Thaw

And suddenly the world is liquid again. It seems that the grass has forgotten how to be grass; the river has forgotten how to flow. The sidewalks don’t remember the crush of walking feet. We can feel the crocuses coming before they get here. Like smelling sea blocks from the beach, we hear the yellow burst of daffodils. And like last year, to find the world alive is shocking.

Today was the first day of walking in the park and admiring the ducks in their muddy splendor. While we mere mortals looked for parking, someone proposed marriage to his lover on a park bench. By the time we turned the corner onto Beacon, they had forgotten the world. We found magical parking two store fronts from the restaurant. People wandered into lunch without jackets, and wandered out to walk without a destination.

Nothing is pretty yet. This is only the prelude to life, the sounds of the orchestra pit ten minutes to curtain. The weeping willows sag a yellow brown, covered in manic, fat squirrels. The pond in the park is still drained, one long sorry puddle wallowing beneath the foot bridge. Last summer’s grass will prick your bare feet with stiffness, and a still-melting, grey snow litters the curb.

We are no better, perhaps. We have rushed outside in our sweats, too eager for breathing the damp, musty air deeply to stop and preen before a mirror. We are pale. We look like we haven’t stretched all winter. We are too used to being huddled and cold, and the desire for a lover that blooms with rains and barbecues is barely moving somewhere inside our spines.

Nothing is beautiful yet. The sky turns that warm blue-grey reserved for spring skies and the sun sets vaguely behind cottony clouds. The air is thick with everything that is yet to happen; winter’s impoverished breezes have escaped to someplace sick with lack of imagination. We dream, vividly, of past and present and future together in a moment that makes sense. Old friends reenter gracefully, new faces are familiar, and we awake with a rush of this wet air promising tulips and lilacs and idle afternoon strolls.

Out at the Common pedestrians forget to heed walk signals, but cars with their windows open and music hushed pause graciously for the absentminded. Iced coffee sweats into the eager, chilled hands of these Sunday strollers, dogs rediscover squirrel-chasing and digging in soft earth, leaving leashes to trail in the mud. There is nothing to see out here, no scents to entice would-be couch potatoes away from their Wiis, and yet the world is inside-out in celebration or anticipation. Someone even wears sandals.

To wake this way is bewitching again and again. It is something beach-braggers in Florida, I imagine, miss without knowing it. To walk outside one day and discover that you have been neglectful and sonambulent; to sense your body melt and move and to feel all the desires you forgot you had: this is the thaw.

Stubborn and irreplaceable, Boston's charm sings again.

What dreams may come?

The challenge:

Apply to 12 law schools.

The reward:

I haven’t decided yet.

Okay. I can be a bit of a strange mix of things. On the outside, it may seem that I’m some version of Together Girl; I dress well, tool around Cambridge in my cutie Dutch bike, I’ve just applied to law school, I run a successful outreach program at New England’s largest mosque, and I have a few small community-building projects that appear to be working in the way I had hoped.

This is what Together Girl looks like. Boots included.

Now, inside, it is a different matter. Inside, I am a half-fried mad-hatted writer with a thousand ideas, a hundred ambitions, and not enough time to wash yesterday’s coffee pot. Thankfully, I am able to disguise this well, but that doesn’t mean that my befrizzled inner self doesn’t weasel herself out of her cage now and again. And on those days, she renders me incapable of being either responsible or productive.

Five minutes. It's all I need, I swear.

This happens every time I have to do…anything large. Queen Procrastination reigns with horrifying tyranny, her adviser Sir  Stress faithfully by her side. The torture they inflict is excruciating. I hope you never, ever experience such pain.

Here’s where the odd mix comes in. I don’t not do things because I don’t care about them. Take these pesky little applications. I didn’t not complete them…um…more than a day before the deadline because I didn’t care. I do care. I care so much that I am paralyzed with fear. What if no one lets me in? What if I get one digit of my social security number wrong, and no one knows who I am? What if I mistakenly mark that I am from Bangledesh and they think I’m a lying fraud? What if I send the Penn essay to Northwestern, and the Northwestern essay to Columbia? What if I’m too late already, with a December LSAT? What if they don’t let Muslim girls into law school? What if I’m not smart?

Maybe if I curl up in this ball, the applications will do themselves?

