Spirit Animals

The presidential political season is like being single and still buying food in bulk: sure that giant bag of chicken nuggets was exciting at first, but after a few too many days of it you just want to scream, “I’M DONE WITH YOU, NUGGETS!” Not that this has ever happened. This is hypothetical.*

In light of the dirty side of politics, where every icon is beaten into something less respectable/human, I’ve decided to hoard spirit animals like people with money hoard things that cost money (I don’t know what people with money actually hoard).

I’m going super fluffy here.

What is a spirit animal? Who the heck cares.

I like to imagine them like as my patronus, only instead of an otter coming out of my magic wand when I yell, “EXPECTO PATRONUM!” an actual likeness of Hermione Granger would emerge. 

I HAVE A STICK!

Of course I never yell EXPECTO PATRONUM when holding things like pens, or sticks, or rulers, or dog treats. Never. I am an adult and we don’t do things like that.**

My spirit animals are not people I actually know. Several aren’t even real people. That’s not even the point. Instead, they are ever-present examples of some specific and desired trait.

My spirit animal of ambition is Dolly Parton.  The youngest of 12 children from a dirt-poor family, she has been inducted the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame and has a National Metal of the Arts (and 8 Grammys). She’s released 41 studio albums over her career. She's credited with having written over 3,000 songs. She retained the rights to all of her songs when it was a risky decision (earning her the nickname “the Iron Butterfly”) and continues to write, perform, act and produce well into her 60s. Some days I don’t even put on pants until 3pm. Help me, Dolly.

That's rhinestones & a Kennedy Center Metal, MFers. 

For the beauty of brutal honesty, my spirit animal is Anne Lamott. It takes enormous courage to be honest about you. It takes more to tell others about this honesty with wit and charm and incredible skill. In Lamott’s books she faces honesty head on, and paints herself as this whole person, full of incredible brokenness, hurts, scars, loves, addictions, humor, fear, grace, talent, compassion, anger, and sarcasm. I hope to one day write one sentence as true as any of hers. One of my all-time favorites: “I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.” 

No photo needed. You just need to picture Jesus drinking gin. Out of a cat dish. 

CJ Cregg is my spirit animal of idealism. It helps that she is birthed out of the mind of a coked-up Aaron Sorkin (before he had an Oscar and hated the Internet) and thus doesn’t suffer the imperfections of reality. She is my spirit animal because Claudia Jean never wavered in her convictions. She believed in the American form of government, even while neck-deep in its worst moments. She still believed that one person could change the world. At the end of the series she’s asked what single issue in the world she would focus on, given $10 billion to solve it. Her immediate response was, “Highways in Africa. It isn’t sexy but it’s necessary. Then maybe get started on plumbing.” That’s idealism. I wish I had it.

No shut up maybe ok fine maybe shut up. 

Tami Taylor brings compassion. Mrs. Coach is new on this list. I’ve only just begun to watch FNL on Netflix, but I was immediately struck by the way that Tami Taylor listens. She focuses on the speaker with an intensity and a love that brings tears to my eyes almost every time she is on screen.  She is present in the conversation. Also Connie Britton has hair that was birthed from the loins of Tre-Semme, the Goddess of Full Locks.***  I feel like her hair is where she stores all the compassion, because it seems too large to exist in a single person. I am a terrible listener, terrible with emotional people (so please try not to cry on my shoulder), terrible about not giving unsolicited advice or creating selfish tangents.

Even her hair is listening to Coach.

My bookworm self likes it when Rory Gilmore pops up beside me. Have you seen this list compiled of the books she read on the show? I’ve read 67 of them, and I thought that was good. I love her love of books. There are far too many people who don’t love to read the way I do; I like having a fictional BFF to read along. When I walk in to Malaprops I feel like Rory appears next to me.  Later I walk out with a book that is challenging and thought provoking.

Books look sad when you read US Weekly.

Hermione Granger is my spirit animal of unceasing commitment to lifelong learning. Ms. Granger-Weasley (let’s be honest, she probably kept her maiden name) is a character unashamed about her intellect but also one never content to rest on her laurels. She’s the type who will probably take classes for life; who lives to learn because she loves it. She learns important things, she doesn’t fill up on gossip magazines or pop culture drivel. Becoming a better-informed person was part of her identity. Me too, except I also really like the drivel.  Also she’s British so that makes her sound about 10 IQ points higher.

Smart people blow shit up!

Michelle Obama is grace & poise. She is well-spoken, extremely well-educated, well-dressed and well-liked. She is Princeton-educated lawyer with an organic garden and an affinity for J. Crew, with two beautiful & well-behaved children and a husband who clearly adores her. I know a few people who have had personal interactions with her, and they universally say that she is as warm in person as she appears, but in that warmth is a clear sense that she is also not one to cross. There is steel under her kind exterior.  Additionally, Mrs. O. has helped to usher in this idea of the female athlete’s body as something beautiful and desirable; that a fit woman is a sexy woman.  I feel like her arms are another subgenre of spirit animal entirely. As someone who is nowhere near fit, I’m challenged by her rockin’ guns.

