No place like.

For the first time, going back to Mom and Pop’s doesn’t feel like going home. I guess I can go anywhere now.

I love it when my food has personality.

“Zatarain’s Red Beans and Rice will be saucy. For a less saucy product, reduce water by 1/4 cup.”

I did not reduce. I like my rice extra sassy.

Can’t not dance.

New Hot Chip yay.

…

Seven years later.

“After reading [this blog] and keeping in mind that I’ve known you for seven years, it’s like I’m meeting you for the first time and I’m completely taken aback. … You know what I mean. I’ve known you for a while and it’s like I don’t know anything.” RG

Meh, I don’t know anything, either.

Simpler.

“Mom, I’ve been thinking,” I said. I’m 7 years old, ready for the school day, and this thought emerges between bites of Honey Nut Cheerios at breakfast. “I really want to walk across the covered bridge. That’s my dream today.”

“Which covered bridge?” she asked. How wonderful to live in a town – Lyndonville, Vermont – where this is a valid question.

I described it. We lived on a long stretch of dirt road that climbed one of the hills above town. Keep going up and you passed the huge, buttercream yellow mansion we always admired at Christmastime and the community college where my elementary school bus driver taught. Head down toward town and, just before reaching the highway where gravel eased its way into pavement, the hill leveled out into a meadow cut in two by a meandering creek. Over this water, with no road leading up to or away from it, was a covered bridge – a New England staple that features prominently in many coffee table picture books at Barnes & Noble.

This was the bridge. The idea of traversing it began forming a few days before, when, from the back window of the mini-van, I noticed an old man standing with easel in the middle of the field, prepared to paint the scene.

“Hmm, I think you’re right,” Mom said. “I think that would be nice.”

School, an afternoon spent running around the woods behind the house looking for animal tracks, bedtime with light still in the sky, school again.

On Friday afternoon Mom loaded us into the van. A mystery drive! These were always exciting. Would it be a trip to Dad’s work at the lumber mill? His boss would give us candy and the French Canadian secretaries would teach us folk songs in words we couldn’t understand. Or maybe ice cream at Carmen’s – the red barn in the park downtown that had been converted into a sweet shop.

It was the bridge.

Mom pulled over to the side of the road, kicking up grey dust behind the car, and four little girls tumbled out into the sunshine meadow.

“Why are we here?” little sister wondered.

“This is something Zoe really wants to do,” Mom responded. “She wants to walk across that bridge.”

We fast-walked toward the structure (“No running!” Mom warned). Walking across the wooden floor…it was all echoes and water reflected on the deteriorating ceiling. We covered the span countless times, sometimes pausing to peer through the rails into the lazy rippling river below. The trip lasted maybe 15 minutes.

I walked back to the van, clinging to Mom, showering her with thanks and love. It had been a perfect goal fulfilled. We buckled in; we headed home.

“So what about you other girls?” Mom said. “What are your dreams? We can do those tomorrow.”

Dear _________,

I know it hurts. All this sadness and uncertainty piling up, and it seems like the only bandage is to get angry (which is normal…helpful even in small doses) or stop caring (never, never, never do this).

Maybe this is just rhetoric directed at you, meant to help me. For what it’s worth, it does. When you tell me you give up on optimism, it reinforces my belief that it’s worth fighting for, and that your definition of love (noun/verb: always and forever) is worth fighting for — even if I believe this love can be felt more than once in a lifetime for more than one person.

I know right now it’s bleak. But I also know you’re capable of picking yourself up and playing a part — big or small, whatever you want, though there’s really no small part — in changing the world. This is a rebuilding time (for you, me, and so many others). For whatever reason, there’s a lot of hurt. So goodbye to January 2010. I have high hopes for February.

It’s never going to be ideal. I don’t think acknowledging this is cynicism. Loving yourself, others, where you are right now – that’s hard work. And it’s going to be a lot of ups and downs and second-guessing. I’ve learned two versions of the Pandora’s box myth. It’s the same fable. In both, she opens this little box of horrors and after all that plague and depression and violence comes out, hope emerges. But the meaning changes depending on how you view that last bit. It’s either a curse (always hoping for something that’s never realized) or a blessing (always believing that something can exist and working hard to make it that way). Please don’t give up on that.

And maybe it is a mean world – I read so many news stories each night that confirm that. But I do know that this morning felt a little bit like springtime (though this afternoon they expect more snow). I know that tomorrow, old men will pretend to speak to groundhogs. Right now, 7-year-olds are learning to love to read or divide or identify cell components. That’s what’s good about today. And it’s not even noon.

Love,
Zoe

One year later.

Anxiety, foiled again.

I panicked.

“I don’t know what to do!” I gasped.

“What excites you?” she responded, cool like that.

…

Writing. Lying in bed at night with a head full of phrases and stories and wonderings. Making things make sense in sentences. Or trying. Writing as therapy, comedy, commentary, art.

Music. Discovering, listening, sharing, dancing. Nothing has affected my friendships and free time as much as this still-growing obsession with song – from the strangers I’ve connected with to places I’ve gone for the love of (three nights in a row of Wilco, Bon Iver in the pouring rain in Ireland).

The world. How different and breathtaking it is. From silly conversations overheard at the grocery store to cows silhouetted against Iowa winter sunsets to the summer afternoon crush of people on Roman subways. That everything has its glory and its humor and that we’re here to seeheartouchsmelltaste it.

Learning and diversity of experience. My favorite college classes taught me the rituals of Hinduism and the murkiness of journalistic ethics. I broke matzoh at Passover, stuck my hand in a cow’s stomach and grew sunflowers, changed bike tires and perfected downward-facing dog. I don’t want to lose this curiosity or those opportunities post-grad.

Talking to you (and you and you and you), seeing you, hugging you, making you smile. Love. I don’t know when I started needing these people so much, but my heart breaks without them. I know I could go anywhere. I will. But (in this we are beautifully weak) I don’t want to go alone.

Welcome back to the rotation, Arcade Fire.

If children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little gods causin’ rain storms turnin’ every good thing to
rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

Like Edward Smith.

Whenever I hear bad news about journalism, I get this wildly inappropriate feeling of loyalty toward it. While most of the time all I can think of is bailing, when things look worst I get a sudden urge to stick with this industry until the end and go down with the ship.

Maybe it’s so that, 60 years from now, I can sit in a chair surrounded by grandkids and ask them in my old-lady voice, “Do you know what a newspaper was? I used to make them.”

And then I’ll hum a little bit of “Theologians” and maybe fall asleep. Because I’ll be 81, and 81-year-olds can do that.