flashbacks.

 

i love you, ann. sometimes it's so easy to forget all the things that we've done--even the grand adventures, let alone the less exhilarating ones--and to think that life has always been as mediocre, as methodical as it is now.

we have to remind ourselves to take time to remember (slightly paradoxical, but you understand). life is more than the winters and the required classes and the transfer applications. life is soooo much more.

catharsis (an ode to sue)

after talking with sue on the phone for the last hour or so, all the stress and unwelcome pressures of school, work, and the future just evaporated. i feel so much lighter and optimistic--a combination of both, a feeling of empowerment. i know that i can get my college transfer apps out, and my homework done, and my schedule of life and work synced with that of homework and school.
i can't pinpoint why exactly sue has so much power to transform me. her soul is so in tune with mine--we don't share every struggle in our lives, but we share a similar perspective on how to approach them and move past them when it's time. the last time i talked with her before today was almost two weeks ago--and god, i've missed her.
she is that invisible support that some people get from their parents, their friends, their boyfriends--and every time i get off the phone (or, better yet, see her or drink tea) with her, i feel so much more like myself. she resets me, and reminds me of who i am.
i love her.

oh my god, the sun!

yes, it's still 45 degrees outside, but there's sunshine and no rain, and i'm happy. despite the fact that i made a two- or three-hour journey downtown to try to get my parking ticket reduced (my first in portland, so i thought it might work) only to realize that the court is closed on saturdays and i was an idiot not to check before i left.

it's okay, it turned out to be really beautiful. i stopped by the indian food cart i like to go to when i'm in that area, and i walked down to the waterfront and ate and read and people-watched, and it turned out to be a satisfying morning. i'm home now, and i think i'll go for a run. i can't stop smiling :)

trails in the rain

today i went on my first run of the year, and it was... different. the last time i ran was in early fall, and the last time i ran outside was last spring. so today was difficult, but not discouraging. the rain was just starting to intensify as i left the house, and for the forty minutes i was out, the sun never came out and the trails only got more soupy. but even though i only have cotton running clothes--no high-tech synthetic fabrics to keep the moisture wicked from my skin--the run turned out to be surprisingly refreshing.

after i made my loop, and i was starting to slow down on my way back home, i ended up jogging on a part of the trail that i'd never seen before--and it was beautiful. the creek rushed alongside me, only about four or five feet away, and the dense trees were covered in mosses and lichens in the way that you only see in old walt disney forest scenes, and the birds, invisible in their roosts above, were singing in as many different tones and rhythms as the languages you'd hear in new york city.

and it was strange, because i became my ten-year-old self for a few minutes, and i imagined myself as one of those birds, the drops of rain flecking my feathers, the warmth of my nest contrasting with the sharp cold of the air, the neighbors and nest-mates calling and responding in a communal commentary on life, whatever it meant at the moment.

call me a romantic, but the experience effectively turned my soul over for the first time since it'd settled in that familiar crippled position when winter started.

my weekend

sometimes i forget how amazing this book is, and then i spend a few days reading it again and i remember.

shame.

in the "register for classes/ apply for admission" line today at the college business center, i found myself standing behind three ukrainian women. if i had to guess, i would say that one was about mom's age, one seemed a generation older, and one seemed five or ten years younger. it was a long line--pretty typical for the first week of classes, when everyone is rushing to add new classes and drop the bad ones--and i had plenty of time to stand and watch them interact with each other. they had come as a group and were discussing books and applications and picture ID's and other things i didn't quite catch, because i was too busy watching the oldest woman, the only one wearing a kerchief. i guess it's taboo to talk about staring at people, but bear with me. i am not a creeper.
it's just, this woman--she was so much like mom. she wasn't wearing any makeup, and i swear the lines around her eyes were cast from mom's own face, and the way she rocked just barely as she gazed off at the opposite wall during the silences--it swept me back to my elementary school days when i would go to the grocery store with mom and watch her standing in the checkout line, wearing that exact expression. i wonder now, if the reason why it was so striking to see mom so detached, so deep in her thoughts and--what? dreams? fears? hopes?--was because mom never stopped being present, never stopped working and moving unless a wait was forced upon her. i wonder if this is the fate of most ukrainian women of mom's generation--that the expectation that they cater to their family's every need before their own is so oppressive that, because their work is never finished and because they won't take time for themselves until it is, they never have time for self-reflection until they're standing in line.
and here i am now, overthinking everything and making up for the lost thoughts that culture robbed from mom.

all this is really just to say, i am ashamed. i made eye contact with that woman several times, and i was dying to exchange a few words in ukrainian, to ease some of the homesickness that came with seeing mom's face on a stranger. but i couldn't. i don't know if mom would want me advertising that i'm her daughter, even to people who probably have no connection to or interest in our family. i fail at being a ukrainian daughter--i fail at getting married early and staying in church and believing in god and not having dreams besides obtaining a two-year dental hygienist degree and bringing forth grandchildren for my parents. so you see, my failure bleeds on mom's name and reputation--and although she loves me in the way that is required of all mothers, i don't think she is proud. and i think if i started talking with that woman, the others would join in, and we would launch into the standard ukrainian conversation in which they would ask about my parents, and i would have to tell them that they don't live here, and no i am not married and yes i live alone and no i don't go to church and yes, they still do. you see? it is so much easier to paste on a smile and to look straight ahead as though i cannot understand.

