Sanctuary
"Wherever we are content, that is our home.
There is no greater curse than the lack of contentment.
Do not open your heart to the grim silent one, guard your tongue before the garrulous fool.
When a man finds no peace within himself it is useless to seek it elsewhere. "
~ L. A. Rouchefoliocauld

I have found that difficult and intense emotions oftentimes manifest as a general overwhelmed feeling and a suffocation of sorts. This happened today and I found myself flying uptown on the number four train, moving full chat boogie up Fifth Avenue, bobbing and weaving in and out of the mass of humanity, their shopping bags and umbrellas making my movements listless, like wading through water.
Almost there, I was telling myself, almost there.
And then, I arrived. My feet hit the familiar stone steps and I walked in a diagonal line upwards, grasping the big door handle, and pulling myself into sanctuary.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral has stood like a sigh of relief on Fifth Avenue for over a hundred years, existing today just beneath the superficial veil created by cigarette smoke and Feraud furs. Once inside there is grand stillness…except at Christmas time of course when it is just as much of a madhouse inside the chapel walls as out on the street. But on any old day, much like this past afternoon, it is relatively quiet, a steady, candle lit quiet, like a deep breath in or like shutting your eyes. There is always a pew to sit in, always a candle to be lit.This Cathedral, a sanctified spot, is seemingly out of place nestled in between Saks Fifth Ave and Cartier, places that in my mind represent symbolic capitals of decadence and surrealism. But then again, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change and I can imagine that those grand old stores are themselves places for peace for many people.

Following my midterm today and after the second day in a row running on too little sleep and too much caffeine, I had something that I rarely achieve but often lust after…

The perfect nap.

From 5:45 to 7:45 I slept, cuddled amongst my sheets and with the velvety caress of my green velour comforter whispering against my cheek. Light from the setting sun peeked at me in streaks through the blinds, throwing warm kisses across my pillow.
Someone had cranked the heat and a luxurious laze had settled throughout the entire apartment. I awoke slowly, turning over and slipping back into sleep a few times before actually opening my eyes. When I finally pulled open the blinds it was to a night sky and my own nap creased face reflected in the windowpane.

"Booya Skidaddi",
Thoughts of my Dad:

When your summer days come tumbling down
And you find yourself alone
Then you can come back and be with me
Just close your eyes and I'll be there
Listen to the sound
Of this old heart beating for you
~Neil Young

I have never liked the phrase, “daddy’s little girl”, despite the extent to which it has been used to describe me in relation to my father. We are, in a nutshell, incredibly close…but our relationship is one of respect and equality, one in which I have never felt small, there is far too much love for that.

When I think of my daddy, I picture him in his office, a room which has fit in different houses over the years (most memorably, an old chicken coop), but where he can oftentimes be found sitting in the world’s oldest three wheeled desk chair amongst piles of papers.

In this moment, my mind drifts back to the February of my freshman year of high school. Spring break loomed on the horizon and ominously so, as it had been a long, cold winter full of awkward transition. On this particular evening I padded up the stairs to my dad’s office, hearing the creak of his chair as he wheeled around to face my approaching footsteps. With a glint in his eye he asked, “hey sport, what do you think about driving to Ohio?”
A week later, one unlicensed high schooler, one well intentioned dad, one beloved golden dog and one Volvo station wagon set off on an adventure to Cleveland, a quest whose completion would yield a competent automobile operator (me) and our arrival at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

You know, sometimes, I don’t know why,
But this old town just seems so hopeless
I aint really sure, but it seems I remember the good times
Were just a little bit more in focus ~Tom Petty

A few years later, when I was visiting colleges, my dad and I took several similar trips into the woods of upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and California, creating adventures littered with countless Red Roof Inns, campus tour guides (and our shotty impressions of them), Bob Evans pancake houses, Tom Petty albums, and conversations that I will forever hold in my heart.

So where am I going with all this? I don’t quite know.
I do know that I am supposed to be studying for a midterm but can’t seem to focus upon doing so until I get this down on paper.
For some time now, certain things have been hard for my dad and I…and to be quite honest, that is an understatement. For whatever reason, a beautiful gift has been wrapped up in years of hardship, devistation and extreme feelings of loss. How often have I felt my father’s inner struggle deeply within my own heart, heard him ask for the answer, wondering why the fathers of his daughter’s friends are so different, why his path seems so far from normal.
To those questions I will answer this:
We are not normal, my dad and I. In fact, we are quite out there. But by God we will choose to see our difference as a gift. My daddy, from the moment I came into this world, has been my soul mate, my life guide, my angel.
And I am his.
I could not ask for more.

I just want to thank you for all of the things you've done
I'm thinkin about you,
Just want to send my love
I send my best to you that's my messge of love
For all the things you did, I can never thank you enough
~Neil Young

As I write this, my eyes drift up from the page, falling upon the photographs that are pasted to my desk. There in one in particular in which I sit upon my dad’s shoulders. He is holding me up, keeping me balanced. I would like to think that in a way, despite being a little girl, in that moment, I was doing the same for him.

