Right Where I Left It

I put the bottle of water on my desk Friday morning, but the day got away from me. Then I was rushing out the door and the bottle was still unopened. I was too lazy and my back hurt too badly to walk back around my desk to get it, so I left it there.

I figured I would drink it on Monday.

It was 4:17 on Tuesday morning and the sky was just beginning to lighten when the nurse handed me my newborn baby boy. He wasn't crying, which surprised me. His huge eyes scanned the room, observing his new surroundings. For a second his eyes locked on mine. "I have a baby now," is what I thought.

The traffic home was hideous, as expected. Ninety minutes in to what should have been a forty minute drive home I needed a snack and a bathroom. I really wished I had taken that bottle of water.

Heat was shimmering from the asphalt street when I walked through the revolving door of the hospital. Sweat seeped down my back as I sat on the bench with the car-seat beside me, waiting for David to bring the car around. I looked at my baby, swimming in the newborn-sized alligator sleeper that I bought at Target two weeks before, and wondered if he was hot. It occurred to me that he probably had to eat soon and that his diaper hadn't been changed in awhile because no one told me to change it. I was failing at motherhood already. I was tired down to my bones. 

It took two hours to finally get home. I used the bathroom and had a snack. I talked to my family on the phone and assured them that no baby had been born yet. I spent the rest of the weekend alternating between laying on my outdoor couch and my indoor one.

"I have to go," my friend said at the end of our phone call. "We're going to the Yankee game." Drowning in diaper changes, bottles, 3am feedings, and puddles of my own tears it seemed impossible that the world was still spinning, that anyone was still doing something as normal as going to a baseball game.  

I was dressed for work when I went to the doctor on Monday morning. I had a list of things to put in order before I went out on maternity leave. We parked in short term parking and I told my office I would be in by ten.

He was five weeks old when he smiled at me for the first time. His whole face opened up and I fell in love. I was a mother. They told me how it would be. They were right. Toys took over my living room. We all got a little more sleep. He grew and changed. So did I.

The doctor said something about low fluid and insufficient growth. The details didn't really matter. I was having a baby. Today. They sent me up to labor and delivery. David went home for my hospital bag. They hooked me up to an IV and I called my office. "I guess I'll see you in November," I said to them. "Sorry about that list." They laughed. I didn't.

I rocked my baby all the way to sleep before I went to find something to wear. The clothes hanging in my closet were foreign to me. I tried some of them on but nothing looked the way it used to. I felt tired, soft, unprepared. I picked the dress that looked the least bad and figured it was the best I could do. I watched him sleep in his crib and wondered if he would be ok without me. If I would be ok without him.

I stepped off the elevator and buzzed myself onto my floor. My key-card still worked. I was surprised. I walked down the hall to my office, trying to summon the lawyer that had lain dormant for four months while the mother became. I opened the door. There was the bottle of water, sitting on my desk.

Right where I left it.

Maybe Some Point is Going to be Today

Every time my doctor hands me a strip of the blurry black and white pictures I stuff them into the side pocket of my bag with the hair ties, ear buds, clear nail polish, travel bottle of Tylenol, and other random things that live there indefinitely. Then I forget about them until I need to tie my hair back, watch Netflix on the train, repair a nail or stop a run in my tights, or cure a headache. I rummage around in that side pocket for whatever I need, and instead come up with a handful of ultrasound images.

For a second I think that I should really do something with the pictures, if for no other reason than to get them out of my bag that already houses more stuff than I ever actually need. But then I put them right back in the pocket.

I can practically track the baby's progress just by reaching for a lipgloss. 

7 weeks, just a blob on the screen. 10 weeks, arms and legs and a heartbeat of 153. 13 weeks, fingers and toes. 16 weeks, a mouth and a nose. 20 weeks, all the important parts right where they are supposed to be. 25 weeks, a wave from a tiny hand. 29 weeks, a stretch and a perfect profile shot.

And I can track other things too.

Walking to the doctor's office wondering if maybe those two lines on the test were somehow mistaken and there was no baby after all. White knuckling the chair in the waiting room and wondering if there would still be a beating heart. The ultrasound technician who almost gave me a heart attack with her silence and her stern face. The other ultrasound technician with her smile and kind eyes and her promise to show me the heartbeat first thing so I didn't have to be afraid. The time I ended up in the hospital for blood pressure that is completely normal except when a nurse tries to take it at the beginning of an appointment.

Because one time about a year ago I was expecting my second strip of pictures, the 10 week ones, but instead I got no pictures because there was silence where there should have been two beating hearts. And my plan, already in effect, to stick the pictures from every appointment into the chapter for the corresponding week in my brand new copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting came to a sudden and jarring halt.

