Incredible. It touched me at a deep/raw part of myself and I am so thankful.
It’s on Netflix. It’s wonderful. Grab the tissues.
Speaking of Netflix…
#2: Queer Eye.
I was late to the party, BUT I AM HERE NOW AND ADAMANTLY ON-BOARD.
I want my whole family to watch it. I want every friend I have to watch it. I want every office I’ve ever worked in to watch it. I want everyone who went to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (which—did you know?—still has gay-shaming verbiage in their student handbook)
…to watch it. I want basically everyone I know to watch it.
#3: Won’t You Be My Neighbor.
Just watched this tonight and it affected me more than I thought it would. This show was such a huge part of my childhood.
Being loved. Feeling okay in your own skin. Feeling heard. Feeling okay for who you are. Isn’t this what we all want? Thank you, Mr. Rodgers. Thank you.
#4: Music of Your Loving.
We went to Sylvan Esso last night. It was an absolutely incredible show. It was outside and we watched the sunset as we sang and danced along with many new friends. So much dancing. As the last song ended, we were sweaty, smiling, and filled with love. The dance floor mostly cleared, but a gorgeous song by the newly late Richard Swift came on…
My heart burst. Evan and I started slow dancing and trotting and doo-wopping around. Others did, too. Then it was about 50 of us, just having one last dance. Together. Ugh, it was magical. Just dancing like that together. It was one of those forever moments. So special.
It was already on this mix I can’t stop listening to, but now it’s got the coveted last track.
There’s a lot going on out there. Remember to love yourself. Remember to love your neighbor. Dance with them.
I think we’re all doing all of this for those times in life where everything clicks. Things feel right. There’s excitement. And growing. And laughing. And margaritas. And stars. And art. And joy. And creating.
And these clicks don’t happen often—making them all the more moving. A click that snaps and shifts everything inside quickly into place.
We made radio. Ten of us from all over the country—and world! one of us from Australia!—traveled to the high desert of West Texas to tell stories via radio.
I took a gamble and got an AirBNB with two people from the program—you know, strangers. My gamble paid off handsomely. We stayed in this beautiful, art-filled home. We drank wine together. Read together out on the back porch in the mornings. (Well, until it snowed.) We all stayed up way too late, questioning why our pieces weren’t working and—in turn—what we were doing with our lives. It was real. It was awesome. And I got to wake up to this couple every morning…
The first night, we all took a walk down a long dirt road to watch a supermoon rise. It was a telling force. All of us strangers, walking and watching together.
We hit the ground running. Listening to amazing radio. Laughing as we figured out we basically all had the same sense of humor and were all falling fast in love with each other. Learning how to use gear, programs, and each other’s sage expertise.
Between our marathon radio-making sessions at our home-base of Marfa Public Radio, we found little snippets of time to explore Marfa.
The funny montage of photos does it no justice. It was a town alive. A time alive.
Most nights were spent in the radio station, drinking wine out of coffee cups and writing and editing. Then we’d all call it and go to a bar for a margarita and some tacos.
The best night was when all of us went out to an incredible restaurant called Stellina together. They had incredible food and one of my favorite wines. We all unwound. We all laughed. We shared stories and guessed ages. Then Emilio Estevez came in with some friends and we all geeked out about a celebrity sighting in Marfa—which made us giggle a lot more. Going home that night, we pulled up to our home to see a creature circling our AirBNB. This HUGE hog-like javelina was very interested in the prickly pears on all the cacti in our yard. We screamed as we ran to the door and then would open doors around to hear the javelina snorting and snarfing down prickly pears. It was the most Marfa night.
Our last night in Marfa, we had a listening party. I was blown away by everyone’s radio. Wow. What a magic thing that happened in that one week.
Then it was back on the road—back to Georgetown—the next day. I reflected on the drive. Feeling the click. I heard this song on the radio twice. I had never really even listened to this song. Then twice!
Time with family—Evan included!—was so refreshing, too. Christmas time. Family time. Love.
