They Are Different. And So Am I.

I wasn't imagining things, and the mirror in the Scarsdale Panera where I stopped for iced coffee and a bathroom break in the middle of my errands this past Sunday for my best friend's impending bridal shower wasn't hanging wrong either.

It was my sunglasses. They were crooked.

My sunglasses. My favorite, purchased from a shady guy on 50th and Broadway two years ago for eight dollars, sunglasses. The ones I found on a random Wednesday after an exhaustive search for aviators that were just the right size, with lenses dark enough that my eyes were nearly invisible but light enough that the fingerprints that always seem to live on my sunglasses wouldn't drive me crazy every time I looked in a mirror.

The sunglasses that had accompanied me on one trip to Israel and then another. That came with me to a bachelorette weekend in Cape Cod and a Jersey Shore family vacation. That commuted with me to work. That laughed with me through a birthday snow day and hid my eyes through a month of tears.

The sunglasses that I took care of, that I carefully folded up and kept in a hard case in between wearings, that lasted twenty months longer than anything bought on the streets of NYC should reasonably last, were crooked.

I took them off and, right there in the Panera bathroom, I started fiddling with the nose pieces. When that didn't work and, in fact, made the problem worse, I played around with the ear pieces, hoping that if I bent them just right my sunglasses could reclaim their formerly straight glory, ignoring the fact that the screws holding them together had suddenly started rattling in their holes, causing the temples to bend at unnatural angles.

When I thought they were straight enough, I left the store, congratulating myself for resurrecting my favorite accessory. But my reflection in the car window told me that my victory was short-lived. And when I took the sunglasses off to give fixing them another try and they fell apart in my hands, I knew they were beyond saving.

And suddenly, I found myself standing in the accessories section of the Nordstrom near my house, in front of racks of sunglasses. I put on a few pairs and hated them all immediately. Thinking I would just buy my new ones on the street, right where I bought my old ones, I was about to abandon accessories for the shoe department when I saw them.

They were sitting on a corner shelf, almost by themselves, and I knew they were mine before I even tried them on. And five minutes later, after a surprise 25% off and a moment of indecision over a black or brown case, they were.

As I drove out of the parking garage into the blinding sun, I slipped my new sunglasses on. They weren't exactly the same as my old pair, and I guess they shouldn't be. They are a little bit different, and after the past few weeks so am I.

But together, we are going to be just fine.

New Look

The Bird's Morning Song

I toss and turn. Throw blankets off. Pull them on.

In the darkness my mind races with worries.

Then, dawn peeks through my window. The birds sing their morning song.

Reminding me that it's a new day. And everything can be different.

Together

Unexpected ride to work together

"Holding hands, for example, is a way to remember how it feels

to say nothing together."

-Nicole Krauss

May Day

May 1st. Thursday.

I don't think that I have ever been happier to see the dawn of a new month. Ever. In my life.

April was a fickle fiend, a brutal beast. A month where I felt the highest of highs, and experienced the lowest of lows. A month where at times I felt elation, meaning and purpose, and at others I felt my faith desert me, and I despaired of ever finding it again. It was a month of happiness and excitement, of sadness and of tears. A month of family and celebration, and of loneliness and fear. 

You may have noticed that I wasn't around here much in April. It was because I was stuck on a roller-coaster of emotion, and all the words that I would have written seemed to get stuck somewhere between my head and my hands. And there they remain.

One day I will tell the story of April. One day, when the words come easily and the feelings aren't quite so close to the surface, I will write about it all and post it here, where I sort through my thoughts and collect my memories. Because I know that this month is one that I won't want to forget, but also one that I am not quite ready to remember. One day I will gather up all of the half written posts and the fragmented sentences that litter my drafts folder, and I will form them into paragraphs and I will share these past weeks. One day. Hopefully soon. Because I believe with my whole heart that it is important to tell our stories. Even the ones that are hard. Maybe especially those.

Yesterday, on the last day of April, it rained. All day. Not a soft and kind drizzle, but a hard and unforgiving rain. The kind that never lets up and soaks everything that deigns to challenge it. It seemed a fitting last day of a tumultuous month and I did the same thing I have been doing every day. I gathered my boots and my umbrella, put my head down, and forged on, through the rain and wind and cold.

It was still raining when I got home. I was looking forward to sweat pants, dinner, couch and TV, but the last day of April had other plans. I walked into my house to a puddle on the kitchen floor from an until-then-undiscovered roof leak and a puddle on the basement floor from water seeping in through one of the walls. 

And after I recovered from my shock, all I could do was laugh at the utter ridiculousness of it all.

May 1. Thursday.

It wasn't raining when I woke up this morning. The sky was still grey and my neighborhood was engulfed in a layer of fog, but the rain had stopped. I got dressed feeling a little lighter, a little happier than I had in days, and walked out of the house, leaving my umbrella and rain boots behind. By the time I got to work the roof leak was in the process of being fixed thanks to my gorgeous man who sprang directly into action, there was a plan for the basement, and the sun was starting to peak out from behind the clouds.

And with that warmth on my face I walked into this new month, where there are surely brighter days ahead.

Running Without Time

The watch gave one mournful beep and died. I nearly stopped, not sure how to keep going without it.

But then there was just me, under a cloudless sky. Breathing hard. Feet pounding the pavement.

Running like time and distance didn't matter.

Where In The World Have I Been

It feels like I've been away forever.

It happens every year about this time. Winter is just over, 8 days of Passover come calling, and I start to do weird things like forget what day it is and where in the world I am.

Because I have been, literally, all over the world in the past two weeks, hence my absence from my little corner of the internet.

We started off with a week with David's family in Tel Aviv, Israel in a hotel by the ocean, where we woke up to this view every morning.

We flew back late last week on an all night flight and took a two day breather at home before packing up again, getting on another plane, and flying to Ohio to spend the second half of the holiday with my parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, niece and nephew. We got back early this morning, went from the airport straight to work, and have spent the day in a fog of exhaustion laced with the happy haze that comes from spending days with the people we love most.

In a little while I will gather my things and make my way home, where I will almost certainly collapse on the couch and spend the rest of the night catching up on all the TV I missed over the past weeks and ignoring 4 unpacked suitcases and the mountains of laundry that await.

It was a fun spring break, and certainly a Passover for the ages. 

And now. Now, I'm glad to be back, to reclaim my routine that fell by the wayside while I was away, to be back here, writing away.

As spring passes by and summer looms invitingly on the horizon there is lots of fun and excitement coming up. 

I hope you'll be here to join me.