So this time around I had exactly zero plans for the pictures and that still brand new book has stayed on my shelf, unread and out of sight, because I didn't want this time to be anything like last time.

And it hasn't been.

So maybe I'll take all the pictures out of my bag and find a drawer where they can live because when you've been where I've been I don't think that you ever really stop worrying, it's just that at some point you decide to be brave, and to start saying "when" instead of "if," and to consider the idea that this time there will be a happy ending to the story, as improbable as that once seemed.

Maybe I'll do it tonight.

Maybe that some point is going to be today.

Nothing Gets in Between Me and a Good Snack

I walked through the front door of my house, glowing with the satisfaction of a successful shopping expedition.

I sat down on the couch to review my purchases, marveling first at the beauty of my new red bag and blessing the luck that placed it in my direct line of sight in the accessories department of T.J. Maxx. And I admired the maternity pants that I finally bought to replace my favorite pair of pre-pregnancy black pants that I had been holding onto for dear life until buttoning them made breathing a chore and sitting down nearly impossible and I finally had to wave the white flag and admit defeat. I could practically hear my unborn child sighing with relief when I folded them away.

With the results of my shopping spree reviewed and confirmed, I walked into the kitchen to put my "binge-watch Friday Night Lights and eat the maple walnut fudge that I had made the night before during a strange confluence of pregnancy cravings and nesting impulse" plan into action.

I heard the splashing noise that, unfortunately, was not altogether unfamiliar, while I was standing at the counter, pastry knife in hand.

At first I thought it was the radiators getting ready to heat up and then I figured it had to be water dripping into the sump pump from outside due to sunshine and melting snow. But my head already knew the source wasn't nearly that benign.

One short trip down the basement stairs confirmed that thought.

Grey-tinged water and tiny bits of toilet paper were gushing out of a discharge pipe and spilling onto the floor, and the smell permeating my basement was vaguely reminiscent of a well used porta-pottie.

For a minute I just stood there watching the chaos unfold, but then I turned around and went back upstairs, closing the basement door on the whole big mess.

If I had known at that moment that this wasn't the simple do-it-yourself kind of plumbing issue we're used to but was, in fact, a complete clog of our main sewer line that would require a midnight emergency and very expensive Roto-Rooter visit and another hour of disinfecting the basement, I might have reacted with the mix of panic and helplessness that characterizes my general disposition when faced with house issues.

But I didn't. Instead, I gathered my snack and took to the couch and my Friday Night Lights marathon and decided I just wouldn't flush the toilet for the rest of the day while I waited for David to get home.

I'd like to say that having a baby in less than four months has given me a new "don't sweat the small stuff" outlook on life. That it has made me focus on the important things like creating life, instead of the stuff that's no big deal and more or less easily fixed, like plumbing gone awry.

But really?

It's just that nothing was getting in between me and that maple-walnut fudge.

A Sort Of Sacred Saturday Night

The birthday boy was a dear friend of my husband who I like quite a lot, but the second I got the invitation to his party I thought of twenty excuses that would save me from actually having to go.

My distaste for the party had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the fact that the party was on a Saturday night. 

Saturday nights are sacred. They are the nights I spend in sweatpants, curled up on the couch with snacks and my DVR, and they are the nights that I most often spend alone, my husband decidedly not sharing my weekend hermit ways.

But this was his closest friend. And while he rarely minds when I skip out on Saturday night plans, this time he just wasn't having any of my carefully constructed excuses.

Which is how I found myself on a Saturday night driving towards Lyndhurst, New Jersey and Medieval Times, where we were all supposed to relive our childhoods while watching knights joust on horses, or some such thing; the problem being, of course, that no portion of my childhood ever included a trip to this auspicious venue, so there really was nothing to relive.

The lobby of the castle was filled with high-backed, comfortable looking velour chairs and I spent a minute wishing I could pass the next couple of hours sitting on one of them, but then the doors opened and we were led into the cavernous room, escorted to our ring-side VIP seats, and then the show began. There were knights and horses, jesters and jousting, and an announcer doing a passable job of nailing the Middle English.

It all started with a faint tickle in my throat. Then my nose started to run, my arms, legs and face started to itch, and the tickle in my throat caused a cough so frequent that the people in the row in front of us started turning around to see what all the commotion was about.

I waved at them that I was fine, but it was about that time that I started wheezing and struggling to take in full breaths. And then I noticed that my itchy arms and legs were actually covered in bright red, angry looking hives.