On the way back to Bozeman, we had a long layover in Salt Lake City. The show—my first radio story ever!—was going to be playing live on Marfa Public Radio. So Evan and I stopped into a quiet wine bar and both plugged our earbuds in and streamed it on our phones. Listening. Excited.
dorks. happy dorks. // SLC Airport
It was perfect. Running around, making it work. It made me happier than I thought it would—listening to our Marfa stories with Evan in an airport bar. I loved it. I would watch him react to colleagues stories and be the Lil John of public radio. Saying, “I love that!” “Yeah!” “Isn’t that the best?” “Right?!” So proud.
We then left the airport and went to some SLC faves—Red Iguana and Bar X—to celebrate it all. The clicking.
And—of course—I watched the video over and over, because I’m addicted to that laugh. The beginning of this journey feels like so. long. ago. Because it’s been a really long journey—this whole Evan-in-Nursing-School thing. He has worked nights at a local restaurant to make it all work financially. He has pulled multiple all-nighter to study, write, and make it all work academically. He has been there for me as a husband, friend, and teammate. I’m amazed and impressed. And SO PROUD.
So for the end of his LAST semester in nursing school, I had an idea. On a trip with Allison, I told her about my idea to lip-synch a mutually beloved Drake song for Evan. Her response: “Well, obviously, I should do the Nicki Minaj part.” [this—and many more reasons—is why I love her so.] So we proceeded to have a weekend in Jackson where I relived my best middle school sleepovers and recorded MANY music videos. [the best. the funniest.]
So we went for it. And then we thought, “Maybe this would be even MORE fun if we asked some of Evan’s friends to participate.”
Evan was officially done with classes on Thursday and we were both just so ecstatic. Ev had to work Friday night, so I set it all up. I wrote on our chalkboard, “YOU DID IT!” I left him a card…
…with a bottle of whisky. The card included the reference, “I want some whisky!” which was from the night Evan found out he was accepted to Montana State University’s accelerated nursing program. A bookend bottle of whisky. [note: that post ALSO includes a strong Drake reference.]
I tried to stay up and wait for Evan, surprise him with all this love and then surprise him with this video I had waiting.
But I fell asleep on the couch. And could not be awoken. It was a long day!
So the next morning, I was shakey and excited and nervous and just wanted to show Evan this video. This ah-mazing video that our friends made so incredible.
So we were drinking coffee and I said to Evan, “Ohhh noooo… shit! I just got some bad feedback on a video I’ve been working on for FIB.” [lies.] [also, FIB = First Interstate Bank… a regular client.]
He was bummed for me. [gotta love him.] I asked if he’d watch the video with me and tell me what he thought of it. He stopped working on bikes to gladly watch. I set up my computer to secretly record on the coffee table [black tape over the Photobooth light, brightness turned alllll the way down so the screen is black… you’re welcome].
Oh my goodness. That laugh. So much of that laugh. Worth all the late nights. All the hard weeks. All the shitty months. All the alone togetherness. All the tears. Worth it.
I love it. I love him. I love this laugh. I love this video. Don’t even try to make me stop watching it thousands of times over.
There’s a lot of What am I doing here? happening lately in my life. I sit down at my desk at work each morning and it’s one of two types of What am I doing here?
It’s either the, Alright. What am I doing here? where I scramble to figure out how to juggle my workload efficiently and sometimes literally google how to do certain aspects of my job.
Or it’s the bi-monthly, What am I doing here? that is part of the constant existential crisis I have of wanting to be more and do more with my being.
Today, as I sat down next to the only other person in the office today and we both put on our headphones to indulge in our separate screen worlds, it was both kinds.
So I did what I do when I’m overwhelmed with first-world identity problems and I went for a walk to get a latte.
On the walk, I saw a young (age five or six) blonde girl sitting on a bench. Next to her—very closely—was a pretty rough-looking guy with tattoos up and down his arms. I almost didn’t give it a second thought until I heard him say…
– So where are your parents?
I stopped in my tracks and showed up to this scene.
The little girl wouldn’t say a word. And this man kept pushing. I figured out that he was truly trying to help, but he was being kinda scary. He would look to me every so often and say…
– I just found her walking down the sidewalk by herself!
