How The Browns Entertain Themselves on Christmas Day

Post-Holiday Depression?

Some days are harder than others, and that's just life. Today I miss you badly, but is it only because today is today?

Lyrics

You tilt my chin up, our lips meet
But I open my eyes because the dream was much more sweet
I look at you but all I see is him
The chances of you living up to him are slim

You ask "What's the matter?" and I just sigh
You know what I'm thinking but I still feel the need to lie
I blink my eyes coyly to make you forget you'd asked
And I wonder how long this trick of mine will last

When I'm thinking of you I'm thinking of him all the time
Wishing that I could have made him mine
And it's something that when I think of him I cry
But it's something that I let him walk away
Goodbye

I would have done things differently now
I would've made him stay with me somehow
And it's my fault I'm unhappy
But it's all behind me now
I'm just picking up the pieces
And smiling over my frown

You look at me and all you see is me
You brush a stray piece of hair off my cheek
You touch your lips to mine but that's all you get
I'm in a place where all I feel's regret
And it's not fair that you're here
In the middle of my mess
It's not fair that you care
When I, I couldn't care less

It's my fault I'm unhappy
But it's all behind me now
I'm just picking up the pieces
And smiling over my frown

Today Is A New Day

Yesterday I met someone on an airplane, who knew me more deeply than I have ever been known. I don't know his name, and I will never see him again. Our conversation was the most raw and mysterious I have experienced, and before parting he gave me advice: told me to be as raw and mysterious as I was with him, told me to create like I used to, to not allow myself to be hindered by the barriers I cling to for safety. Then we parted: I looked over my shoulder and watched him watching me go into someone else's arms. Today I woke up and wrote a song. So, thank you, whoever you are.

Hope

Walking home in the snow, the world is white and the heaviness is lifting. Through my music, the crunching of snow under my feet sounds like a new beginning.

Sunday Morning

My mother slides her stocking feet into her navy rubber gardening clogs, jogs outside to the front sidewalk to collect the Sunday Times. Her breath billows around her, a frothy cloud of late February white.
We sit at the kitchen table, her feet propped up on the seat of my chair. She takes Sunday Styles, I take Arts & Leisure. We listen to NPR in the background, occasionally making comment on this year’s Oscar nominees or the latest speed skating scandal in the Winter Olympics. But mostly the time passes quietly. The minutes are defined by this quiet – just the crunching of our favorite breakfast food, mushrooms on garlic toast, or the gentle slurping sound as we sip at our coffee.
I finish an article on a new HBO series; share what I’ve read with her. She likes to read the wedding announcements, and we often end up shoulder-to-shoulder, playfully debating which couples look more like siblings than newlyweds.
As the rest of the house wakes, the sizzling of cooking breakfast cautiously intrudes. Someone flips off the radio; turns on the CD player. Our attention is now focused elsewhere, but peacefully so. The moment has passed, usually without comment. These are the moments when the line between mother and daughter seems vague, and we are more like sisters, more like friends.

A High Fever

I hate being sick when it slows me down, but usually I would welcome illness at a time like this. It sounds lovely to be incapable of doing anything but lie on the couch and sip spicy chicken broth and have no one demanding anything of you except that your used tissues make it into the trash can when you pitch them from where you lie because we don't want to get sick also, thank you very much. Why oh why couldn't this have happened last week, before I started work and play rehearsals and took on babysitting jobs and before I committed to that piano job? Karma sucks.

Sixty Degrees In November?

Boy, am I ever aching for some of this.

Screw This, I'm Going Swimming

You forget what it feels like. My world has become limited: I can see only what the tiny windows of my goggles allow. I want to watch the others, want to pace myself against them, but they are not in my range of vision and I am forced to look ahead at my steady, fumbling strokes. It does not come back, the speed. You forget it and it is not something that you can remember, but something that you must earn.
My world is not silent; it is the roaring of bubbles against my ears and the pounding of my outstretched arms against the water. It’s exhilarating and frightening at the same time. In the water I am so very alone. Here I cannot have any misconceptions about myself. In my ears it is only the water and my own persistent stream of conscious. You cannot lie about your abilities in the water, you can’t fake it. My thighs are burning and I am moving and I cannot make it appear that I am faster or more graceful than I am. The echoes in this room are the voices of the people who are watching me and my weaknesses, and I accept it because to leave would be to admit defeat, to be controlled by my own discomfort instead of my will, which drives me on. I try to distract myself by focusing on how many breaths I am taking. I want to breathe on the fifth stroke but my lungs are bursting and soon I am breathing on the third and it’s not good enough but it must be…
In this space I am focused, very aware of myself and in control of my movement. The rhythm has hold of me and I am gliding steadily and my rampant thoughts are the only sign that I am letting go and all I can think is that I wish I could be this way out of the water. I wish that I could live my life as intentionally as I swim. But I do not waste time in contemplation; would that I was so level-headed. Like in every other aspect of my life I am overtaken by the moment and I let my head be filled with the rushing of water on my eardrums and the pounding of my heart and I keep going.

Why Blog?

I never really liked the concept of blogging. Post on the web for all to see? But I am guilty of a serious misinterpretation. Contrary to the concept of a live journal or the like, blogging is my chance to write, well, whatever I want, and bare it for the world to see. An aspiring journalist, I make a point of writing each day. Why not here? Not that the physical act of putting ideas on paper doesn't hold a certain romanticism, the smell of the notebook, the light cracking sound it makes as you open it to the first page... Well, at least I'll be able to say I gave this a try.