Something was obviously not right, and as the loudspeaker erupted in an announcement that the "race portion of the evening" was about to begin I realized exactly what it was. The horses. I was allergic to the horses. I knew before that night, of course, that my reaction to horses was frighteningly close to anaphylaxis, but I was sitting far enough away from the actual ring that I figured I wouldn't have to worry.

Clearly, I figured wrong.

I stumbled out of the hall into the deserted lobby. After a few minutes with my eyes closed my breathing seemed better and I felt like I was probably out of the danger zone, but God himself couldn't have forced me back into the show.

So I sank into one of the velour chairs and spent the next ninety minutes alone, grateful for my habit of carrying romance novels in my bag wherever I go.

Not exactly sacred, but not at all bad.

Running The Track

When I was growing up, my parents were both long-distance runners. As it sometimes is with parents who love something so fiercely, they tried to get my sisters and me to pick up the sport. The three of us just weren't having it, but that didn't stop my parents from trying.

Four or five times a week my parents would run the streets of Pittsburgh together. But every now and then they would gather my sisters and me up and head to the track at Carnegie Mellon University, just a mile or so from the house where I grew up, and it is there that some of my earliest memories live. We would sit in the bleachers or play on the edge of the football field while my parents circled the track over and over again, urging us to join in for a lap or two every time they passed by. The answer was always a resounding "no."

It took me twenty years to finally realize that my parents were exactly right; running was the sport that fit me like the proverbial glove. I loved the solo hours out on the streets, the exhaustion and elation of a long run, and the triumphant race finishes. I even loved the aching muscles, runs in the freezing cold or sweltering heat, and the equal mix of pain and pleasure that comes with being a runner.

But lately, that has all escaped me. 

For a bunch of reasons, I had to cut way, way back on running for the past few months. As in, for almost four months, I couldn't run at all.

One day I'll tell that story, but that's not the story I'm writing today.

Even once I was given the green light to start running again, I had a really hard time getting back into the swing of things. The runners out there will understand. Starting again after being away for so many months might as well be starting from scratch and well, that just plain sucks. I kept making excuses to cut my runs short or to avoid them completely and do some kind of other exercise instead, but when you're a runner, sometimes no other exercise will suffice. Sometimes you just have to run.

So yesterday. Yesterday morning I woke up and, as per usual, my first thoughts were filled with all the things I had to do instead of running. Obviously something had to be done. So instead of going to the gym or to my regular running path, I decided to try something different. 

I laced up my shoes, headed for the track at the local high school down the street from my house, and ran there. And the run was hard. Really hard. But there was something else too. Circling the track with its familiar red rubber coating, I thought about my parents and the love of running they passed to me, and everything that once attracted me to this mysterious and miraculous sport. 

And for the first time in months, I felt strong. For the first time in months, I ended a run already looking forward to my next one. 

I am a runner.

And I'm out of excuses not to be.

The Summer I Left From One Home, And Came Back To Another

When I got off the plane in Jacksonville, I felt like I was in a movie where the kids go away to camp and their parents move away without telling them. Except for me, it wasn't that they didn't tell me about it, but rather that I conveniently forgot about it all summer long.

I knew somewhere in a tiny part of my brain kept mostly shuttered that when I left my house in Pittsburgh to go to camp in June I was leaving my childhood home for the last time. And somewhere in my grey matter was floating the idea that plane tickets to Florida had  been booked for me for August, but I was thinking of it more like a vacation rather than a place where I would have all the things one has in the place they live.

So I spent eight weeks at the camp I loved, pretending that everything was as it should be. I lived in a cabin with  friends that had been mine for years, making late night mac and cheese in contraband hot pots and reading Judy Blume's Summer Sisters out loud to each other. I had my first kiss, learned how to slalom on water skis, and made a deliciously ugly pillow in the art shack.

And if the occasional thought of my parents setting up our new house in Jacksonville crossed my mind, I shoved it down and smothered it with bug juice and barbecues.

Except camp doesn't last forever, and I had a plane ticket to Florida that I suddenly couldn't ignore anymore.

The land below the descending plane was flat, brown, and foreign. The blacktop of the runway seemed to simmer in the stifling heat that is late summer in the south. The jolt of landing yanked me roughly out of one reality and deposited me into another, creating the fault line between my lives that said to me, "you live here now and not there."

I sat in the back corner of the car on the way home and stared out the window at the unfamiliar scenery and the palm trees rushing by. Along the highway billboards screamed bible verses touting the virtues of Christianity and decrying abortion and I felt like I had entered another world, which I guess I had. So I closed my eyes and didn't open them again until I felt the car pull into the driveway.