With still no peep from her, I gradually got closer to the girl with each question. I saw a glimpse of trust in her eyes as she looked at me after a while and then I made the executive decision. I reached my hand out to her and said…
– Okay, c’mon. Let’s go to the coffee shop and find your parents together.
She edged up and almost took my hand before looking past me and darting off. She saw her brother down the sidewalk a bit and ran towards him. I then saw the two of them sprint to their parents—who were VERY far away, by the way.
The rough looking man and I kind of shook our heads and smiled to each other before parting.
Waiting for my latte, the little girl’s family came into the same coffee shop. She was a part of a gaggle of children—no wonder they lost one! I watched them trip over each other in line and navigate their worlds at different latitudes—the parents’ eyes on the chalkboard menu, the children’s wandering yet down. The little girl found me looking at her. Quickly embarrassed, she hid behind her father.
We almost had a grand adventure together. We almost had coffee together. We almost sat and solved mysteries together over hot chocolates and muffins. But instead we’re embarrassed of each other now. Almost strangers is always more uncomfortable than strangers.
———
This evening I procrastinated going to the garden until I was challenging daylight. I went out to a pretty muddy plot, since the sprinklers had already gone off. There were still a handful of tomato starts to plant and many weeds to be pulled. So I put in my headphones to listen to a podcast and took a few sips of wine out of my coffee cup and got to gardening.
About a half hour in, a man yells at me from the path. I take out an earbud and express that I didn’t hear him the first time.
– Have you seen a little girl??
– No. No, I don’t think so.
I study this man in these seconds. Oh my god, is this the same dad?? Did he loose her again??
– What does she look like?
His first descriptor knocked the wind out of me. The ones following did not help…
– She’s autistic. She’s probably in just a diaper and a t-shirt.
– No, I haven’t seen her. I’m sorry.
And with that, he sprinted off in his shorts and flip-flops.
Immediately, I regretted my answer that mimicked how you would answer the question, “Have you seen my sweater? I think I left it around here.”
Why didn’t I say, “Oh my god, do you want me to help you find her?”
As he took off, I threw my gloves down and pocketed my headphones all together and took off down a second path he left undiscovered. Running in my muddy sandals, I heard a child of some sort across the way and sprinted towards the sound only to find myself in a neighborhood with children abounding.
I walked along the stream praying I didn’t find her. Not like this. I wandered in circles. Looking. Scared. Confused. Looking. In tall grass. By the stream. Down roads. Down paths.
I didn’t find her. I don’t know if she was found. I went back to my garden and my podcast.
Finally, after a whirlwind search for a girl I’ve never seen, I went back to my garden and my podcast.
———
As I drove home from the garden, so close to dark, dusk holding on by spider web strings, this song came on the radio…
And like out of some indie film I want to make, I saw a neighbor girl run down the street barefoot in her navy pajamas. Her youthfully perfect blonde hair was flowing in the innocence of summer. She ran and looked at something before smiling and yelling back at her dad, back at their door. She turned on a dime and ran back to him, into his arms.
I parked the car and let the Lumineers finish as I cried a couple tears. So many little girls running, lost, found. I couldn’t help but wonder why they all intercepted with me today—found or not found. I couldn’t help but think of the niece who feels so lost from me. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’ll ever be found. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’ll ever find a little lost girl and help her find the world. If she’ll find me.
Would it be easier then to answer to all the What am I doing here?s
[I started this blahg post four days ago. I truly thought I would start and finish it four days ago, but here we are. this first part was written four days ago. then—now—we are four days, four years later.]
What a day.
Today, is the four year anniversary of my tragic ski accident. It feels like it was a lot less time ago. And in that vein, it feels as though I’ve talked about this accident a lot. I talk about it “a lot” because it changed me… a lot. It defined so much within me and made me declare, “I want to be here.”
It also made me start defining my years. The year of my accident was a bad year. A year of just surviving. Then there was the year of thriving. Then the year of change.
And now we’re here. I take January 21st and celebrate the birth of a new year, because it is when this huge, heavy calendar within me flips all at once—it’s heavy momentum hanging in my chest for a half second, before dropping all together.
