To listen to Coltrane while cooking....

From the kitchen comes

the smell of cooking plantains.

My heart aches for home.

I think of her skin,

soft and spotted with old age.

Wise and filled with love.

To be with her now

would mean an endless quiet.

Life could make sense again.

Connections won and connections lost.

I feel like something out of Bridget Jones' diaries at the moment: home alone in my far-too-large-miss-matched pajamas, watching Pride and Prejudice, scarfing down my very odd version of comfort food (white rice and tuna...don't ask). All this minus the blonde hair, granny panties, and original Mr. Darcy, Colin Ferth of course. However Ms. Jones and I share one thing in common: a sense, at times overwhelming, of loneliness. 

I know at this moment regardless of my feeling sore from today's demands and my run around the lake, that I could change into something more appropriate (or not either for that matter), take up my keys and drive to one of many places where I could attempt that make that feeling dissipate. Maybe to a friend's house, or San Jose, or one of the many bars in which I'm taken care in Oakland. But tonight's feeling is choosing to be less superficial. And so here I am instead, watching poor Mr. Bingly make a complete bumbling fool of himself in the name of love while wishing I could be there instead. 

A time when people, myself included, didn't go around grasping their phones for fear they might miss a chirp and lose out on knowing in great detail what the majority of their social circle is up to on a typical evening, even when among them. A time when being well read wasn't a sign of introversion or an indication of intellectual stature, but instead of thirst for adventure and well being. A time when a handwritten sentiment was the only means of communication between persons outside of vis-a-vis as well a respected act of fanning the flames of desire between lovers near and far. 

Of course there was the whole no running water bit, divided class (like my brown ass would ever be allowed to paint tables and learn piano forte), lack of real medicine, and having to make pops pay a dowry if I wanted a man to put a ring on it...but are there not those same displeasures today if only  with a new name or intention? 

Don't be mistaken, I enjoy the many joys of the 21st century just as much as the next girl. I'm all about Instagram, girl scout cookies, my Nook, and the combustible engine when it strikes my fancy. But to say that those things that make our lives today enjoyable and comfortable don't come at a great cost is to live in complete denial. 

What I mean is that we've forgotten how to connect, even on the most organic level, with one another and our surroundings.

We don't give an honest handshake anymore or get up to greet someone. We fall in love online and break up via email. We eat food that's made by a machine (and often prefer it to the real stuff). We don't say thank you anymore. We refuse to drink tap water. We can't imagine sleeping outside or why anyone would do it for fun. We rarely call, but instead text.

And the result?

We have nervous break downs. We're overweight and depressed. We snap and move to the Alaskan brush only to be killed. We become recluses. We have trust issues. We're aggressive. 

But most of all, we're lonely. Really fucking lonely. 

I think the first time I felt this kind of lonely was in the 6th grade. My dad was stationed in Elizabeth City at the time, and we were living in one of my favorite houses we ever owned on Church street in downtown. It was summer time, and I was sitting on a patio my mom had fashioned to the right of the yard at the edge of our gravel driveway. Barefoot and in a pair of cutoff jean shorts, I twirled my now curling hair as I sat silently on a three way call with my two best friends who were arguing about whose tits had gotten bigger since the 5th grade when I suddenly burst into tears. I can't explain what triggered the sudden downpour exactly, but all I remember feeling was an immense and indescribable loneliness. Here I was talking with two girls who I had known since the 5th grade (a long time for a Military brat like myself, trust me) but who couldn't tell you the first thing about me: my middle name, my favorite color, my favorite book, what music I loved best...None of it. Partly because they were a pair of 12-year-olds who were self-absorbed like most and more concerned with their ever changing bodies than with my then internal bouts of anxiety (that manifested themselves later in severe depression and panic attacks), but also because we just never "clicked". 

I was already aware by then with the amount of moving around I'd done and would continue to do of what made a good friend just that, a good friend. I couldn't tell you what qualities I would later go on to recognize in who I now consider good friends that I needed in order to feel a true connection, but I did know that I didn't have it with any of mine. Case and point, those two bitches broke into my locker and read my journal aloud to the entire lunch room (not sparing any of the juicy details of my fantasies with my then crushes brought on my raging hormones). But then again, how I could expect them to understand? 

So for years I went it pretty much solo. This isn't to say I didn't have friends then, but they weren't good friends. Sure they knew who I was sleeping with and who I hated and who I was incredibly envious of for the most part, but they didn't know who I wanted to be, what I loved most, what my dreams were, what I wanted to accomplish. And that isn't to say I didn't try, but again, the connection - whether because I entered the lives of these people so late that it couldn't be done, or because maybe even I didn't know myself well enough then to expect anyone else to, or because I just wasn't meant to - was never there. I didn't make my first good friend until college, and I knew instantly upon meeting her that this was it, the gap between me and everyone else had grown that much smaller. 

Since graduating college and upon entering the real world I haven't gathered many more, but those I do have are appreciated more than I believe they realize. 

The connection with each is unique in his or her own way. In some, it's an underlying foundation so similar that we cannot help but feel linked in morals, passions, and fears. In others, it's an understanding of the gypsy life that being in a military family requires. And still yet in others, it is more based in love. A love so pristine and unfathomable, it refuses to be denied. 

