I’ve spent most of the last six months in a state of self-perceived suspended animation. I felt, guided by the myopic view inside my head, that nothing about my life was changing or moving forward. That I was moving my legs (as if on a treadmill or going the wrong way on an escalator), but not achieving any forward motion. But, now that I’m less than three weeks away from starting a year-long Masters in Writing program, I realize that I have been manifesting alterations in my life all this time. It’s an interesting and good feeling to have, the understanding that the movement that feels all of the sudden is actually one that has been coming in very small increments over the course of weeks and months. It has helped me learn, on what seems to be a cellular level, the value of small mental adjustments and emotional recalibrations. They compound as I pass through time, creating space for monumental change.

A piece of good news drifted into my life today, via the ether of the internet. St. Joe’s has offered me a partial graduate assistantship for the year. In exchange for five hours of work a week (writing the departmental newsletter and website), they are going to pay for one course (out of three) a semester and give me a small stipend. It won’t cover everything, but it definitely helps.

Making my way down to the movies at the Ritz at the Bourse tonight, I started idly thinking about the possibility of running into someone I had once dated once I got there.  I don’t know what made this thought pop into my mind.  Possibly it was that I was going alone, which often ups the potential for chance encounters.  Or maybe I was picking something up in the ether.  I thought it might be John, a guy I went out with twice last summer at about this time, who I’ve seen from across the theater at a couple of other Philly Film Society screenings.

As I was wandered down this thought path, my phone rang and all mental meanderings came to a halt, as my mom asked me if it was okay to get rid of a certain pile of books that I had been through during my last visit home.  By the time I got to the theater, I wasn’t thinking of anything but getting a seat in the rapidly crowding auditorium where I wouldn’t leave with a crick in my neck.  This is why I was totally surprised when I heard someone calling, “Marisa!  Hey, Marisa!” from behind me.

I spun around, and it took me more than ten seconds to identify the source of the voice.  It was Cullen, who I dated sporatically for a couple of months about a year and a half ago.  He was the one responsible for the deal that got me the iBook on which I am currently typing, as he is a stock broker who works at the Apple store on the weekends for fun.  He is a man with connections, and one of his connections had yielded him two reserved seats in the jammed theater, one of which I ended up being mine for the duration of the movie.  It was nice to see him, and we chatted aimlessly for the fifteen minutes we had until “The Illusionist” started.  The director was speaking after the movie, he stayed and I didn’t.  He stood to let me up out and we both said something about keeping in touch, although I don’t think we will.

I left the Bourse, smiling inwardly at the feeling I had had as I left home to go to the movie and the unexpected way in which it had manifested.

Shucking corn was always one of my jobs while I was growing up. In the summers, when we would go to my grandma Bunny’s house out in Woodland Hills, I would be sheparded out to the front patio and seated on the bench of the picnic table. Whichever adult who had come out there with me would set a brown paper bag from Ralph’s between my feet and remind me to stack the ears carefully, once they were freed from it husks and unrelenting wisps of silk. Standing in my kitchen tonight, the smell of the three ears I rapidly husked were heady and hypnotic, and just for a moment made me look around to make sure I wasn’t 7 years old and sitting near the blacktop of Bunny’s driveway.

When my dad was young and living in Hawaii, Bunny would put a big pot of water on the stove to boil, and then send her boys outside. Across the road from the pineapple plantation on which they lived were corn fields. They would run over as the water started to bubble, picking corn and shucking the husks as they ran back home. That corn was never more than five minutes off the stalk by the time it hit the water.

Eating corn on the cob is one of the great joys of life, and when it was on the menu, there was always enough for everyone who came to dinner around Bunny’s big table (which now sits in my parents’ dining room). During my first year on the planet, I was advanced at everything except the growth of my teeth. I walked early and I spoke in full sentences while other kids my age were still stringing three words together and crowing at their success. The one place where I did not develop early was in my gums. At a year old, I did not have enough teeth to handle corn on the cob, and I found it maddening. My mom happily cut the kernels off the cob for me, but I never liked it. Even as a baby, I was always in a rush to be a grown up.

