Death Cab For Cutie - The New Year (Official Video)

Red Napkins.

I'm doing it again, avoiding myself. I haven't wanted to write because there's too much to be said and I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing it. My Moleskine has lost its allure, it's become too much of a liability it seems. So this is all I have, but even sitting down has seemed difficult. Strenuous. Undesirable. 


I want to think that I'm at the age now that I know all families are fucked up, at least to some extent. And mine is no different. But even knowing that, even being somewhat aware of what's been happening in Virginia with my sister and parents, I was still thrown when I showed up from the airport. I guess it couldn't have waited, these things never wait for "the right time," as if that existed. But I thought it wouldn't have come until after my bags had been packed away in some forgotten corner, until after we'd carefully placed our red napkins on the white table cloth before clutching our bellies to signify Christmas dinner had been completed. 


Rather we sat in silence, our heads bowed over mother's finest China pretending the place setting for my sister's boyfriend - the one with the kid, the one who'd done time, the one who sneaks over in the middle of the night thinking we won't notice - hadn't been removed. After all this was family time. A rare occasion. Not one privy to the likes of him. I shift in my seat, uncomfortable in my skin. I want to defend my parents to decision, but it's Christmas.


Isn't this a time of giving? One moment in which all feuds are called off so that in the shallow hours of truce, inhibition is at last possible? I choose instead to say nothing and eat slowly, trying to at least save the moment for myself by savoring my father's turkey and stuffing which I haven't had for over 2 years. From across the table my sister stifles her sobs into that red napkin. One my mother never intended us to use. 


It's all for decoration. It always has been. 


Dammit, why can I turn my fucking brain off? Give it a rest. I hate how quickly it jumps to those images and chooses to scream "HERE IT IS! LOOK, REMEMBER THIS!" as if it enjoys how much pain I'm in from one moment to the next. I let my eyes roll shut and take a long breathe inward. My brother makes a comment, something along the lines of describing how horrible this whole ordeal has turned out to be. Or how unhappy he is. Or how much he hates it here. And suddenly I realize it was never about Christmas. 


It was some desperate attempt for normalcy. Something that seems to have alluded us since my father left for Iraq in 2008. 


I put my fork down, and reach for my mother's hand, shaking it gently. From across the other, I take my sister's. The toxicity ends now.


I refuse. We are not untouchable and we can never think we are.


We can not condemn. We can not pretend. We are not unforgivable. 


The pain spreads in waves. It burns just below the surface of the skin like a shot of medicine entering the blood stream. Hot and quick. Ceaseless until at last disappearing among the magic that makes us run. Quiet for now, but ever present. In times like this, it folds in on itself, creating pockets that erupt without warning. Suddenly I want to vanish more than anything. I want to buy a plane ticket and send myself away from this so I will never again have to feel it like I do now. 


I exhale. It seems I've forgotten how to breathe. 


There will be no plane ticket. Not for some time. So I return to my lunch in front of me, now cold. Picking up my knife and fork, I trim the fat from my ham and dip a piece in mashed potatoes. My red napkin laid neatly across my lap, ready to catch whatever it is I may or may not drop.

I Want to know what love is - Foreigner

Something has changed, the dynamic has been altered. When I started this job, I felt invincible, that I was finally on the path of change: both for myself and some of the most deserving people in the world (children). But now, headed into what will be my 5th month in the classroom, I feel off. I've mentioned before that I know part of this is because I am being burned out...but there's something else there. Something lingering at the end of the day I can't quite put my finger on. 

The girls seem distant. There are more car rides in silence, more plans made that exclude me or my input. I know it shouldn't matter, that I should be confident in my ability to work alone if need be, but it bothers me that what was such a well-oiled machine just a month ago has suddenly run out of steam. I know that under the circumstances - having had to work together through the two weeks I was out recovering - that naturally they would have bonded. But I just find that it's another reason why I'm second guessing myself. 

Marco told me about a job at Holy Names that had opened up, an admissions counselor. I'd start a 40 grand, free room and tuition, full benefits. But I'd be stuck.

I know I shouldn't look at it like that, but I can't help but feel slightly caged at the thought of being here another, what? 2, maybe 3 years? Yeah, I'd get a free masters out of it (depending on when I could even start), and I wouldn't have to be here to listen to Marco gripping about me finding somewhere else to live. Both pluses in my book....but I always go back to that length of commitment in the bay area and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I thought I had a plan: to see this through, get my scholarship award at the end, get some great life-long friends out of this and then move east and settle down around the family for awhile. Yet, I hadn't anticipated this sudden change of heart on my co-workers part, or constantly feeling in a tired haze day and night, or getting a car accident that wiped me out financially and will for sometime now that they found me 100% at fault and how am I supposed to pull this off on less than $1,000 a month? Jesus Christ, this is hard. So do I take the offer? I mean they haven't made an offer yet, but they sound incredibly interested.

And it's a free masters, and 40 GRAND A YEAR. Fuck. 

But I'd be living at Holy Names again. Maybe in the same room as before...That's another thing. The memories of that place. 

I don't know, I don't know what to do. I know in my parents eyes I'd look like an idiot for turning this down. 

What would my supervisors say? What about the kids? Will it make a difference whols at the front of the classroom? They all like Blythe better anyhow, I'm too stern with them. 

Maybe I should leave, maybe it doesn't matter in the end. 

I don't know, I don't know what to do.

Praise

Praise Allah, Buddha, Christ. 
Praise what has made us.
Praise Mother Ocean.
Praise the follies of all men.
Praise self-awareness, dyed saffron yellow.
Praise the children, whose hopes have not yet come.
Praise the tulle fog.
Praise the harvest.
Praise those in strife. And those in abundance.
Praise what I cannot see.


On the wind comes the music of the world dressed in some inexplicable wanderlust. 


Praise my blindness: 
For I call out in the night,
Waiting still for your knowledge. 

Cowl = Completed

Nearly a year (and multiple plane trips) later, I've finally completed the cowl I had originally set out to make for Prague in January of last year. 


And oh boy, is it fucking sweet <3