I have kept most of my good friends as those connections, despite years of separation or major life changes, forever keep us tethered to one another. But for others through actions of my own or both parties involved, the connection is purposely severed and lost, never truly to be regained despite the best of efforts during moments of clarity and forgiveness. It instead becomes the boy backpacking across the states on his way to Alaska, excited about the future but unable to properly address the wilderness or its misfortunes, instead dying in an desperate attempt to regain lost symbolic ground. 

Slightly morbid and possibly melodramatic, but on par. 

Sadly I feel the call of the wild rising up in that boy now itching to tie the shoes on his worn out boots that will carry him along the 66 and up along the Northwest Pacific trail if he chooses to go that route. Maybe that's where this loneliness lies. 

The tinder is set, the match struck. Now all that's left is to, well, make the connection. A connection to break a connection if you will. The works only something as sly and deceitful as painful poetic justice could be capable of. My heart rolls haphazardly in its cage at the realization, I shift my legs from right to left under the sheets and pray that I'm wrong. 

Now that Mr. Darcy has swooned Lizzy, I instead wish to live forever in a Robert Frost poem. To be a bender of birches, or at the very least one of the girls who throws her hair over her back to let it dry in the sun. Instead, I'll turn over in my loneliness and wait to watch the slow orange and pink glow of my inner eyelids as they pull me into a blazing deep sleep. 

Jason Mraz - I Won't Give Up [Official Music Video]

Take it slow

Even though this was a run I was really looking forward to, I was still doubting myself the night before. Not so much about the distance or my capability to complete the course, I've had multiple 5ks under my belt at this point in the game regardless of whether or not they've been competitive...but because I was going it alone. 

This is one of those things you're supposed to do in a group of your closest friends like Bay to Breakers, only less intoxicated and without the flying tortillas. But after multiple mass texts and no replies, I initially do what I do best: say "fuck it, I'm doing it anyway." So I ponied up the $60 bucks and watched the color run video on youtube like a gazillion times to get pumped. But the day before the race came and as I waited in line to get my package, I realized how lonely this might potentially be. 

An awkward conundrum of sorts I suppose.

I mean, part of the reason why I love to run is because of the solitude aspect of the sport. Of course you can always run in a group, but you can always just decide to go for a jog around the block a few times an hour after dinner if it strikes your fancy. Go it without music and just get taken away in the blurbs of passersby's conversations, the gasp of a city bus on its way down Lincoln, the dirty hum of neon lights flickering on overhead signaling yet another night in Oakland...

I run for many reasons, and being alone without need to explain is most certainly one of them. But like anyone, active or not, there are times that companionship in whatever it is you love to do is desired deeply. Enter awkward conundrum. 

Sure I could've signed up for a group needing an extra person, but being good ol' introverted me, I decided it was better to face my fellow 15,000 color runners alone than to try and make friends with some folks from Sacramento that I'd never again see in my life. Either way I was going to run this race. With a price tag that steep, who cares if I had to run it naked and backwards. I was fucking running it.

The day of the race itself was much like that of my race back in June. Cold, congested, and electric. I managed to weasel my way into the group of the second wave of runners while I stretched and smiled at my sister who had tagged along for moral support. The first wave was off and we walked to the starting line, anxious to see what the course had to offer. Behind me a family reunion chatted excitedly, a couple in their late 50s beside me took pictures of the ever growing crowd, the Davis girl's soccer team stood a few steps ahead in silence staring out to where the first wave had already disappeared around a corner. And suddenly, the count down began:

10, breathe. 
9, breathe,
8, breathe,
7, why the fuck am I doing this again?
6, because it's supposed to be fun, remember?
5, breathe,
4, yeah, but I'm alone. What loser does this kind of shit alone?
3, too late
2, breathe,
1.

I tried and failed to jockey for prime running real estate as I got caught up in the family reunion who had swarmed me like a bunch of middle-aged drunk bees. I broke free only to get tangled up in a women's running group all wearing matching tutus and knee-high socks. Frustrated I skirted along a brick side walk, seeing the first cloud of orange snaking its way along a line of closed shops. I picked up the pace only to put on the breaks abruptly as runners and walkers bottle necked waiting for their turn to twirl and scream through the splashes of paint heading for their still pristine white race shirts. 

A little girl and her mother held hands as they ran through, shielding their mouths as they giggled uncontrollably before circling around for another go. A flash of tutus broke the orange smog as the women runners from my wave danced beyond the sprays of paint rejoicing the first half mile as if it was the last. 

No, I wasn't with my mom or best friends. But dammit if I couldn't enjoy myself anyway.

The rest of the race was less of a race. I still kept a good pace to feel like I had tried, but it became less about time and more about using these 3.1 miles to get as dirty as possible. I tuned into the running itself, letting myself get lost my natural rhythm, singing along with Pandora in the background. The blue station signified the end of the race, the finish line just beyond the rows of volunteers waiting to have at those almost done with globs of color. I smiled wide, coming in fast as I jumped past, arms open wide, hoping for the best. I sprinted to the finish, Kalena breaking past the barrier to pace me the last 15 feet or so. 

I hadn't gone it completely alone. She patted my back, tails of pinks and yellows and greens trailing behind me like rainbow exhaust. 

Munching on granola bars, we watched as teams came in through the finish while the last wave of runners approached the starting line. In the distance, runners threw off grenades of paint, gyrating to some terrible DJ they'd bused over from who knows where. Even the grass was saturated with color. I was glad I did it, more so at that moment of rest than any other. 

On the way back to the car, Kalena told me how proud she was of me, squealing with laughter as paint transferred to her black sweater after hugging me and I knew she meant it. I was proud of me too.