A Quick Favorites List*

*Simply because I am in the mood to write but am tired of writing about sad things.

At the moment, I am digging on these guys- a sort of modern, slightly reggae, version of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.  I even found a video of these two together!!  I might have just had an eargasm.  And of course I have a crushy-crush on the singer, a wicked musician Brian Fallon (and for a stunning cover- look up his version of Kelly Clarkson's 'I Do Not Hook Up' on BBCs Radio 1 Live Lounge).

I am dying to try my hand at ceviche.  If I had even a little faith in my ability to handle and prep raw fish without killing everyone- or at least causing them violent, vicious tummy aches, I'd do it, too.

My dream home.  Seriously.  No, I'm not kidding even a little.

This dress.  I know, I know.  I have little to no faith in relationships, men (excepting, of course my beloved papa), the institution of marriage itself.  I am hopeless, helpless, and haphazard in my idea of love.  But every time I have a peek at this wedding gown, this wedding Line in general, I am reminded of the beauty of simplicity.  J Crew has done a rather fine job in cornering the market on graceful gowns for us un-fussy gals.  And no, I really have NO reason to be looking at this nonsense.  EXCEPT that I am a girl and we sometimes do funny, irrational things.

The darkness of the forests of New England.  Here I will wax slightly poetic.  I do not have a link that I can post so I will use my gift of language to at least attempt describe it.  I find that the forests in New Hampshire are often alive with a darkness that creeps alongside of you as walk or hike or bike or wander your way through them.  That darkness is the most soul-jarring and inspiring and perfect reminder of the power of the natural world.  It is not something that has been lost, here in this place.  Nature still rules; and it rules in a way that is slightly sinister and entirely mesmerizing.

Okay.  That's all for now, methinks.

Much love, My darlings- Until Next Time..  Be good, be graceful, and be WILD.

New Hampshire

Or- Pain.

I am house-sitting for a friend in Grantham, NH.  For those of you who follow this blog but do not actually know me too well, I used to live and work in New Hampshire.  It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of my favorite places on earth.

It is peaceful here.  And silent in the countryside.  And the air is so clean, so crisp and verdant with life and love and the promise of healing that you can barely stand it.  I can barely stand it.

Which is why it is so difficult for me to be here at the moment.  Because a major, and I mean major, part of me has not even begun to heal.  That part of me, the part that dictates most moments of my life, still loathes.  I loathe.  And I loathe myself.  More than anything else.  And I mean that- more than anything else in the world, I hate myself.  It has been this way for some time but for some more recent time it has been increasingly distressing.  I hate.  And I can only hate myself.  I can only feel violent hatred for my self.

So I look around at this place that I love, and I feel so much love for this place.  But then I look at myself and it all goes away.

Aye- there's the rub.  And the rub is exhausting.

Until Next Time, My Darlings.

The Language of Time

One Year.  To the day.

Twelve Months.

365 Days (366 depending on how you count Leap Year).

What it is about the language of time?  Some words make time seem everlasting and crawling/creeping/ancient and sloth-like and sluggish.  It becomes a slow-motion entity when you consider a Year.  Or 365 days- 365 Days?!?!  That is a Year from Now!!  An eternity of seasons; cyclical, cynical, constant!  An yearternity.

But 12 Months... that is altogether different.  12 tiny months, each with their own holidays, meanings, moments.  They are short.  And sweet.  And twelve of them make up the eternity of the year  in nice, neat little packages comprised of evenly spaced weeks.

It has been exactly one year since my mental break.  One year since the trigger was pulled and I began unraveling and turned inward to punish myself and everything about me that I thought deserved punishment- which was, is, essentially everything about me.  One year since heartbreak.

One year of heartbreak.

One year of such self-hatred that I literally stole (and continue to steal) my own breath with the amount of pain I created (create) for and perpetuated (perpetuate) against myself.

And is not that another strange inflection in the language of time- past and presence tense?  What is the past?  What has passed?  And what is the present if not a culmination, an amalgamation, of the past and passed moments?

What is today if not the end of a long year?

I hope tomorrow will be different.

I know tomorrow will be.

Don't Look Down

I have this mantra that I follow- that I have followed since the time of my initial bout with anorexia.  I say it to myself over and over and over.  Daily, Hourly, Minute by Minute it hums through my brain, a constant companion.

Don't Look Down.  Don't Look Down.  Don't Look Down.

I get that it probably does not make much sense to many people why this would be my own personal mantra.  It's the thing you say to the person doing the epic climb- who is afraid of heights; to the person who is bungee- or base-jumping for the first time; to the person who really did NOT want to be stuck on the rickety old Ferris wheel... especially when it stalls at the top.

For me it holds, of course, entirely different meaning.

To look down is to acknowledge the beast- the physical evidence of my disease.  The breasts, the belly, the legs- all those parts that I so loathe.  The parts that are too big, too rounded- too feminine and so very hated.

DON'T LOOK DOWN.

To look down means facing the abyss- the deepest darkest fall into the deepest darkest parts of my self, my brain, my psyche.  The parts that cause me to HATE, to LOATHE, to toe a desperate line of self-destruction with every step I take.  It means heartbreak.   I look down and I am heartbroken.

DON'T LOOK DOWN.  PLEASE DON'T LOOK DOWN.

And that is the name of the game- Don't look down because down is bad.  Down is pain.

Until next time, Friends.
Much love.