The view from here: Carmel

Chubby squirrels!

Carmel is for lovers.

On the road: Carmel

As a Southern California native, I think I live in the greatest place on earth.  I'm not an arrogant snob--I just like where I live. :)  People vacation in my neighborhood (cut me some slack). :p  Our drive up the coast has done a pretty good job of blowing my mind and almost (just almost) convinced me to move.  Here are some of the things we fell in love with:

1. Elephant seals.

2. Chubby squirrels.

3. Carmel Beach. 

Things we dislike:

1. Drivers of Sebring convertibles. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  If you feel the need to fly from Kansas or Idaho or North Dakota or (insert lackluster state here), rent an economy convertible (a.k.a. Chrysler Sebring), then proceed to drive along Highway 1 from San Diego to British Columbia, it is NOT necessary to go 15 miles per hour the entire way.  The speed limit in the state of California is 55 mph if not otherwise posted.  Yes, the coastline is beautiful.  Yes, your rented convertible can drive that fast.  Yes, I will pass you on a blind curve b/c it is that annoying driving behind your pasty, sun-starved ass.    I don't fly to Kansas and drive 15 mph around your corn fields.

2.  Cyclists.  It's called a car.  It's faster and requires much less effort.  Or are you just looking for an excuse to wear a spandex onesie?

3.  Cyclists missing limbs.  I bet you actually do have a car and a handicap permit.  B/c you can ride a bike for 100 miles, but you can't walk from the far side of the parking lot.  Seems logical.

**Disclaimer: Items 1-3 are Mike's contribution to this blog post.

4. Everything closes at sundown.  Carmel becomes a ghost town after dark.  We couldn't even find a coffee shop open at 7:00 and had to drive to Monterey!

On the road: Santa Barbara

I got married.

I will have to revisit this--a HUGE task--some other day when I have more time and am not on my honeymoon.  Be patient; wait for it...wait for it...

I will eventually start a blog with Mike to share all the sordid details of our life with you but for now, while we're on our honeymoon, I'll keep writing in this one.  My 13-year-old cousin, Michaela, and my sister, Sarah, asked me to keep a travel journal or honeymoon blog of sorts ("without the intimate details, please").  I assured them I would write diligently but forgot how awkward and cumbersome it is to type with fake nails.  Stupid vanity.  My progress has been frustratingly slow.

Since I'm behind and partially handicapped because of my talons, I'll only include the major highlights from our stay at the Old Yacht Club Inn in Santa Barbara:

1. After spending an hour or so in an emergency clinic, we found out that Mike had tendonitis in his left foot and not the broken toe we had feared.  Rx: rest and pain killers/anti-inflammatory drugs.  

2. The first breakfast I had--an omelette covered in "feet cheese" (a.k.a. parmesan)--made me sick.  I became fast friends with the pink stuff and took a shot every half hour.

Aside from those two surprises, Santa Barbara was lovely.  

Juggling, Part II

I.

It started with a question:

“What do you want to do with your life?”

“I want to be a writer.”

“What are you doing about it?”

Silence.

I didn’t like the question, but after years of avoiding its impenetrable gaze, it was staring me right in the face. I didn’t like my response either. Even the non-words, stacked atop each other in what I had hoped would be a formidable silent barricade, could not withstand the searing truth.

In the aftermath of this conversation, I began thinking about probable responses in the way I labored over formulating the perfect retort to a caustic remark; it consumed me.

My excuses, once so convincing, had lost their appeal. It’s a lonely place to be, really, when you’re out of excuses. The masses have gotten tired of hearing them and have slowly abandoned you to listen to the sound of your own voice. I imagined myself as being left behind by the circus, standing in the middle of an empty field littered with stale, damp popcorn, tattered fliers, and trash. Forgotten stakes, a few cigarette butts, and the shriveled corpses of popped balloons are the only remnants of the bustling show that turned the nothingness into a wonderland.

Alone, I began thinking about the juggler.

I thought of him juggling in the park, an easy smile across his face. I thought of him juggling staplers and hole-punchers in the stairwell of an anonymous corporate building, white paper dots flying everywhere. I thought of him brushing those paper dots out of his hair while putting the staplers and hole-puncher back in their usual place on his desk. I thought of him sitting down in his chair with a small sigh, barely audible over the click-clacking of synchronized keyboards, before contributing to the din.