I know. I know I know I know. Muppie, CHILLAX, it’s not that deep. It’s just an electronic application. Fill out phone number and permanent address, attach personal statement, press send. It is soooooooooooo very simple. Really. Seriously.

(In my defense, hindsight, wisdom, and friends all have 20/20 vision. Insecure girls masquerading as more together versions of themselves do not.)

So, you’re right. It’s not that deep. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Worst possible scenario: I get in nowhere. I reapply next year. In, like, September. Get the rolling  admissions process on my side. And I get in places. And I go to law school a mere 12 months after I had originally intended. Big freaking deal.

Thing is, to me it would be. I have never ceased to be terrified of suddenly finding myself incapable or inadequate. This has resulted in a lot – a lot – of playing it safe. Of putting things off. Of dreaming crazy dreams that involve Yale, a lot of ivy, a lot of coffee, a lot of all-nighters, and a Juris Doctor, and then placing them on that tidy shelf in my psyche labeled Pie in the Sky. Also known as the Maybe Later? shelf. As long as they are dreams, I cannot fail. As long as they are dreams, I do not have to hold myself up next to my high school classmates who are (gulp) already practicing lawyers. Because I’m finding myself. Very consuming work. Far too busy to take entrance exams and fill out applications now. Next year. Maybe next year.

BUT. But, dear readers, my lovely blog-visitors, I have TRIUMPHED! I have barely triumphed, yes. But I. Have triumphed. Over Procrastination Queen and her Minions of Misery. I. Have applied. To graduate school.

I flabbergast myself!

Do you realize what this means? Maybe. Probably not. I am on Cloud Nine right now. I can do things! I can apply to grad school, if I feel like it! I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE A FUTURE! Can you believe it?

Anything can happen now. I will believe anything. I will believe it if my favorite juvenile cartoon prince shows up with roses.

I just can't get enough of this guy.

I will believe it if the sky is purple tomorrow, or I wake up and don’t have Tragic Morning Hair. I will believe it if I get into law school. Anything can happen to me now. Anything!

I want to give myself a prize, but what? I’ve contemplated a cheesy romance novel instead of some more serious literature for my next book; throwing myself a party; allowing myself to watch as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I want for an entire week (I know, I’m like, crazy). I haven’t decided. So I’m blogging. Because clearly, this is what you do when something momentous happens. A girl needs witnesses.

What dreams may come, you ask? Any. Any dreams may crawl off your Pie in the Sky shelf and sneak over to Real Life. Isn’t existence delicious?

The Council of Strangers

The new convert to Islam has a lot of things to get used to. One of the most surprising is the council of strangers.

I find the concept of naseeha mysterious even now. The duty to advise one’s brothers and sisters regarding etiquette is not unique to the religion; the jarring piece is freedom with which people will do this.

Sometimes it is the point of a finger. A girl with uncovered hair walks through something that is perceived as “Muslim space” and a man across the room frowns, points at her, and then to his head. The message: Cover that. Sometimes a two-way conversation suddenly morphs into paternalistic sermonizing on the great traditions of Islam. “In Islam, you know, we know that God is greatest…” And sometimes it is meant well; the smallest of comments about your shoes, your dress, your presence, though coming from a place of sincere care, cuts deep. Makes you feel inadequate, unwelcome, embarrassed, angry – sometimes all at once.

 

  

I know that was meant well...but man I hope I never see that guy again!

 

I suppose that what I have always found mysterious is the lack of boundary when it comes to this. So many Muslims feel out of place, are searching for belonging – and yet we can’t resist the urge to nitpick each other’s behavior at every turn, creating the most alienating of environments out of what we are told on the mimbar is the most welcoming, egalitarian of communities. It is as though we are incapable of any other basis for interaction other than critique; there seems to be a lack of consideration as to whether or not the advice that slips so generously from our lips might be heard in the way it was intended. We think it is our duty to speak up; somehow we think it is not our duty to take care of each other first and foremost. 

 

Now I’m telling you this out of sisterly love! Appreciate my tyranny!

 

I have never gotten used to having to be prepared to be criticized about any aspect of my behavior or appearance by anyone at any time – but on occasion this is what it means to belong to this community. Is it a good thing? I wonder how many well-intentioned comments fall on deaf ears, ears reddened with anger or shame. I wonder how many people hopefully walk into a mosque, or an event, hoping to be met with open arms and instead confronting the disapproving glances of strangers or a series of suggestions on who else to be. Who has come to us on the promise of love and egalitarianism and been disappointed by our closed ranks, by our assumption that we know better, all the time? Who has been so shocked and embarrassed by being told where to pray, how to dress, how to wash, where to enter, that they’ve never come back?

