the dock days

in the summertime, 7:47pm is the best time of day.  the sun sits low in the sky and the whole world is awash in rich yellows.  sometimes, the sky seems so thick with the day’s residue heat, that even the particles of light fatten into lemony brilliance. it’s a soft sort of beauty and if i were to skim the sky with a knife, i would come away with a pad of sweet butter.

usually, about an hour before the Best Time of Day, I grab my bag and head out to the river.  i like to go to the dock after work.  the dock with the best view is fortuitously the dock closest to my apartment.  oftentimes it is filled with messenger gangs (i hope i coined the phrase, but they’re harmless really) - just bike couriers who are either finished for the day or have come to grab a quick break with their friends.  i know this because i hear them talking - large circles of black-clad 20-somethings whose bikedom is a wreath of beater fixed gears and sweet rims laying at awkward angles against the flexing wood.  i usually find the corner of the dock and splay out and stare up at a meandering sky, grateful for this sweet spot on the river.  i am reminded of how many times this dock has been a friend...

in the winter, my breath froze in the air as i whispered my hands warm for the run ahead.  i would pause and watch a crow make it’s circles in the sky, the buildings lashed together like frozen corpses my busy mind draining until it matched the gray sky that matched the frozen river.  so quiet and so cold.  this unforgiving season promised to us every year brings a beauty in it’s cold claws.

when it’s really nice out and i have no place to be, i’ll usually end my long runs on this dock, cooling down by it’s the edge. i twist and turn and tuck and lunge and reach and gasp and breathe the musky wood and marshy waters. the greatness of this post-run moment is usually amplified by whatever song is on my ipod and if it’s temper trap, jonsi, freelance whales, lykke li or the like, i feel as though i’m in a movie and this is the part where i am the coolest.

the granite steps that lead down the wooden planks is where i sat with a friend who’s heart was breaking. while strangers took their turns by the water’s edge reading, talking, dancing, stretching, we kept our bent knees facing west, sharing our hopes for each other’s lives, and bouying our hearts with truths that will endure.  with the sun setting we rose to find our way back, leaving the rich dusk to the geese and night owls.

these past few months have gone by quickly. the sky turns darker sooner, the wind picks up and on it you can feel a change coming.  these days play out unaffected by our daily lives, rolling from one dawn to the next, because it’s what Time does....and yet.  we are so much changing.  or so much staying the same - but isn’t that change, too?  

i’ve recently been to oregon for a family reunion, to maine to my beaches.  to maryland for my grandparent’s 60th anniversary, and soon to boulder, to visit my twin.  so much has happened and so much has changed.  we put things down on a calendar and we count the days.  but the days that carry us there are the ones where we become.  the dock days.  the every days.  the days where we shut off our brains, lie on on our backs and face the blazing sky.  maybe we hold the hand of a friend, maybe we let our hand be held.  breathing it all in, it all deeply in.  and then maybe we see we’re just a little further along than we thought.  the musty watered wood that stretches out beyond the tides takes us farther out then we could ever be on our own.  and sometimes that’s just enough.

xo,

kay

hello, friends.

it’s been a while since I thought about how much i haven’t written on this blog:)  it initially started as a highway for my thoughts when i was living in Maine, unsure of what I was going to do next.  now it’s the quiet street i look to longingly whilst stuck in traffic.  i promise i’ll be better.

so i was on a run yesterday, having spent a few minutes toying with the idea of skipping out on a soppy river jog altogether and taking the core vinyasa class up at back bay yoga instead.  after some contemplation and a few blinks through the blinds, the 9pm walk home from yoga in the rain didn’t sound as appetizing so I hustled on some weather gear + headed to the steely gray Charles for inspiration.  a neighbor was just heading out for a run, too.  we smiled at the traffic light and took to the storrow bridge connect together.  his pace was much faster than mine. and though tempted to try and hang, i willed my body to take it slow, instead watching his legs flick like matchsticks across the pavement and out of view.  i was impressed with the number of people on the river getting some sort of exercise.  i mean it’s May but it’s not like it’s 60-degrees and sunny.  More like 48-degrees and pooey.

the thing i love about a run is how much you can accomplish in your mind throughout it’s course.  the sorting, the questions, the frustrations or thought patterns seem to iron out.  it’s a gift.  a shake-down of all that is real and personal for each of us. the talisman.

the rain came a little harder as i rounded the Science Museum.  i took an internal tally of the bod:  psoas has been feeling good lately.  hamstring will tighten as if on cue at mile 2 and so goes the calf and the soleus - but nothing bad.  the shoes are losing a little bit of their strike - i could feel the pads of my feet against the ground.  it felt good and i’m tempted to hold off on buying a new pair of kicks.  my feet feel stronger (or perhaps that’s just the post-Born To Run-glow in my body talking.  i loved that book for many reasons).