II.

It has taken me weeks to find a response to the initial question. My fingertips have been poised over the keys, hesitant, waiting. I have watched the cursor blink against the blank page countless times, an unbiased metronome controlling the rhythm of the non-words in my mind. On the eighth day, a break through: write.

III.

The juggler doesn’t talk about juggling—he throws things in the air. A writer doesn’t talk about writing, shouldn’t write solely about not-writing because it’s safe—a writer writes.

IV.

And so, I write.

Juggling, Part I

I responded to a Craigslist roommate ad my fifth year of college and found myself living with a juggler, a pilot, and a Mexican Jack-Johnson-wannabe with a penchant for grooming his genitals; I discovered the evidence on more than one occasion floating in the toilet like a furry Portuguese Man-O-War. I even found a hair stuck between the blades of my Mach 3, which I left in the shower to shave my legs. I asked the juggler and the pilot if they had used my razor and they said, “I have hair down there” and “I do that at my girlfriend’s house”.

Silence.

We erupted into a fit of mock dry heaving, followed by uproarious laughter. Everyone told me to confront him but I never did. What was I supposed to say?

But this isn’t about “Jack”. This is about the juggler, but before he was the juggler, he was just “Matt”. He was quiet, a lanky fellow with sad eyes, a slow smile, and a mop of brown curls. I left him alone most of the time because he was always studying, or appeared to be studying, as both the pilot and the juggler were majoring in aerospace engineering. Shortly after I moved in, I discovered the pilot was a movie junkie. We spent much of our time watching movies from his vast collection of pirated DVDs; of all the roommates, I was the easiest to persuade to postpone homework.

One such afternoon, he asked if I wanted to watch a movie, and since it was 4:30--too early to start studying--I agreed. I sat down on our dingy, sagging couches while he walked to the kitchen to get chips, salsa (El Pato), and salt. I should mention the pilot ate his chips and salsa in a particular fashion: take chip, scoop salsa, sprinkle with salt. Eat. Repeat. He had just started his chip-eating routine when he turned to me, crunching furiously, and said, “Have you seen Matt juggle?” I raised an eyebrow. The pilot sprinkled salt onto his chip before continuing.

“Matt wants to be a professional juggler but his parents won’t let him.” I raised the other eyebrow, grabbed a chip, dipped it in salsa, and after a moment’s hesitation, sprinkled it with salt. Instant upgrade. The pilot, excited he had converted me, raised his arms into the air and yelled. “See? The salt makes the whole ‘chips n’ salsa’ combo better. Anyway, yeah, Matt juggles.” I salted another chip. Crunch.

“Juggles? Like, he juggles balls? Really?” Crunch. Salt. Crunch. Drip. Salsa had dripped onto my pants. I wiped it up and licked it off my finger.

“Matt is fucking crazy. He juggles knives and chainsaws and shit. I’ve seen it and thought, you are fucking nuts, man!” Crunch. Salt. Crunch. I imagined Matt, tall and quiet, tossing three roaring chainsaws into the air at a construction site. I don’t know why I imagined him juggling chainsaws at a construction site. It was either the construction site or the circus. It freaked me out.

“If he wants to be a juggler, why is he majoring in aerospace engineering? Couldn’t he have picked an easier major if he just planned on juggling after college?” The pilot quickly brushed the salt off his lap and stood up to get us beers.

“Matt is also obsessed with planes and flying shit. Like me.”

Matt never talked about juggling—I don’t think he knew I knew his secret—so I didn’t bring it up. I thought I would one day catch him juggling spoons or empty beer bottles in the living room so I waited. And then I saw him as I was leaving for school one day, juggling in the park next to our apartment. A six or seven-year-old kid was watching him with his head cocked to the side, eyes squinting from the effort of trying to follow the pins flying high above Matt’s 6’ frame. He had a wide, easy smile across his face, his eyes hardly blinking. He looked really happy. Anyone who saw him at that moment could tell he was doing what he loved, what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

When I told him I saw him juggling in the park, he just smiled and said, “I was just practicing.” I asked him if he would juggle knives for me, as long as we were outside and I was standing far away from him. He salted a chip and said, “Sure”. Crunch.

He got a few paid gigs at Disneyland performing in the parades. I never got to see him but his face lit up when he talked about them. I admired him for pursuing his dream despite the fact it seemed to contradict reason. That didn’t seem to matter—it made him happy.