A wise man once told me that the conditions for giving advice include that the giver thinks the listening party will be able to use the offered wisdom. So within the idea of giving advice there is the notion that advice is personal, and that is as it should be. Not every comment is appropriate for every audience at every time; ideally, we should be meeting people where they are at.

No one would think that it would be appropriate to point at an uncovered woman in distaste, and go merrily on your way, if you knew that woman had come to the mosque/musalla/event for the first time, timidly, not knowing what was right, with the intention to learn about Islam. She would be led to the most knowledgeable person in the room, catered to, served tea while she told surrounding Muslims her story, and asked her questions. This tricky thing we call our deen would not be shoved down her throat in one fell swoop; she would learn a little day by day in a supportive and welcoming environment. She would be loved; her progress would be praised, every step she took on her spiritual journey would be celebrated and held up as evidence of Islam’s success.

The problem is that every girl is that girl.

 

If only we knew.

 

 

May God guide us towards being better with each other; may He give us the strength to not take insult personally, and remain in the spaces we love and need despite callous and embarrassing treatment, ameen.

 

Dear Yale

Yale has asked for two hundred and fifty words, and this is keeping me up at night.

A 250-word love letter to Yale that I will never send:

Yale,

Everything I think to write to you sounds absurd in my head. The notion of admission at this point is ludicrous. What, me? Since when did I have the audacity to think myself special? Doesn’t the world know yet that I have not grown up? I keep thinking that one morning I will wake up and suddenly things will click; that I will prefer soup to nachos, that I will stop ingesting coffee at such an alarming rate, that I will rise at five o’clock every morning for a five-mile run, that I will start making grocery lists and going to the dry cleaner’s. I’m waiting for my future to become the technicolor present. I am in a fabulous law school, and lo! I study like a maniac, because this time around I actually know what I want. Come the end of first semester I surprise myself, but not my parents or professors, by acing all of my exams. My family declares that they are proud of me, my mentors prophesy that I will make a smashing scholar of the law, and I manage to dress fashionably the entire time. Nutmeg has a favorite perch (on the windowsill, overlooking the street) in my charmingly adorned, yet small, apartment near campus. I drink tea and read the paper every morning, and have not given up novels despite the raging pace of studies. My yoga practice is flourishing, and I’ve finished the manuscript of my first novel.

I promise this is all possible, Yale. For you, I would become the girl I could be. If you asked.

Love,

Muppie

Something to talk about

I haven’t written, again, for a long time. It wasn’t that there was nothing to say. It was that everything I had to say was far too transparent and…well, not useful.

I have discovered, for instance, that it is extremely easy to write about love when one is not in love. As soon as that changes, writing about love on a blog starts to feel a lot like strolling through Grand Central Station in laundry day’s underwear. So I haven’t written about love.

I have also discovered that it is very easy to whine, complain, and muse endlessly about the Muslim community when one does not work for a Muslim nonprofit, and does not meet and greet the same Muslims in a predictable pattern. When I was a moonlighting cafe scenester, it was a mystery who I met or saw or interacted with. Nobody else but me knew how I spent my days. So it was easy to make a comment without 27 other people knowing exactly who I was talking trash about. Anonymity is a precious thing. So, I haven’t written about Muslims either.

So one broken heart and one very public job title later, I’m back. It’s fantastic news for my bank account,  less-than-thrilling news for my spent little feelings, and good news for my poor neglected blog.

And now I’m staring at my blinking cursor wondering just where to start.

To belong to you

Not all of us feel it. I didn’t feel it, and now I do: that fragile belonging to another person, or to a group of people, so unique and irreplaceable. It makes life bittersweet.

The first tastes I had of this were in college. Freshman year there is the inevitable grasping at straws; we arrive, a loosely connected group of teens eager to become the people they want to be, to discover who that is, to experience everything that was held off by parents or impossible in the tiny pool of high school. We banged hard against each other, trying to connect. Failing sometimes and succeeding in those brilliant, small moments that suggested we were coming to a new home.

