Still Trying to Settle

Dear Blog,
I'm sorry it's been so long since I've written. Life has been moving so fast for me here. When I can finally slow down I'm going to sleep for a whole day. 


A lot is happening lately… so much I can hardly wrap my mind around it all. I’ve been thrilled with my new job and especially, the feeling of being a part of something truly special. I’ve also been overwhelmed by the move to my new apartment (which is coming together quite nicely), though there is still SO much to be done. Photos to come... Thanks to Joe’s help, my room is now painted light lavender that warms up with the sunlight in the morning, and my things are starting to find their place in my new bedroom (one bigger than I've ever had before! Additionally, the windows look out into cityscapes instead of neighboring windows!) It’s been an exciting time, but I’ve also been tired and missing my family, and struggling to find my niche here as there’s so little time to get settled. Friend finding, yoga, even just cooking a good meal all seem to be on hold for me until I can plant my feet in this new place. I don’t know why I’m this way, but I can’t move forward and sketch out my routine until I have home base 100% settled. Why that includes cooking a meal, I don’t know. It’s maybe more of a limited time thing, and a no-garbage-bin-yet thing than anything else. Just in a week I've been through a torrent of feelings and sadly, on top of it all, my great-grandmother Helen is passing away. At first, I must admit, I hardly knew how I felt. Sad of course, but growing up and even now my contact with her has been more or less limited.

What I remember about Grandma is more of place than person. I remember her house at Fox Lake where she lived for a long time before she was put in a nursing home. She had dolls with crocheted skirts and the rooms smelled musty and sweet. There was a steep, grassy hill out back that my cousins and I would roll down in the summer, flying faster than we could ever run in a mad spin down to the lake that smelled like fish, lake scum and motor oil. We'd pull strings of green down from the curtain of the great weeping willow, tie hot dog, pickles or whatever lunch scraps we could find to the ends and reel them into the water--our ever so young and innovative attempt to catch fish. Later we'd run back up the concrete steps we so narrowly avoided on our decent and sit at the dining room table for a snack of Entenmann doughnuts (the ones covered all over in a satiny, reflective chocolate glaze) dipped in milk. They were perfect, the inner dough disintegrated into sweet mush while the harder chocolate shell kept it together. 

Grandma Helen’s house was many things; It was a dark basement full of anthropology and deep brown cabinets. It was a bathroom with a seat in the tub, a toilet with blue water and a scale with retro font numbers. There were motorized hula-dancing dolls, scantily clad, and a candle with an image of Jesus holding his heart. Her house was a brightly lit living room, dining room and kitchen all interconnected like one and filled with light, family portraits, Polish whispers, an ancient TV set with a knob dial and a lampshade with a hanging crystal lip. I remember the faux grass turf on the back porch with the screen and the fishing poles piled in the corner. There were rocks in the pathway leading up to her house where stooping as I followed my family in, I’d collect handfuls of them, crystalline and flecked with Mica. Grandma herself was a healthy, fair woman. She had perfectly coifed hair, pearl colored, and a wide, rectangular face. She was loving to us but also sassy as hell. She'd call family members fat and eventually cry because we'd put her jewelry in a safe place. Or it had been stolen. She couldn't decide which had happened or which we'd done. She was snappy and angry that we saw her so little, and sweet and smiling when we kissed her cool, delicate cheek. At times she believed that my mother and her sisters were her daughters. No matter what, we were family and she loved us, and we her. I suppose that by writing all of this down it is a way for me to keep record of her so I never forget. Family is family after all.

Overall, this past week has been a very difficult one for me. Perhaps the hardest of my year to date but I am, everyday, a happy person, a hopeful person, an optimistic, all embracing, life's a shiny gift-wrapped box person. When I lost sight of that one night and lay crying on Joe's couch he asked me, "When was the last time you felt this down and things didn't get better?" And you know? He had a point. Never. Things always get better. They always do, and they must. Maybe that's blind faith but you have to believe in something. As we go through times of hardship and recall the hardships past, let us never forget that as we move forward we hold onto the legacy of love and strength from friends and family and lessons learned as things get better, because we know-they simply must.

Before I sign off, an early congratulations to my Portland family- Cammie, Kip, Grammy, Jack and Maggie who are days from welcoming the newest addition to their family: Gus! I can't wait to meet the little guy. I'm wishing you luck Cammie, and sending you and the fam oodles and oodles of love and warm wishes. It's a wonderful time of year and time in your lives to be welcoming another little light, another little love into your world and all of ours. Your family is one of the most beautiful I've ever know, inside and out. I'll try to stop by this weekend though I'm sure you'll want to hole up all cozy with your new baby, and rest and recover and adjust. Just know that I'm there in spirit and thinking of you every moment! As soon as you send word I'll be on my way again to say hello! So much love!! OOOOooo big hugs! xoxo your Emmy.

<3

Em

P.S. ELEVEN. REUNITED AT BOWDOIN COLLEGE! SATURDAY, SEPT. 17

OPENING FOR NY'S GREAT CAESAR (Time tbd. Expect anywhere between 8:30 and 9:45... heh)