(s)witches.

the lack of stagnancy.
i don't feel transient and i don't feel homeless.
transplants everywhere.

i don't quite remember where i left off. philadelphia? right, my nonsensical entry. don't worry about that; new york had healing powers (ironically, i suppose).

i spent five days in philadelphia with two of my good friends, karen and peter. everyday was a different exploration, from manyunk to south street to rittenhouse square to the italian market to the museum. and while i do so much, i always leave philadelphia unfulfilled. wait, you may take that poorly. i just never feel like i get a true feeling of philadelphia, that i've seen enough, that i've run myself deep into the city and can leave knowing more. i feel so much potential in philadelphia but never seem to access whatever that potential is.

i returned to new york for the weekend, where i rendez-vous'd with my good friends from california and made new friends from germany. the pack of 12 are currently on tour down the east coast, and lucky for me, had almost a full three-day stop in new york city. and behold, the punk inside came back out. and it was okay. i was comfortable. and i was surrounded by people who aren't stagnant or unmotivated but people who have done, who do, and who are doing things. my heart fluttered and i let myself believe i didn't have to give up all this for where i think i need and want to be in my life.

so i finally packed up all my bags in brooklyn and headed north yesterday to tivoli, ny. the train ride on the coast of the hudson reminded me of lake arenal...blue surrounded by green and misty. cathedrals of green driving north from poughkeepsie. this town is the best end of my three week escapade.

and it's been a good couple of weeks, too, making trails through the veins of something a little less noisy, a little more homey, and a lot more lovable. less noisy?, you say, of new york? well, brooklyn isn't the same clutter as manhattan. and maybe the noise fades from reality to mentality. but when surrounded by good people, diverse people, i tend to let the expectations ease and roll with the tide.



and i cannot wait to see them again in dc this thursday.


ah, yes, the mighty return.

coetzee, again.

in rittenhouse square park with coetzee's elizabeth costello in my lap. i started one of those interior monologues (they seem to happen frequently, these days). my friend had gone off somewhere, to return at some time "soon," but what is soon when you don't have a watch, or phone, or ipod, or mechanical device that appropriately tells you what time it is, or how much of it has gone by? i do not use the word accurate because what is accurate? everything is askew.

how could i possibly believed i ever understood anything i read as a teenager by milan kundera?

so my head began to scramble words and phrases and criticisms like a blender on pulse, able to catch a snapshot but it changes with each need to see a different texture, a taste, added or reduced. too quick to snatch away any sort of recognizable belief or cohesive sentence, leave it too long and maybe it will melt (or the unfortunate congeal). it all stemmed from thinking about that charming, brightly eyed british engineer passing through my town of 3000, sometimes 4,000 (it fluctuates depending on the season, with that last grand changing identities on a weekly, daily, even hourly basis), but always less than where i am now. it was an environment i could handle, meeting, drinking, acquainting, flirting. and now i'm flung back in the world of many, of too many. here, i will not find the british engineer, nor the tico anthropologist, nor the ex-pat tour guide or baker or bartender. there was nowhere to hide, to make up an identity. there are too many people here, proclaimed in talk, not the act, and the easiest for me to acquaint are the old news, the floaters. i'm in a world of anon.

so this is growing up, finding my way. maybe i took the "finding my way" thing too literally, because i'm geographically waying away from the midatlantic. i see the cranks of the old cycles turning and i lose my footing.

i will learn to hold my ground, there.
i will learn to pull, not push, there.
better than ever before, there.
i will be precise, then. and there.

and precision is connected to accuracy, not time.

brooklyn beds.

soft morning light through a brownstone window. it's raining, still. despite the cold, warm skin and dirty hair.

i woke up thinking of skyscrapers made of books and marcel proust.

...not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

i hop and skip around the city. park slope, soho, williamsburg, lower east side, upper west side, bed-stuy. tomorrow i go to a city two hours south, only to return to more friends, more skips.



breathing easy in a city of smog.

sometimes clarity and uncertainty are great tools for adventure.