i turned down Memorial Drive and the windrain smacked my face.  that’s one thing the river never loses sleep over; it’s headwind.  

i started thinking about the last few weeks, how so much has changed, and yet.

the last few days have felt like a celebration of sorts:

my mom just finished up a show in Boston (To Kill A Mockinbird).  For the last month she’s pretty much been my roommate, with rehearsals lasting well past 8p and the drive to Maine too far for an early morning start.  we had such a great time together.

last week, I decided to do a 3-day juice cleanse (queue the collective gasp).  Yes, friends, each day for 3-days I survived on six, 12-oz purposefully made juices of the garden variety - and i mean that quite literally.  There are plenty of cleanses out there but mine came in the magnificent form of Organic Avenue’s 3-Day L.O.V.E. Cleanse, which consisted of a shot of chlorophyll (from alfalfa) followed by a bunch of pure, non-pasteurized, vegan veggie/fruit drinks - stuff like celery-cucumber-spinach.  Stuff that quite honestly will make ya gag after a few swigs (i got there).  I remember one particular moment when a stray grain of cooked rice from the beautiful dinner my mom  had made was lying on the counter.  I picked it up and thought about how good it would taste.  i don’t think i’m going to do another cleanse again.

i thought about ben - this incredibly incredible human - and what a great time we’d had the previous weekend.  how we’d gone up to his family’s camp in new hampshire for a wedding and had plenty of adventure.  we’d seen a bear on a trail run, canoed all sides of the lake, made big meals, drank lots of coffee (well, i did) and rebuilt the dock for the summer months.

rebuild.

rekindle.

renew.

repromise yourself.

we never stop learning about ourselves, even when we think it’s over - it’s not.  i have found i am stronger than i thought i was.  i am powerful and it’s not about proving it every time my legs hit the river for a run.  there are people who turn up and excite you just when you think the towel should be thrown.  and months later, you look at the towel and wonder where the H-bomb you got the silly idea that a towel needed to be thrown.  there are friends who encourage + propel the heart forward.  there is enough will power under these lungs to last SIX days on juice (though i’ll never try it).  we are a moveable canvas of incredible strength and grace and fluidity.  i’ll never stop learning this.   

i felt strong as i turned off mass ave and headed up marlborough, the final stretch towards home.  it was raining hard now but it didn’t bother me.  looking at the forecast i figured i’d better get used to it.  besides, it will leave more time for me to get on this computer and keep up twelveohsix.  hopefully.  :)

xokay

ps - saw fleet foxes at the orpheum last night.  simply beautiful.

Boo-hoo; the stomach flu.

I’m just getting over the stomach bug and i feel like a new human. but oh the torture.

I left work early on Friday feeling like a cement block had taken up real estate underneath my rib cage and a pitcher of water had settled on top of my brain.  A few waves of nausea later, words were swimming off my computer screen and so i peaced.  I knew what was coming.  I hate the stomach virus.  loathe.  i’ll stay at work pretty much under any other sick circumstances but when it comes to the digestive tract, peace out.  you don’t want me there and i don’t want me there.

I tell most people, including myself, that I haven’t had the stomach bug since third grade, but I know that’s not true.  I like to think I have the constitution of a horse (which I hear is great), but if I think real hard I know I’ve had it at least 4 times since then.  The reason third grade sticks out in my mind is because I witnessed a situation which traumatized me forever.  We all know that those years leave indelible impressions on us for the rest of our lives and definitely through the rest of 3rd grade.  Here’s the skinny:

Her name was Regina Brown.  She was a quiet girl with a soft smile and almond skin.  I remember she always had these crazy braids in her hair which were tied back with those elastics with the bright plastic balls on the ends.  She sat next to me in Mrs. Austin’s class at Annapolis Area Christian School.  You stayed in one class the entire school day and at this time of day we were just finishing up our reading exercise. Let me pause right here for a hot minute and tell you that this was my absolute favorite time of day.  I was the fastest reader (besides Chad Klakring who 1: was a showoff and 2: i had a crush on) and I’m pretty sure I could get through a paragraph or two without taking a breath.  Anyway.

