Ode to an Owl~

Tonight I did a month's worth of laundry, loading up several washers, feeding my ten dollar bill into the change machine with chagrin. I cleaned three sets of sheets, twelve pairs of panties, my favorite jeans and, for the first time ever, my long standing stuffed animal, Mr. Owl.

He is small, Mr. Owl, and speckled grey. His furry feathers, once fluffy, have become matted with time’s passing, with each hour spent pressed into my sleeping chest. Lately, my dog Calvin has taken to removing Mr. Owl from my bed and dragging him down onto the floor. Covered in slobber and looking rather bedraggled, it seemed to me that Mr. Owl was finally in need of a bath.

So into the hamper he went with the laundry, down to the basement, and into the wash.

When I transferred my wet clothes, by the armful, to the dryer, I checked him over, ensuring that the rinse cycle hadn’t done him in. He was soggy, but markedly cleaner, smelling less of slobber, sweat and tea rose, and more like Mountain Breeze detergent.

I shuffled downstairs on the last leg of my laundry chore, arriving seven minutes early. So I sat there, perched on a washing machine, and watched my clothes circle round, tossed in concentric cycles of color.

And then, there was Mr. Owl, pushed to the forefront by a wad of bedsheet, flying around the dryer, wings flapping and squat form flipping himself over and around. It was a comical sight, to see how freely he bounced, reverberating off walls of cycling clothing. I laughed at him then, sitting alone in the laundry room, Indian style on machine number four. Me and Mr. Owl, old friends.

“I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke lose on the wind” – P. Neruda.

I think of what you’ve left us
Bright greens and pristine waters
Crisp breezes
And clean all around

Nothing but clean
And this cabin on a lake

If you had left us nothing but this
It would have been a world of enough
It would be just right
But you didn’t
Couldn’t
And in trying to give it all
You poisoned it at the roots.

I rode the train home
Up from Fulton Street
Late
One New York City night.
Across from me
Sat a mother and daughter
Dreadlocked
And embracing
Sleeping
And a portrait of love

Their entwined arms encompassing
Inclusive
And me across the car
Hungry
And made safe by their circle

This legacy
This land
This intersection of skin
Your body into mine
The planting of this seed

And the circle
The inherited repetition
Of these days
Reflecting back to me
In a blur.
When, in times to come,
I look for them in memory’s mirror

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21369007/wid/11915773/

totally my style.

Soon I will be twenty two years old.

That sounds old.

I feel young.

I am numerically advanced, but have yet to have a boyfriend.

I’ve yet to…well I can’t think of anything else that I’m “supposed” to have done by this point, but somehow, the perpetually single thing feels like a big one.

A big glaring sign, broadcasting my freak status to the rest of the committed relationship settled world.

Thing is, when you’re single, and the rest of your age group isn’t, it can get lonely. Which is maybe why a myriad of successes, accomplishments, and personal growth spurts are easily eclipsed by said singleness.

Or maybe it’s just the sadness one feels upon realizing that they can’t remember when the last time they really liked someone was. I don’t mean the “yea, why not? I sort of like him,” reaction, but more like the stomach flip, face hurts from smiling, can’t stop thinking about that person, I want him so bad and not just because I can’t have him, kind of like.

I certainly don't deign to believe that a significant other makes one's life worthwhile, or even fun...such has most definitely not been my observation. But it's sometimes hard not to slip into believing oneself less whole by virtue of a single status, simply because everywhere you turn, there's another couple, or another commercial featuring couples, or another chick flick toting an optimistic happy ending embodied by formerly single people becoming a couple, or another billboard with two entwined people, 100x their actual size and, surprise surprise, a couple.

Maybe my angst has nothing to do with all that, maybe it's just the fact that another year has passed and I'm still writing these whiney blog posts bemoaning single life. Fast forward fifty years....will it be the same? Will it even matter?

Hopefully not. I mean, it's usually the single ones we remember once they're gone...probably because they have the time and patience to produce what people in relationships miss because they're too busy having sex or fighting. Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson...single and brilliant, here I come.