in case it ever comes to question

yes, i am a nerd.

i've been looking over the book that i carried with me to the beach this summer, to the campsites the family visited on weekends, on long car rides, and into the air-conditioned sunroom during spokane's near- (or was it over-?) 100-degree heatwave. perhaps reading it was an odd form of procrastination (from doing any writing of my own), or perhaps it stemmed from a deep and honest desire to improve--but here it is.

anna, you may remember this. i can't recall how often you joined us camping at fort spokane, but i can distinctly remember many occasions on which i stretched out next to oksana in the grass and read this, fully engrossed, while she read her kindle. we gave up hours of swimming and hiking and eating mom's smoky camp-flavored borsht because we were too busy navigating our own imaginary worlds--and i don't even know if i can use that excuse, because this isn't fiction, or creative nonfiction even--this is a fucking guide. a textbook, basically, seduced me away from my family.
i'm not even sure it helped me. i read it all the way through several times, but i still feel--when i flip it open nowadays and starting reading randomly--that i'm seeing his words for the first time. i hope, for the sake of easing my conscience about how i spent my summer, that this book is secretly directing my writing through my subconscious mind.

which, now that i think about it, might actually be true. did i tell you that i've been narrating the scenes of my dreams again? it hasn't happened for a long time, and it was familiarly weird when i noticed it last night. mom called me a whore in a thick (slightly thicker than usual) eastern european accent, and i narrated our movements, thoughts, and reactions in a steady drone.
this is what you do to me, william zinssler. i love you.

i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

this is what i do when i feel myself growing hopeless and i need to pray somehow or otherwise remove myself from the physical space i'm occupying--i chant the words of allen ginsberg, over and over, until at last the stone that imprisons me begins to crack.
i don't think i am an exception, because--although i've never studied ginsberg formally, and i haven't watched that one movie about him that i think was just made--i know that he was a popular figure, and i am not the first to discover his power. i know that he moved people, either towards passionate agreement or passionate disagreement, and his words move me now, because when i read his poems i feel relief knowing that someone besides me is worried too.

and then i find this, and i feel like maybe our world will make it after all:

image credits 

another new year's resolution?

how about: master the art of not procrastinating.

this is madness. there's a class that i haven't technically gotten into yet, but because i really need it, i'm sticking around for the first week in hopes that someone will drop out and open up a seat for me. annnnnd, there's already an essay assigned, that just happens to be, oh, due tomorrow.
so what do i do? i really don't want to spend the massive amount of energy it takes me to write an (especially dry) essay about the definition of beauty, murder, or friendship--especially if it turns out that no one drops the class--but i really really need to get in, and the risk will probably be worth it. argggggggh.
okay. i'm doing it--i'll give myself an hour, and if it's not done by then, i'll cut my losses and go to sleep.

i hope your first day went well, ann. i love you. xoxo, j.

the brooding russian.

it frustrates me, but lately i've been thinking too much about how i'm feeling, and the process is one of those circular cause-effect models that offers no escape. i feel dark and my optimism goes in hiding, and when i start to analyze the reasons behind the change, i only feel less and less alive--there's no reason, nothing i can pin this on--and thus, no quick fix, no solution.
i expect this darkness every winter, and for the few weeks that follow my visits home, but even though i try to brace myself for it, it's never enough--i always land here, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. i'm sure a part of me is predisposed to feel this way, just from the fact that the parentals are russian(ish)--"broodiness" is a trait often linked to our kind--and that dad has always been chronically (albeit secretly) depressed. but what about the argument for self-determination, the power of mind over matter? i just need something that will take the edge off the hopelessness, you know?

it's freezing outside and my gym membership is up, but i think i need to start running again, pronto. it's the only thing that has ever helped me, and i'm determined to get out of this mental shithole as quickly as possible.

winter term eve

i've been out of it for about a week now, and i'm not sure why. i think i'm more extroverted than i let on, because i can't wait to be back in school and interacting with people face-to-face on a daily basis. i need to get out of the suburbs and spend more time in the city--this quiet neighborhood is suffocating me.
on a less related topic, i haven't succeeded in finishing (and in some cases, starting) all that i set out to do this break--but i feel so very rested, and that's a major accomplishment in itself. i almost wish i had just a few more days left of winter break so that i could file my papers and get ready for the term properly, but honestly, even if i had another week i probably wouldn't get much more done.

so this is it. i'm only doing four classes this term, 16 credits and only 4 that are going towards my degree.. i'm not being realistic about my education, but i'll deal with that later--for now, i'll just bathe in my current state of anticipation (and enthusiasm) for what's to come.

good night, world. xoxo, j.

chana masala

yesssss.
i'm going out for indian food with olga and her boyfriend julio in about forty minutes. i'm broke and i should not be spending money eating out, but they're on their way home from california right now and they won't even stay in town for 24 hours, so it's a treat. and i'm stoked.