Tomorrow morning my dad will embark on a new adventure, one he takes on with some trepidation, some sadness, and some fear. Recently having done the same thing in my own life, I understand his feelings. Our paths are intertwined so that his adventure feeds into mine and mine feeds into his. I am not there to see him off, to drive into the day with him as I have in the past, or to sit with him and talk about it face to face when he comes home at night. It almost doesn’t matter though, I’ll be there with him all day just like he is here with me. It sounds so incredibly cornball, but it’s the honest truth.
And that’s all I have to say about that. Guess I'll let Mr. Seger take us home:

Well those drifters’ days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out
Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
Well, I'm older now and still runnin'
Against the wind
~Bob Seger

In Praise of My Mommy:

Life is so funny; how we grow and evolve…it sounds so hoidy but change is really the only constant thing in this world and often one of the most difficult things to wrap our minds around. My relationship with my mom has changed in accordance with the aforementioned universal law, yet it was until just recently that I realized that maybe it hasn’t changed as much as I had previously posited.
When I was a little girl, my mom and I would walk into town from our beautiful yellow house at 201 Water Street. Along the way, we would pass by the various and assorted flower beds which lined the picketed yards of many of our neighbors. There was one house in particular whose fences were lined with an assortment of tulips as bright and blossoming my six year old self. My mom would bend down, cup the blossom of a tulip in her palm and pretend that it was speaking, saying beautiful and encouraging things to me, and prompting me to giggle out a response. Even though I knew it was my mom who was doing the speaking, I truly believed in the flower’s voice.

To me, my mother a vehicle through which beauty blossomed. I would watch her make art, piecing together panes of glass, or effortlessly guiding fluid and unpredictable water-colors with but a wisp of brush. She approached nature as art and art was her nature. From her I came to understand and expect the limitless possibility that creativity entails.

Yet there was a time when creativity waned, when tulips blossoms clammed up and crammed shut, when nothing seemed to flow. Was it a lack of creativity? A shift of focus from the natural to the force and pain that is a purely man made construction? I cannot be completely sure. I do know that for some time my mother lost herself and disappeared…without her, I did the same.

But not for us a wintry end, the sun is shining again and the tulips are in bloom, my mommy will coax them into connection, and I will respond again with smiles, with laughter, and even, perhaps, with tears of joy.

Oklahoma, Ok? Feeling Far Away from the Arena I Love:

It is a strange thing to come to terms with the fact that things are so seemingly an intrinsic part of your being continue on without you. This New York Saturday night, cold, blustery and quite uninviting, I am sitting at my dear old desk watching a live streaming of the final night of competition at the Grand National and World Championship Morgan Horse Show in Oklahoma City. How can I not be there? It is almost easier to feel as though it has ceased to exist, been put on hold because my ability to attend has been temporarily suspended. My trainer is jogging by, vying for the world title she wants with all her heart and I am not on the rail offering words of encouragement. Rather, I am saying those helpful things and they are going unheard. It’s a surreal experience to say the least and I have to be ok with it.

It seems so long ago that I was last there but in many ways, the familiarity of the Oklahoma state fairgrounds, the sweet smelling bark mulch, the cold mornings and warm afternoons, is as near to my heart as if I were there yesterday. And yet, for all my words of woe and feelings of exclusion, when I do return, I will find the people and horses quite unchanged. As with all good things, there is a fluxuation and a fluidity to the Morgan horse show industry. Young stars, both equine and human are brought in, not to replace the old ones, but to challenge them. It’s a beautiful thing really, but surely a struggle to let go of, for as I watch the miniaturized form of my trainer Judy jog across my computer screen aboard one of my favorite friends, I wish so fully that I were there in person to cheer her on.

The Bare Necessities~

Spending the weekend at home is always a chance for me to excavate certain artifacts of my childhood. This particular evening, I set about to unearth the long neglected assortment of Disney videocassette tapes from my childhood years. As I knelt down beside the basket in which these movies have sat for years, as I handled the familiar boxes and revisited the colorful depictions that grace their weathered and dated covers, I was flooded with memories of years gone by.

In many ways it feels like a lifetime ago but the memories are becoming more distinct these days and I can now recall a time when, clad in a little flowered nightgown I scrambled frantically on my hands and knees, overflowing with enthusiasm and anticipatory bliss, across the Oriental rug and towards the base of an enormous Christmas tree. Fondling each gift, I searched for the ones I wanted most and knew I would get, checking each package until I felt the familiar contour that instantly betrayed the contents. In that moment, breathing a sigh of relief, assured that my hopes would not be disappointed, that Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, or whatever classic that particular year yielded, would be mine. The same system was easily applied to the process of ascertaining which gifts held beneath their brightly papered exteriors, the latest Barbie doll, whose addition to my already abundant arsenal of Mattel branded maidens would surely make for the opening up of new worlds of play.

Oftentimes, when I was particularly lucky that is, the areas of Disney and Barbie would intersect, and I would find myself the proud owner of the highly coveted, Sleeping Beauty Barbie, a lovely rendition of Princess Aurora whose eyelids would magically shut, to be opened only by the application of warm water. Sadly, and for some reason that remains a mystery to this day, the princess’s eyes become permanently affixed in their closed position and no amount of warmth could pry them open from eternal slumber. Perhaps she really did need a prince.

So often do I yearn to return to those years of my childhood, to once again don my flowered nightgowns, be tucked into bed and read to, to lose my teeth, beg to bring lunchables to school in place of left over lasagna, to watch Disney movies and scurry off afterwards to dress myself up as Princess Jasmine, to shamelessly await Christmas day, and to blatantly check each present before its time to be opened had arrived. I am not disillusioned enough to think that the past was as idyllic as I often portray it to have been. But it certainly is fun to remember it as such.