sketch #7: 120th & Amsterdam

The City never stops. Until something silences its horn echoes, and halts its colliding pedestrian paths and swerving taxis with perspective. That day it was the news delivered via phone, on the corner of 120th and Amsterdam, beneath clouds that promised rain. A little girl was about to lose her mother.

I armed my defenses immediately. People continued past me in all directions, unaware that the world was about to change, and I coulnd't cry. I refused. But my heart hurt. And every bit of logic - rational and not - screamed for answers and cursed the illusion of fairness. I wished myself home where I could proactively work to fix what had happened. To hug that little girl. To be hugged back.

How many people would pass me today and every day with leaden hearts and shortened breath, overcome with grief, without my even knowing?

sketch #6: I-70 East

It was like some kind of Kansas holding pattern, watching the power lines subtly dip and rise against a watercolor sunset. My consciousness mimicked their movement and I realized that I was strung like power lines between where I'd come from and where I was going. My soul felt heavy and I slept - the cab of a pickup truck, restless kind of sleep - on and off for hours. Sunflowers. Windmills. Unfamiliar license plates. Middle-America. I dreamt Kerouac dreams about cross-country adventures and a Dharma Bum take on material consumption. The further east, the muggier it became. The further east the further from home I got. The further east the greater the availability of fried chicken, biscuits, and something called a Boburito.
When it rained I leaned my head against the window, an iPod gently soothing my anxiety (skipping songs that I felt too deeply for now), and remembered 12 hour Patagonian bus rides. Alone. And I felt alone again. The kind of alone one feels knowing that they are doing something meaningful and that there is no way to make another person fully understand. A positive, a brave alone.

sketch #5: Quari Street

Driving away from the house I felt a familiar sense of pride - one that I've become accustomed to, but never taken for granted, over the last 3 years. 3 years. That's how long it had been since I met this family of 7 - each of them letting me into their lives little by little - and understood for the first time what pride in the growth and development of a young person feels like. We spent the evening sitting on the front porch (the same one that had been a mess of sidewalk chalk and buckets of water only months before), reminiscing about first meetings, shared dinners of home-cooked fried chicken and lasagna and catching up on gossip about mutual acquaintances. A memory reel - lacrosse games, Chuck E. Cheese, meetings with school counselors, continuations - played in my mind as I listened to a mother's woes and a 4-year-old checked me for "ear boogers." I'd felt already the weight of many goodbyes, but this one read like a lesson in symbolism. Chapter 1: Trust-building; Chapter 2: Advocacy; Chapter 3: Boundaries; Chapter 4: Communication; Chapter 5: Community Re-defined...
I felt a completeness upon being reminded again of my status as a member of this family. And I felt an emptiness as I searched for words to thank each of them, aged 4 through 43 years for what they had meant to me/taught me/rewarded me with. Hugs would have to suffice, and my trademark challenge to each kiddo to do their best in school this year, complete with the warning that I would be checking up on them. After all, if I've learned one thing about kids it's that consistency is key.
As I parked in front of the house I didn't know it yet, but the domino-effect of smiles, followed by shouts of "Miss Melissa!" and the rush to the car to hug me, would be one of the best parting gifts I would receive.

sketch #4: Sweet Action

As I sat at that cool, slightly sticky counter and entertained my taste buds with a fudge-laden, cherry-topped sundae, I embroiled myself in an unexpectedly heady conversation with a friend who would be closer - if only time allowed. * Why does everything become so poignant when you're running out of time? * Suddenly I felt the weightlessness of being unencumbered by domestic conventions. All the days, weeks, months spent lamenting how I was so far behind, feeling that hollowness in my chest at the latest revelation that someone was buying a house/engaged/pregnant. All the while hoping that this holding out for something to funnel all of these "bigger than me" thoughts and intentions into was going to pay off. As my life-weary, would-be-closer friend gave me a pep-talk about how and why not to be intimidated by the latest path I had chosen, as neighbors were lured in by the days flavors, as friends dished over their scoops, I felt exhilarated. Odd place for that, an ice cream parlor. I realized that yes, I was taking up yet another risk, maybe one that upon its revelation struck a hollowness in those who heard it. And yes, my path was different. But I was indeed not behind. And perhaps part of the promise for the pay-off to those of us not yet resigned to domestic conventions.

sketch #3: Wine Loft

With eyes closed I listened, anxiously trying to capture every vocal nuance, every octave in every laugh, the sound of glasses clinking in celebration, the smell of champagne bubbles. * Store this in your memory and return to it for comfort * The warmth in the room made my heart swell and, realizing how thick the air was with intimacy, I felt out of body. Dim lights, the trappings of well wishes and birthday gifts were strung about the room. And each glowing, familiar face represented a beautiful heart to which I was connected. In one evening I felt - actually sensed deep within my body - the meaning of the word blessed. I reveled in my good fortune and wore gratitude like a scarf about my neck. And carried it with me throughout the next day, determined to hold on to it long into my upcoming journey.

sketch #2: Underground Music Showcase

Slender. He was a slip of a man with a ruggedness and a raw, un-nerving passion all too big for his frame. A stoic, local music scene cowboy. His face was weathered beyond its years and I could sense the smell of cigarettes lingering at the tips of his fingers and stale in his clothes. His hat cast a shadow, obscuring only intermittently the vulnerability in his eyes as he lifted his voice to the strum of his guitar. Conviction. Honesty. Soul-wrenched, long-hour-drawn, naked, urgent words. His performance more like a spiritual unburdening, hanging heavy in the room like the humidity on his brow.

sketch #1: Thin Man

It happened. I insisted that it wouldn't (all the while knowing I was lying to myself). As I sat across from him in that dimly lit bar - pulse racing, mind reeling, prosecco bubbles tickling my nose - I wanted to reach across the table and pull his blue eyes closer to mine, feel the heat of his breath. Tell him how perfect I'd imagined we could be. * If only we had more time * I drank the ideas of "he" and "we" through wine-stained lips, biting the lower as I pictured my fingers running through his hair. Wondered if he felt the same lust pulling him toward me, fighting to keep focus. Every sentence I spoke felt half-empty, like there were so many things that I wanted to share, but now was not the time and this was not the place. Dammed: my thought stream. Damned: this late crossing of paths in pursuit of dreams. I knew it was going to happen, that kiss. I had anticipated it every time he came near me and I could sense the blood pumping through his veins like a current over my body. And then a rush - that deliciously human sensation - surprise/satisfaction/desire. I'd be hooked from then on, each "what if" replaced by another.