter, soccer game, thick accent, thuggish, tonight, what the heck
Tonight the stars are obscured by the clouds and there is not much that is far-seeing at all. Including myself.
I got lost this evening. In the lovely area here in Delaware known as Price’s Corner. And yes, it is just as unromantic and uninspiring as it sounds. My google maps app quit working and then I thought I would just call someone and ask for help. Which is when my phone just quit working altogether.
Timing is everything.
I asked a man with a very thick accent if he knew where I was trying to go–um, I didn’t say that, verbatim, I wasn’t baiting him, asking him to guess my destination. No, I was like, “Do you know how to get to Kirkwood Soccer Club?”
With a blank expression, he repeated Kirkwood Soccer Club in his very thick accent and I knew that he would be about as helpful as my quitter of a phone.
Then I asked a thuggish guy for help; he told me that I didn’t want to go there. It was dark and late, why would I want to go there?
“To watch a soccer game?” I guessed. But it wasn’t actually guessing, because I knew: that’s why I wanted to go there.
He kept convincing me I didn’t want to go. Finally, I acquiesced. To a point, anyway. I still wanted to go, but I realized that I just couldn’t. Because I didn’t know how to get there. So I went home, instead. And wouldn’t you know it, the second I pulled up to my house my phone was all, “Oh hi. I’m here now–did you need me?”
It feigned innocence.
And I was like, “Don’t. Even.”
And it was like, “What? I’m not perfect and neither are you, so let’s just call it even.”
And really, my phone had a point.
I’m really not perfect. Sometimes I feel like I don’t do well at this business of living at all. Sometimes I wonder what the heck is going on and just how many times am I going to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before something happens.
But really, I know–I KNOW–that life is happening all the time. It just feels tiring tonight.
And then I fill the bathtub with the hottest water Pennsylvania has ever seen and submerge myself in it; then I go to bed. I eventually fall asleep and then the sun wakes me up in the morning with a light that reveals something new.
I hope, anyway.
yes, that’s right, she bakes too. outside, no less.
in Funny Stuff, photography
as bake, cake from scratch, carrot, carrot cake, clay, clay oven, concept, cooking show, home, kitchen aid, mad props, new girl in town, peanut, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, rachel ray, reason, show, sort, sun, today
So I got home today, and saw that my parents were hard at work on the kitchen floor doing this: Which was a problem only because I had to bake a cake. So my mom was all, “Don’t worry, there’s the great outdoors, you know. You can make your cake out there.” To which I [...]
chicken!
in Funny Stuff, Loved Ones
as center city philadelphia, chicken, chicken head, degree weather, dinner, miss hannigan, peanut butter and jelly, Potbellys, restaurant, today
Today I saw a man. And this, by itself, is not at all noteworthy. But when you combine it with the fact that he was wearing something on his head that made him look like a chicken and he was playing an accordion, well now you can see why I’d want to write this down. [...]
mamma actually didn’t say there’d be days like this.
in Funny Stuff, Thoughts and Feelings
as april fool, butter, cat, day, fools joke, hair, kind, obscure disease, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, true hippie, Vietnam
It’s one of those days. You know, the kind when you’re absolutely positive the cat eats the butter–you saw him doing it the other day, in fact–and yet, you now give in to a kind of laziness-induced-denial as you butter your toast with the exact same butter that you are now telling yourself has probably [...]
monday afternoon
in photography, Thoughts and Feelings
as B. With, black, cat, disappearing act, drew, guitar, house, kind, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Percy, recording, search party, silver collar, taliesin, Tally, thoughts/life
I am sitting next to Drew, listening to the slow and rhythmic hum of a guitar being tuned. We are recording, but a lot of recording is hurry up and wait–for me, anyway. Well, for this particular song, anyway. Because see, this is a song that I wrote on a bus a while ago and [...]