So we were reading and there I am buzzing through some story at mach 3 and Regina’s looking oddly pale and I can sense her fidgeting next to me but here I go I’m reading and I’m almost done my part and then I’m done and we all get to go to the water fountains so we line up.  We line up and Regina’s behind me and I’m anxious because she’s awful quiet and it’s a different kind of quiet than her usual sweet shyness.  She looked frightened.  Walking up to the fountain amidst the jabber of antsy children and time suddenly slowed.   I look behind me in time to see Regina fold her hands to her face as if making a cradle and positively upchuck an exorbitant amount of bright orange (think Hi-C?)  through her hands.  Throw up.  All down next to me.  The hall went silent.  It was so foreign suddenly in this new space.  In my experience these things happened at home, in the bathroom or - in the unfortunate timing of events - on the way to the bathroom.  But never in school.  We were horrified.  Suddenly there was Mrs. A. ushering poor Regina to the girl’s room.  We didn’t see Regina for the rest of the week.  When she came back, and even till this day, I associate her and the stomach virus with the mental image of her in that hallway and the mortified look on her face and the uselessness of her hand bucket.  

I could tell you the other less-gross story of how, in 8th grade, I went through a phase of having my dad drive me to school behind the bus for the entire route (which Mary still got on every morning) for no apparent reason other than the off-chance that the stomach bug would suddenly occur and I would be stuck on the bus and have to use a hand bucket, like Regina.  This lasted about a month.  My poor father.  There are other stories - mostly from 8th grade since I think that was my "weird year" where I thought I caught every disease known to man.  We'll talk about that over coffee sometime.

Today, I feel much better.  I'm grown up and I took care of myself and I feel good about it.  Fortunately for me, every circumstance thus far has had me safe in the privacy of my own home.  But don't think Regina didn't cross my mind in my weakest hour:  She did.   And I can't help but laugh at the lasting impression a water fountain break made on me twenty-two years ago, and how it has affected the way I view the flu.  

(I also haven’t been able to look at water fountains the same way since, but it doesn’t bother me nearly as much)

xoKay

the dodos - no color

i can't wait to buy this album.  it's fantastical drum beats and happy all the way around.  here's the song that won't let my body rest - in the good kind of way.  i want the purple sky + i want to run and run and run until my lungs break open and mix air trails with this rainy day.  and we'll keep going.


don't stop.
xokay

 The Dodos - Dont Stop by Ragged Words

tick-tock don't watch the clock.

today i walked by a man in a wheelchair with a cane across his lap.  he was being pushed by his wife.  they smiled and so i smiled and waved hello, not knowing them, but knowing them.  or knowing of them, i mean.  you see, on my mind a lot these days is the idea of our getting older.  Not in the maturation-way, but in the physical, unstoppable, totally biological way.  I saw myself in the mirror-of-a-mirror (you know the kind that are strategically placed so they pick up the reflection in the mirror across the room and then there’s like 80-million Kays refracted and reflected everywhere).  it was overwhelming but it was me.  a Me that for a split second I didn’t recognize. and then i scrunched my face and it did it, too, and i was like, “that’s me?”

shouldn’t be a surprise, but it was.  the idea of me in my head wasn’t the girl i saw and that’s not a bad thing, it’s just, well, it just brought me back to the cycle of the cycle of life.  generally speaking, it doesn’t pardon any of us.  It’s a game we’re forced to participate in; it is the poker face that can’t convince Father Time that our lot is good, or bad.  Time is indifferent.  our chips are stacked for us, and we’re all in, all the time.

i am not old by some standards, and i hope you don’t think i’m complaining.  i’m not.  i just find it curious that this is on my mind.  that if i am getting older, well so are the people around me.  so are you.  so are my awesome cousins in Maryland, so are my parents, grandparents, friends.  so is my dog.  i never think of this.  it’s so weird.

yesterday it was sunny and i was walking down fairfield street towards my home when i passed an elderly man chopping up the ice on the side of the street with a shovel and kicking out the big chunks for cars to drive over and flatten the ice into wet stains on the pavement.  he was having a ball.  

“I’ve got an extra shovel?” he said.  not so much a statement as it was an offer.

i was flustered.  

he laughed, “I don’t have another shovel, i just wanted to see what you’d say. i love talking to passersby.  don’t you?”

and so we talked for a bit.  He told me of his daughters who live in Italy.  I told him how much i love boston in the Spring.  and then he went back to work, and i went on with my day.  but our small exchange stuck with me.  when do i strike up conversations with strangers?  or seek to try something new?  or take a risk?  or just get happy for each day and l-i-v-e it out, conscious of it - not of stupid stuff, like getting older.

i was reminded then that time is so many things: 

time is fleeting.

time is marching.

time is ageless.

time is neutral and it’s inevitable.

it’s a brick.  a simple block that can do nothing but tick away seconds. powerful because we get to choose how we use it.  i want my time to be spent in beautiful ways.  i’ll take the hard and the good together.  i must.  i like the girl in the 80-million-way mirror.  i like the way she grows up daily.  I’ve got today and so do you.  now what will you do with it?

