The Kind of Heartbreak You Pay For

Some achey-breaky stuff I’m loving right now:

This song. “In the dark of this place, there's the glow of your face. There's the dust on the screen of this broken machine. And I can't help but feel that I've made some mistake but I let it go.”¹ It’s a deeply honest prayer. And one that resonates for me.

I was reading at Coffee Shop Formerly Known as Caribou today and laughed so loudly and suddenly that the lady at the next table leaned over to ask what I was reading. Two pages later, I had to take off my fogged up glasses to sob. It’s a sneaky read that lures you in with its hilariously honest narrator and then knifes you in the gut. "My father drops the mitt in the grass and pulls me into a tight hug, exactly like he never did before the stroke. [...] He steps back, keeping his hands on my shoulders. I wonder how old he thinks I am today. 'Where's Hailey?' he says. That narrows it down a bit. I turn away so he won't see the searing pain that momentarily melts my features. In the world he woke up in today, he loves me and Hailey's still alive, and it's like I'm standing outside in the rain, peering through the window and wishing I could come in from the cold and warm my chilled bones at the fire of his dementia. 'She'll be along soon,' I say."²

You know you’ve made it when they ask you to give a TED Talk. Recently heard Amanda Palmer’s talk on NPR: “The Art of Asking.” I’m a weeper by nature but I dare you not to tear up a little bit when she talks about her time as a street performer:  “And my eyes would say, 'Thank you. I see you.' And their eyes would say, 'Nobody ever sees me. Thank you.'"³ Gah.

End Notes

1. Koenig, Ezra, and Rostam Batmanglij. "Ya Hey." Rec. 2011-2013. Modern Vampires of the City. Vampire Weekend. Rostam Batmanglij, Ariel Rechtshaid, 2013. CD.
2. Tropper, Jonathan. How to Talk to a Widower. New York: Bantam Books. 2007. Print.
3. Palmer, Amanda. "The Art of Asking." Lecture. TEDTalks. 1 Mar. 2013. YouTube. Web. 6 July 2013.

"Do you know how to get home from here?"

The other night I was walking through a store. It was getting late and I was getting that kind of weird, lonely feeling I get when it gets dark outside. I'm not so great with the dark.

I stopped to stare at these supercutewedgesthatarereallyinrightnow, the ones that come in that weird peachy crayola color that fashion bloggers have started calling "nude" - we'll ignore both the inherent white privilege in declaring a peachy shade of Caucasian The Color of Nudity and also that my own experience of nudeness does not involve anything close to that color but sure. 

I hadn't realized how dark it had gotten outside or that I might not be the only person in the world who hates feeling lost when I heard a small, worried voice. 

"Mooommm?" 

He was probably seven. Six, maybe. His eyes were large (or maybe they just seemed large because he looked so panicky). 

"Mom?" He was running a little to catch up with her as she headed for the registers.

"Mmhmm..." she said, not looking at him, or at anything in particular.

"Um, do you know how to get home from here?"

Her eyes darted down at him and he grabbed her hand.

"Yeah, honey," she said.

"Okay."

I kept walking, trying hard not to bring my hand up to feel the squeeze inside my chest cavity. 

Maybe that's why I really hate the dark. Maybe I just always thought I'd get to this point on my life-map where being an adult would stop being deeply, deeply terrifying. Somewhere along the line - and I honestly can't remember when this happened - someone determined that I was legally capable of driving my car without calling home every hour and paying my bills and deciding if I was going to eat ice cream for dinner and finding my own way home in the dark. I guess I just haven't gotten over that tiny panic that I'm not old enough to be doing this, that I don't really know how to get home from anywhere, at all.