When I walked in the door of the house my mind was running on a constant loop, chanting I don't know this place. I felt my breath backing up in my chest and knew I had to do something - anything - or I would run screaming from the house that was now supposed to be home.

There were bags to unpack and my new room to set up, but there was time enough for that. Instead, I dug out a bathing suit that still smelled like camp and pulled it on, searched out a towel, and headed straight outside.

As I dove into the clear, cool waters of the swimming pool that was only steps away from my back door, I had the fleeting thought that maybe Florida wouldn't be so bad after all.

Another First Kiss

I didn't remember that we were Facebook friends until a picture of him cuddling a little boy who had his blond hair and slightly crooked smile appeared in my News Feed.

Past and present collapsed together and I could hear the rain drumming on the roof of the old lodge as it had the night we met.

The campers wouldn't arrive for three days, but my first staff week was in full swing when we gathered for the first of many lectures on keeping campers safe from all the dangers that could befall them in the eight weeks that they would be under our charge.

The floor was wet and the room quickly took on the soft, sweet smell of rain. It was the smell of camp. Of wildness and freedom. Of cabins and fields and the tiny town in Northern Ontario.

My friends and I stood together in the back, mostly ignoring the guy droning on about bear safety.

"I hope someone's taking notes because I'm too drunk to remember any of this."

I snorted out a laugh and turned towards the tall, blond stranger leaning against the wall.

The whistle hanging out of his pocket said sports staff and the yeasty scent of beer on his breath when he introduced himself told me that he had gone with the specialty staff to lunch in town while the rest of us did counselor things.

I found that hint of beer strangely appealing as we whispered through the rest of the lecture and felt myself drawn towards him, even as we parted ways.

He was on my mind as I got ready for bed, and when he sent me a crooked smile from across the dining hall the next morning I felt a jolt from my stomach straight down to my toes.

He found me as we listened to yet another lecture later that night and it seemed natural that we would drift together when the program ended and that he would take my hand as we meandered around the track and up Girl's Hill, talking about everything and nothing.

We fell silent as we reached the stairs in front of my cabin, and the air hummed with electricity when we turned towards each other. There was a single beat of hesitation and then he kissed me in the shadow of the spot where I had my first kiss years before.

This time wasn't that one, but it was a first all the same.

My eighteen year old heart pounded as his hands slicked up my sides and tangled in my hair, our bodies pressed together. When we broke apart I could only stare at him, slightly stunned. He kissed me again, hot and fast, and then smiled his smile before turning and walking away. Not sure my legs would hold me up, I sat right down on the steps and watched him go, hand pressed to my speeding heart.

My office phone rang, tugging me back to the present.

I took one last look at the picture, smiled at him and his little boy, and answered the call, thinking how the light smell of beer still gets me, every single time.

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.

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.

Memories of a 24 Marathon

Surrounded by soda cans we sprawl on the couch, eyes glued to the TV.

We speak only to say, "just one more."

We can't stop watching. We can only hold our breaths. Until Jack finds out who gave the terrorists the bomb.

A Cold Winter, A Flower, and The Possibility of Spring

I walked out of my house and immediately started shivering.

I couldn't believe how cold it was and even sneaked a look at my phone to confirm that it was, in fact, still March and we didn't somehow Back-To-The-Future it back to January without me noticing. Not that I have anything against time travel, it's just that if I'm going back in time, I would prefer to head back to my Bahamas vacation of a few years ago where the sky was blue, the ocean crystal clear, and the air warm.

Warm.

I felt like I hadn't been warm in months.

The snow started in November, the Polar Vortex took hold sometime around New Years, and we had been cold ever since. Winter is generally my favorite of all the seasons, but even this Pittsburgh girl was worn out.

Four months of hauling bags of salt, shoveling the snow that seemed to never stop falling and sliding my way to the train station had taken its toll.

I couldn't even remember what warm felt like. For months my life had consisted of bundling up into sweaters I hadn't worn since my college days in the frozen tundra that is winter in Boston, a puffy coat, and the wooliest winter accessories to get to work, only to peel off the layers once I was sitting in my office, where the entire building is a sauna and climate control is a dirty word.

I thought that if I tallied up all the time I spent dealing with winter clothes and accessories over the past four months it would rival the time that summer where I watched all of 24 and The West Wing in approximately ten weeks. Assuming every show is about 42 minutes long without commercials (and I certainly didn't watch commercials), that is, conservatively, 242 hours. All in all, I'd rather be watching TV.

Which I did, a lot, this winter, because when it's so cold that your face freezes before you can make it to the car, there's not a whole lot of motivation to go out at night unless you absolutely have to.

