It would seem that the power of the good kind thoughts all y’all sent me over < a href="http://allchiara.com/2005/08/24/in-control/">my long weekend in New York worked their magic, as the whole thing with the Top Secret Plans and my dad and everything went rather well, I think. Now, quick, turn all those good thoughts and hopes and prayers and crossed fingers towards Louisiana, especially toward my lovely Eliza, and keep her safe from the hurricane. My mom and sister made it through the tail end of Katrina with only half the grapetree down, loss of electricity for a couple days, and a ruined yard, so let’s hope that everyone else is as lucky. Hurricane season, it may interest you to know, doesn’t get less anxiety-provoking when you move three thousand miles away. You can imagine what it’s like for people who have to live it six months of every year. Crossed fingers, once again.
Because they really did work for me, this past week. I got on the plane and my dad was there to meet me and I had pretty much the weekend I was expecting to have: lots of good food, lots of even better food cooked by my dad, a lot of walking around, and a lot of heavy Brooklyn accents. It was a gorgeous weekend weather-wise and since we stayed in the city we spent a lot of time walking around Soho and the West Village looking into little shops and stopping for cool drinks and sitting on benches in the sun. I got to meet up with gorgeous Molly briefly and we walked around bitching about writing online the way only people who write online can (“Ooh, and can you believe THIS…”). I even did a touristy thing (Hayden Planetarium!) and got to spend a little time with the person who I guess is sort of my common-law stepbrother or something, for Italian ices on Friday night. For various reasons I have always sort of thought that New York is populated solely by a) my family and b) serial killers who want to kidnap, inventively torture, and dispose of me personally, execution style. Walking around with a chocolate ice with someone I’ve known my entire life and who is my age, stopping in at record stores and laughing about what passes for our love lives…why, it’s just like any other city! People go out! People walk around and stop for ices! I don’t think I’ll ever spend any time in the city for non-family reasons…for one thing, I can’t afford it…but it’s sort of reassuring to think that I potentially could and that the serial killers apparently take the night off sometimes. I hope they are enjoying some delicious ices and Italian cookies with sesame, because man, you just don’t get that on the west coast.
All that is nice, of course, but the really good thing about this past week is that I’m feeling much more encouraged about the Top Secret Plans than I thought I would. Dad was helpful and I have a good sense of what I need to do next. Yeah, what I need to do next is a LOT of paperwork and calling around various places and getting together a lot of documents, for a change. It’s starting to feel more within my grasp, though…it’s still true, unfortunately, that the whole thing could just deflate and I’ll have to go to Plan B, but I admit: I spent some time this weekend on my dad’s terrace looking out over the city to the river and putting in some heavy duty, richly textured, highly fine-grained fantasy time in, about the Top Secret Plans. What if they really happen? What if I make them happen, what if I really do this thing I’ve been wanting for so long? I don’t allow myself to get too into it, usually, because I am a pretty pragmatic person most lot of the time, my silly feather-boa-wearing exterior aside, and I don’t want to give my heart to this idea too completely. I want to have something left to give to all the other things going on my life, in case the whole thing just…doesn’t happen. I won’t let the Plans destroy me, whatever happens with them.
So, I’m happy to report that all in all it was a pretty good time. I got an early flight back to Seattle andw as home by one this afternoon. My dinner has been shopped for, made, eaten, and packed up to eat again tomorrow and my laundry currently awaits folding. The intensely stupid movie I netflixed is ready to watch and my bag is packed for work tomorrow. It’s just going to be another ordinary week, with bellydance and Trader Joe’s and the bus and library books. I like all those things and am glad to be back to them…the four days I was away did seem longer than they were and it’s just plain good to be home.
Underneath or to the side, though, of all these homely comfortsis this itty unfurling of big potential joy for me. Another obstacle is out of the way. There may be more to come, of course, but at least I made it through this one. It just started raining hard outside, like, boom, summer is over, man, and I have to wonder what the fall and winter will bring for me, under the gray clouds. How much further will the Plans take me? How much further will I go?