No photo does justice to the wonder of Michelle arms. 

I like to imagine that my spirit animals combine to make my most awesome self, so in that way I’m like Captain Planet without the green mullet.  Anne Lamott (Honesty Animal) said, “My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.” Turns out the neighborhood isn’t so scary with so many imaginary luminaries.

*I really am done with you, nuggets.

**Total lie. I do it all the time.

*** The Goddess of Full Locks has an unknown origin. She requires regular sacrifices of split ends and VO5 treatments. You will never reach her luscious mountain top, you limp-coifed loser.

Ponderosa

• Discovered that one of my favorite Iron & Wine songs was used in what I understand to be a pivotal scene in one of the sparkly vampire movies. This annoys me to no end. Way to ruin “Flightless Bird, American Mouth”, Bobby Pattison.

• Living alone I’ve come to realize that easily ¾ of my conversations occur in my head. I’m pretty good company. I get less motivated to go actually see people though, which probably isn’t healthy in the long run. There’s more of me behind my eyes.
  
• I’ve just passed my six year anniversary here in WNC and the friendships I’ve made have begun to take on the richness that comes with the passage of time. I’m thankful for the people who’ve been with me for years, through the darkness of the valley of death. Those friendships just get better. I don’t know if I express enough how grateful I am.
  
• I talked to my nearly 19-year old sister on the phone for over two hours. Easily our longest phone conversation ever. I moved out when she was 3; we had a lot of history to cover. It’s an adjustment realizing she’s an adult now. The girl peed on my face as an infant and now she has an apartment? Something is off. I love her and worry about her and pray for her and am proud of her and am hopeful for her and all other good things. It’s a weird balance; trying to protect her from mistakes I’ve made all while encouraging her to live her life. I’m not particularly close to my other siblings; I hope she remains the exception.

• Learned how to play Damien Rice’s “9 Crimes” on guitar last week. That song SLAYS me.

• We recently had the annual church camping trip. I need camping. It is such a relief to be free from technology, to be a book and a breeze in a hammock, in repose. The smell of campfire is life. I think I may take some of my vacation to stay out in the woods more often, to spend hours staring at a creek.
  
• I’m thankful for my dog. I’ve learned so much about love from having her around. I still have much to learn.


• My novel is plodding along, in that I’ll work on it for a week straight, then not touch it for a few days, then obsess over it. The smallest things feel like such an accomplishment—some little bit of backstory, an opening line; a realization about a specific relationship. The creation of a historical timeline for the characters took days and, though crucial, it will never appear in the actual story. The process of writing a novel is intimidating, and if I think about it too much I freeze. What if it’s terrible? Boring? Makes no sense? No one wants to read it? What if I can’t finish it? Does any of that even matter? In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott wrote, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.” I’m consciously trying to embrace the shitty first draft mentality, consciously focusing on the small steps in front of me and not the behemoth of the whole.
  
• I’ve been reading “A Circle of Quiet” by Madeline L’Engle, and there is such comfort in the freedom to create that she professes.
  
• My grandmother died yesterday. She was 92. 

...For our Lives to Be Over

So about six weeks ago I had the misfortune to discover that all six seasons of Dawson’s Creek are now available on Netflix streaming.

Do you hear Paula Cole in your head? I do. Do do do do do do do do do do… 

(Incidentally, the streaming license didn’t get “I Don’t Wanna Wait” and so they used a random Jann Arden song as the theme music. This angered me for 126 straight episodes. Those last two redeemed it. Mostly.)

I never really watched “The Creek” when it was on. I was in college for most of the series, and programming the VHS to record was a complicated process, so I didn’t watch any shows during my uni years. I had enough teen angst of my own, thank you very much. I’d seen maybe two or three episodes, so I decided to take the plunge and Netflix binge it. 

The Beek is proud of me. 

In the nine years since it went off the air, I'd picked up a few spoilers here and there. I knew the jist, knew the big plot points. I figured this was a nice "it's too hot outside" distraction for the dog days of summer. 

Aside from realizing that 95% of the story lines from the first three seasons are made moot by the advent of cell phones, and that the ridiculously verbose scripts don't mean well-written dialogue (no 16-year old uses "maudlin" in everyday speak), it did bring me back to a less complicated, less technological time. 

