Feelings Are Facts

23 months.

Almost 2 years.

The ortho put on an even tighter wire last week (what is this the fourth in 5 months?) and everything has felt off kilter since. I wake up with the right side of my jaw hurting, teeth not lining up in a way that I can comfortably chew, and feeling like I've been hurtled back in time a year when it felt exactly the same way. I convinced myself that I could pay two years of penance and then this would all be over, but now my timeline has been extended by six months, and possibly more. We're optimistically looking at December.

I signed a contract, both literally and emotionally, to go through this process for two years, but now that the terms of that contract have not been upheld, I am in a word, angry. If I don't have to keep to the rules of this contract anymore, then the renegade revolutionary is coming out. Guns blazing.

My boss said to me today, "Feelings are facts" which I thought was so wise. The reality of any situation doesn't matter, it's the perception of it, the feeling of it that rules one's existence. ("Nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" said our fair Hamlet, and his perceptions were not always correct.) I've had my own misperceptions about what I look like, how I feel, even how I'm supposed to react. My friend Mick had a come-to-Jesus moment with me the other night when he emphatically told me that these braces do not make me any less in any way. Mick has this great voice and earnestness that makes it easy to believe him. With this broken two year contract, I'm now angry enough to believe him.

I've reset the clock on he right hand side of the page. We're back into the 100s when we really should have been in the low single digits. Nothing left to do, but in the words of Usher: push it to the limit give it more. Thanks to my niece, this is my new theme song.

The 20s Are Roaring

The 1920s are following me.

A few weeks ago I attended the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island which was like stepping into one utterly fun time machine. Flappers did the Charleston to sounds of Michael Arenella's Dreamland Orchestra as onlookers tapped their feet and danced on the sidelines. We found a picnic spot by the vintage cars, sipped San Germain cocktails and watched triumphantly as our friends participated in a massive game of tug o' war. It was utterly charming to see all the men in their classic get-ups and women in their flapper finery pulling that rope. And doubly charming to see how delightful simple pleasures are. There is no computer game that could possibly compare with the thrill of simple, focused competetion--with incredibly fashionable participants! What a scene!

I just finished reading The Paris Wife, a wonderful book about the life of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest's first wife. I was never a big fan of Hemingway--too male, too misogynist, too...Hemingway. I read A Farewell to Arms in college and I remember nothing more than hating the book. But now, after The Paris Wife, I'm lightly obsessed with Hemingway. He wants me to read him, seducing me in much the same way that he's coaxed his lovers to come to him despite his forcefulness, his narcissism, his his ego. I read this in A Moveable Feast just recently and it is what I think he is calling: "I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me now, and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil. Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it."

And as if that wasn't enough, I saw the lovely Midnight in Paris

and was further enmeshed and enveloped by 1920s Paris. If you haven't seen it, go. So delightful, so wonderful, and perhaps, so apt. I, too, would like to be invited by partygoers in a vintage car to go back in time and meet with history's heroes to advise me how to become my best self. Heck, I'd be happy to simply to go back to a time when I was unshackled by braces and this crazy oppressive heatwave we're experiencing. (It's 11:30pm, and the temperature has dropped finally to 90 degrees...)

The 20s are trying to tell me something--in fact its roaring in my ear with all its modernity, possibility and freedom: "You belong to me now, and all of New York belongs to me. I belong to this computer, and this blog. Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it."

Back In Brooklyn

I do apologize for the long break in writing but as some of you know, I've been traveling quite a bit, and after taking in the wonders, scents, spices and life changing adventures of Morocco I've been craving sitting still and simply being a Brooklynite. Last night I had a magical evening on TJ's roof with 10 other friends where we ate all sorts of nibblies, had cocktails mixed with Absolut Brooklyn (which might be my new favorite thing) and watched the sun set over the Manhattan skyline. When it started to get dark, we lit candles and chatted and laughed and relaxed in the lazy summer night.

A few houses over, someone set off a bunch of fireworks from his roof and we all ooohed and ahhhed like little children for the few minutes that they blazed in the sky--a common side effect of fireworks. When the sparking hullaballoo was finished we clapped and hooted in appreciation only to hear many pockets of other Brooklynites on their rooftops clapping and hooting as well. We all giggled, thinking we were alone at our rooftop party only to find that everyone in Brooklyn, it seemed, all had the same idea.

After eating a full spread of appetizers and a few pizzas (and a nightcap of TJ's homemade bourbon cherry cocktail) I woke up this morning feeling the need to run off my excesses in the park at 8:30 in the morning. I haven't gone running in close to a year, and the need to get out was so strong that I didn't fight it. I did the whole 5K loop, sometimes walking, sometimes running, but fully proud that I went the whole distance. On the way home I saw a family--a mom a dad and two small towheaded children--sitting on the stoop eating their breakfast of toast and large smile-shaped slices of watermelon. The papa was holding a fancy teacup and saucer which looked Moroccan in its design. Witnessing this calm morning scene, I fell in love with my neighborhood as much as I had the night before.

Henry James said, "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." What a double delight to have the sights of Morocco still fresh in my eyes, and the sights of Brooklyn seen anew!