Tonight, I treated my three ears of corn the same way my mom did when I didn’t have the teeth to tackle the job, for inclusion in a salad. I went to latihan hungry, and while I was trying to clear my head and be quiet, visions of summery salads driffed through my thoughts.

In a large bowl, I combined a pint of grape tomatoes that had been sliced in half, 1/2 pound of string beans that were lightly blanched and cut into bite-sized pieces, a seeded and chunked cucumber, a red pepper treated just like the cucumber, the corn from the three ears, half a sweet onion, some chopped scallions and shredded basil. I beat a reluctant lemon into submission and spread it’s juice over the contents of the bowl. A sprinkling of salt, several grinds of pepper and two nice glugs of olive oil finished it up. I ate it with the last of container of pea-sized fresh mozzarella over some spring mix. And there’s enough for lunch tomorrow as well.

I am hot and sweaty and headache-y. Tonight in latihan, as I lay on the floor being quiet, ideas for writing projects flooded my head. Being that the intention of latihan is to let yourself be in your body, out of your brain and with the flow of the universe, it was not the time to run over and grab a pen and paper to jot some of the thoughts down. By the time we were done, the majority of my ideas were gone.

Apartment 2024 is still right now, except for the rattle of the air conditioning unit and the occasional scrape of the chair from the upstairs apartment. I got a compact package in the mail this afternoon from mom, which contained a pink top she got at the thriftstore and a CD of the very rough versions of songs that will be my sister’s next album. When I asked for a copy of this recording session, Raina couldn’t understand why I wanted them, as they are just voice and guitar. She doesn’t seem to get that I love everything she does, and want to be part of it all in any way I can, even from across the country.

Speaking of someone who wants to be part of what shes does, she sent me a link today of a photo montage a guy named Tom made with pictures of her and set to one of her songs. It is very sweet that he put so much effort into it, but I find that it might just cross the line into creepy.

Sitting in my car at midnight on Monday night, outside a Dunkin’ Donuts, on the side of the Grand Central Parkway near LaGuardia Airport, I started thinking about the summer I spent in Hawaii when I was ten.  I spent 7 weeks there that year, living with my Uncle Wallace and his family.  Life with them was slow-moving and average, the shining light of that visit being the five days my dad came to visit.

My dad lived in Hawaii from between the ages of 8-13 and used to tell me stories of his youth there when I would beg for a tale from his childhood.  Being with him on Oahu was having those stories of his youth come to life.  One memory of that trip that stands out in clear relief is of driving with him across the island in our rented car, the windows down to let the ocean air in.  It was a warm day, and he turned on the air conditioning, saying that just this once, we could have the both the windows down and the air on.  I remember feeling the sensation of absolute decadence wash over me, with the view of the greenery and the ocean.  We stopped at a shave ice stand that he used to go to as a kid and the moment was complete.

Don’t ask me why this was the memory that flooded my head while I sat in my car, waiting for Seth’s phone call to say that his plane hand landed, but it’s the one I relived in those moments.  I didn’t mind at all to be taken back to that time.

My parents knew each other two weeks when they decided to get married. When my dad proposed, my mom thought about it briefly and said, “Okay, but let’s not tell anyone in case we change our minds.” They didn’t change their minds, and six weeks after they met, they were married.

When I was home in Portland last month, I drove to the coast for the day with my parents. Just like I used to do when I was six years old, from the backseat of the car I asked, “tell me a story about when you were first married.” They exchanged glances and started trying to dredge up any details they might not have told me before. My mom started remembering the second thoughts she had during their honeymoon. She said that as they were driving across the country together, from San Francisco to Virginia (for a big Subud gathering at Skymont), she started to freak out. She realized that she knew almost nothing about the man she had just married, and began to ponder outloud the fact that, for all she knew, he could be an axe murderer.

Well, my dad, being the person he is, latched on to her worries and did his best to teasingly exacerbate them. He would make faces, trying to imitate the expressions of the criminally unhinged, and do his very best to sneak up and give her a fright at the various campsites and motels they stopped at along the way. It is an amazing thing that they are still married. But, still married they are, and today makes 36 years of partnership for them. I feel immensely blessed to have had them both as parents. Happy Anniversary, guys.