xo,

A+

helplessness blues

ever have a song that cuts you to the core?  that opens you up, butterflies your heart in a way that joy and sadness, in an effort to separate themselves, become a new thing all together?  this song is it for me.  a new one off of Fleet Foxes soon-to-be-released sophomoric album, due out this Spring.  If this song is telling of the rest of the album, i will be in heaven come May 17th.  I've already purchased my tickets.  you'll come too?
enjoy! it's gorgeous.


xokaymills

 Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues by lamusicafresca

*if you head to cafe maroon, you can download the song for free.  yessa!

a relentless wind

i’ve come to understand that complaining is a unifier.  especially when it comes to weather.  it puts you in the foxhole with the other soldiers.  it can be called on to perform at the last minute and there’s always someone to commiserate with.  If we were to tie all of our complaints end-to-end, heat them up and lay them on top of boston, that blanket o’ whine would melt all the snow we’re all so hellbent to complain about.  what’s strange to me is that we all bought here.  we chose this place and last i checked, boston was still that one coastal new england city that would always be in the path of a solid nor’easter.  winters in boston haven’t much changed since it’s long existence and when we penned our names on the deed, the mortgage or the rent application, we chose here.  so let’s try to enjoy it.  ha!  easy for me to say.

I’ll step down off the soapbox now and tell you the real reason I’m enjoying it; i missed most of last week due to being in LA for a photo shoot.  So I got my vitamin D from the 75 degree-not-a-cloud-in-the-sky-weather.  It was like a booster shot to the brain.  Flip-flops never felt so good:)  

Now I’m back and it’s been a week and perfectly timed to yet another snowstorm with some ice on top.  I’ve just started running again and the last few 30 minute runs along the river have been quite the adventures.  For the most part, the Storrow Drive side of the river has been a dream and, as long as you’re keeping your eyes on the pavement for the shiny black ice, it’s been awesome to break open some tarmac.  The Memorial Drive side is absolutely horrendous, however, and I found myself with 2 miles left and 5inch puddles of ice cold water swallowing my shoes.  I found out later that the city of Boston can only distribute that salt/chemical concoction a specific distance from the river, and since Mem Drive is practically on the river, well, you just use the foot-tracks of the people who’ve gone before.  Which turns into slushy icy pools of death.  

Still some issues with the mighty, mighty psoas.  I went to see my favorite massage therapist, Anna Scire at Boston Bodyworker today and was all sorts of supertight.  After laying the hammer to my entire bod, she’s recommended I pay a visit to Dr. David Nolan, a Senior PT over at Mass Gen.  Somethings up with my gait.  My hips are off, my right hip socket clicks and it’s a pain in the butt (pun intended).

So we shall see.  

In other news, I want to highlight some of the things I’m loving up on this winter.  Precious Awesomes that have kept me smiling, warm, or happy.  Most of the time, all three occur. I tried taking pictures with these things on, but I just looked creepy.  Like those people on facebook who take pictures of themselves at weird angles in their bathroom or bed (two places that should never be shared with the public).  So I did my best with mac photobooth.  

In no particular order, may I present...

Super long scarf! This sucker wraps three full times around my neck so that just my eyes appear if I really want them to.  It doubles as a gut-hider and I feel so bohemianly warm (new word).  I also love the color.  

 These gloves.  I wear them running, walking, climbing, sleeping, camping, bonfiring, etc.  So far, I’ve had 3 musicians and about 40 people ask where I got them.  I actually won them back in 2006 at Defi Orford, a mountain trail race in Quebec.  They have cut-outs for your fingers - and I canNOT find them anywhere here in the states!  I’ve looked!!  I once got to yoga only to find that one of these precious gloves was not in my coat pocket.  I literally ran back out and retraced my steps all the way to the T, where I found it on one of the steps! A mini celebration occurred.  This nice girl on crutches laughed.  She must know the feeling.  Needless to say, if one or both of these suckers are ever lost, I will be as well.  

Sorels.  Plaid.  Waterproof.  Enough said:)

Wooly headband.  i scored this beautiful creature at a farm fair in the adirondacks last year.  it was weird buying it in august but it was so worth it.  i've never made such a great purchase so far in advance of winter.  i don't regret it and haven't seen one like it and i met the gal who made it for me, which is always awesome.

There are plenty of other things to get excited about, but in winter, these staples make it fun to rock the free world n’ slippery brick paths that line the streets of Beantown.  May you stay warm these final weeks of winter and find something beautiful to enjoy!

exhos,

kay