I locked the door, glared at the snow shovel and salt spreader that had taken up permanent residence on my porch, and considered kicking them both until they were broken, but cooler heads prevailed when I remembered that at the rate we were going it would probably snow more still before winter finally released its icy grasp.

As I swung into the driver's seat of my car, eager to warm it up and get the heat going to ward off the chill, something caught my eye. On the side of the driveway, almost hidden by the damp and still frosty leaves, a tiny purple flower poked out of the ground. It was the only one of its kind, and barely visible, but it was there, its color a pop of cheerfulness on the cold, grey day.

And I thought that maybe spring isn't too far off after all.

Starry Sky. Endless Summer.

They lay in the open field, staring into the starry sky.

He wonders if he should. She wonders if he will.

His hand inches over, covers hers.

She smiles. Moves closer.

They are young, wild, free. And summer will never be over.

The Passover Aisle and an Existential Crisis

I was expecting a shelf full of the Stop & Shop brand wavy potato chips that I can never seem to get enough of, so when I crossed into the chip aisle and was instead greeted with piles of matzah and other assorted Passover necessities I felt like I had entered an alternate universe.

All I could think was, "too soon."

Purim was still two weeks away, I was wearing my winter jacket and there was still half a foot of snow on the ground, yet the aisle was urging me to get ready for the Jewish holiday most associated with spring as if it were right around the corner.

My feet were glued to the floor as I glanced wildly around, wondering if I should start throwing everything in my cart I think I might need for the 3 days of Passover that we will actually be home, wondering if I didn't start now, if there would even be anything left by the time I was ready to begin those ferociously complex preparations. Wondering if we would be reduced to eating matzah and cream cheese for 3 straight days because I couldn't get it together early enough.

My fingers itched to fill my cart. But without a list or any forethought whatsoever I knew that would be a mistake, so I managed to extricate myself from the Passover section and continue my weekly grocery shop.

But as I walked up and down the aisles grabbing what I needed for the rest of the week I was consumed with anxiety and the vague feeling of wildness that had been dogging me for weeks. Months, really, if I'm being honest. I felt unmoored, even in that familiar place, and my vision, usually clear, was hazy around the edges.

Milk, eggs, yogurt went into my cart as I felt myself pulled back towards the Passover aisle. I reasoned that there were things I knew I would need, so why not buy them today? I am not at all accustomed to living with unanswered questions, or to putting off for later what I could just do now. Lately I have been walking along not knowing exactly what my next steps will be. But here, in the brightly lit grocery store, I could know.

Passover is coming. Buy matzah. Simple.

But with the holiday still six weeks away I didn't have a place to store everything, and my logical mind was telling me that it would be better to buy everything at once than in dribs and drabs. So I steered myself towards the check-out and left the store.

When I got home that night I sat down and made a list of the things I need to buy for Passover and made a mental note of the day I would go buy everything.

I still had questions without answers and more uncertainty than certainty filling my days. But just then, at that moment, I had a list.

So I knew that everything was going to turn out ok.

There I Was. There We Were.

Every surface of the room was littered with the tools of the bridal trade. Ten cans of hairspray, diffusers and flat irons, pots of eye-shadow and lipsticks in thirty different shades of pink were scattered across the tables in a jumbled celebration of femininity and behind two chairs stood two women whose job it was to match the right tool to the right girl.

Hair and make-up done and wedding dress on, I stood to the side, wondering if I could risk sitting down or if the dress would wrinkle, something I had received dire warnings about along with the potential for red wine stains, people stepping on my train and ripping the delicate fabric, and the bustle falling down during dancing. I suddenly felt like I was wearing a time bomb instead of a dress. I decided to stand.

For the first time that weekend, everyone was preoccupied with something other than me. It was a quiet moment in a startlingly unquiet succession of days that allowed me to really think for the first time since my wedding weekend started.

I was nervous. Really nervous.

I wasn't nervous about getting married. About that, I felt absolutely sure and utterly serene.

Instead, I was nervous about the day. About all the people who were gathering downstairs to look at me and watch me and take pictures of me and comment on my dress and my hair and whether I should have gone with the pearl earrings instead of the old-fashioned diamond huggies that had been my grandmother's, and whether it was a mistake to take off the veil after the ceremony. About making sure I absorbed every moment of the day since everyone told me that it would go by so fast and that I had to make an actual effort to remember it all, as if my wedding day was somehow something forgettable.

I peered into the mirror, hoping to remind myself that I was still me despite all the makeup and fifty pounds of ivory lace, but with sweaty palms and a pounding heart, I felt more like a zoo animal, kept in an enclosure to entertain the visiting masses.

*****************************

It was after midnight by the time we got to our hotel room.

