November 2003 Archives

home again. but my luggage, half my friends, and a large portion of my brains have remained in honduras. lost in transit. i hope they all make it home soon.

vacation highlights:
the dolphins racing our boat. diving off the bow of a ship sixty feet underwater. matt saying, "she talked foreign." the monkey la las. the deep blue angels and the italian moon-fish. have some bread! iguana licking. thanksgiving in santa cruz. half-loco, underwater spankings, and giant necksticles.

and really, the tropics. god bless the tropics.

thanks for inviting me along, rachel. hope you get off the island.

i'm ready for bed at 7:30 and the room is swiming. spend a week underwater and see what happens? i'll write more when i can think more.

i'm off to honduras tomorrow. be back in a week.

hammock here i come.

"i understand there are risks and no guarantees."
-medical disclaimer

flannery suggests that should be embroidered on pillows. i'd want one.

today my therapist told me not to come back. that i don't have any psychological problems worth mentioning. that's sort of bittersweet. it means the things i deal with are just me and i need to continue living the way i am; anxious, prone to feeling things deeply, and continually striving to be worthy.

i understand there are risks and no guarantees.

in the past couple days, i've found myself saying things in conversation. things that i believe, but which are not popular to believe.

someone says to me, 'deep down everyone is lovable.' i disagree.

someone says to me, 'things always work out for the best.' i disagree.

someone says to me, 'you can never be too honest.' i disagree.

some people i will never love. some things do not work out for the best. i've been too honest.

and although it makes me feel like a curmudgeon to voice unpopular opinions, just because i live in california doesn't mean i have to swallow 'it's all good.' i like that things can be bad. it lets me recognize and rejoice when things are good; like now.

nothing makes you realize how addicted you are to email like having your domain go down for a few days. if you were trying to write me and the message bounced, sorry. the sucker is back up.

i sent out a request for address updates today and the email has been pouring in. notes from people i've not spoken to in ages. i got email from fran and greg, whom i went to U of Michigan with in '90. i got email from dj, whom i lived with in Santa Cruz. i got email from kerry and alden and lindz, whom i traveled with in Nicaragua. emily took time out from studying law to write. alison, whom i was a kid with, sent me pictures of the house she's building. julio wrote and so did anita. and my cousin dan wrote and called to say hi. good egg, that dan.

sometimes the number of people i know and care about sinks in. those are good moments.

now i feel like a hallmark commercial. yech.

if you didn't get a request for an address update from me and you should have, please let me know where you are. that means i don't have your email address.

~ ~ ~

in some internet strangeness, i saw a woman yesterday that i know but whom i've never met. she sent me email a while back and we corresponded a little, then she decided this wasn't a good time to meet me so we said "talk later." but i started reading her blog, every day. and it's been a while.

and then last night i saw her on the street and wasn't sure if i was supposed to say hi. i decided to let her pass. it was sort of like someone stepping out of a dream and becoming real. and i liked that feeling so thought i'd leave it be.

a-bus a-bus a-bus.
another bus. another bus.

zella likes buses. i hold her on the corner of fillmore and california and we count buses. one, two, three, four, five, six, eleben.

she knows my name. i'm uncle zack. she says, 'i walk now' and takes off down the street in a hurried little waddle. eatin' some cookie. she's two. my niece zella is two.

our friend anita is in town so we all meet up for dinner. anita is more or less my aunt. she also, a few years ago, wrote a novel that's probably still on the best seller list. my sister recalls helping anita out years back and kidding, 'one day when you're famous...' which i guess is today. so it happens. and sometimes just like that. maybe i should try and find another agent.

i sent my editor at kitchensink a pitch. she liked it so i guess i'm writing again. a story about the meaning of names. what names mean linguistically and how having a particular name shapes you life. will being named zella make my niece a different girl than if she had been named rachel? do we grow into the names we're given?

if you have something you'd like to say about any of that, let me know. i'll be interviewing people for the article. people with hard names. people with common names. people who changed their names and people who never would.

how many of you know what your name means? my name, zack, is from zechariah. it means servant of God. my last name, i've been told, means "tailor of furs" in ukrainian. i think i'll try to confirm that.

i don't sleep well. the thoughts are all good but the brain won't settle. i wake up with current running through me. i do my laundry but forget to use soap, so do it again.

she asks me why love is so important.

because it cracks you open like a coconut. and inside; there's a tiny sun. a bush that burns and burns and burns but is never consumed. endless light and heat and awe to give and to have. because love is the only way to really understand that the world is bigger than you. that in love, you cease to be the important one.

and someone else writes me; saying she 'shudders in delight with possibility in having met me.' but we won't see each other anyway, 'cause my timing continues to suck. and sigur ros comes on the stereo and for a moment i'm back there, in bed in Amazonia with the Queen. telling her that we're going to sneak out together without saying goodbye, going to jump a boat to the marquesas, going to open a little dive shop and sleep beneath the palms. and be in love. i feel her lips on my fingers. i smell her hair on my pillow, faded from a year ago. i feel the storms rage on the sun inside me.

so i'll just be sad for a bit today, which is perfectly fine. not depressed, or howling, or hurt -- just sad. sad that there's love that needs to be boxed up and stored at the top of the closet like a winter coat. and happy that i appreciate this, too. that i feel okay being sad. allowed to listen to melancholy songs without worry.

because love is important enough to deal with the sorrow. and the fires inside, once lit, never go out. they'll keep you warm until the day you die and maybe longer still.

i've begun hibernating for the winter. but i still got lured out to the bar tonight, to talk with a new friend.

she told me why she didn't want love and why art needs to be ugly and why she needed her time to spend helping the world and why love is selfish and why people are cruel and romance a joke.

and, yeah, i told her it was all a big stinky crock of shit. that she was desperate to be in love but doing everything in her power to pretend like she wasn't. that everything she said was just smoke. sometimes i'm like that. i'll listen to what someone says and call them a liar to their face. because occassionally you need to wrestle the truth out of people and...

oh. i don't know.

i remember lisa, whom i loved once, and how she used to look me in the eye and call me on my lies. on the lies i told myself. i loved her for that.

and it's winter. and really all i want to do is dole out big hugs. and stay in bed until spring.

it's officially belle & sebastian out. that's for damn sure.

it now looks like i'll get to keep my job. i'm wary of proclaiming anything; from experience now. must attempt zen attitude to survive at the symphony.

today, in a new employee orientation led by the director of communications, i got introduced special. karen had everyone go around and say their name and a sentence or two about what they do at the symphony. i was joking with stephanie that i had no idea how to summarize my job when it was my turn. but before i could say anything, karen said, "and this is zack, he's the one you call when..."

max comes and sits next to me, letting me scratch his neck. after a minute i stop and he lies down at my feet. what could be nicer?

it's november. the crisp in the air freezes all sorts of memories; stopping their spread like a chill does to scent. and they fall from the air and blow away like dried leaves. autumn, they call it.

i think i'll start celebrating new years this week.