Pantone pee & other thoughts

I feel like I'm doing research for Pantone: Right now my toilet has one of those little blue cleaning discs in the tank to keep everything fresh and every time I pee into the blue water (in various states of hydration) a new shade of green peers back at me from its immaculate porcelain goblet. I think this perspective would inspire a new wave of hydration-mindfulness. It's very hard not to focus on whether or not you've had enough water that day when peeing feels more like an art project than gross and critical self-analysis. Have I taken care of my body today? What would I name this exact shade of green?

It's currently late at night in the interim of Saturday and Sunday and I'm sitting in bed typing with the smell of my new gardenia and tuberose candle bathing my senses in crisp floral bliss (I'll get back to this). Sam flies up in 5 days which brings to light my shock/awe at how quickly this summer went by, in all of its obstinate ups and downs. What a weird season. When we're kids everything suddenly lacks structure so we are left to our own devices in deciding how to spend the freedom and sunshine and warm days, which essentially sets the mood of our childhood. I'm not sure how my perception of it will change as I get older and don't have to go to school anymore. I'll keep you updated.

I'd also like to use this platform to formally announce that I am now a candle person. You can find my registry at Anthropologie under my first and last name or you could just stick to the eternal doctrine that I love the way gardenia and jasmine smell. You should also know that I love pretty colored glass jars with well-designed lids. Buy me pretty and good-smelling candles and you will be let into my heart.

Astrology is fake but we're trying

I was once a die-hard believer in astrology, perhaps in part because Aquarius is universally heralded as the coolest sign of the zodiac (uhh what do you mean bias?). But this summer, after reading one too many foreboding monthly horoscopes warning me that my world would come crashing down on August 7th, then again on the 21st, and basically periodically for the rest of my life, I realized something: I'd been using astrology as a way to shirk out of taking responsibility for my choices and actions. In turn it had instilled unnecessary anxiety and dread into my life.

It's not fun when your brain doesn't work the way it's supposed to, and if you know me you know that I struggle with pretty much everything that comes with being alive. When nothing makes sense, it's easy to look to the stars, right? They always have answers, even if astrology.com and horoscope.com always seem to have polar opposite things to say. But once you find a horoscope you like, you absorb it with delight, and the scattered inaccuracies and vague statements fade out of your memory. How do they know you so well? What wonderful surprise awaits you on the morning of February 19th? Oh, you really think I'm that smart and powerful and that's why no man can handle me? *Swoon*

People I admire once looked down on me for believing in astrology because they (somewhat fairly) thought I wasn't capable of vetting my beliefs. I held my ground then, of course, but in the crystal clear lens of retrospect, I know I was pretty deeply in denial. I didn't want to be responsible for my own shit. Blame the stars when I act like a total bitch!! Mercury is in retrograde after all.

In the grand scheme of things I don't think astrology is harmful, even if some people might find it particularly annoying and nonsensical. I think it's just a way people try to make sense of things, as I mentioned in an earlier post about death. I'm not sure if they're just trying to trick us all with it or if people genuinely believe they can understand and interpret the stars, but what's the big deal about nudging us to become better people with imaginary ups and downs determined by the stars?

But listen, astrology or not, I do believe life unfolds with a purpose. Each of our lifetimes is an experience totally unique to us and only us. We have the power, even without stars and planets, to interpret it exactly as we'd like, to surround ourselves with good people, and to spend our time doing things we find meaningful. I think it's incredibly important to continue to push ourselves to become better, whatever that means to you. And I can only speak for myself but in these past few days, I've felt myself opening up to change and letting go of negative energies and habits I knew I needed to let go of. Me or the stars? I guess we'll never really know ;)

Fake glasses

Listen, I get that glasses are very cute. I would wear my adorable Ray Ban frames out in public, but I don't because my vision is so bad the lenses act as opposite magnifying glasses, shrinking my hazel eyes to little black beads and emphasizing the indent at my temples which contributes to a face shape my boyfriend has ever-so-lovingly compared to a peanut. Have you ever found an article detailing which style of bangs would flatter a peanut shaped face? Neither have I (and believe me, I've looked very hard).

If you're one of the lucky ones that have been blessed with near-perfect eyesight, I can't fathom why you would unnecessarily and willingly add an extra barrier between your eyes and the rest of the world, easily fogged up by fortuitous fingerprints, raindrops, or the steam from a pot of pasta. You are taking for granted the privilege of waking up and being able to start living without the delay of scrambling to find your glasses (which are somehow always missing). You are taking for granted being able to open your eyes underwater in vast oceans and impossibly turquoise swimming pools without your contacts floating right off of your corneas, never to be found again.

Let us blind folk reap the benefits (and hindrances) of glasses as an accessory and stick to your blissful, unencumbered perception. Or, you know, keep using them as a fashion statement and pissing the rest of us off.

February 4th

The day after my eighteenth birthday I woke up feeling unquestionably connected to my own skin and mind. I was one entity, a rare and comforting sensation.

Sam bought me soft pretzel bites that day. He filled up my bicycle tires as our shadows stretched out along illuminated golden pavement. We embarked, squeezing through the space between the gate to my neighborhood and clusters of droopy ornamental grass; trusting our increasingly wobbly intuitions wholeheartedly.