I headed straight for the bathroom, unzipping my dress along the way and leaving it pooled on the floor. While I yanked pins out of my hair and scrubbed off layers of make-up, David perused the room service menu since we hadn't eaten anything since morning and were positively famished.

Half an hour later, showered, changed, and considerably more comfortable than either of us had been all day, we sat cross-legged on the massive bed sharing caesar salad and mini bags of potato chips

As we talked and laughed about the events of the day and looked at some pictures that my aunt had just sent over I caught a glimpse of us in the mirrored closet door and finally saw what I had been trying so hard to see since morning.

There I was.

There we were.

Same as always.

An Interview, A Department Store, And Some Very Expensive Shoes

When I got the call from Cardozo Law School asking me if I could come in for an interview that very afternoon, I figured that the gods of law school admissions were smiling down on me. 

I could have still been home in Florida for winter break, but the week before I had randomly decided to change my plans to detour through New York for two days before school started again. So when I got the call, I was sitting in my pajamas in my friend's living room on Long Island. 

The dean only had one slot available that day and I assured his secretary I would be there.

"But what will you wear?"

My friend's question burst my happy balloon as I suddenly remembered that I was on my way back to school with a suitcase full of jeans. A glance through her closet told me that we were nowhere near the same size, and a glance at the clock told me that I had approximately four hours to get to the interview.

Twenty minutes later I was on the Long Island Railroad speeding towards Manhattan. I deferred to my friend's expertise and headed straight for Macy's on 34th Street when my train pulled into Penn Station, where she assured me I could buy something presentable.

Standing in my underwear in a dressing room, surrounded by piles of discarded clothes, sweat slid down my back and my heart was beating fast and furious and I tried - and rejected - suit after suit.

With the interview drawing closer and visions of sitting in front of the dean stark naked racing through my head, I went out to the racks one last time. Having given up on the idea of a full suit, I headed for a rounder of skirts and pulled some out at random. I grabbed a handful of sweaters and ran back to the dressing room.

Once again, skirt after skirt ended up in the reject pile until there was only one left. It was brown and wool with a label that said Tahari, which didn't mean anything to me except that miraculously, the zipper slid up easily and it kind of matched one of the sweaters now sitting in a heap on the dressing room bench, so suddenly it was my favorite brand in the world.

Without a glance at either price tag I flew to the shoe department and circled the room four times before I finally found the one pair of brown heels in the store. They were Nicole Miller, which also didn't mean anything to me except that they fit and they matched and my interview was in 47 minutes, so I went straight to the check-out counter.

645 dollars, 30 minutes, a stop at Duane Reade for stockings, and a stop in a Starbucks bathroom to change later I walked into the dean's office.

Three weeks after the interview I got rejected from Cardozo.

But since I'm sitting in my law office wearing the skirt and the shoes right now, I figure I got my money's worth anyway.

I Wasn't Such A Badass After All

I guess I should have been nervous as I made my way to the imaging center in Columbus Circle, but the truth is, I felt like a major badass.

It had all started a couple of weeks before when I felt a nagging pain in my left leg on a long run. I was halfway through my training plan for what would be my very first half marathon and feeling strong. An injury was definitely not on the schedule, so I did what any runner would do and pretended it didn't exist.

That worked until it didn't, and I finally convinced myself to go get it checked out.

I wasn't exactly jumping up and down at the thought of going to see an orthopedist, but I wanted to run in the race, so I got adult about it and called a doctor that came highly recommended.

A cheerful receptionist asked me to describe my problem, and when I told her it was a running injury she said, "Hon I think you would be better off with a sports medicine doctor who treats athletes like you," and rattled off a name and number.

Athletes like me? I'm an athlete?

And I started thinking that maybe this whole doctor thing wouldn't be so bad after all.

On the day of my appointment I sat in the waiting room of my brand new sports medicine doctor and looked around at all the lean, fit people, thrilled to be a part of such athletic company. When I got called back to the exam room and told the very young and very good looking doctor about the pain I had been feeling, he told me he thought it was probably shin splints and then spent 10 minutes talking to me about distance running and marathon training. It seems he was similarly obsessed, and similarly afflicted with shin splints.

"It happens to us runners. It's no big deal," he said.

Us runners.

I left the office with a prescription for an MRI to confirm his diagnosis and the distinct feeling that with this injury I had just joined a special club of runners.

I felt like I had arrived.

I was almost excited when I walked into the imaging center a couple of days later, expecting to once again be sitting among my fellow runners in the injury trenches.

I wasn't.