This year has—frustratingly—been a year of stagnation. Stagnation might not be the exact right word. Spinning wheels and getting nowhere is the feeling of this past year. Evan has been in nursing school and it has been so. hard. Near the beginning of 2016, half of my company was laid off. It was horrible. I said goodbye to working with many of my friends this year. And while I worked 50-hour work weeks, I still feared for my own job for most of the year. Evan and I did so much moving, spinning—so much work—but felt like we were getting slowly pushed back or pushed down by some force of frustration.
This year of frustration and moving backwards has also been prominently obvious in our nation’s politics. It feels like huge steps backwards. Huge steps backwards for so many things I care about—women’s rights. environmental causes. funding for the arts. health care. racial equality. immigration empathy.
Today is a big day. I am sitting with Evan in a coffee shop in Helena, Montana—our capital city. We are getting ready to march with thousands of other Montanans who are fired up and upset about our newly elected president.
We marched, we teared up, we held hands, we yelled, we smiled, we laughed, we banded together, we felt empowered, we knew this was the beginning.
We marched.
Then we drove to Jackson. I drove while Evan studied for an exam. We drove to Jackson and went to watch Ira Glass speak about creativity and perseverance.
We drank too much whiskey and wine with friends and finding time before midnight, I raised a glass and said…
– I just want to make a toast… because it’s my FOURTH anniversary from my accident. And I’m just so happy to be alive.
I was. I am. The stagnation doesn’t change that and never will. Friends all agreed that they couldn’t believe it had already been four years. Me neither. Or can I? It’s back and forth so much that I end up in the same spot.
Over Christmas, Evan and I took a trip to Seattle. We stayed in our friend Dale‘s apartment. We were there to recap the year, celebrate art and togetherness, and plan the next year. It was hard—harder than expected. This year has just been an exhausting journey to seemingly nowhere, so we wanted to rest. We rested in each other. We did things around Seattle that gave our souls rest.
One day we had a tour of KEXP. I listen to KEXP every morning—have for ten years, because my friend Anna insisted we must when I started working at Alpinist magazine… when I moved to Jackson, Wyoming ten years ago… and didn’t know a soul in that very cold town.
The tour was exciting, empowering, inspiring, and joy-filled. We met a friend on the tour and her daughter. We ended up hanging out afterwards and talking for and hour. About life, bikes, music, children, nursing, living, loving, coffee, and all that lives on the stage of life and in the wings.
It wasn’t moving forward, but it was dancing in the now.
I figured out that this last year wasn’t moving, but it was dancing, crying, grieving, staring, meditating, reading, yelling, loving in the now. And that’s worth something.
this found photo in KEXP’s performance space captures the wanting and excitement.
There has been much nowness—and I need to appreciate that. This last year—I want to call it stagnant—but I think it demands to be something more along the lines of “introspective.”
This next year—this next year, though!—will be more movement, more outro-spection.
I will submit essays like a motherfucker until I’m published.
I will protest and write and call and yell until my colleagues think I’m crazy and my representatives know I’m not going anywhere.
I will run until my lungs are joyously impressed.
I will create like it’s urgent.
I will love like it’s necessary.
I will dance like it’s obviously welcome.
I will create. I will aim high. I will be loud. I will be persistently going forward.
Things have been hard. Other things, yes, but the election and days following have been very hard. A few days after the news, I received a group email from a strong, fired-up woman of a friend. It was addressed to several other strong, fired-up women. The email was titled “What the fuck?”
It was asking how we’re all doing and what we’re all doing. Replying to it was more therapeutic than I thought it would be. The woman who replied before me included that she was 2/3rds into a bottle of wine.
I want to share my reply to this email chain, this time, all of it:
“I’ll cheers to that… mostly the 2/3rds of a bottle of wine, you’re a glass ahead of me.
with all of this, I’ve got nothing. I feel empty and suffocated at the same time. I immediately felt oppressed as a woman. I keep saying over and over, “I don’t know.” or, “I’m just sad.” or, “I’m just tired.” but mostly, “I don’t know.” and then sometimes, “not great.”