The world unselfishly unfolded its beauty before my eyes. I saw tree branches wiggle into the sky and canopies of sunlit Spanish moss drape lazily over oak limbs. I watched blushing pink thunderheads roll into themselves over a limitless horizon, reveling in how the sand felt between my toes and how soft Sam's skin looked in the rosy light. Music from restaurant patios we biked past wrapped their notes and rhythms around me. Black rubber met warm pavement beneath me but all I could think of was how I felt like I was gliding through the air.

As night fell we pumped home full of wonder, bright lights whizzing past us in the creeping darkness.

There is nothing quite as comfortable and freeing as coming home to an empty house. When we got there I watched ripples dance across the surface of the swimming pool in my yard. I put on the Beatles and Sam and I climbed into my bed, basking in the emotional opulence of each other's company. Sam ate the cherry chunks out of my pint of Cherry Garcia because he knows I'm weirded out by the texture of fruit chunks. I cried and spilled my heart to him while we listened to bossa nova.

After he peppered me with an unnecessary (but welcomed) number of goodbye kisses and drove home, I laid in the darkness and read Desirada over and over, thinking about what it means to inhabit my body.

Eighteen has only gotten better from there.

I Gotta Find Peace Of Mind

I spent my whole day in bed, feeling limp and broken. I didn't eat or drink. I didn't text any of my friends. I didn't let my cats into my room. All day I fought the urge to text my boyfriend asking if he still loved me (He never gave me any reason to think he didn't). I worried for hours whether I'd establish myself as the fabled weird roommate to the two girls I'll live with in two weeks. My stomach tied itself in knots over nothing/everything at once. On top of it all I felt guilty for thinking or feeling any of these things in the first place.

Having an anxiety disorder is exhausting.

But tonight (on a whim!) I put on Lauryn Hill, made myself spicy pizza with fresh mozzarella, and pulled out my sketchbook and colorful pens for the first time in well over a year. I pushed through the inevitable and near-immediate frustration at how the pen in my hand refused to do what my mind wanted it to. I gave myself room for error and imperfection without criticism. And in the end my ugly, uncreative, out-of-practice doodles made me swell up with a sense of accomplishment.

Lauryn Hill left her fame behind to exist more authentically. She isn't ashamed to be flawed or overtly emotional or ask for what she wants outright. The world is hers. Her music empowers me to finally feel like myself again. But if I'm being honest with myself, it's been in me all along.

I'm going to have more bad days (a lot of them). But all I needed was tonight's glimmer of overwhelming optimism to remind me that bad days aren't the only ones, and that my being isn't a flaw in our universe's grand design. I'm not supposed to be perfect. I'm a work in progress.

"Every day's another chance, to get it right this time."

Death

My Omi died on the third day of the new year, a month before I turned 18. This past Wednesday was her birthday. I spent it in the house she lived in for more than 35 years with my granddad, and where my mom and aunts grew up.

I think one of the saddest things about death is that when someone dies, so do their memories and experiences. All we have are the stories she told out loud. It's too late now to hear the ones we forgot to ask her to tell, or to clarify pieces of one we can't quite remember how to put together.

I really miss knowing she's in the other room, sitting in her designated corner of the couch with a good book in her hands, trying to fend off my dog from plopping into his favorite spot on her lap only to laugh once he inevitably got there. I miss telling her about Sam when she asked, watching her eyes light up as she lived vicariously through my young love. This is the first of the rest of my summers without her.

She liked reading romance novels. My sister once asked if she ever got lonely without my granddad, who died in 2002. She responded, "A man would just get in my way." She liked mysteries more and more towards the end of her life. 

My aunt says she feels closer to my Omi than ever now that she's gone (she's a very spiritual person), but I think that's just a way she deludes herself so it doesn't hurt so badly. I don't judge her for it, though. We all have ways of coping with pain. Sometimes it's too immense to face head-on.

After she died, my Omi's earthly form came back in a black cardboard box affectionately labelled "cremains of Renate W. Moss". My aunt told my mom, sisters, and I about a time she cried into her mom's ashes, kneading them until her husband came in and had to gently pry them away so she wouldn't pop the plastic bag and send a puff of what was left of my Omi flying. She told us this story after my mom wondered aloud whether there were teeth scattered among the ashes.

My dog Copper was put down in February, on the day Slide by Calvin Harris and Frank Ocean came out. When I got the text from my mom 20 minutes after she sent it (there was no service in the building my school assembly was held in), I cried into the shoulder of some sophomore girl I'd never spoken to before and signed out of school early. I drove fast that day, sobbing to Slide on repeat and silently hoping I'd be pulled over so I could spill my guts to someone I didn't know. His ashes came in the prettiest polished wooden box, secured with the same type of lock and key that kept my childhood diaries' secrets from prying eyes. I wondered what they did with the metal plate in his pelvis. I wondered why it cost $200 to turn his body into dust. I pet the box and told him he was a good boy.

I still remember exactly what Copper's fur felt like when I stumble across photos of him. Some nights, as I'm trying to fall asleep, I still realize suddenly that I'll literally never be able to talk to my Omi again, and a wave of muted terror settles over me until all I can hear or feel is my heart beating out of my chest in the darkness. But what makes grief hurt less for me is the uncomfortable, hilarious rawness of its reality. 

My Omi told us years before she died that after she was gone, "Don't keep me in there for too long, I want to swim with Edwin." But of course she'll stay in her cardboard box until our extended family can coordinate when we're all free to scatter her into the ocean.