Sitting at Noble Tree, which is pretty much decorated the way my ideal house would be, with old casement windows hanging as decoration on the walls, and at least as many comfy chairs as hard ones. Frankly, even my wooden chair is comfy.
Have my knitting sitting next to me. It’s recognizable as a sweater now, albeit a rather cropped one. But I reckon I’ll like it. It’s blue tweed, and my main debate right now is whether to have shortsleeves, longsleeves, or three-quarters-length. I’m thinking long at the moment, if I have enough tweed.
Sara’s across from me. It’s a Nanowrimo write-in, and there’s music playing, and I just had a really enjoyable cup of coffee. A generous splash of half-and-half, two raw sugars. I loved it, even though I’m not a coffee person. It was best when it was lukewarm, strangely, right after I’d finished my poppyseed bagel. Poppyseed for sleep, coffee for waking; that counts as achieving balance, right?
The MLs (sorta-bigwigs, in the sense of responsibility rather than fame or abusable power) have just left, but there’s another novelist behind and to my back.
I’ve gotten a lot done, in a funny sort of way. Partly because I’m avoiding Facebook; there’s an unpleasant message waiting for me. I’m toying with the idea of separating myself from Facebook/the-internet-in-general more and more. I want to stay connected to people via the internet, but I really love the feeling of being real, and I have that know–from writing, ambiance, accomplishments, what-have-you–and I don’t get that from spending time on the internet.
Texting Dylan. (Hi, Dylan, I know you occasionally read this.) Emailing Michaela. (Hello, lovely, I know you frequently read this.) Noveling away. I’m going to miss this. I can reproduce most of it easily, except…except that I want to bring the people with me.
I need to leave. I need to move. It’s time. It’s been almost two years now, which tends to be my limit, but more than that I’ve gained what I wanted and I’m losing, at this point. But I’m not losing when it comes to people.
And it’ll be hard to see them this next month. I’ll be busy, they’ll be busy–hell, some will be gone for break by the time I come back after Thanksgiving.
And that’s okay. Because I’ll be back. Not permanently. Never permanently. I’m still not sure if I do permanence, but I know it doesn’t work in big cities. I feel swamped, crowded, anxious, overwhelmed, STRESSED. And I just don’t want to live my life in capital letters. (Italics, however, are perfectly fine.)
So I’ll leave. I’ll leave in order to grow, to become, to be. Every day I work a little more at being the person I want to be. I feel my productivity should skyrocket when I make it to Washington. For one thing, it’s beautiful there, and I feel most like myself in beautiful places.
And then, I’ll be more here than I am right now, I hope. I can’t be Superwoman (thank heavens–I’d love a cape, but I’m not wearing high-cut panties in public; this isn’t Japan), but I can be me. And these people whom I’ll miss so much, they seem to like me. So in a way, I’ll be closer to them than ever yet. And I’m excited about that.
Perhaps the coffee’s gone to my brain. I don’t even know if that train of logic makes any sense at all. But in any case, I’m excited to see what happens this next month, and the one after. Life, work your magic. I can’t wait to see what prestidigitation you do next.