Evan is in the poorest part of Montana right now—on an Indian Reservation six hours away. he’s there for a nursing school rotation, giving general care. he’s sleeping in teepees and going to sweat lodges and connecting with tribe members. I’m so jealous. it feels like that’s where all of America should be right now.
Saturday, after I finally got myself out of the house, I walked downtown and the sky was beautiful and the light was perfect and I kept repeating, “there is light. there is light.” on that same trip, I saw a man holding a sign that said, “LOVE EACH OTHER.” and then I saw two drunk frat guys approach him and accuse him of being someone “who voted for Hilary, huh?” then they “had words” for him, trying to start a fight. and I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t tell them to stop. I didn’t call the cops. I didn’t ask if that guy needed help. and I couldn’t figure out if there is light.
I feel a bit dead behind the eyes right now. hoping to not feel that way soon, but not really doing much to not feel that way. yesterday, I went as a mentor-esque figure to this event on campus. I wore a blazer and felt a million years old. two young women were talking to me about how it’s Ladies’ Night (some shopping discount thing downtown) and then there’s a Broad Comedy (all female comedy troupe) show this weekend.
Young Woman: It’s gonna be an awesome feminist weekend!
Me: Yeah, get it while you can.
they looked at me as confused optimists do and then I mumbled something about the election and then that Debbie Downer womp womp sound played and I excused myself to eat all the cheese they had on hand.
I am psyched to be on this chain, though. this conversation feels good. refreshing. needed. thank you for including me.
I am dead to mansplaining as well. “You know how money works, right?” was an actual question I’ve been asked in a client meeting. because of you and your re-upped efforts, I’ll make more of an effort myself. damn you and your inspiring words.
what I’m doing:
• listening to this on repeat:
• crying a lot.
• writing a lot for this writing class I’m taking. writing about mammograms! and contraception! and addiction! and having a vagina! take that, Montana!
• drinking wine.
• doing a lot of Tarot card readings for myself. looking deeply at myself and deeply at the world around me.
there’s a whole other—less self-involved—list of things I think/know I should be doing. but I don’t feel there yet. I am tired. I am sad. I don’t know. not great.
love y’all to the moon.
xxo, ray.”
There have been other light times. There has been light.
Watching—with some kick-ass ladies—an all-women comedy troupe slay it on Friday.
Hearing my 16-year-old neighbor learning to play Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” on the piano. Hearing her fumble through the keys to find the right ones and then move on. Beautiful.
Being a part of a rally in Bozeman. Hearing our police chief say that the police are not apart from our community, they are a part of our community. It was powerful and wonderful.
Tonight, I had my first writing class of a series. We did some free writing. Get a prompt. Write for five minutes. Share.
The third prompt was “I remember…”
For unclear reasons lately, I’ve been thinking about mailboxes. What they mean for homes. What they mean for love. What they mean for communication. And in the instant the of the prompt, I remembered a mailbox. Here’s what I wrote…
I remember the mailbox. The mailbox so empty, every time. My heart so broken. Every time. I had no way of knowing it could feel this bad. I was 17. I was inlove. And after two years together, he went off to spend a summer as a camp counselor. I was so sad… but we wrote each other all the time. I had to get my wisdom teeth out that summer. The feeling wasn’t pain. The feeling was life underwater. Slower because of the drugs. My head was light, but my mouth was heavy, full of gauze. He just so happened to be visiting home the day after my procedure. He looked at me. Me with my chipmunk cheeks. And he told me we were over. “Whaaad?” I asked, muffled and swollen and crumbling into the pain now. I don’t remember much after that. I just remember the weeks to come. Checking the mailbox every day. Feeling inside the empty tin. So hot. So empty. I wondered if I could climb in, shut the door, and be in that darkness instead.
I assured my classmates that I am happily married now.
Checking the mailbox. It means something different to me now—thank god. It means something, though. I’ve put together some of the songs—old and new—then and now—full and empty—in a playlist for sharing. I hope you enjoy the tunes.
