June 06, 2012

Buildings

I'm staying away from the Arena today feeling quite plowed down by life and allergies and miseries. I will return tomorrow with a renewed sense of pride for what it is I'm doing, which is contributing to a new landmark facility in New York City. It may seem somewhat insignificant, I suppose, to some people that I have fallen so head over heels for constructing and watching buildings rise around me and being a part of it, but it has so impacted my life that I must confess to it. I watch it, I love it (I hate it, it stresses me out, I dream of it at night) and I wouldn't ask for anything different and this path has been paved with adoration for the business. It's not really just a business. It's more so an event and to be involved is a ridiculous glory. I say these things at the risk of sounding completely insane.

Yesterday morning I was scheduled to attend a breakfast/lecture/forum to take place at the CUNY Graduate Center at 34th and 5th, neighbor to the above pictured Empire State Building. The event, affiliated with the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, was sponsored by my company (and many others) and turned out to be one of those crowning achievements of my career and future, ideally, in construction, as a woman. I loved being there and witnessing so many women (men, too) collaborating to discuss The Future (topic of the lecture and panel) and what it holds. But I left slightly early, as I had a massive signage meeting to lead and needed to gather documents for said meeting. I do not wish to drone on about work, and work-related instances, but I am head over heels for what I do for a living, as mentioned in the previous passage, so this event proved its worth to me. I can barely believe this is where I've found myself.

But that's enough on the topic of my work life. Except to say...living in New York performing this work is part of the poetry of it. Walking across the Avenues yesterday morning, in the cool June air, with blue skies overhead and crashing into the Empire State Building before heading into a lecture hall, iced coffee in hand, feeling adult, feeling New York...these things cannot be replicated. They can only be lived, and loved.

My week thus far has dealt in major distraction having to do with the boy. He left Sunday morning and everything felt incredible - his presence, his ability to fill me with an essence that seems right, and so on, but then I failed to hear from him further on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday (yesterday) until very late yesterday when I finally received an email response to something I had emailed early Monday. Doing the math, that sounds like a fair amount of time for me to have not heard from him, but it didn't feel that way during the wait. And I'm trying not to ambush, because I know how that feels as a recipient and it's nothing but an annoyance. And in part, the reason we may be proving to have found a successful brand new thing is that we're not overloading each other (aside from 8+ hours of conversation at a time) with communication at this point. But what gets me is that I permitted my emotional existence to become so completely distracted awaiting word from him. Trillions of thoughts swarmed while I wondered why I wasn't hearing from him and oh, sheesh, KB...man up, girl. But I did invite him to see Johnny's girlfriend Nilla's play (she's starring in All My Sons last and this next weekend) and he tentatively accepted so perhaps there is that. His email to me of yesterday did indicate that he's having a mixed emotions week, without indicators as to why or what, and I know, having spent so many hours in conversation with him, that he has emotions that dip deep, and that these things are affecting, to him. And I say this knowing it has little if nothing to do with me, rather other surrounding experiences that he is either cherishing or loathing, or perhaps a combination thereof.

I am slowly actualizing that simplicity with someone is never what I wanted or needed, and it's all I've known. Now that my exposure is to complexity, it is vaguely paining me. Do we ever realistically understand our own needs when it comes to personality pairing? Many times I don't believe we require a second personality to complete us individually. Yet it feels so impressive to have this boy in my presence, sitting on a park bench in Union Square, as we did last week, his head in my lap, his New York Magazine in my hand, me, reading passages out loud from an article about mosquitoes as I let another hand rest on him. (Moments like these memorialize well with me, like pretty little paintings that I imagine viewing with a longing feeling.)

I guess I just don't really know. I somewhat thrive on complicating matters, and as much as I hate to do so with this person, I can barely contain myself. When I was at his apartment last weekend, the weekend before this last I guess, we were watching a movie called Purple Violets and it wouldn't (on his iTV or whatever) finish...it froze up or whatever...so we were sitting there on the couch and he was at one end and I at the other, and we were discussing our loves and hates about New York City, and at one point he got quiet and was watching me and then made a comment about having a moment, looking at me, in the light, and I wanted to crawl into a small hole and just replay that, over and over. The way his eyes got cloudy (like in teen novels! No, for real, it's a real thing!) and the way he smiled right then.

Another thing that I find completely magnetic about being near him or hearing from him via email or text...he connects me to my name. He identifies me as "Kristin" on a very regular basis, which so few people do in my life. So insignificant, yet really somehow a thing to note.

Hmm. I'm not really sure we're headed anywhere. Yet, having these slight and also lofty moments will resonate with me forever, now. Maybe we're just both clinging to some idea, and not to each other necessarily. I'm fine with that. Perhaps we lucked upon each other for a small fraction of time and we'll leave this feeling less daunted by life's mysteries. I'm not placing too much into it still. (Or am I...?)

So, I'm tired of hearing myself talk now and wish to share lyrics from a most incredible NMH song called "Where You'll Find Me Now"...if read into too deeply, my feelings for the boy are embedded within this song.


All I perceive is wasted and broken
Silvery streams, sacred when spoken
Slam into me and into the ditch of debris
And you smoke in the park, you sleep in the greenery
Everyone barks and they are all still believing 
To tear out your heart would send all your secrets to me

But I let you down
Swollen and small is where you'll find me now
With that silver stripping off 
From my tongue you're tearing out
And you'll never hear me talk 

Your teeth believe that teeth are for tearing
Tear into me, the scent of you sweating smells good to me
As long as we keep in our clothes
And out in the dark the world is still rolling
Kids in their cars, cigarette smoking
And all that they are just reeks with the sweetest belief

But I let you down
Swollen and small is where you'll find me now
With that silver stripping off 
From my tongue you're tearing out
And you'll never hear me talk 

All I could want is silver and spinning 
Out from your arms and into the pretty 
Pit of your heart, so simply and softly we'd flow

But I let you down
Swollen and small is where you'll find me now
With that silver stripping off 
From my tongue you're tearing out
And you'll never hear me talk 

Glow
Into you 
I will glow
Into you


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