Again, and more intensely, sophomore year, because I was a transfer student into a more elite school, one of only four entering midyear into a tightly-knit class just shy of four hundred. It was more of a struggle because everyone else had already found their hard-won niche in a freshman hallway or some corner of our one dining hall (which was severely segregated according to the unwritten rules of The Few Who Gained Admission Last Year). I bumbled through with a cigarette in one hand and a cheap beer in the other. Eventually a handful of others found me in my corner of the basement party, and I was again for a short time home.

And now it is the hardest, the most tenuous and precious. I forget that I am Other. I treat people as I always have. The smile is the same smile, the gesticulating hands are still mine. When I am greeted with reserve it takes me a moment to remember myself; I think the other person is plain rude until I remember that my dress is just this side of hinting at terrorism, oppression. I am a blazing flag of friendliness in garb that suggests to everyone else that I should be stern or shy or timid. I am none of those things. It might be perfectly intuitive to some and I’ll never know. But by now I know that it is not always a smooth ride between me and the stranger. They clue me in with a blank stare. And I miss being one of the inscrutable many.

There are a few people to whom I belong and will always belong. We may go our separate ways and I’ve been through enough goodbyes to know that most of us will. They will take with them a piece of me, they already have, and I will pray for good for them thereafter and hope that we are reunited in Gardens in which identity is no consideration.

I suppose that it is easy to forget, looking at a religion that seems so inescapably monolithic (we dress the same, we pray the same, we greet the same worldwide) that Muslims get lonely too. It’s not easy finding one’s social way in a community made up of every race, nationality, language and background. Some of us convince ourselves that belonging and being known are pipe dreams in this life, and we chase people for other reasons and make do and become happy. Others of us burn a hole in our hearts waiting to be understood by someone who seems too impossible to exist. Do we hold out? What more intimacy can we wrangle out of this life? When we find a place lacking, do we leave? How long a wait is it worth? These questions never leave, and that is our tragedy.

Most of us slice ourselves into pieces, and express our different longings to different people. When someone comes along who makes us feel whole again, it is shocking. We disbelieve our own hearts. With time it sinks in and then it is even more terrible than before: you cannot lose a fantasy, but you can certainly lose a person. But what you have, what you’ve been waiting for, when it is in front of you? There are only two options. You hold on for dear life, and pray to God that it never ends, or you walk away and don’t give yourself anything to grieve.

It’s either bittersweet or bitter. Take your medicine.

Becoming

I apologize for not having written. If you’ve held out for this long, you’re a real trooper of a reader, and I appreciate it.

I’ve spent the last month and change digesting. So much was happening all the time, and in a way I felt incapacitated in terms of writing. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure what to say or how to put it. I was afraid of revealing too much of myself (a shocking declaration for a blogger such as myself, I know). I had to just sit for a minute or a month, and see what came out at the end. It was the culmination of a much larger, much longer process. And I will say this, and hope that it is enough, and not too much:

This year has been fascinating for me. So much has changed, and in so many ways I have come into myself and grown into my Islam. But it’s been a mixed bag. Part of that growing has been a broadening, and much of what I have encountered – thoughts, feelings, deeds – I thought I had left behind forever when I came to Islam. But eventually we are who we are. It may come under the heading of one religion, one philosophy, one world view that is coherent; but embracing something so comprehensive does not mean that we embody that idea fully. As much as we’d all like it to be different, this is, if nothing else, a process.

Maybe I was a better Muslim a year ago, or two years ago. It’s hard to say. When you take pieces of yourself – memories, ideas, longings, tendencies – and pack them away in a far, cobweby corner of your identity, is that goodness? So many of the things or ideas I embraced were not whole, were not wholly mine. I was not myself. The intoxication of a whole new way of being – a chance to reinvent myself at 23! It was all that mattered, and maybe I took that chance too much, maybe I went too far.