It made me miss some of my high school friends, and aspects of my high school self. Not much of my high school self, but rather the possibilities that I so strongly believed in at the time. I miss thinking that the future was so wide open, that we'd all be friends forever, that we'd make it through everything together. Those aren't the sorts of friendships that come in adulthood. I haven't kept a close friendship with many people from my LVHS days. I was born and raised in the same town, the people I met at 5 were the people I graduated with, but I'm not close with any of them. Melancholy.
I don't think I realized I miss being 19. I love being in my 30s, but the year I miss most is 19, the first summer home from college, the old friendships that were still running on habit, the new ones that were still shiny and off somewhere else. 

Other Notes:

• I'm now really sympathetic to Joey Potter Katie Holmes. I feel for her and all the circus surrounding her life. Poor Joey. Plus her daughter's burn book is a favorite website. 
• Jen Lindley Michelle Williams is a multi-Oscar nominated actress? Who saw that coming?
• I'd make out with Pacey Pacey in a heartbeat. Exhibit Awesome----->
• I love watching day players on old shows who are big stars now. You go, Jane Lynch/Pacey's mom. 
• Every drama made between 1997 and 2001 was required to have an episode featuring Sarah McLachlan's "Angel". I'm convinced of this. 
• They were much more sloppy with details when they didn't think pausing TV was possible. I'm looking at you, NC vehicle inspection stickers in car windows that are supposed to be in Massachusetts. 
• First two seasons were brought to you by J.Crew sweaters, 3-5 by American Eagle. Season 6 was open season in the attire department. 

It took a while to find a photo where Dawson's hair didn't make me want to vomit

Upon 21st century viewing by a 30-something, I give it a 3.0. Chunky dialoge, nonsensical relationship arcs ("I love you! Now I'm totally over you and we have no lingering issues!") and predictable plot lines. But Joey Potter was a great character to watch change and grow. I get you, Joey freakin' Potter. 

The Linger

I’m rapidly approaching the two-year mark since the death of Natalie. I wish I could say that time has made it easier, and I guess in a way it has, but I still find moments when the loss of her feels shockingly fresh. She still shows up in my dreams and I bolt awake with a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes. The other night I woke up crying because I dreamed of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase in her house, the one just at the top of the stairs. I dreamed of the smell of the books.

I miss her voice. I miss it every day. I have this list in my head of all the things I want to talk to her about, as if we haven’t spoken because we’ve just been busy. I know this isn’t true, but in those brief moments when I forget she’s dead, I exuberantly anticipate her thoughts and opinions.

I miss the way she’d say my name.

I know she’s dead. I do. She’s gone. There are the parts of me where her absence hasn’t yet settled. Two years later, those places are smaller now. And I hate them for shrinking. I hate the places that have come to grips with her loss; hate how my life has kept on going at a steady clip without her in it. I hate every holiday, every occasion for a hug or a call, every big moment where the weight of her presence isn’t. Those moments propel me forward and she’s stays in the same place.

 I hate having to let go.

 But I am letting go.

 I’m resigned to do it. I hate it.   

Shining with Every Movement

The rehearsal dinner had the haphazard quality of an event organized in the tropics, where both cell phones and responsibilities have spotty service. A three-walled restaurant with insufficient waiters hosted us and dinner took almost three hours to serve and sort and share the English-language menus.

In the midst of the ordering and waiting, an after-dinner dance party was deemed necessary, as only these sorts of things can be. It was hasty and half-hearted in the planning stages, but once implemented went on as most dance parties do. Nineteen friends, found in different stages of drunk and sweaty and committed, dancing in a large pagoda in the backyard of a rental house to “Seven Nation Army”.  I most feel comfortable as DJ in those situations. I can’t live outside my head when dancing is involved; I need a task.

The dance party wound down at 12:30. Everything was sticky; the temperature was still a humid 90 degrees. A moonless sky served to accentuate the overwhelming stars.

 Someone suggested we go to the beach. A narrow path cut from the rental house through the jungle and out onto a wide and white private beach. I was one of the last to arrive, and the beach was littered with piles of my friends’ clothing, as if they had disappeared out of their outfits as soon as they touched the sand. Skinny-dipping sounds emanated from the ocean—laughter, chatter, splashing and reckless abandon—but as I stepped closer I realized I could see from where the sounds came. The ocean was teeming with bioluminescent phytoplankton. My friends shone with every movement.

Not our beach, but very similar to what I saw. 

I was hesitant to join them. I was feeling much older on this trip, and thought that maybe I’d passed the age of group skinny dipping. But my friends were glowing in the sea and I was jealous. I wanted to shine. I stripped down and ran in.

It was as if I were swimming in sparklers. Every movement lit up my whole body, each kick left a trail of light. I couldn’t stop laughing. The bride floated by me, doing the backstroke through the teeming sea, her face glowing from the moment, her eyes reflecting the endless galaxy above and below.

It was much too much.
And I’m grateful.

(I was in Costa Rica in September/October 2011; I'm just getting around to writing about it)