May 6, 2011
Matt Weddle — Hey Ya
It’s been over a month since my last entry: reasons for that being varied, depending on the weekend or workday or schoolnight you’d ask me on. I’ve been too busy, too tired, or having too much fun to actively reflect on anything in the last 33 days. I won’t be able to articulate all of it, and trying will only cheapen the memories…so I’ll settle for the last week or so.
My last day at my internship was, of course, the best. Crab soup across the street with my supervisor, jokes with producers. Talks on the elevator about it being my last day; usually their eyes glazed like they’d head it a hundred times before, “Best of luck in the future” and the doors flippantly chime open to ON-AIR signs. Locking a guest in the studio without her knowledge was just funny, because it was the last embarrassing mistake I’d make at Al Jazeera.
The next few days would be a blur of sleeplessness, stressing out, and packing until my nerves were fried. The sleepless nights that came next were of a different kind, spent in celebration. Occasionally, someone would point out that we’d never be the same again. In this place. Feeling these ways. Then we’d decide it was too depressing to dwell on, and let the hours bead away like water off leaves.
Rain drummed steadily down onto our mortarboards, tassels getting drippy. We smiled in the sound of it, looked through the umbrellas, each seeing something different in the forest of vinyl. Accepting that our bright blue robes would be soaked, it was better to resign to the moment than try to wish it sunny. Hymns hit the thick cloud cover and sloshed back down in drops, and the shakes of umbrellas stirred laughter around. Names called out to uncontrollable grins. Whistles and shouts. Hugs, see-you-laters, promises for plans.
I miss Brookland, the city, every sense of it. I learned to get my eyes off my own feet, and only lost the wide-eyed wonder a few times. But my last day in Harrisonburg was more beautiful than I could have written for myself. Two years in that town, waiting to break free, and the last few hours made me want to stay just five more minutes forever.
April 4, 2011
Air — Cherry Blossom Girl
So many senses this weekend. Blurry bokeh lights of orange and blue, in and out of cramped dance floors, thumping lights, palms and heels and cigarette smoke. Sleeping til dinner, then back out for a soothing evening of music and middle eastern food. April came throwing hail tantrums.
Sunday, a communion of pb&j and Starbucks, under a cathedral of pink stained glass sunshine. Lightheartedness.
March 20, 2011
Simon and Garfunkel — Bookends
Retreat weekend in West Virginia. It’s been a long time since my feet have squished on moss or sunk into a creek bed. Eyes stretch to reach as far as they can into the woods, past the usual short-sightedness of a screen. I try to take a nap in the backyard before dinner, but my mind can’t get off the electric third rail. It’s harder than it should be to let go of stress, but the breeze under my hair is slowly persuading. Trying to relax, I start a prayer, then stop — I could go on as I have been, but do I want to? What do I want? Little bugs start to rise from the roots of trees, and the sun sinks into long stripes on the ground.
We waded in a creek for what felt like hours — like children, like family, laughter floating downstream. Wondered what time it was, wondered why I cared. Sat around a fire, embers snapping to stars. “…And to my listening ears, all nature sings, and ‘round me rings the music of the spheres.”
March 14, 2011
Mumford & Sons — Winter Winds
Windshield wipers thump beneath the beat of the radio. “SCRAPPLE SANDWICH MED COKE 2.50” at the boarded-up Exxon, stuck at $3.14 per gallon. Cattails rush by, bending in the rain. Home is low-lying, brackish, and never changes but for the direction of geese. This week winds down like a music box, slow and wistful, in moments blunted by lack of sleep or excess of sweetness.
The past seven days are a blur. Thinking in the form of first lines of novels, remembering moments as short stories while being completely unable to articulate the right words. Hiding in covers from morning light, rain under tires, sirens, flashing red hands. Smiling until my face hurt. Celebrations of life and love and friends. More memories than I can list without cheapening them.
Ocean air forces its way into my head, hooking into my lungs and lifting me inside-out. Bigger space than I’d seen in a while, and if the wind hadn’t felt like knives through my toes, I could have curled up and slept in the feeling.
Sunday night before a long trip back to reality always drags at my eyelids. The disappearance of an hour at 2am is subtle compared to the energy of an extra hour of sunlight in the evening. A high, dark blanket of clouds ripples over Brookland. Seven weeks left.
February 28, 2011
Alexi Murdoch — Breathe
The technique of crossing streets downtown: one of the easiest ways to spot a tourist, and one of the quickest ways to get buzzed on the hum of traffic. A wide intersection in Chinatown on a Saturday night gives just enough space to stretch my soul out for 45 seconds, buildings hovering standoffish and cars politely paused.