When I was contemplating returning to the States from Egypt, I thought it would be more difficult than it turned out to be. I thought that I had become someone different: a postmodern ascetic, taking refuge in an urban desert from the social high of a colder, more verdant city. But I came back and went out every weekend again, and loved people again, and loved them more. I hadn’t changed at all. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

If I had to name this year, if it had to be one thing, it would be me falling into myself. I’ve unpacked everything that I tucked away in shame or zeal, and I’m in the process of going through it all: this I want to keep, this I can do without. But at last I am doing the real work of being a Muslim, I think. I feel that I went on a very long, two-year vacation, and now I’ve come back to my apartment, my storage space, and I’m going through all of the boxes. I’m deciding which ones deserve to come along for the long haul, and which can go to the recycling. I thought that I had already done this work, but it was the illusion of an escapist. The real deal doesn’t happen overnight. It’s never been that way, and it never will be. People change slowly; we may successfully reinvent ourselves, but it happens in slow, sedimentary time, not in the lightening mood that accompanies that first, inescapable “aha.”

And so for the first time in a long time I feel authentic. I feel Muslim, I feel deeply that this is who I am, and I also feel that I haven’t cut off any proverbial limbs in order to feel that. It’s not an either/or anymore. I’m tempted to call it “healthy” or “wholesome” but I think I might be dipping a toe into a pool that is a little too new-agey for me. I’ll stick with authentic. But that means that I’m stuck with myself, and I’m not so sure how I feel about that. I want to crawl back under the covers and come back out after my spirit has successfully slain my self. Can’t somebody else take care of this unruly thing that is my personality?

If sin is a fable, then so am I. I’m taking me, with a massive dose of tawba. God alone knows what the right choice is.

Making ends meet

I was doing some basic arithmetic earlier this evening after visiting an apartment I might rent for the summer, and realized that despite my running around like a [I don't like the dead chicken simile, but it would fit nicely here], paying my bills all by myself this summer may be a harder task than I anticipated, before I bought about ten (fifteen?) books for summer reading in celebration of my new jobs.

Drat. At least if I become homeless, I’ll have plenty to occupy me.

What now? I think I’ll offer up a new prayers during my inevitable anxious insomnia tonight. Other than that…ask for more work from both bosses? One of my major problems is that I don’t have a schedule. Not knowing when I’m supposed to show up some days, or if I’m supposed to, results in a lot of wasted time that could be spent either working or writing. Not that my writing gets me any dollas at the moment, but you know. With time, God willing.

Oh and I’m having a low-grade panic attack about the fall. There’s a chance that I’ve worked out a roommate arrangement for myself, in which case AWESOME, thank God. If not, I’ll have to live by myself. And I may not be able to afford living by myself. And my parents grow tired of helping me, God bless them. Gulp.

Funny thing about this whole education thing. In theory, I have a splendiforous ace in the hole any time I want to use it, in the way of my sparkling diploma from a famously picky college. So far, this shiny laser-cut diamond of an education hasn’t really gotten me jack. I haven’t gone to grad school, unless you count the adult education course I’m attending at Harvard (yes, it’s Harvard, but it’s the Extension School. There is no application process. If you have a credit card, you’re in). So no value there. I work as kind of a secretary, and kind of a Muslim networker/basic educator. I assure you that none of what I teach is stuff I learned in college. Nor did fancypants college teach me invoicing, which I currently do. Which leads me to the following freak out:

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???????

I want to be a writer. That’s the first problem. What I’m finding is that this is something everyone will congratulate you on, but in reality it’s kissing goodbye any hope you ever had of living not hand-to-mouth, paying for your own car’s tune-ups (you’re still using Mom’s Emergency Card, because it’s still an emergency), or having professional dignity. I’m ashamed to say it, because both of my jobs are with people and organizations for which I have the utmost respect, but having to tell people I meet who know that I went to Amherst (and know what Amherst is) that I work part time (even though 1/2 job+1/2 job=1 whole job) is totally and utterly humiliating.

If I ever write a bestseller, I will look back on this post as charming. In all likelihood, I’ll be looking at my same battered screen ten years from now screaming GET OUT, GET OUT NOW!!! I STILL CAN’T AFFORD NEW SHOES!

I’m barely keeping my head above water, and I don’t think I can do it indefinitely. For a lot of reasons. For money, for pride. I’m really bad at being poor. It’s a skill that requires discipline and budgeting, neither of which I’m very good at. Also it makes me kind of bitter, and I don’t like that, because, yuck, bitter people. I’m afraid that if I wallow in this making-ends-meet-maybe-hopefully-next-month space for too long, my educational currency will run out. I already didn’t go to med school. What will I dabble in next, in financial despair? Law school? Maybe I’ll take a crack at the LSAT and fantasize about a nice corner office where I can spend a hundred hours a week. Sure, I’d never get to be home and my life would probably be extremely tedious, but at least I wouldn’t have to listen to my father telling me That’s it! You’re cut off! every other week or so.

