So Far Beyond My Dreams
New clothes arrived, not just for summer, but that fit this new season I find myself in.
There is a long list of things to do today, and I know before the day begins that they will not all get done. It's raining out, I'm brewing a second cup of tea and wanting more than anything just to write a note to you.
A few days ago I was catching up with an old story-telling, film-loving friend whom I hadn't seen in a couple years. He asked me how I came to make a documentary, and I proceeded to tell him a string of about twenty short stories that somehow link together to get me where I am today. It was so awkward and bumbling, in a way, that he joked, "Don't worry--I'm not judging your storytelling," and we laughed.
I feel like I've been cocooning, as if the strands of a hundred moments and memories and longings have been weaving together something new. And not just a new work, but a new way I get to know myself in the world that is so far beyond anything my young self ever dared to dream that it catches up to me in unexpected moments and steals my breath away.
My eyes brim with tears when the Red Hot Chili Peppers come on in a cafe and I am at once on a hilltop in the park with my friends and a pile of bicycles, the last year before we all got summer jobs, blaring the same song from a boom box. (Remember those?) I am that girl again, but I am also this woman sitting in Tribeca across from a peer who inspires and ignites me and my companion is sharing something so deep that I have snap my attention and presence back to right now and tuck the tears into my back pocket for some other moment.
A moment like this one, when the house is quiet and the rain is falling, and I'm wearing new clothes like a new skin I grew into when I wasn't looking. There is just me, and the quiet, and a hundred moments and memories that I long to pull into focus, to tell you, and to even understand for myself. How that girl who once thought an artist was an occupation for one special person in town got to be this person living in this place with these amazing people all around and work that makes her weep with gratitude.
The story is so hard to tell while I am still living it, but I am tucking every memory, every twist and turn into my back pocket for some other moment.
For some day to come.
In case you missed yet, yesterday I posted a short video on Being Seen and Finding Kindreds. Check it out!