We graduated in June and parted ways. Last I heard he had followed his girlfriend up north to Stanford where she was attending grad school. I think he got an office job like the rest of us, maybe an office with a view. Matt was a genius. Although I can’t say for sure, I bet he is still juggling. I secretly hope to see him juggling in the parades at Disneyland. Even though I know he’s up north, I still look for him among the brightly-colored, spandex-clad jugglers, a tall and lanky fellow with a genuine, easy smile across his painted face.

Words.

I love words.

I don't claim to understand a lot of them or use them in a fanciful way, but I do love them, truly I do. I like the way they taste in my mouth, the way they roll around on the tongue and bounce off the sides of my mouth before springing lightly from my lips. It's my favorite guilt-free indulgence. Words words words. They come in so many shapes, colors, sizes and can be used and reused a number of times. They are a familiar friend, and yet there are times when they escape me. Sometime I desperately want them to encourage a soul caught in the doldrums, warm the cockles of a despairing heart, or assuage a broken soul grieving a loved one's passing, but alas, it is at those times they elude me. Lately, I have found myself without words, a place I once thought would be uncomfortable but now realize is necessary, becomes more comfortable with time, with maturity. I have found that the simplest words suffice. Really, what can I say to my friend who has just lost his sister, whom he has been taking care of during her four year battle with cancer? What could I possibly say to comfort him as he packs up his sister's entire life for the long, lonely drive home? What do I say to my friend who is trying to riffle through what's left of one chapter of her life? Everywhere she looks she is reminded of the end of her marriage: receipts, credit cards, junk mail, forgotten shoes, countless mason jars, etc. How do I tell her to cling to hope? And although I desperately search for the right words--differently shaped, some shiny, others tarnished and worn--none of them are appropriate. Oh words--don't fail me now.

In the absence of words, the non-words have appeared. They were shy and indistinguishable at first, mere wisps of words. Once they became accustomed to the silence of my mouth on sabbatical, they lingered and took a definite form, smooth and velvety in texture, cool to the touch--like Jell-o pudding. I have learned to love the non-words and the silence that accompanies them. The non-words, in their own, shy manner, have helped me see they are the words I had been looking for.

I have learned and am still learning to say little, sometimes nothing at all. I am learning to hold back the confetti language for another day, a brighter day. I am learning to get used to the taste of non-words in my mouth. I am learning to let silence do the talking because the non-words I feel are best conveyed when I cancel out the noise.

Noise

"There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start."--Charles Baudelaire

I am a writer.

It feels weird to say it aloud (with any amount of confidence) so I generally whisper it; sometimes I just scrawl it on a scrap of paper before throwing it away. That way, I know the statement exists somewhere, even if that somewhere is at the bottom of my trashcan beneath used napkins, empty yogurt containers, and velvety banana peels.

I am a writer, yet I haven't written anything in months. Maybe even years. I have good intentions to write, I really do. Some days the creative juices are flowing and I can't seem to write or type fast enough. Other days are quite the opposite--I can spend hours staring at a blinking cursor or a blank page. I twirl my pen a few times before it flies from my fingertips. I stroke the keys lightly in anticipation. And then--nothing. I get discouraged and walk away.

I know I can write. I used to do it a lot when I was school, only then I thought my writing wasn't very good. I thought it would get better, that I would feel more like a writer once I received my degree. I thought it would give me credibility as a writer (not that I was going to frame my diploma and hang it around my neck for the world to see). I feel the same, only I write less (much less). No one cares about that piece of paper.

So now I'm trying to write. I've been having a hard time distinguishing between content/ideas and noise. I realize I spend a lot of time listening to noise because it's harmless, entertaining static. It distracts me long enough to prevent me from committing to any one idea.

Maybe I'm just afraid of commitment. That could be it. I am anxious about committing to a project because I might be horrible at it.

What if I am horrible at it? What if I've been deluding myself this entire time, falsely believing I have a smidgen of talent, when I'm really mediocre at best?

And this is where I am now. I locked myself in my room to be immersed in silence. Silence used to be a familiar friend when I was younger, a more passionate, reckless writer, at times brash and volatile but always honest.

I need silence to give me courage.

I need silence to hear God.

I strain my ears to hear the silence that has been eluding me, the silence that will free me from my fear of failure.

But all I hear is noise.