a break from Hemingway
People in Seattle talk at a strange volume. They assume everyone wants to hear what they are saying and do not care if they don’t. It’s as if you are privileged that they are including you in their conversation, however, the conversation is inaudible due to the fact it lacks depth and a point.
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My neighbor’s lights have been out for a while now. She has always been home every day, and drunk all day and half the night on her porch for three years straight, screeching incoherently on the phone, Fran Drescher-esque.
She was even home, drunk per usual, after I saw the paramedics performing aggressive chest compressions on her boyfriend two weeks prior.
Thirty minutes worth of chest compressions. Then I saw a sterile sheet. I thought it was her at first, to be honest. I watched all of this through the window of the stairwell, where I could see directly into the frame of the apartment. I tried not to look during this series of an unfortunate event, but I felt some sort of pity and empathy and then one of the paramedics looked up and made direct eye contact with me my face singeing red and I stopped lurking. The poor boyfriend never drank, was maybe 45, and was always quiet, just said hi to me from time to time at the local corner store where he worked and I frequented.
Heart attack was what the other neighbors told me later. The neighbors also told me she still buys three bottles of wine every day from the corner store and said they are not going to have a funeral for her boyfriend of 20 years until a few months from now.
I saw a figure walking side to side, insensibly, drunk a few days after he passed. The figure was carrying a large black suitcase and could hardly walk and it was noon on a Wednesday. The figure was my neighbor again, with an equally drunk female carrying another suitcase, as they shambled up the sidewalk to her apartment.
But that was last week. The only time I ever saw her sober was a few days ago, as I was leaving for work. She was sitting at her dining room table with a stack of papers, typing slowly and with a heavy air of unfamiliarity, on a keyboard. I thought of baking her a cake and bringing it over even though I had never introduced myself.
Her blinds have been drawn for two weeks now, lights are off. And I wonder when she will be back home.
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I fixed everything broken that could be fixed, from general wear and tear, in my apartment under the winter grey, sunless sky. Yesterday I disassembled my entire vacuum, cleaned every part that could be cleaned, and reassembled it. My landlord would irritatingly never help me with repairing anything at all, so I would spend a lot of time trudging down to the hardware store, picking up a tool I needed, and then walking home, my days off as mellow as the rain. Then I would watch a video or read an article about how to fix said repair and then spend the next few hours thinking how proud my stepdad would be if he knew I was like him sometimes. I would put on a pot of coffee and unscrew something manually, always with a bit of frustration as I watched the garden spider in the window. It had made its way inside of my apartment after I brought in all of my plants for the winter. It reminded me of Charlotte’s Web a bit and I didn't have the heart to throw it outside or kill it, so I just let it hang out since I figured it was the most humane thing overall to do.
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A month and a half off of ballet coincided with the darkest and rainiest of the Seattle winter. It also coincided with my relationship going through a bit of a rough patch. It also was when I fell off my bathroom sink (see previous post) and even in ballet if I pointed my toe even close to my right knee, the-injured-from-the-sink-knee, I could feel my lip quiver. I got another infection in my right toe and my online ordered, too small ballet flats, which I thought would stretch out, didn't. My toe turned beat red and I did this limp walk at work and even worse during ballet. And if I even touched it, I could almost pass out. To compensate, I cut the right foot off of all of my dance tights. I didn’t wear my shoes most of the time in ballet and if I did a rond de jamb in class, I faked it, lifting my toe off the ground and cheating.
I was a mess. It seems I needed a break. Nothing seemed fluid.
I stopped running four times a week. I stopped obsessing about the commute to certain studios, during certain days of the week. I ate rich amounts of food and tried wholeheartedly to enjoy the holidays, although they seemed lackluster and layered with stress.
I took hot baths with Epsom salt, some with bath bombs, and some with a book trying to channel an overall deep healing. My leg muscles even relaxed after a few weeks of...relaxing...which stunned me! I don't think I have EVER felt my legs in such a wonderful state. I felt a bit like a sloth but I needed this. My year had been fucking stressful and I felt pretty darn alone in such a big city.
I did not enjoy relaxing, at first. I had to force myself to read books and not go anywhere. I went to the local bookstore and struck up a very awkward conversation about which books I should get and about how I found a typo in my Hemingway book and how I thought it was strange. But I didn’t want to read Hemingway in December. I mean, who does?! So I needed new inspiration which was the reason for my visit.
I reorganized my entire apartment and became thankful for my space and life. I canceled annoying adulting appointments I could easily reschedule. I strolled the streets and stared at people and wondered about their life stories. I wondered about my own.
I did a lot of self-reflection, watered my plants, made phone calls, wrote letters, wrote in my journal, thought about my future (and who am I kidding, a LOT about my past) I prayed and watched inspirational movies, and went to the grocery store...not in a rush for once and tried to call my family more.
But dance classes started back after the snow and I was so dying to get back at it. Well, not really at first because I knew I had put on a few pounds and my teachers would do that thing they do where they try not to stare, but do anyways because they are ballet teachers and that is their nonverbal communication of “better get back to it.”
My first class consisted of the other adults bitching in class, that the progression was too advanced and they want a slower class. I bit my lip. I listened to them complain the entire hour and a half. My teacher looked stressed. After class, one of them asked if we could go slower, overall. The other girl agreed. “If we went any slower, we would be undoing progress,” I thought.
I looked at her like "Girl, if I didn't work the past four nights in a row, I would tell you how I feel." I glanced at my teacher and gave her a reassuring look even though the adults were acting like children.
After class I stayed and talked to my teacher about told her how great her classes were, ran home, got in the shower, and then went to a second class halfway across the city where I made an actual effort to talk to students after class instead of just leaving like I normally do.
I then naturally decided to go a little overboard and went to three classes in twenty-four hours and my teacher gave me this look of "slow down, girl" after my third class the next morning. I couldn't remember the simplest combination, due to over-exertion and having too much on my mind and the girl who had only been dancing for two weeks showed me up in front of everyone.
My hamstrings are so freaking tight right now that if you bounced a quarter off my hamstring, it would ricochet back and cause a potential open wound.
All of this to say DANCE IS ********* HARD!!!
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“Some days it will feel like an anchor, but then one day you cut loose the anchor and learn how to sail.” -my mother when I asked her what I would do if she were to not be here one day.
