On not being ready

It’s spring, and even though I’m appreciating the suddenly warm weather, I’m feeling anxious. Spring means skirts and calves and toes and shoulders, and I’m not ready for all that. Not ready for shoulders, mostly.

I want to be a then and now picture. Not a before and after, because that feels too cliche. Then: too big clothing, boxy sweaters, slumped posture, eyes darting away. Now:…well I’m not sure what the now will look like, because I haven’t gotten there yet. I have an idea in my head, of heeled sandals, smooth expanses of skin, sundresses, and a straight back. Making eye contact. Looking ahead, insead of down.

The decision is made, the slate wiped clean. All that’s left is to figure out how to get to ‘now’ and stop living in ‘then’. In the mean time, I’m just not ready for spring.

aerial

Through an airplane window, New Mexico is an afghan. Blocks of coordinating oranges, browns and tans, interupted by tufts of green like tassles defining the property. It is landscapes like this that remind me that there is a ‘rest of the world’ outside New York. That even though I exist in a thirty block area, there are blocks beyond that, and plains and rivers and mountains. And cacti.

And when you stop talking, all you can hear is quiet. No cars, no sirens, nothing but the occasional owl.

From the air, Manhattan is a graveyard. Buildings huddled like crowded tombstones on a too small plot of land. And we New Yorkers, we are the walking dead, I suppose. That’s what it felt like last night, trudging through six inches of snow, hidden beneath a hood and umbrella, avoiding eye contact with my fellow living deceased.

But when I go to sleep, cocooned in the coffin of my bed, I dream of a past life in oranges, and reds, and mountains and sky.

Coming out of the Jesus closet

“Wait…you’re Mormon?”

It was whispered in a pew, in a church, where we’d been for two hours before this occurred to her. “Where did you think we were?” She had taken it better than I expected. She had taken everything better than expected. But what did I expect? It’s not like I was delivering the news that a loved one had died.

“Yes, I’m Mormon. But we prefer the term Latter Day Saints.” It made me think back to my first time in church, confused and drawn in, and what I’d whispered: “We’re sitting in a sea of virgins.” But it’s not about that, nor is it about any of the stereotypes that you think are true. They aren’t.

Here is what it doesn’t mean: That I’ve become a Republican, or even a conservative. That I don’t listen to the same music anymore. That I have started judging you on a different standard. That I have become a Jesus freak.

Here is what it does mean: that something that was wrong for a long time is starting to be right. It’s not all right now, but little by little, it’s getting there.

Here is why I never told you: I judged you unfairly and didn’t think you’d accept me. Don’t make me think I was right all along.

Think of it this way, it’s been over a year, and you never noticed.