Out of my father’s four children, I went to the highest-ranked college. Out of his four children, I am the only one who can’t pay her own rent. No wonder he gets all beflustered with me. I’m all beflustered with myself.

Why can’t I just be a normal person and go into some established career path? Why didn’t biology totally tickle my every nerve? Why couldn’t I just have GONE to med school already, and make peace with handing over the next six-to-ten years of my life to the fluorescent inside of a hospital? WHY WHY WHY?

I have this total pipe dream of writing something that will 1. be important 2. touch people 3. educate people 4. earn me a nice chunk of change. And if it doesn’t happen, at this rate, I won’t have much to show for it. In fact I won’t have anything to show for it. Twenty years from now I’ll still be driving my ‘97 Honda, praying that it passes inspection, probing the depths of craigslist for a cheap studio apartment. Of course I mostly imagine it differently, but tonight Despair is my companion. I should have known not to add numbers together and see if they add up to rent. They don’t. In fact they can’t, and that is my tragedy.

This is the problem with the coupling of me and my dream of becoming the Queen of Muslim Noveldom: I’m just smart enough to think that it’s a good idea to put my eggs in that basket – because hey, I have something to say, goshdernit, and eventually my brilliance will emerge and people will loooooove reading my shtick. Unfortunately, I am also just stupid and undereducated enough to not be able to actually pull it off. Who am I kidding? I’m reading Dostoyevsky. And I’m telling myself right now, right here, with all the internet as my witness, that I will never produce anything like that. Not even close.

God forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. The problem is that I could give up, but I don’t exactly have an alternate plan. So what now? Am I wasting myself? Do I bite the bullet and go to grad school (any grad school), not knowing where that leads either but hoping that it leads to some kind of salary – somewhere, someday? Or do I keep at the novel, the blog, the random magazine gigs that may or may not pay? I don’t like this crazy road. It’s taken some happy turns lately (near-solvency), but I’m starting to feel like I really need at least one more. I’m almost always full of hope, and yet ashamed of myself for not being my classmates who are now lawyers and almost-doctors, Fulbright scholars and Ph.D. candidates at Harvard (the real Harvard, not my pretend Harvard) and development workers in India, that I can never resolve it, and I swing between extremes…especially when I think about things like rent. My roommate is going off to get married in two weeks (lucky duck) and will never pay rent again in her life (see? L-U-C-K-Y. I guess the guy is nice too. Least of my concerns right now). Meanwhile I can’t afford to go to the wedding and I’m giving myself an ulcer just contemplating getting through the summer on my own. I can’t even begin to think about the fall yet. OhGodno.

Please please please say a prayer for me. And be liberal with advice.

Muslima blog carnival

Ever think Muslim women don’t get the mic enough? Check out sister Aaminah Hernandez’s Muslimahs Speak Up! blog carnival, featuring sage advice.

Muppie is as muppie does

So. When I began this little endeavor, I was totally and completely without any sort of gainful income. I was taking a course in journalism, but that was about it. The course, and reading, and writing all the time.

Not a bad life.

Since then, God in His mercy has blessed me with not one, but two jobs, plus a couple of small writing gigs (not regular….yet!). Plus, still the course. Now, part-time is supposed to be the chill person’s way of earning (in my naive naive mind of February). Turns out that juggling all these things is, um…it’s hard.

Which is why Writer’s Progress hasn’t been updated in so long, why my cat is feisty with me, and why I’m so tired today I can’t even think straight.

I’m happier to be working than my whining implies. It’s just…well, I feel compelled to explain my vacation from the blogosphere, however abbreviated. I feel that I have neglected myself, and you – whoever you are – and, worst of all, my writing. One of my major loves and dreams in this life. Which is bad. Bad bad bad. Writers are to write. It’s a very simple, straightforward idea, and I ought to stick to it. Tired or no. Busy or no. Writers don’t write only when they feel like it. They write because it’s got to get done. And it does. I need to stop starting things, and finish something. One thing. Do one thing well. And in a timely manner. Yes. That’s the ticket.