Sometimes I don’t have the words. Most of the time it feels like I’m moving through an intersection, head tilted back, timer counting down.
Weekend Impressions:
+ Biking down a street faster than the speed limit: scary, and ridiculously awesome.
+ Chopsticks can be comedy.
+ If my sense of direction is improving at all, the difference is subtle.
+ There is no shame in taking a weekend slow.
+ Procrastination is occasionally very worthwhile.
February 23, 2011
Jenny Lewis — Acid Tongue
Today was the freight train that blotted out my goodbye in the morning.
The salt on steps that gathered and hardened like callouses, the slush, wet pant hems. Today was the absence of the man who normally sells hats and flowers at the top of the escalator. The prayers hastily thrown in the direction of a gull. Hands over my face, dim office. Words with value. Hot tea on my keyboard. Sitting on the tiled station floor of Farragut North, laughing about Vegas, strippers, the Grand Canyon. Long conversations with people I wouldn’t want to live without.
Today was the tunnel that disconnected it again at night.
February 21, 2011
Destroyer — Chinatown
Weekend Impressions:
+ If getting lost is the best method of learning your way around a city, I’ll soon be able to navigate this town with my eyes closed.
+ Holding open a train door and screaming is hilarious, and difficult.
+ Pistachio and red velvet go great together.
+ Ethiopian is a new favorite food. I could eat injera and spicy misir wat all day. Apparently it’s not for everyone…brick-oven pizza, however, is impossible to dislike.
+ Metro security takes their job way too seriously. My brother is a terrible liar. I’m a terrible cheater.
+ Knowing a dozen people have your back at any given time is the best feeling.
+ Theme of the past three days: Laughter diffuses any and all awkward.
February 14, 2011
Modest Mouse — Missed the Boat
“I can’t even be mad at a day like this.” My open window said 65-degrees and-sunny. Bright white marble and grassy patches saturated the walk to class: held at Capitol Hill for a change. We squinted through the wind, but the sun felt too good to complain. Spring is finally gaining momentum.
Daily Impressions:
+ Funfetti cake should be mandatory on all holidays.
+ Arabic is a really difficult language.
+ Certain phrases will always bring up specific senses. “SabaaH il-kheer” will always taste like jam and dense bread. “kitaab” smells like a musty schoolroom. “assalaamu alaykum” sounds like a wonky doorbell and nervous laughter. It’s amazing how even a short time in another culture embeds itself in sensory memory.
+ Loud, driving music successfully drowns out other memories, however.
Electric Feel (Justice Remix) — MGMT
Weekend Impressions:
+ Eavesdropping on strangers in the past few days. The best quotes:
- (preteen girl at Union Station cafeteria) “He’s cute and whatever, but…he’s just not a good writer. ya know?”
- (woman on phone in Barnes and Noble) “New York doesn’t care what you’ve accomplished in DC.”
- “There’s just no chivalry on the Metro!” Really? You’re in your twenties and perfectly healthy; stop.
- (at internship, a chuckling reaction to live feed of Egyptians holding Al Jazeera logos in Tahrir Square) “Look at that. We liberated the Egyptians!” “In many ways that’s so true.”
- (cameramen headed out to a shoot) “Safety Third!” “What’s first and second?” “Speed, money.”
+ I should look less mean. Or get less lost in thought while waiting for the train. Apparently this can be mistook for anger at a man I do not have.
+ Sleeping late, eating junk food, blurs of traffic, dancing til 2am. That was my weekend.
February 9, 2011
Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington — Don’t Mean a Thing
White patches sewn onto blue sky sent me on my way this morning. Warehouses and little box-buildings slid by the train window, and I wondered if it’s me or the landscape in motion. Sun in the morning for the first time in what felt like days; I almost didn’t need a coffee to wake up. Almost. At work, everyone was in a bright mood. Someone sang karaoke in the newsroom. I’m finally earning inside jokes and occasional silly banter. Booking cars, updating databases, meeting and greeting…a usual day.
After my last guest, I make a cup of coffee, take off my keycard, and head into the dark. A man is huddling into a doorstep, wedging himself against the sidewalk and the corner. I smile; he nods back and props up on his elbow. I stop. “Do you want this coffee?” I ask, taking half a step to lean in from the traffic. His smile widens into the most sincere I’ve seen. “No thank you.” “Are you sure? It’s cold out here!” “No that’s alright, have a good night!”
Daily Impressions:
+ On ten-hour Tuesdays, I run on pb&j and the satisfaction of kicking ass at my job.
+ I think I’ll be making more hot drinks before leaving work…
+ It says something about our society when a wealthy, power-suited scholar awkwardly hits on me after his interview, then the homeless man outside the building politely turns down my coffee.