Frozen in the doorway, I took in the other patients scattered around the room. The elderly woman in the wheelchair with an IV pole attached to her arm. The frail young man, head criss-crossed with scars. The boy with casts on all of his limbs. The cluster of somber faced women - some without hair - sitting by the doorway marked "breast imaging." A doctor in a lab coat murmuring something to a crying woman.

I took myself and my running injury to an empty chair in the very back corner of the room and sank into it as my leg gave a dull, pathetic throb.

I didn't feel so badass anymore.

Where A Morning Ritual Becomes Something More

As I stepped through the front entrance to the train station, the sign shone like a beacon in the darkness.

"Reunion Coffee"

I had, for the most part, been making coffee at home which, while satisfactory, didn't make me feel like a real suburbanite. In my mind, real suburbanites stopped for coffee on the way to work. They had a regular place they went and a regular order they didn't have to place because the barista already knew it. I observed evidence of this phenomenon dotting the train platform every morning, in the form of to-go cups in hands, while I clutched my paper hot cup, bought in bulk at Costco, feeling like an impostor among the more seasoned train-riders.

I was still getting used to moving my schedule an hour earlier to accommodate my commute, and mornings were tight, leaving no time for me to make an extra stop and still get to my train on time. So I figured, for the time being at least, I was stuck with my regular old homemade coffee.

One morning, just a couple of months into our suburban adventure, David needed my car for the day so he drove me to the train and dropped me off at the front entrance, which I had never used before. And when I walked through the automatic sliding doors, the glorious smell of coffee hit me in the face and the sign was the very first thing I saw.

Without even thinking about it I joined the line, and before long I was standing at the window where a smiling woman manned the cash register.

"What'll you have?" she asked.

I ordered a large coffee with skim milk and stepped to the side. Thirty seconds later the to-go cup was in my hand, and I made it up to the train platform with more than a minute to spare.

The next morning I was back in line, but this time I didn't have to order. I had barely reached the window when the cashier looked at me and said "large with skim?"

And so began my morning ritual.

Every day I paid a visit to that coffee shop, and spending thirty seconds with those smiling women who knew exactly what I wanted made me feel more like I belonged in this new place than all the synagogue new member baskets and the hundreds of "welcome to the neighborhood" visits and phone calls combined.

Just after New Years a sign informed us that at the end of January Reunion Coffee would be closing, having lost their bid to renew the lease.

And two weeks ago on their final day, as I expressed my disappointment along with my fellow patrons, it occurred to me that I have been here long enough now to be a part of all of this. The opening and closing of stores, the coming and going of people, the hustle and bustle of lives lived. This new town that is not so new anymore.

And the next day I started making my morning coffee at home again.

Blue Underwear

"Wear nude underwear. Not white. White will show through your pants and dresses, and no one needs to see that," said Mrs. Tyler as she stood behind the podium at the front of the cavernous auditorium.

At other schools it may have been strange for a science teacher to lecture a room full of students on the color of their underwear, but not at my school. At my high school, this was the assembly everyone waited for. The one where a much-loved teacher lectured seniors on the dress code for graduation. There were no caps and gowns at my southern private school. Instead, there were white dresses and gloves for the girls and white pants for the boys. And nude underwear for everyone, apparently.

I slouched in my seat somewhere in the middle of the room trying to be as invisible as I felt. This assembly didn't apply to me.

I didn't need to know what color underwear to wear to graduation because I wouldn't be going to graduation, not by choice, but by circumstance.

My high school graduation took place on a Saturday morning, and as an orthodox Jewish Shabbat observer - the only one in my high school class of 186 - I wouldn't be able to attend. There was nothing wrong with sitting at the ceremony on Shabbat of course, but since I couldn't drive to the school, be in any pictures, or even carry my diploma from the stage back to my seat, that plan was rife with complications.

Early in my senior year my parents and I approached the school's board of trustees to ask them to consider changing the day of graduation. But this was the south, where tradition was everything and progress moved at a snail's pace, so the board barely even considered our request before telling us no.

They said "this is the way it has always been." And they meant "this is the way it always will be."

And that was that.

When Mrs. Tyler finally said all she could about underwear and called the assembly to a close, the room still buzzed with excitement as everyone discussed graduation, dresses, and the rapidly approaching end of finals. The festivities were a mere two weeks away, and I couldn't help but feel like every day until then would be one more reminder that I was - and always had been - on the outside looking in at this school.

With nowhere to be for the rest of the day, I got up and quietly walked out of the auditorium, straight to my car, every step taking me closer to the day I could leave high school behind and move on to a place where people understood me. Accepted me. Were more like me.

And on graduation day, while the rest of my class sat outside clad in white, I sat in my synagogue with my family, wearing blue underwear.