It’s odd; when all I had to do was sit in a cafe all day and read, stare onto the street, observe my fellow addicts, and think, ideas came easy. You’d think that being out in the world more, becing more “active” and social with people, would fuel the fire of thought. Not so. I’m shuttling myself between Cambridge and Boston  – home and work and other work and friends’ apartments and cafes. Because I am pathologically social and, well, love to read at small tables with a mug of steaming tawny liquid in one hand. It just ain’t the same at home in my sweats. I don’t know why, but it’s not. And the thing is that I’m so segmented between the ten things/places I have to do/go to in one day, that I end up feeling like I don’t actually get anything done. Not like a normal person does. Including, sadly, thinking thoroughly and well.

So despite being introduced into the World of Consulting (about which, before two weeks ago, I knew less than the average toddler), I am hopelessly, hopelessly without insight into the world. Or myself. Or religion, or literature. Maybe my brain has just given up. I don’t know. But hi, Dry Spell, what’s up? I’ve introduced him to Writer’s Block. They’re cohabiting happily in my living room. I think it’s getting serious.

Over the past couple of weeks, I would sit down to write something, and then think: no. I can’t write about that. It’s so trite. Or transparent. So I have a few drafts just sitting there collecting WordPress dust (dust collects at roughly the speed of light in my apartment). I’m not sure to bring them out or just let them lie. Obviously I’m letting them lie for the moment.

I am rambling.

Here’s my problem: I have indulged in being amazingly personal on this blog. Which I do not regret. I am a what-you-see(read)-is-what-you-get kind of girl and I’ve come to peace with that. But the reason I can be so deeply personal is because I’ve been writing about things that (get this) I can toss out there without really caring too much. Not because I don’t care at all. But because there’s nothing really riveting happening in my life right now, so there’s nothing to conceal. Baring my secrets is totally my bidness, and I can do it without really harming anyone else, or embarrassing them, or anything. Which. You know. Is nice. But so is having an actual life. One that you feel compelled to guard from the eyes of the world. Because it’s personal. Which would lead one to think that I have a problem.

Dicey. Do I want to write, or live, more? This is kind of sad, but I waver. Actually that’s really sad.

Case in point:

When I was in college, way back in the early days before Facebook (ah, the days!), my college had this thing called PlanWorld. The fancy computer-literate people would post various images and links and things, but most of us Neanderthal liberal-arts folk were of the text-only persuasion.

I had just transferred in from an all-girls school, and the tiny tiny cliquey, jock-ridden world of rural Amherst was a bit of a shock. Plus the witty banter was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was the only social currency, and boy were these kids LOADED. It was clever, it was sparkling, and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

An acquaintance from high school kind of adopted me in a fit of pity, and I promptly engaged in accidentally seducing one of his best friends. When I became aware of this one fine Saturday evening, to my very pleasant surprise, I was totally taken in by this guy. To the extent that you can be, in the basement of a dilapidated brick dorm, with a keg in one corner and a blue strobe light in the other, and some guy named Chaz stripping in red-faced, drunken, this-will-embarrass-you-when-you-wake-up-tomorrow glory to the cheers of a circle of miniskirted, tanktopped coeds.

So. You know. Not the stuff of romantic legend, but a boy does what he can. And a girl can’t blame him for Chaz’s last keg stand. It wouldn’t be democratic.

The next day, true to my transparent, exhibitionist, shout-it-from-the-rooftops self, I wrote about my unbridled, democratic enthusiasm on my plan. And my own personal Don Juan read every word.

Which sent him running for…well, the campus is on a hill. He was running for the lowlands. Which was sad, because I did really like the guy. Silly Lizzy, mucking it up again. Story of my life.

At nineteen, I was too naive to understand why transparency isn’t always the best social option. I’m not sure how well I’ve learned my lesson (I still have this notion of everyone in every room I’m in being able to read my every thought, no matter what I say), but I’m certainly putting some effort into it. This all gives me a new appreciation for Jane Austen’s spinsterhood. I wonder if a married woman would have had the moxie to write what she did. It would have been personal. But as the casual observer, she was free to comment on what she liked. Was it worth it? Is it? Can it be?

I more function as a casual observer of myself, or my past, than the people around me. Because the present – well, let me put it this way. Writing is precious. But so are people, and my relationships with them. And I don’t have strobe lights to detract from the charm of it all anymore. So I am stuck, and I’m not ashamed to say that much.

(…and Joe, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, I’m sorry about PlanWorld.)