Just because I could.

Cycling With Soul

I went because I wanted to spice up my exercise routine. But mostly I went because the first time was free.

The room was pitch black but for a single candle on the floor, and even the excess light from the flame reflecting off the wall of mirrors at the front was soon obscured as the mirrors fogged up from the heat.

"Let me see your SOUL," boomed the instructor as he blasted the music so that the throbbing base seemed to shake the entire room.

"Let's RIDE," he said with a maniacal grin. "Everybody UP."

I followed the movement of the perky, ponytailed girl next to me who stood up on her bike in a fluid motion while maintaining a breakneck pedal speed. She made it seem as easy as a stroll through the park, while I held on for dear life and wondered when we would be able to sit down.

The answer seemed to be, never.

Within seconds sweat was dripping into my eyes and my legs were on fire. I am a runner and consider myself to be in reasonably good shape, but it was clear to me almost instantly that running shape and SoulCycle shape are wildly different.

"Speed it UP," yelled the instructor. "Turn up the INTENSITY," he screamed as the music sped up.

Muscles I barely knew I had were shaking and threatening to collapse, and a quick glance to my left told me that Perky Ponytailed Girl, damn her, was actually smiling as she reached down and gave her resistance a full twist to the right.

My vision blurred, my quick breaths caught in my chest, and I was dying of thirst, mostly because I was afraid that if I reached down for my water bottle I would take a header straight off the bike.

And through the fog of exhaustion and pain came my fierce vow to never do this again, along with a certain smugness born from the knowledge that I had managed to resist whatever addictive properties most of the world has found in the SoulCycle machine.

And then, the music slowed. The room grew darker as the candle was extinguished. In a voice barely above a whisper, the instructor told us to sit and close our eyes while we pedaled.

"Lose yourself," he said. "This is your moment. You can do anything."

I wanted to smirk at his platitudes, but I couldn't. The music arrowed through me and as I pedaled the pain and exhaustion of the class fell away. I found a rhythm and all of a sudden I felt like I could pedal forever and for one strange moment I wished that the class would never end. That I could stay in this hot and steamy room and ride this bike for the rest of my life.

Then it was over.

And as I joined the sweaty masses headed towards the door I was already thinking about when I could come back for more.

That I would have to pay for.

When Weather Isn't Just Weather

I was sitting at my desk at work when the snow started to fall.

I'm usually a big fan of winter in general, and snow specifically, but when I saw those first flakes drift over midtown Manhattan I dropped my head in my hand and muttered, "what else?"

I had never really been one of those people who focused on the weather. I had preferences, to be sure, but I never complained much when the weather was crappy. When it rained I opened my umbrella, when it snowed I pulled on my boots, and I mostly took it all in stride.

But overnight, or, more accurately, over the course of nine days, I had become an entirely different person because of a hurricane and because of a house.

I had recently become a homeowner but I hadn't moved in yet. So I spent Hurricane Sandy away from my house and passed the time worrying and wondering. I worried about my new car in the driveway and wondered what would happen when the debris started flying. I worried that our basement was flooded and that our power was out. I worried that our roof was leaking or that a tree had fallen. I worried that after the storm our house would just be a pile of rubble, and then I hated myself a little for thinking that maybe if that happened we could just stay in Manhattan forever.

All of a sudden I felt vulnerable and exposed. The night of the storm it occurred to me that I didn't have a landlord to call if my power went out or something even more terrible happened. Weather was no longer just weather. Instead, it was an insidious beast sent from above to mess up my house and empty my bank account.

So when the snow started to fall a mere eight days after Sandy and only four days after we moved into the house I just piled new anxiety on top of old until I was a quivering mess.

By the time I got home that night half a foot had fallen. The roads were hideous and I found myself dreaming of underground subways and sidewalks that were someone else's responsibility to shovel.

When I pulled into my driveway I saw David in the garage, building our kitchen cabinets and practically oblivious to the fact that the apocalypse had clearly arrived. I was desperately jealous of him and his homeowner confidence when I was approximately five minutes away from staking a "for sale" sign in the front yard and fleeing back to the world of landlords and apartment living.

I didn't really want to go into the house alone, but I was freezing, so I reluctantly left David to his tools and trudged up the unshoveled driveway, one eye warily on the roof, and one on the tree with the branches bending under the weight of the snow, leaning precariously close to the power lines attached to my house.

And I wondered if weather would ever just be weather again.

After a huge snowstorm and days of subzero temps, I can honestly
say that a little more than a year later, weather is just weather once again.
And I love a good snowstorm, even if it might drop a tree straight onto my house